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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Save-reload Awareness


NKF

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I was hard pressed to slot this in to any of the sections - but seeing as it's a strategic tactical combat option for the aliens, I thought it would be best in this section.

 

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Just before the end of my work day, this idea floats into my head. Yes, we can abuse the ability to save and reload to gain otherwise unavailable knowledge from the aliens or to just try something over and over again until we get it right. Right, I do not want this to be a debate about the good and bad virtues of save/reload immortality - that's not the point.

 

I just thought that since we can use it whenever we want, why not level the playing field and give the AI a chance at doing it too? Well, not exactly, but a close enough approximation of it.

 

Let me try and flesh out the idea.

 

First of all - this is only for tactical combat. Not for Geoplanetary sphere surveillance and adminstration.

 

During the course of a battle, the AI will make periodic snapshots of the battle (checkpoints - if you will, which are used in a number of games these days). Only one, mind, and it only relates to that one tactical mission. Under normal circumstances, it won't use this backup at all. The secondary use for this snapshot would be a recovery feature should the game crash - but that's beside the point.

 

Anyway, in order for it to use its save feature, it cannot just choose to do so any time it wants - like we can. It would be annoying as anything. I propose that the AI will need to have reload tokens, which it is given every time you reload the same game in the same game session. This is so that you are allowed to save so that you can quit them game and come back at a later time, and so that you can make as many saves as you want during the battle. But every time you reload the same game in the same session, the AI gets reload tokens. Then, the AI decides when and where to spend these tokens as it sees fit. (You can abuse this by saving, quiting, restarting the game and then loading the game - but the fact this is time consuming should deter all but the most determined people from doing it)

 

I don't know how the AI would decide how to spend each of its reloads. Perhaps each rank gets a 'reload' percentage of varying degrees, and if an alien of that rank is killed, the game tosses a dice to decide it needs to reload. Other factors to include are the size of its remaining forces, difficulty level and what have you.

 

In addition to reloading, the alien that was killed should be givin a minor advantage - i.e. knowing exactly where its last killer is for a turn. Or perhaps given a very minor upgrade that lasts for a turn or so - of course, it shouldn't be anything visible to the player so they won't suspect a thing.

 

Speaking of the tokens, you could have a map information area (something that displays the time, weather conditions, temperature, wind, map theme, area, summary of mission goals, status of any incoming support ships, etc) that will display the number of tokens that the AI now currently holds - if any.

 

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I'd recommend that this be included as a toggleable 'advanced gameplay' option. If you start a new campaign with it on by default and finish it entirely with it, you should be rewarded with something at the end. Perhaps by way of unlockable extras - new maps, or variants of existing weapons - whatever it is that's been discussed. If you just toggle it in the game (or switch it of at any time), then you won't get your reward - fair enough, right?

 

The main reason behind making it optional would be because not everyone would find this to be a nice feature at all.

 

 

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I know, this isn't too well thought out, but it was an idea I thought worth mentioning in the event that it might spark some other ideas, or related discussions. Or extract a few chuckles at the very least. ;)

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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Well, i really like that idea, and especially since i don't reload often(except to geoscape, that gives the AI a fair chance since i get a new map)

It would be very tough to program i think, but maybe not

 

edit: it would have to show nothing other than the alien just appearing in some random spawn point with at least 1 alien nearby, i think

also, it would have to have a warning, like "Warning: Advanced Gameplay give the AI a lot of bonuses it wouldn't normally have, not cheating, but counter-cheating. Do not use this unless you want a challenge." There could be other things this "Advanced Gameplay" could turn on too

Edited by blehm
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My idea/suggestion:

 

Loading a game which is in the battlescape, resets the development of the soldiers personal skills to the level which they were before the battle started and possibly also something else.

 

This would allow desperate players to finish an unfair battle with multiple load/save, but it would not allow developing the soldiers skills with that.

 

Also, in the harder levels, there could some kind of limit with loading the game. For example, you could load the game only when two of your soldiers have been killed, and then you could load into a state where one of your soldiers have been killed (but not the second). This means that loading a battlescape scenario will mean that at least one of your soldiers is dead.

 

- Garo

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IMO, leave save/load alone. Such features like these suggested doesn't sound right in my ears. If you want to 'cheat' using save/load, do that. That's why games got cheats in the first place, to make things easier for those with problems. It's not like your supposed to mark it as an exploid: instead, think of it as a small cheat. You could even in the start tutorial suggest something like; "You can save and reload in missions as well, but be aware that abuse of this feature will be considered cheating." Or something along those lines.

 

Cheats have never been ment to be balanced. It would be stupid to make it so.

Edited by mikker
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My opinion (it may sound harsh) is that this proposed feature is useless (there still remain too many ways to savescum). Even more, it is potentially harmful as is makes the game engine more complicated, less reliable and less maintainable.

 

Also I do not like the concept of 'allowed' cheating. Cheating is a player's choice, but we don't have to, it is not normal. I hope there are not too many cheaters there, and even if they exist - their spoiled fun is their own problem.

 

One of the solutions that I like, is just the unability to save in the middle of tactical battle. It worked in the first 'jagged alliance' perfectly and it was much more fun, you were not tempted to reload the game. Not to mention that it is very easy to implement :)

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One of the solutions that I like, is just the unability to save in the middle of tactical battle. It worked in the first 'jagged alliance' perfectly and it was much more fun, you were not tempted to reload the game. Not to mention that it is very easy to implement :)

The only downside to that solution being the fact that if you have to go just as you're about to finish a mission you'll have to start it over all again...

I know, pleasing everyone is simply impossible :P

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One of the solutions that I like, is just the unability to save in the middle of tactical battle. It worked in the first 'jagged alliance' perfectly and it was much more fun, you were not tempted to reload the game. Not to mention that it is very easy to implement :)

 

on the other hand, games with quicksave and -loading abilities (like warcraft/starcraft, first person shooters like half-life, and others) works. If you don't exploit them, you don't exploit them. If you exploit them, your exploit them. So what? I assume 'normal' cheats will be added in anyway, that's just another ine to the bunch.

 

And the game experience isn't really ruined. Theres a reason you put the cheats on ín the first place/ decide to spam save/load, and that's because you're doing so bad that you wouldn't be able to complete the game. Now, what is worse: playing a game you have bought, and you are unable to complete it because it's too hard and you don't have any cheats and save/load has been somehow dissabled, or you play a game with cheats and don't experience the difficulty.

 

This differs from game to game, I know. I remember not being able to complete half-life 1 and had to cheat very early in the game. But then I learned how to do it, and I managed to complete it completly without cheating. That is way more fun then if you just can't finish the game, start to get stress, and never play it anymore because it's frustrating. If you can't complete it, cheat it. You get to see the game, maybe not optimal, but you get to see it. That's the whole point in cheats, is it not?

 

At least allow the newbies to enjoy Xenocide, and not exclude them from the game because they can't complete a single mission.

Edited by mikker
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Why not add a set amount of saves? like 3 saves per level. its a good compromise , you cant exploit the save feature but you can use it in specific areas so that you dont loose all your progress. Works brilliantly in Rainbow 6.

 

Alternately you could have a checkpoint system of some sort

 

Or praps when 50% of the map is explored , the game saves

 

or Maybe there should be a save artifact - your men must carry them into battle and you can only get more from successfull missions , kinda like the ink ribbon on resident evil.

 

As for men ,perhaps there should be a clone facility , whereby so long as a mission is completed , you can regain any lost men , for a substantial price of course (500,000+ and 10 days to grow etc)

 

Maybe you can save as much as you want , but each save costs money

 

whay not award save points for progress in a mission , shoot heaps of alien and save civilians and get some save points. Get shot heaps and shoot civilians , loose points

Edited by Sporb
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Just to re-iterate, I did not make this thread to discuss the good/bad reasons for save/reload immortality. That discussion is a fine one in and of itself and one that does not have any real true answer, but it is already discussed elsewhere.

 

Mikker: The proposal I put forward does nothing to the existing save/load feature. You can save and load at any time you want. My suggestion was merely to grant the aliens a save/load option of their own if you choose to reload the same mission over and over again during the same mission and game session. If you don't want it - switch it off and the aliens will stop reloading.

 

Serge: I think it would be easier to just leave the save/reload mechanics as-is - I'm not asking to change the way we choose to save/reload or to rewrite the whole source code. If anything it would only be re-using what's already implemented in the game. To put it bluntly, this is just a 'gimmick' that can be switched on or off to increase the challenge of the game in a somewhat amusing way - i.e giving the chance for the aliens reload if we choose to reload the game over and over.

 

The only real additions would be one save-slot (doesn't have to be a full save-game sized save file - it only needs to keep the necessary tactical combat information) for the aliens and a script that runs every time an alien is killed and only when the save/reload awareness is switched on to decide whether or not it's worth reloading. The other additions would be to just keep a running count of how many times the exact same tactical combat game was reloaded - this merely gives the aliens tokens they can spend on reloading. You could keep a number pair, one for the number of times the tactical mission has been reloaded (for stats purposes perhaps?) and the other would be the number of chances the aliens now have left. (edit: also something to prompt the AI to save every so often)

 

If the player doesn't want the aliens to reload, well, there's no need to find a chink in the game's logic to be able to work around or abuse it. Just switch the option off and bang, back to normal.

 

But I guess in the end it doesn't really matter. It's too frivolous to be of any value. We can always get a coin and do the save/reloading for the aliens - if we choose to do so. :D

 

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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IMO, reloading sucks. For me cheating is not an option but I agree with serge about implementing this beeing too hard to do and making the code more vulnerable for unexpected bugs.

 

What happened to the ironman difficulty level idea? :) If you don't have time to play a mission through, don't start it. Maybe making geoscape autosaving once every week would be enough. (saving manually would be impossible)

Edited by Puasonen
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I've been of the general opinion that, if Xenocide isn't going to have multiplay in the initial versions, I don't really see the hassle factor in the save/reload area myself. As with the first game, I think it works on an individual user level in terms of preferences.

 

Now this "ironman" thing sounds fun on the other hand. If there was going to be a way for example, to have player scores uploaded to a website or something, I can see the value in that. Granted it doesn't offer much really other than bragging rights which is ok.

 

A player could see at a glance what another player or themselves were: Ironman or unlimited saves game, and game difficulty as well. The only one that needs a score penalty is the unlimited saves one. So, with 5 or 6 difficulty levels or whatever, that's about 10 or 12 top player lists players can go for with the two variations on that web score table.

 

The other bit of data that you could list along with that could be game date/month the player beat the game. (or not, depends on if scores all round would be bigger for having beat the game rather than dragged it out, but still...). Although, I suppose beating the game would need to be a requirement to upload scores for the single player bit.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea in the original post is an attempt to make the game more "fair" for the computer by giving it small advantages based on how frequently a game is reloaded in combat.

 

The idea is an interesting one, but there will be some people who want the save/reload advantage.

 

So why not this? Leave it up to the player's choice. Before each game, the player can choose:

1.) Normal game (unrestricted saving and loading)

2.) Limited loading (save anytime, but no reloads in combat)

3.) Ironman (saving and loading only in planetview)

4.) Ubermensch? (only autosaves every gameday or 6 gamehours, no voluntary saves)

 

Based on the players choice, the game restricts the ability to save and reload, with no way to change from one mode to another mid-game. I think this is pretty fair, imho, since the player has only him/herself to blame for their choice, and the game mechanics are unchanged.

Edited by Astyanax
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I would hate any kind of restrictions on savegames. Sometimes, I feel like redoing stuff I messed up, sometimes, I don't, and I live with it. Sometimes my computer crashes. This "saving is bad" idea is the whole reason I don't like Laser Squad Nemesis. Saving is a mandatory part of the game. This is the whole reason I was forced to download a trainer for Hitman 2 to make it playable due to the limited saves per level. If you want to not use save, then FINE, DONT SAVE. IT'S NOT LIKE YOU"RE FORCED TO. TO IMPLEMENT THIS WOULD RUIN THE GAME FOR ME.

 

Now, the idea about different difficulty levels not allowing you to save? That's also kind of also a bad idea. If you want to compete with other players on your lack of saving and reloading, just put an ending screen that looks like this (note that I just chose these numbers randomly):

Battlescape Saves: 113

Geoscape Saves: 47

Play Time: 12:42:32

Cheats Used: None

Ending Money: $36934325252626245235

Unresearched Technologies: Alien Doohicky 34

Soldier kill/loss ratio: 71.3255262%

Interceptor kill/loss ratio: 93.2960384%

 

And then you can send each other screenshots of this screen whenever you want to show off your lack of saving and reloading.

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I too am completely against save/reload restrictions and am all for saving anytime you want - unless you choose to active those restrictions or set options to play by those restrictions. The keyword I've been striving to push for all through this discussion is: "OPTIONAL" - i.e. you don't have to if you don't want to.

 

But restricting your ability to save has never been the intent of this dicussion when I started it. The whole point was to give the AI the ability the ability to save and reload on its own - if you choose to give it to it. That does not invalidate any of your saves. It just means that the game gets to rewind the clock a bit every so often if you've been saving and reloading a lot within the same game session - to counterbalance your own reloading.

 

But it doesn't seem like the idea's taking on too well, so forget about it then.

 

- NKF

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I don't get this idea then. What's the use making things harder to save/reloaders? This idea won't give any advantages to computer because those save/reload -holics will reload the game as many times as needed to get the result they want. If you give the computer one advantage for every reload, it just makes reloaders reload more often to get the result they want. So what does this help and why are we doing this? :D
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Save-reload-a-holics will switch the alien reloading off if they want the save/reload advantage. It will be off by default in the plain vanilla 100% pure uncontaminated game anyway.

 

Of course, those who save/reload a lot will obviously get frustrated if the aliens reload as frequently as the player. Hence why they switch it off. Which disables it. Which is to say that by disabling this option, the aliens will not be able to reload - which is not an advantage to the aliens in any way whatsoever, because an advantage will be useless if it is not available to them to use. So says I, and stuff. ;)

 

 

Now those who want to correct a minor mistake (like wiping out 50% of their squad with a misplaced super 50-foot implosion device), but want to give the aliens a fair footing and allow them to correct a mistake as well, then this option would be useful.

 

You could crank the difficulty up even more and provide a much more challenging version where the aliens get a free number of reload credits to begin with as well. This ups the challenge for ironman-rule fanatics who want to be able to beat the game even if the aliens choose to save/reload. Not my cup of tea, but to others, perhaps.

 

I suppose it can always be done by way of a simple script mod or something for the game after it's done.

 

- NKF

Edited by NKF
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Now those who want to correct a minor mistake (like wiping out 50% of their squad with a misplaced super 50-foot implosion device), but want to give the aliens a fair footing and allow them to correct a mistake as well, then this option would be useful.

 

Should the aliens have a chance to fix such similar minor mistakes? ;)

 

The longer I think about this your idea, the more weird it seems to me :)

Edited by Serge
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This makes the idea worse. I mean, if you reload all the time, you turn it off. If you don't reload in battles, you will never have any use for it whatsoever, meaning a waste of coding. If this idea have any effect, it is so small that it is unnoticable if you play it the way it makes you do.
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Mikker, that's the beauty of it. It won't interrupt your normal method of play. But if you want it, it's there. Kind of like the kneeling button, really.

 

And I wouldn't say it's unnoticeable - having the aliens reload from a point a full 3 turns back isn't something you'd miss easily, wouldn't you say? ;)

 

And if you never reload in battle - well, good on you. The aliens won't be able to reload either. But if you do, well, fair's fair, right?

 

Basically, it's not to stop you from saving/reloading - it's just adding an unusual (and entirely optional) twist to it.

 

- NKF

 

P. S: Yes, I know it's an oddball idea and it's not going to revolutionise the single-player-campaign gaming industry, but it's certainly, well, uncommon. ;)

Edited by NKF
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What I can tell you is that I'm thinking of disabling battle saves for higher difficulty levels and an option to save the replay after a battle. If we implement replays, then having an "undo action" option (note that action != turn) could make xenocide more challanging for higher difficulties instead of save/reload for noobs.
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What I can tell you is that I'm thinking of disabling battle saves for higher difficulty levels and an option to save the replay after a battle. If we implement replays, then having an "undo action" option (note that action != turn) could make xenocide more challanging for higher difficulties instead of save/reload for noobs.

 

I think thats good to go, but maybe depending on the difficulty? Easy they can do whatever they want, medium disable saving on terror/base battles, but hard you can not save during battles?

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