Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales

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Delta_360 15 Nov, 2018 @ 8:06am
Seperate Manual Save from Autosave
This is such a basic quality of life feature in games, I am surprised to see it has been overlooked in this game by the developers here. Its really frustrating that the autosave system overrides manual saves so if you miss click on a decision or want to go back to a specific part of the game you really enjoyed there is no other way than playing the entire game over starting from the tutorial. This can easily be fixed by allowing more than 1 save per playthrough or even just having two save slots per playthrough 1 for autosaves and 1 for manual saves. I spent a few hrs on my first playthrough only to have my cat jump on my keyboard and make a choice I did not wish to make and when I tried to load last checkpoint the checkpoint was after the decision and when i loaded last save it was the autosave after the decision as well which replaced my manual save. Since there is only the option of 1 save per playthrough this resulted in me having to restart the entire playthrough from the beginning or live with the consequences of the decision I did not want to make. There are more quality of life things that need to be improved in this game, such as a graphics setting allowing you to choose which monitor to display the game on, however the largest I have noticed thus far is this save system.
Last edited by Delta_360; 15 Nov, 2018 @ 8:09am
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Showing 1-15 of 31 comments
Dorin Rav 15 Nov, 2018 @ 9:11am 
1. Paragraphs. Just saying.

2. The savesystem wasn't "overlooked". It was deliberatley desgined that way and works
perfectly fine.
Delta_360 15 Nov, 2018 @ 11:27am 
It is anything but perfectly fine. There is no reason to force autosaves and manual saves into a single save category, they are different kinds of saves for a reason. If it is not an oversight it is a flawed design. Forcing playthroughs to follow a single save yet including both manual and auto save options does not work because the two contradict eachother. If the autosaves that come essentially every 5 minutes in the game immediately replace any manual save the player makes, there is no point for a manual save mechanic at all.
Dorin Rav 15 Nov, 2018 @ 11:34am 
It does what it's supposed to do. Your decisions are supposed to be absolut and you can't have that with multiple saves.
Delta_360 15 Nov, 2018 @ 11:46am 
You can have that with multiple saves. Exhibit A: The Witcher 3 a game with meaningful decisions and correct seperation of manual and auto save mechanics. It is not the job of the save game mechanic to make decisions in the games absolute or more meaningful because they ultimately don't have impact on that at all. Autosaving is made as a failsafe in the event of a game crash or computer shut down or etc, so you don't have to play through the whole game over again if something out of your control happens. Manual saving is made to give players more manageable freedom over their playthroughs.

What you are confusing for an autosave system would be an iron man mode of saving but the crucial difference here is iron man saving removes the manual save mechanic entirely because forcing autosaves over a single save slot per playthrough cannot function correctly with the manual save option and will only lead to player frustration.
Dorin Rav 15 Nov, 2018 @ 12:01pm 
I get where you're coming from, but I didn't say meaningfull. I said absolut. Your decisions are supposed to be non-reversible in the same playthrough. This is why the game saves instantly after you made a decision. You may not like this design choice, but it is neither flawed nor overseen.
Delta_360 15 Nov, 2018 @ 12:25pm 
Again it is not the purpose of the save game utility to make playthrough decisions absolute. That kind of mechanic is not an auto save mechanic that is an iron man mode of saving and to apply an iron man mode of saving you would have to remove the manual save mechanic entirely. The fact that this game neither declares it an iron man mode of saving nor removes the manual save option means that it is clearly either an oversight or a flaw. If it was the design to make the way the game saves determine if the decisions are absolute and irreversable there would be no manual save mechanic.

To say that the implementation of two different save mechanics into a single save slot per playthrough effects the decisions you make in that playthrough is about equivalent to saying the screen resolution effects whether you find the voice acting believable. They are two completely different functions of the game that effect players in two completely different ways.

It is the job of the story and events to make decisions absolute and it is the job of the save game functions to provide utility so players can play the game regardless of schedule or real world interference. The story and events in this game make decisions big and absolute but the save game utility ruins that because a players attempt to be immersed in the consequences of the decision gets taken from them when they have to play through the entire game over again because their mouse double clicked or because they stepped too close to a proximity triggered event while not looking at their screen. The utility is simply not finished because they put both save functions into the game but they didnt differentiate them which makes them not function properly.

As a last point I would like to point out that there is a very recent example of a game that chose to use the save mechanic to do what you are encouraging the developers to do or keep doing here. Kingdom Come Deliverance, and there is a reason that that game lost 95% of its playerbase on PC since its launch and the most downloaded mod for that game is a corrected save game mechanic. The idea that the save mechanic should be used to make a more "hardcore" game experience or to impact the decisions during a playthrough just does not work and ultimately it always shows when players give up on the game because the basic utilities such as saving the game are lacking.
Dorin Rav 15 Nov, 2018 @ 1:20pm 
I think there is a fundemental difference between the savesystems on KCD and Thronebreaker. You don't loose progress in Thronebreaker, because of the savesystem.

In Thronebreaker the savesystem sort of "locks" your choice once its done. This is done to prevent loading an old safe, to circumvent the consequences of decisions. There aren't any right decisions in Thronebreaker, they all have benefits and detriments.

It is not an enforced ironman-mode, because you can't die or fail. If you made a decisions which led to a consequene you didn't anticipate you can still continue the game. Without this savesystem the whole decision making part of the game becomes irrelevant, because you would just reload an old save to pick the "right" decision.
Delta_360 15 Nov, 2018 @ 3:59pm 
So you say there aren't any right decisions but then say we need this save system to prevent players from going back to an old save to pick the right decisions.

The point you are trying to make here is simply wrong and flawed. Your whole basis on why we need the current implementation of 2 different kinds of saves forced into 1 single save slot per playthrough is based on a misfounded desire to restrict the player. If this was the system they wanted they would not have included manual saving as auto saving would achieve the restriction without creating a conflicting pattern of saving the game.

The unfortunate reality is that having an auto save that overrides the manual save removes the entire purpose of having a manual save at all and hinders the gameplay experience. This system needs to be changed because the way it is just does not function not even to achieve the restriction you value (which in my opinion is also bad game design, restricting players in this manner means fewer players, fewer sold copies, and a dead game but we can agree to disagree there).
Last edited by Delta_360; 15 Nov, 2018 @ 4:07pm
Dorin Rav 16 Nov, 2018 @ 12:34am 
Did you notice that i wrote "right" decicsion. I didn't meant right, but simply another choice, of which the player might think as right. I thought it was obvious...
Delta_360 16 Nov, 2018 @ 1:50am 
If you mean to say that "right" doesn't mean the most beneficial choice and actually means the choice a player wants than that makes your point even less valid. I think its obvious that you don't actually understand good game design and that you're defending a broken system because you believe in a flawed elitist design that tailors its games only to elite players and actively functions to restrict the non elite players and force them to play a game one specific way.

Lets for a second pretend its a choice and not an oversight, the reason it is bad game design is because the players who enjoy playing the game where there is only one save can still play this way in a system where there are multiple saves while players who enjoy playing with multiple saves cannot do so in a system that is forced into a single save. Having it your way would mean the game is choosing to use a system that only allows 1 type of player to enjoy the game instead of 2 which again means less support, less copies sold, smaller playerbase, and a sooner dead game.

Restricting gameplay in an attempt to cater to 1 elitist playstyle is the bane of good game design and the list of games that have failed or died off because they made that decision is next to endless. Fortunately I highly doubt this was the intention here as there exist so many elements in the UI that lay the groundwork for multiple saves per playthrough first and foremost being the inclusion of a manual save feature in addition to the auto save feature. This is why I believe and hope this conflicting save system was the result of an oversight and is going to be fixed to function as it should be and as it has in previous games by these developers.
Dorin Rav 16 Nov, 2018 @ 2:08am 
It won't be fixed because it is a part of the game. They want you to properly face the consequences of your decisions and not try to save-scum (I don't like that phrase, but I don't know how to describe it otherwise) a "perfect" playthrough. This has nothing to do with catering to elitist players, because you can't loose due to this savesystem. You may loose morale, ressources or the support of a named character, but this is exactly how it should be.

You are partially right in that it restricts the player to one playstyle, but it's the one they have chosen. You make a decisions you get the benefits and detriements, it's as simple as that.
Pawlogates 16 Nov, 2018 @ 3:05am 
Holy...
Mighty Matt 16 Nov, 2018 @ 12:52pm 
someone might make a mod for u, but i do like this feature
the one thing i truely dislike for mp is the fact that u have to walk around collecting the ♥♥♥♥ on the gound all over again. I wish u they would just give more for battling and u not have to pick up anything but golden chests
Musica 17 Nov, 2018 @ 1:43pm 
If you have to force autosaves to increase replayability of your game then maybe your game in incomplete . . .

Kyutaru 17 Nov, 2018 @ 1:53pm 
Originally posted by Musica:
If you have to force autosaves to increase replayability of your game then maybe your game in incomplete . . .
I think it's more that you have to force autosaves to get players to wait and see what happens as opposed to instantly reloading if the conversation doesn't go they way they expected. Surprise! Betrayal! Rather than waiting and see how that will play out long term, they go for the immediate fix. You save the guy this time, grats... except he was always a spy and stabs you in the back later.

Previously (and this game does it too) games would introduce delayed consequences that force a player to either reload a save from 20 hours earlier or live with the consequences of his decisions. This game doesn't even tell you if you made a Paragon or Renegade decision. It just says you chose between two evils, every single time. Often the option you thought was a good idea turns out to be the worst later down the road.

Plenty of games have forced you down the commitment path before, disabling your ability to go back and choose something else because you made a choice with unforeseen results a week ago. Sometimes players keep a save file at every major decision too. So there are even games that don't tell you how important the choice you're about to make happens to be. You handed your best friend the doll he asked you for... great, now half your party will die when he becomes the Demon Lord.
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