gamophyte on 3/6/2015 at 14:34
To those who know the engine better than I; Is there a way to disable quick saving and additionally only allow hard saves in certain places within the level?
I want to restrict saving to small hammer chapel booths throughout the mission. This makes things more intense and without the player quick loading to death, they won't feel invincible. My whole mission is centered around rejuvenating immersion. Also the reverence and love you get of that glint of light that says, oh you can save over there! Even dilapidated ones will work. I guess with that I may change them to keeper booths instead.
Not to worry there is always a chapel close by with balance and pacing in mind. Also, I will be rigorous about testing all climbing areas/possibilities so that dumb deaths from bad mission creation don't happen. Finally there will be a full release without this feature as well.
Just fyi, other areas of immersion planned:
* Seemingly smarter AI through clever use of sound triggers and scripting
* New voice acting to trigger that part of your mind that feels unsure about hearing new person.
* revamping of sound, no tinny sounds
* more pay off for reading
* Other planned play mechanics I can't mention yet
* Randomizations
nicked on 3/6/2015 at 14:37
Short answer... no.
Pretty sure saving is hard-coded. Best you can do is ask people not to.
Dev_Anj on 3/6/2015 at 15:01
Quote Posted by gamophyte
I want to restrict saving to small hammer chapel booths throughout the mission. This makes things more intense and without the player quick loading to death, they won't feel invincible. My whole mission is centered around rejuvenating immersion. Also the reverence and love you get of that glint of light that says, oh you can save over there! Even dilapidated ones will work. I guess with that I may change them to keeper booths instead.
I don't know, to me having clear cut save points in the form of hammer chapel booths would be less immersive than just accepting saving and loading as a game mechanic. You would need to have good reasons for why they were placed there, why the player can use them, why can't others use them etc.
gamophyte on 3/6/2015 at 16:42
Quote Posted by Dev_Anj
I don't know, to me having clear cut save points in the form of hammer chapel booths would be less immersive than just accepting saving and loading as a game mechanic. You would need to have good reasons for why they were placed there, why the player can use them, why can't others use them etc.
Less? I see so many people who
Lets Play on youtube reload for getting caught (I get in the habit too). This cuts out a whole dynamic of immersion gameplay; of sweating in a corner hoping he doesn't find you and if he does the excitement of the fleeing. And if he hits you at least once, actually using and needing health potions.
The chapels won't be rare so you won't be far from one at any given time. This means you don't lose much progress but you also can't force-of-habit quick-load. This slight slowing of pace puts you back in garrets body. I don't need a story for why the chapels, but it may be fun. There is no current story as to why garret can teleport back in time anywhere in the map either.
Anyhow, looks like it's not possible. I will look into scripts more, but I have no idea yet. Maybe just change the bindings somehow so you are slowed by using the menu.
Yandros on 3/6/2015 at 17:22
It's not possible to prevent the player from saving, but you can have an explicit goal not to load a save game and fail it when they do so. My mission The Summit has such an Iron Man objective on Expert, so refer to it if you decide to go that route.
LarryG on 3/6/2015 at 19:36
One key strength of Thief is that you are not forced into a particular style of play or approach to a problem. It is, by intent, open to players making their own choices and not having them forced on them by the developers. Want to play Iron Man style? No one is stopping you. Want to play through without killing any one? Go for it. Nothing is stopping you from trying that out. But don't force me to do so because you think you know better what I will enjoy. Any time you force the player to do something, anything, you are losing fans for your mission. My advice is don't break what is working just fine. If you want to make an optional object to limit saves, fine, but keep it optional.
Yandros on 3/6/2015 at 20:01
I generally agree with you on that, although there are certainly special cases and mission designs where that doesn't fully apply. But in most cases... yes. I've moved away from bothering with even optional ghost objectives in recent years, mainly because I never found an implementation that was foolproof, and also because ghosters are going to police themselves more strictly than any script would, and would probably rather discuss and debate on whether something was a bust instead of relying on a potentially flawed setup that allows them to bust without failing, or the converse. DCE originally had numerous ghosting objectives, but now, of the 10 missions (well, 8 playable missions), only one mission has a forced ghosting situation - it's only one area at the beginning of the mission, and is story-driven.
Bottom line: Think long and hard about imposing any restrictions on gameplay, and make sure the story requires them. And even then, some players will object, but you can't make everyone happy.
gamophyte on 3/6/2015 at 21:51
Thanks for all the feedback. I may not have said, but I always planned to make it optional - in hardness level or whole alternant zip file. I myself hate timed missions because I'm a climber and spend a lot of time trying to climb everything. I like it when they have a version where this is disabled. Thanks again guys!
Dev_Anj on 4/6/2015 at 00:13
Quote Posted by gamophyte
Less? I see so many people who
Lets Play on youtube reload for getting caught (I get in the habit too). This cuts out a whole dynamic of immersion gameplay; of sweating in a corner hoping he doesn't find you and if he does the excitement of the fleeing. And if he hits you at least once, actually using and needing health potions.
All that has nothing to do with hammer chapel booths, it has everything to do with restricting saves. I have iron manned a few Thief 2 levels and it certainly was pretty challenging, but I didn't play the entire campaign like that because I didn't have the time for it. People have iron manned the Thief games before too.
It's less immersive in the sense that saving and loading is recognized by the game as a feature the player utilizes, and it's never referred to anywhere in the game world. Now when you take away that feature, which is important to many players, and replace it with booths in the game world, that means the game is actively acknowledging saving and loading as part of in game locations. Besides, there are problems with checkpoint based gameplay, like pacing, segment length, making failure annoying to deal with, discouraging gameplay experimentation etc.
Yandros has already pointed out how limiting saves can be bad. I'll say that I have played several Castlevania games, and honestly I didn't think those games became immersive because they used save rooms instead of a save/load mechanic. Infact, they always seemed like contrived ways to tie an important function into the game world, and many people joked about them.
So if you do want to try it, make it optional. Also write a story around them. Else it'll be less immersive and can even be frustrating for many players.
