DS2: Can't save anywhere?

[Dave]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Hi all,

Okay, just trying out the demo, and it appears that you can't just
save your position anywhere in the game. That is, I save just before
what appears to be a big battle, wind up dying, click exit and then
resume, but I'm back at that village where I was incarcerated.

It's been a long time, but couldn't you save anywhere and reload the
game in DS1? Why did they go with this setup in DS2? I usually only
have short spurts of time to play, so this popping back to certain
points is not to my liking.

What good is the Save button in the menu for if it's not saving
your current location? Does it just save your current stats and
gear, so that if you exit and resume, you'll start back to the
nearest town, but at least with whatever stats and gear you had?

- Dave

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Dave" <im@not.telling> wrote in message
news:g8adnYaWHfa4WpDeRVn-uQ@giganews.com...

> It's been a long time, but couldn't you save anywhere and reload the
> game in DS1? Why did they go with this setup in DS2? I usually only

Yup. Dungeon Siege had a proper game saving system. DS2, due to the
infinite wisdom of the people at Gas Powered Games, does not. As to why
they implemented such a half-baked, ill-concieved and utterly useless method
of saving the game, I don't have an answer for you. Maybe if enough people
complain, they'll fix it in a patch. It's obviously a bug and needs to be
addressed.

> have short spurts of time to play, so this popping back to certain
> points is not to my liking.

There's no such thing as "short spurts of play" when a game gets "saved this
way. Much like Diablo II, you need to pop to the nearest teleporter, then
slog your way through the wilderness, killing respawned monster after
respawned monster until you get to the point where you *should* have been
had the developers been thinking rather than smoking.

> What good is the Save button in the menu for if it's not saving
> your current location? Does it just save your current stats and
> gear, so that if you exit and resume, you'll start back to the
> nearest town, but at least with whatever stats and gear you had?

Bingo. It saves stats, gear and quests completed. That's about it. Adding
grid coordinates and monsters killed (to prevent asinine respawns) was
apparently beyond the abilities of the developers.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

I actually prefer the save system this way. It works like Diablo 2 and
that was good enough for almost 5 YEARS of entertainment, it's good
enough for me. Having respawns is great, it helps level up your
character and gives more opportunity for phat lewt.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 08:27:07 -0500, "Dave" <im@not.telling> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>Okay, just trying out the demo, and it appears that you can't just
>save your position anywhere in the game. That is, I save just before
>what appears to be a big battle, wind up dying, click exit and then
>resume, but I'm back at that village where I was incarcerated.
>
>It's been a long time, but couldn't you save anywhere and reload the
>game in DS1? Why did they go with this setup in DS2? I usually only
>have short spurts of time to play, so this popping back to certain
>points is not to my liking.
>
>What good is the Save button in the menu for if it's not saving
>your current location? Does it just save your current stats and
>gear, so that if you exit and resume, you'll start back to the
>nearest town, but at least with whatever stats and gear you had?
>
> - Dave

Yep, that's why I returned it to the store. I don't do console mindset
games.

However, despite my disgust with DS2, I'm still looking forward to the DS1
mod Ultima V Lazarus. If they will ever finish it. *waits some more*
http://www.u5lazarus.com/
--
Michael Cecil
http://home.comcast.net/~macecil/
http://home.comcast.net/~safehex/

 

[hank]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Exactly! I like the save system.

 

[Dave]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Paul Fedorenko" <pfedorenko@look.ca> wrote in message
news:nxlPe.693$Ld.312016@news20.bellglobal.com...
> "Dave" <im@not.telling> wrote in message
> news:g8adnYaWHfa4WpDeRVn-uQ@giganews.com...
>
> > It's been a long time, but couldn't you save anywhere and reload the
>> game in DS1? Why did they go with this setup in DS2? I usually only
>
> Yup. Dungeon Siege had a proper game saving system. DS2, due to the
> infinite wisdom of the people at Gas Powered Games, does not. As to why
> they implemented such a half-baked, ill-concieved and utterly useless
> method of saving the game, I don't have an answer for you. Maybe if
> enough people complain, they'll fix it in a patch. It's obviously a bug
> and needs to be addressed.
>
>> have short spurts of time to play, so this popping back to certain
>> points is not to my liking.
>
> There's no such thing as "short spurts of play" when a game gets "saved
> this way. Much like Diablo II, you need to pop to the nearest teleporter,
> then slog your way through the wilderness, killing respawned monster after
> respawned monster until you get to the point where you *should* have been
> had the developers been thinking rather than smoking.
>
>> What good is the Save button in the menu for if it's not saving
>> your current location? Does it just save your current stats and
>> gear, so that if you exit and resume, you'll start back to the
>> nearest town, but at least with whatever stats and gear you had?
>
> Bingo. It saves stats, gear and quests completed. That's about it.
> Adding grid coordinates and monsters killed (to prevent asinine respawns)
> was apparently beyond the abilities of the developers.


Thanks everyone for the confirmation. The game seems entertaining,
but I'm definitely going to pass due to this save system. It's
simply mind boggling that they'd do it this way. It must be because
it makes it easier for them to code it for a console or something,
but FWIW they lost a purchase here because of it. Oh well...

- Dave

 

[noman]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:33:40 -0400, "Paul Fedorenko"
<pfedorenko@look.ca> wrote:

>
>There's no such thing as "short spurts of play" when a game gets "saved this
>way. Much like Diablo II, you need to pop to the nearest teleporter, then
>slog your way through the wilderness, killing respawned monster after
>respawned monster until you get to the point where you *should* have been
>had the developers been thinking rather than smoking.

I think, that the system does save state of any open portal unlike
Diablo2. So before quitting, you may want to open a portal and then
save. On restoring you can then start from the same location.

The respawned enemies should be present but even there I have heard
that, unlike Diablo2, not all the critters come back.
--
Noman

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"noman" <no_m_an@zzzyahoo.yycom> wrote in message
news:m9lsg15bic93h3j4c8dgdl8lbv426a36kf@4ax.com...

> The respawned enemies should be present but even there I have heard
> that, unlike Diablo2, not all the critters come back.

I noticed that myself. You only get a handful of critters coming back,
which I guess is better than the entire horde, and you don't seem to get any
of the high-level boss-types tha make fighting huge swarms of critters
really annoying. So kudos where they're due, I guess.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Dave wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Okay, just trying out the demo, and it appears that you can't just
> save your position anywhere in the game. That is, I save just before
> what appears to be a big battle, wind up dying, click exit and then
> resume, but I'm back at that village where I was incarcerated.
>
> It's been a long time, but couldn't you save anywhere and reload the
> game in DS1? Why did they go with this setup in DS2? I usually only
> have short spurts of time to play, so this popping back to certain
> points is not to my liking.
>
> What good is the Save button in the menu for if it's not saving
> your current location? Does it just save your current stats and
> gear, so that if you exit and resume, you'll start back to the
> nearest town, but at least with whatever stats and gear you had?
>
> - Dave
>
>


DS2 is checkpoint save like Diablo II...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Smart Feet" <smartfeet@yourshoes.com> wrote in message
news:39qPe.52718$gB.31801@tornado.ohiordc.rr.com...

> DS2 is checkpoint save like Diablo II...

A checkpoint save is what you have in Halo, where the game automatically
saves your progress whenever you reach a specific point. So when you exit
the game before doing a proper save, then reload some time later, you end up
at the *location* where the last autosave happened, as opposed to starting
the entire level from scratch. The way D2 and DS2 do it are like the
latter. Halo, if I remember right, also lets you save at custom points
between checkpoints. Could be wrong there. Haven't played it in a while.

Point is, some of us seem to prefer the way games like Baldur's Gate, NWN,
Morrowind, all teh way back to the Ultima games do it -- the place you start
after a reload is exactly where you saved it.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Paul Fedorenko" <pfedorenko@look.ca> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>"Smart Feet" <smartfeet@yourshoes.com> wrote in message
>news:39qPe.52718$gB.31801@tornado.ohiordc.rr.com...
>
<snip>
>Point is, some of us seem to prefer the way games like Baldur's Gate, NWN,
>Morrowind, all teh way back to the Ultima games do it -- the place you start
>after a reload is exactly where you saved it.

It's not a console thing, it's a multiplayer thing.

Diablo - single player save anywhere, multiplayer no.
Diablo2 - single and multiplayer do the waypoint thing.

Dungeon Siege, as Diablo
DS2, as Diablo2

They're simplifying the work they have to do by using only one save
system for both game modes.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Sorry but this is not true. Portals are not saved when you save game.
I returned the game yesterday, I only play for periods of 30 minutes or
so, and many times I had to redo the whole thing I did earlier because
I couldn't find the next teleporter in time.
Checkpoint saving is sooooooo 1995

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

"Knight37" <knight37m@gmail.com> wrote:
>I actually prefer the save system this way.

I like it too. It somehow just feels more intense.

--
Lucian

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

On that special day, Knight37, (knight37m@gmail.com) said...

> I actually prefer the save system this way. It works like Diablo 2 and
> that was good enough for almost 5 YEARS of entertainment, it's good
> enough for me. Having respawns is great, it helps level up your
> character and gives more opportunity for phat lewt.

There might be downsides to respawns, too, in various ways. Adopting
your example, Diablo2, I want to remind you, that in Nightmare and Hell
difficulty, there are experience penalties (and in higher levels they
are hefty, as the newly killed monsters won't make up for it, as soon
as you get over lvl 85).

A different example:

Sacred, another slightly diablo-like game, offers both methods of
"saving", in place and by respawning. If you are playing a "campaign",
like a single player action adventure, your character is saved right to
the spot where (s)he was currently standing, with all condition (ie
active auras, or being poisoned), and when something goes wrong (this
dragon was just too big), you reload from the former state.

OTOH, if you play ihn multi-player mode, only the *place* where your
character stands, will be saved (and some of the items you dropped),
but not necessarily the condition of your character, and you cannot
load a previous savegame, while in the midst of playing. If you are
killed, the "load" option is inactive, you'll wake up in a different
place and will have to work your place back to where you had been
before. There is no body to pick up. Getting there without your gear
would be impossible, with all these respawning monsters in between,
after all.

Here comes the interesting twist: you can start a game with *another*
character *from* this saved place (use the load option in the
multiplayer "choose game" screen). This sounds funny and useless, until
you (ab)use this feature to provide early access to remote transport
portals for low level characters. Some even make their low characters
"winners" by "saving" them in Shaddars tower right before the endgame,
so that they can be exported into higher difficulty levels, and be used
as mules even in Niob difficulty, without having to drag them through
all 160 clvls.

Dying in multiplayer doesn't subtract experience, AFAICT, but kills
your survival bonus, so that that one has to be re-built. The SB has a
direct impact on MF. I think this is a better way to encourage people
to play cautiously, than by experience penalties.


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A property, too valuable these days, to give it away,
just so, at no cost.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Gabriele Neukam <Gabriele.Spamfighter.Neukam@t-online.de> once tried to
test me with:

> Dying in multiplayer doesn't subtract experience, AFAICT, but kills
> your survival bonus, so that that one has to be re-built. The SB has a
> direct impact on MF. I think this is a better way to encourage people
> to play cautiously, than by experience penalties.

The longer you survive the better your magic find? That is a nifty feature.

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

Lucian Wischik <lu.nn@wischik.com> once tried to test me with:

>>I actually prefer the save system this way.
>
> I like it too. It somehow just feels more intense.

I wouldn't want it in certain types of RPGs but for a hack-n-slash like DS2
I think it's fitting.

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg (More info?)

I totally agree with Knight37 -- there's times I just want to kill mobs
for exp or gear. If it saved the "world state" you'd be unable to do
this. Heck, it would sorta gimp some builds (hybrids / dual-class). I
also think a lot of it has to do with MP games.