How do you organize your save slots?

fuck (insert current map name here with mods used) (numbers or something)

for example: fuck sunlustwcomplexclusterfuck 69420

I try to keep things simple. Of the 8 save slots, the top one gets labelled "MAP17" or whatever level I'm on, and it's kept as a safety save at level start, just in case things go really wrong and I have to back all the way up. The rest of them get filled in chronologically from top to bottom, starting at a basic "MID-LEVEL" description and getting more elaborate once circumstances require me to make a new save instead of updating an old one. Getting wounded or investigating past a point-of-no-return typically deserve new saves since I'm not sure how it's going to pan out, and descriptions like "SPENT HEALTH", "JUMPED DOWN A PIT", and "TOOK A BLIND TELEPORT" help to keep track of where I am temporally if I have to back up. Once I beat the level - if I'm satisfied with the amount of resources I was able to take with me - I save over the top slot, updating it to "MAP18" or whatever, and the cycle begins anew.

I swap between what WAD I'm playing rather frequently, and since I already keep individual folders which contain the wad file & the shortcut with the right parameters, it's been easy to get in the habit of sending doomsav0.dsg - doomsav7.dsg to the storage folder along with the other files, and swapping in the new WAD and all of its saves whenever I change gears. This way I never need to worry about what a save is or where it came from, and all my playthroughs get to use all 8 slots.

Lately, I've been using maybe one or two save files and adding my name or initial to the beginning, and then adding a number for each level when I overwrite it. An example would be "D-1234", which would indicate that I've saved at least once per level for 4 levels. Once it starts to get too long or I complete an episode, I go to the next save slot and do the same thing. It's only been for Doom lately, but it helps me keep track of how far I am. Late into Doom, I started saving more than once per level, and I just take the most recent number off and add it again. It somehow works, and didn't fuck things up.

i'm usually going with one quicksave. very rarely i'm using another one or two on big exploration maps, but i often prefer to simply put automap marks to return somewhere later. also, k8vavoom does autosave on the beginning of each map, and is using a different set of slots for autosaves. i.e. i just made k8vavoom save system fits my habits. ;-)

000.level 1 start

001 (progress, up to before a battle/trap)

002 (progress in battle/trap, up to end of battle/trap where player looks at the floor before saving as thumbnail indicator)

003 (next progress up to before a battle/trap)

004 (progress in battle/trap, up to end of battle/trap where player looks at the floor before saving as thumbnail indicator)

005

006

... and so on ...

120 (example end of level 1)

121.level 2 start

122

123

... and so on... repeat all above till end of wad.

all gamesaves would be purged before playing the next wad.

reason for the large number of saves is because sometimes there is a need to return to specific in-game locations/events even after finishing the game (eg. troubleshooting with map author, re-shooting screenshots, etc).

I tend to name my saves after the name of either the played WAD / PK3, a bit like this :

- Ashes2063

- AVendetta

- GoldenSouls

- Baloney

- ArtifactsOfPower

And so on.

 Name of wad I'm playing in top slots

One quicksave at the bottom that gets reused for whatever I'm in the middle of.

I typically just have one save slot and just save over that as I progress. Typically, I name it "Bob" lol. I'm not sure when it started, but if I play a game without a selectable protagonist and if it's a dude, I name him Bob lol. Sometimes if my health is low I will make a secondary save if I have lower chances of making it, but wanna save if the risk pays off, so I may end up with save slot "Bob 2". 

Organize???

What's organizing???

Well, for saving, I only use one save file per wad. I put the name of the wad as the name of the save file or shorten the name if the wad name is too long.

Example: Urania megawad? Urania is the name.

Technicolor Antichrist Box? TAB is the name.

Simple, right?

Single save slot with the name of the PWAD or an abbreviation of it.

I reserve the top save for midfight saves because that's the slot I accidentally save over the most. I reserve the last slot for saves during testing, and the middle slots are just the name of the WAD I'm playing. When I'm done playing the WAD I overwrite the saves with "empty slot" to reduce clutter.

17 hours ago, Arbys550 said:

When I'm done playing the WAD I overwrite the saves with "empty slot" to reduce clutter.

This spawned an evil thought in my mind - what if you have a save named "empty slot"? Would anyone hate themselves enough to troll themselves in such a way?

GZDoom I just spam quicksave with the rotating 20 slots. Severely missed feature on other ports.

I didn't know that per-WAD saves feature was implemented into dsda-doom! I just switched to it and it's been incredible so far.

Usually for prboom-plus I have

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

then it depends on the difficulty of the WAD.

Something easier I don't save or I just use slot 1.

Something super difficult (for me at least) I cycle through every single slot.

Organize?

17 hours ago, MFG38 said:

 

This spawned an evil thought in my mind - what if you have a save named "empty slot"? Would anyone hate themselves enough to troll themselves in such a way?

Why would you do that lmao

But you actually can distinguish between a save named "empty slot" and an actual empty slot - if you save over an existing slot, the cursor to enter the name will start at the end of the existing name, but if it's an empty slot the "empty slot" text will clear and start from an empty name field.

"fuckisjgihsdg91275" *saves over another playthrough of a random megawad i forgot to finish*

*WAD NAME* *DIFFICULTY *PARAMETERS*

so ultra-violence sunlust would be

Sunlust: UV

and for example doom 2 im too young to die fast

DOOM 2: UV -Fast

I keep the first save slot on each page for the beginning of a level, second for when I last had comfortable health/ammo/armor, and last for when I have to save-scum through a battle. Everything in between is for when I don't want to lose my progress, but don't want to overwrite the other slots.

I used to be really persnickety about naming my files like "Scythe 12 uv 01" for my first save on Scythe Map12 on ultra-violence, but then I started having my source ports organize my saves for me, resulting in a proliferation of subdirectories named after individual wads, full of saved games labeled "07 03" instead of one nice unified list of saved games.

I use multiple slots per map, and one "Backup" named slot for quick saving ingame.

I usually do at least 2 saves. One is for level by level saving, so I can load for continuous play or load up and die for pistol start, also so if I save somewhere and didn’t mean to save, I can fall back from the start of the level. The other slot is for when and if I plan to save as I progress through a given level, somewhat like manual checkpoints. If I use any other slots, it is usually if I want to try something else in-game without losing the spot I had before in case it doesn’t work out. I delete the saves I no longer need, too. As far as naming them; I am not creative. I just put “save 1” and “save 2”.

Mainly per fight during a wad playthrough. Map 1 fight ect so I can go back and replay some fights I enjoyed 

Despite my best attempts at naming conventions (of which I bounce between two. Naming them after the wad I am playing with difficulty and date or my initials with date.) it always devolves into a mess of auto saves and the always cleverly named "aaaaaaaaaa".

I always save with the name being a play of the episode's name, for instance Knee Deep In The Dead would be name Knee Deep, The Shores Of Hell would be Shored In Hell, and so on... The sorting is based upon the game/wad's episode order.

I save at the beginning of every level, and then create a separate save right before annoying fights or sections. I name them with a shortened wad name, and then the map number. I update the map number when starting a new level.

To keep track of my saves I usually just put the wad's name, map number and random text after it.

i.e:

• Disordermap10part1
• Disordermap10part2
• btsxe1map24manycacos
• Slayermap4practice

I have one save for each WAD I play. The save name is the WAD title with the difficulty setting at the end of it. For example, if I'm playing Hell Revealed on Hurt Me Plenty, the save will be titled "HELL REVEALED -HMP-".

I find the only way for me to keep my saves organized is to peridically go through and delete them all.