Auto save feature--no more scum-saving!

[Hellbent]

Being a bit of a neurotic person by nature, I don't like to save my games when I play doom. One thing that happens, it takes away the intensity of the game. Once I've saved, I don't have to try as hard, and less is at stake. The other thing that happens is I see that I can do an area over better so I reload until I get it perfect. Then I end up scum-saving. Saving whenever you want seems kinda cheap.

Soo.... it'd be cool to write a program that would autosave the game once you've reached certain milestones. Let's say when reach 30% items or kills, which ever comes first, and when you reach 60% kills or items. Such a program would be useful because then you could apply it to any wad that you download or level that you play. When you die, you'd appear at the autosave point, not the beginning of the level.

Some problems with this might be you'd spawn in the middle of a firefight.

[chungy]

Sounds like Serious Sam's autosaves

[EarthQuake]

Another idea, and forgive me if this doesn't sound clear enough, is to require the player to progress through two checkpoints in order to restore their game from the prior checkpoint.

Say I pass through Save Point A and make it to Save Point B, and I die. I'm then taken back to the Save Point A. If I manage to get past Save Point A and B, and make it to Save Point C, then if I die, I'm taken back to Save Point B.

So basically dying would allow me to restore my progress from the Save Point before the last Save Point I encountered. Make sense?

Of course that means If I die repeatedly at the start of each Save Point, I could be taken back to the beginning of the game! But hey, you got a lot more at stake, right?

[Hellbent]

@EQ: I like that idea, especially how you can keep falling backwards. But that would mean each wad would have to be made with the checkpoint installed in the map. The point of mine is that any wad or any level would suddenly have save checkpoints in them, without having to edit the maps and insert 'save checkpoint' objects in them.

[EarthQuake]

Yes, that would be problematic.

If for example the save points were created at the beginning of each map and the same method was used, it would get tiresome rather quickly, having to restart maps you already finished... so yeah, some sort of way of automatically determining where to create a save point would be necessary.

[AkiraZXE]

I can think of a few ideas to automatically determine save points:
- # of doors passed through VS # of doors in map.
- Distance from spawn spot (not directly, of course...taking into account turns and whatnot, thought that would be difficult.)
- Obtained key; unlocked door with corresponding key.
- Obtaining powerups or powerful weapons.
- Killing something "big," like a Cyberdemon or a Spider Mastermind.
- Reaching a certain percentage of kills, but not while in a monster's LOS.

(Too bad it's hypothetical)

EDIT: I just noticed...why would you want an auto-save when it takes you out of the intensity?

[The Ultimate DooMer]

I made one ages ago that autosaves every minute (after discovering LOADACS), as I've always had a problem with remembering to save...I guess I just get caught in the flow of the action and forget. I updated it a while back so it can save at any time interval and also turned on/off at will, requires ZDoom/GZDoom but can be loaded with any wad (including vanilla format).

http://files.drdteam.org/index.php/files/get/XpoUojmq2q/autosave.zip

Akira_98 said:

I can think of a few ideas to automatically determine save points:
- # of doors passed through VS # of doors in map.
- Distance from spawn spot (not directly, of course...taking into account turns and whatnot, thought that would be difficult.)
- Obtained key; unlocked door with corresponding key.
- Obtaining powerups or powerful weapons.
- Killing something "big," like a Cyberdemon or a Spider Mastermind.
- Reaching a certain percentage of kills, but not while in a monster's LOS.

(Too bad it's hypothetical)

Not really, most of those can be done with a decorate/loadacs combo.

[printz]

Soo.... it'd be cool to write a program that would autosave the game once you've reached certain milestones. Let's say when reach 30% items or kills, which ever comes first, and when you reach 60% kills or items.

Make your own Doom port build with this modification added. Try to isolate it so it can be applied on any version of that port. Gez likes to tweak his Dooms.

[magicsofa]

You could only allow save when you exit the program, and then delete the save when you die. Just like in all those roguelikes

[Per-Scan]

Thanks Ultimate Doomer. I have just dl'd your wee program since I have the same problem as yourself (ie/ forgetting to save!). It can be pretty frustrating on really big maps... :)

I do like the idea on autosaving after certain percentages of 'schievements' though. Number of baddies killed and items picked up would be particularly good markers IMHO.

[phi108]

Thanks from me too Ultimate Doomer, I'va always been wanting to autosave every few minutes.

[gemini09]

I'm using auto-save lines (with GZDoom) in my mod, and they're before big fights, or after some progress.

And voila...

[Hellbent]

Akira_98 said:

I can think of a few ideas to automatically determine save points:
- Reaching a certain percentage of kills, but not while in a monster's LOS.

(Too bad it's hypothetical)

EDIT: I just noticed...why would you want an auto-save when it takes you out of the intensity?

That is a very good solution to my original suggestion--"not while in a monster's line of sight."

Well, it doesn't really, because I don't know when the save is going to happen. And it's a compromise. I can't devolve into scum-saving. And it means I don't have to play the bloody thing all over again when I die near the end--which is the trade off of not saving at all. It's a good middle ground.

I'd love to see this implemented in Zdoom. :)

[40oz]

It's not so much saving that is scummy as it is loading. I play under a strict rule in which I can only load a game after I die.

[EarthQuake]

Never really thought about it, but it seems that's what I do in pretty much all games. Still though, following that rule, you're still not under any pressure because you can save whenever you want.

[Enjay]

I pretty much do the same as 40oz.

I don't care about the "pressure" issue because I play games for fun, not to be under pressure. Knowing that I have died and didn't complete the level (or whatever) in a single go, and had to reload, is enough of a kick in the balls for me. I don't need to be sent back to some arbitrary point to do it all over again - boredom or frustration ensues. (Aside from anything else, I now know how the level plays out so the situation has changed anyway.)

[printz]

I never save, unless my interest is to follow the megawad like I follow a book (be more interested in the story and progression than on the challenge), which is becoming rarer and rarer. Naturally, eventually I lose, even in moderate-difficulty maps, and because of this, I ragequit.

But a gameplay where my valor is tested is better than a no-challenge one.

[Herculine]

The Ultimate DooMer said:
I made one ages ago that autosaves every minute (after discovering LOADACS), as I've always had a problem with remembering to save...I guess I just get caught in the flow of the action and forget. I updated it a while back so it can save at any time interval and also turned on/off at will, requires ZDoom/GZDoom but can be loaded with any wad (including vanilla format).

http://files.drdteam.org/index.php/files/get/XpoUojmq2q/autosave.zip

This sounds like a great mod but I can't get the link to work.

EDIT:

Wait a minute... I can't get my bookmarks to their site to work either. Must be a problem with their site. Sorry...

[Gez]

That's scheduled maintenance work on the DRD team servers. Should be back up soon.

[DaniJ]

The Ultimate DooMer said:

I made one ages ago that autosaves every minute (after discovering LOADACS), as I've always had a problem with remembering to save...I guess I just get caught in the flow of the action and forget. I updated it a while back so it can save at any time interval and also turned on/off at will, requires ZDoom/GZDoom but can be loaded with any wad (including vanilla format).

You don't even need to do that. Many ports allow saving from the console so you could write a simple console script to achieve the same thing.

Another option (for Doomsday at least) is to write an autosave plugin with pretty much any logic you want.

[Creaphis]

I play Doom for fun, but, for me, a lot of that fun comes from being under pressure. I love feeling just the perfect amount of tension, when the map is hard, but my skills are just barely enough to get me through each fight. Saving takes away that tension, so I don't like to do it. There's a point, though, where a map is simply too big to be played without saves. Even if the whole map was fun up until a late and unfortunate death, replaying the level from the beginning is never as interesting, because I already know that I can beat everything that's coming. So, to keep myself from having to replay an entire level when I die, but to keep a feeling of tension, I limit myself to saving only at "natural checkpoints." Keys work great for this. One key, one save.

When I die on smaller maps I try to keep the replaying interesting by choosing a different route than I did last time. I'm happier to replay hard maps, like those in Kama Sutra, because the fights stay challenging no matter how many times you play them. My favourite maps to replay are those that dump you right in the middle of the level's biggest fight. I probably tried dwspd024's MAP11 fifty times before I finally beat it, without ever feeling frustrated.

[Hellbent]

Creaphis said:

I play Doom for fun, but, for me, a lot of that fun comes from being under pressure. I love feeling just the perfect amount of tension, when the map is hard, but my skills are just barely enough to get me through each fight. Saving takes away that tension, so I don't like to do it. There's a point, though, where a map is simply too big to be played without saves. Even if the whole map was fun up until a late and unfortunate death, replaying the level from the beginning is never as interesting, because I already know that I can beat everything that's coming. So, to keep myself from having to replay an entire level when I die, but to keep a feeling of tension, I limit myself to saving only at "natural checkpoints." Keys work great for this. One key, one save.

When I die on smaller maps I try to keep the replaying interesting by choosing a different route than I did last time. I'm happier to replay hard maps, like those in Kama Sutra, because the fights stay challenging no matter how many times you play them. My favourite maps to replay are those that dump you right in the middle of the level's biggest fight. I probably tried dwspd024's MAP11 fifty times before I finally beat it, without ever feeling frustrated.

That right there is the way doom should be played and experienced imo. I also limit myself to natural checkpoints, but the problem with that is it's like asking a child to limit himself to one trip to the cookie jar a day.

PFL said:

Thanks Ultimate Doomer. I have just dl'd your wee program since I have the same problem as yourself (ie/ forgetting to save!). It can be pretty frustrating on really big maps... :)

I do like the idea on autosaving after certain percentages of 'schievements' though. Number of baddies killed and items picked up would be particularly good markers IMHO.

I also dl'd the wad UD. Thanks. I am sort of opposed to user set values, tho, due to the cookie jar example I gave. Plus, I like the idea that the program would have a standard, that it would know what was fair. Instead of me having to do trial and error with each map I play.

Another way to trigger the autosave interval could be number of sidedefs you cross. The program (or .wad) would have to be sophisticated enough to only count new lines crossed (so that you couldn't dance around the same one and so that backtracking wouldn't do it). Although... on maps where backtracking is necessary, maybe each sidedef could be counted twice, but not more. There's another wrinkle in this method tho. Some maps have extremely high levels of detail, such as the vrack series. To keep consistent save intervals across all kinds of maps, the program would look at the number of one sided lines as well as two sided lines. If the ratio of two sided lines to one sided is 9:1, then the program would increase the number of lines needed to be crossed before saving. If the ratio is 1:5 (say you play a wolf3d style maze map with few sectors and few details but tons of walls) then the number of two sided lines needing to be crossed would be much lower.

In this way the program would address shorter maps where saving isn't as necessary, and super large maps where two saves isn't enough. The save intervals would be more or less consistent regardless the map being played.

Edit: so it would determine the number of autosave points there would be based on the number of single sided linedefs, not number of two sided linedefs.

The other issue is low health. You don't want the autosave to kick in when you have 5 health, no armor and are about to face a hoard of shotgunners. One way to deal with this is follows: Let's say the program determines 100 two sided linedefs is a good number for saving. It would save the game at 95, 100 and 105. When you die, it would then choose the number where your health (and/or ammo) are at the best combination. If they suck at all three, well tough luck to you. Play better next time.

Now if only we could address the line of sight issue. I can't see how this method would prevent you from loading in a firefight.

[Herculine]

The Ultimate DooMer said:
I made one ages ago that autosaves every minute (after discovering LOADACS), as I've always had a problem with remembering to save...I guess I just get caught in the flow of the action and forget. I updated it a while back so it can save at any time interval and also turned on/off at will, requires ZDoom/GZDoom but can be loaded with any wad (including vanilla format).

http://files.drdteam.org/index.php/files/get/XpoUojmq2q/autosave.zip

I've got the file now too. Thanks UD!

[Hellbent]

The Ultimate DooMer said:

I made one ages ago that autosaves every minute (after discovering LOADACS), as I've always had a problem with remembering to save...I guess I just get caught in the flow of the action and forget. I updated it a while back so it can save at any time interval and also turned on/off at will, requires ZDoom/GZDoom but can be loaded with any wad (including vanilla format).

Hey, do you think it would be possible to implement autosave.wad into a specific .wad and have it autosave after a preset time without having to type anything in the console? I am working on a wad that I actually like (something I started ages ago, forgot about, and then remembered! and so I've started working on it again).

The thing is, because of the type of map it is, it requires multiple attempts before you can beat it--which might leave a lot of people not playing it because they didn't save. So if the wad automatically saved every 3 minutes or something, that'd be great. (or better yet, after certain linedefs were crossed).

[Gez]

ZDoom has an action special for autosaves, so you can use that.

If your map is in the Doom format, you may need to use a map translator to associate a Doom linetype number to that special.

[Captain Toenail]

Dying and having to restart 10+ minutes into the game is not fun. I don't feel the need to prove to myself I'm 'pro' by refusing to save the game when I need to. :P