What games are you playing now?

Originally Posted by joxer
I did. But frequent autosaving, when a game has superlong saving/loading system like Aurora engine games, is… Not rational to expect.
Maybe will be when SSD replaces HDD completely.

So the fact that the Baldur's Gate I & II, Iceland Dale, KotOR, Bioshock, etc all have insta-suspend save systems on iPad … ?

Sorry, I don't play games on phones with 10 inches screen.

I could change my mind… If someone shows me how enjoyable would be playing Drakensang on phones.

Originally Posted by joxer
Sorry, I don't play games on phones with 10 inches screen.

I could change my mind… If someone shows me how enjoyable would be playing Drakensang on phones.

haha - I was just citing examples of PC games where there was an 'easy' transition to 'constant state' suspending that was made.

Also all of Jeff Vogel's games.

Point is that there is little excuse that you couldn't just quit a game and come back to exactly the same location without all of the hassles.

Slightly back on topic, I've been playing a bit of Secret World over the last few days and thought I'd share some pre-holiday fun. Enjoy!

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
It works in dark souls even on a very slow HD I am sure it could work on other engines as well, as long as they are built for it. It is actually much easier and faster then a normal save, because in this situation you can do incremental save only, which is a lot faster, so it'd also solve that horrible slow immersion breaking saving / loading process.

But I would call getting sent back to a bonfire every time you die and having to replay a lot of areas a checkpoint system.

I spent a whole day trying to kill O&S.( due to my stubbornness and not wanting to recruit help.) The long trek and few fights before getting to them almost made me quit. Being able to save right outside there room would have been much appreciated.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
To me it has a huge impact and greatly decreases the enjoyment of the game if you can save anywhere and load anywhere, it even prevents many people from fully enjoying the game, because they think they made a "bad" decision and loads, and don't even get to experience that path of the game, which might be a lot of fun had they tried it.

Besides it takes away any kind of excitement while playing… ooo well I died I'll reload. O I took a decision which might not be optimal I'll reload. O this dungeon is super hard o well, I'll reload until I win the fights by a lucky hit.. boring and pointless.

Yes, to you maybe, because you evidently aren't able to ignore something just because it's there.

Your rationalization about it preventing people from fully enjoying a game because they think they made bad loads makes little sense though. I'm confident that most of the population isn't OCD to that degree.

Originally Posted by txa1265
I disagree with the basic idea that 'no level saves' doesn't have an impact … it is a fundamental design element that informs everything in the game. Like regenerating health, infinite ammo, respawning enemies and so on … when a game is designed with checkpoint saves and save-anywhere, it is engrained in everything about the gameplay.

It doesn't mean you can't play without saving … it just means that a game designed around no levels saves plays fundamentally differently than one that allows them (or one that has checkpoints).

I didn't say it that it doesn't have an impact. I said it doesn't have a negative impact for the majority of games. There are some games with checkpoint systems where it works wonderfully, like Dead Space 1&2 for example. For most RPGS though, not being able to save when and where you want is a big downer for most people.

I don't have an issue with checkpoints and auto-saving as long as there are multiple save slots for you to choose. This recent trend of only having a single save slot however is pure garbage.

Just finished Xulima… Whatta chore of a game, lol
Feeling exhausted.

Maybe I should return to some casual brainless stuff (Sims 4) for a day or two…

Thanks guys for recommending the Demon scroll for Gothic 2. It was easy to find the scrolls and they worked perfectly. Is the mage supposed to be so weak, though? I can't see how you can hurt a dragon with 4th Circle spells. I couldn't even do much damage against the ice golems and had to kite them. There's other enemies who I couldn't damage much with my spells, like the Seekers or the stone guardians.

Think I'm done with Gothic 2. There weren't really any quests in the 4th Chapter and not much dialog, just endless hordes of monsters.

Still playing XCOM. Have been grinding the final months trying to get a heavy psi solder to complete an all psi squad (except one mech) before the finale. Must have tested 10 heavies so far…

Originally Posted by The Walkin' Dude
Thanks guys for recommending the Demon scroll for Gothic 2. It was easy to find the scrolls and they worked perfectly. Is the mage supposed to be so weak, though? I can't see how you can hurt a dragon with 4th Circle spells. I couldn't even do much damage against the ice golems and had to kite them. There's other enemies who I couldn't damage much with my spells, like the Seekers or the stone guardians.

Think I'm done with Gothic 2. There weren't really any quests in the 4th Chapter and not much dialog, just endless hordes of monsters.

The Mage starts out weak but is easier in the endgame if developed properly. I found Ice Block to be one of the most useful spells for most of the game. You can freeze most enemies and then pound them with melee while they can't attack. It works wonders with Seekers.

Here's a useful guide for playing as a mage. It describes every spell and lists the mana cost and damage output. Does contain some spoilers though. (Locations of Runes)

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/561413-gothic-ii/faqs/28747

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Still playing XCOM. Have been grinding the final months trying to get a heavy psi solder to complete an all psi squad (except one mech) before the finale. Must have tested 10 heavies so far…

You can save scum them if you want but to be honest I didn't bother as I ended up with about 6 without save scumming (you get 4 guaranteed from the progeny missions). To save scum you just save before assigning them for testing, then once after then just fast forward time skipping all missions, now if they end up to have psi you just reload the second game and then do the actual missions, if not then reload the first save and try again. As soon as you assign a soldier for testing it determines their psi capability (increased chance with higher willpower although if you are save scumming this doesn't matter).

I finished Assassin's Creed 2 yesterday and am now continuing with the next part in the series, Brotherhood (for the uninitiated: the actual named as such "Assassin's Creed 3" came after Brotherhood and Revelations and is thus actually Assassin's Creed 5, not 3… you know, UbiSoft, because counting to 3 is teh hard!!!11 ).

As for AC2, I finished that one for real, contrary to part 1, which ended on a rage quit note near the end as I posted earlier in this thread. Part deux also had me raging and cursing quite a bit on the final stretch thanks to the consolish controls but no premature quitting was necessary.
Overall, I liked the game a lot more than the first part. It started out slow and ended with a bit of a drag but the long middle part was good fun. Much less repetitive and much more story-driven with some neat ideas (Leonardo Da Vinci's flying apparatus comes to mind) than AC1.
I also really liked the depiction and atmosphere of the 15th century Italian locales. They've done an outstanding job capturing that Italian renaissance flair.

Now looking forward to getting into Brotherhood. It is actually quite fun and interesting to play a series back to back like this because of the changes to the characters from one game to the next and the general evolution of the gameplay. Let's see what Brotherhood adds to the formula…

Originally Posted by bjon045
You can save scum them if you want but to be honest I didn't bother as I ended up with about 6 without save scumming (you get 4 guaranteed from the progeny missions). To save scum you just save before assigning them for testing, then once after then just fast forward time skipping all missions, now if they end up to have psi you just reload the second game and then do the actual missions, if not then reload the first save and try again. As soon as you assign a soldier for testing it determines their psi capability (increased chance with higher willpower although if you are save scumming this doesn't matter).

Well, I've gone through about 20 heavies now, still no dice. Almost at barracks capacity. I could start dismissing, but this is getting ridiculous. :/

If I get down to my last few, I will resort to that. Thanks!

According to this, Each squaddie should have about a 10% chance to test PSI positive. The chance of me not getting one after 20 is 0.9^20~=12%. Pretty damn unlucky if that rate is right…

You don't actually need a fully psionic team (unless you want one just cuz). You do want a "high will" team when you're going against ethereals, but there's actually no difference in resisting a psi attack between a psionic soldier with 90 will and a vanilla soldier with 90 will. Besides, you can pick up a gene mod that makes you immune to mind attacks anyway. For that matter, you can build mind shields for the whole team if you really want to, although that approach is not nearly as effective as it was in the original XCom.

It all depends on what you want for fun. Just seems like you're not having much fun on your current path, so letting you know there are alternatives out there.

Well after 70 recruits I save scummed on the last 3 to test, took about 5 retries to get my psi heavy. Now training him up for the finale. In game time now has been 13 months. Crazy.

Currently playing:
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
- Divinity: Original Sin (only coop with a friend)
- Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
- World of Tanks (only with friends)
- War Thunder

Originally Posted by Menigal
So don't save.

Need to chime in to argue in favor of GG on this one. Your points are not applicable per se and are invalid in regards to the save system. The save system being used is a fundamental design principle, as Mike explained. It's not a question of "don't save if you don't want to." It's a question of what kind of game the designers intended.

Saying it ruins your enjoyment of a game to offer that is like someone who hates subtitles saying having the option to view them ruins their experience

Same as above: this example does not compute. A save anywhere system constitutes a possible save anywhere requirement (for all intents and purposes). In the same vein, you'd need to have films in which they sometimes speak a couple different languages so it may sometimes be required to turn on subtitles. But then it's not really optional anymore, is it? Then it's part of the design of the film. Of course you can have forced subtitles for those scenes, but that's something else again, more akin to auto-saves before key encounters.

or complaining about someone else putting a topping that you don't like on their pizza.

Makes sense if you compare it with games that support both casual play and ironman mode. Yay for them, yay for me. But if others call their hot dog without mustard and onions a "Chicago Dog", it'd be my God given right to complain about them! They'd have figuratively violated a fundamental design principle, dammit!


tl;dr: Optional features are only truly optional if they aren't part of a game's inherent design philosophy. Saves in save-anywhere games are not truly optional.

So you can't really say "so don't save".

Originally Posted by basharran
Currently playing:
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
- Divinity: Original Sin (only coop with a friend)
- Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
- World of Tanks (only with friends)
- War Thunder

5 games at the same time? I could never do that. 2 max assuming the second one is cards or tetris.

Anyway finally started Wasteland 2.
Not understanding sh*t what's going on there except that I shouldn't go over radiation parts of the worldmap. Had a laugh or two.

I mean… The dog on the first mainstory map, regardless of me succeeding in animal whisper, didn't follow me.

I've been gamehopping …

Europa Universalis 4
Valkyria Chronicles
League of Legends

Those are the games I played in the past 3 days

Up until christmas I was playing Watchdogs on the ps4 and also finally started a real game of Grimrock 2. Like Joxer I try to limit the amount of games I play at the same time, but for me it works to play multiple games as long as the genres doesn't overlap. I tend to play one adventure, one action game and one rpg at a time.

Now I'm in trouble though since my kids got me Dragon Age Inquisition for christmas, and after trying it for about an hour I think I'm hooked Hopefully I'll still manage to juggle both Grimrock and DA on the pc…