How many "Saves" do you use during a gaming run?
Sharguild
Member Posts: 186
I've noticed a few threads where folk have mentioned "I'm stuck, I have no previous saves, what can I do?"
Personally, especially in Infinity Engine games, I run at least 2 saves as well as the Auto-save and Quick-save feature (which I usually don't use very often except for interruptions (phone, door, children killing each other, kitchen on fire...etc).
Perhaps I'm overly cautious ( wife calls it paranoia) but I've been burnt many times in the past and see this as the lesser grief.
Your mileage?
Personally, especially in Infinity Engine games, I run at least 2 saves as well as the Auto-save and Quick-save feature (which I usually don't use very often except for interruptions (phone, door, children killing each other, kitchen on fire...etc).
Perhaps I'm overly cautious ( wife calls it paranoia) but I've been burnt many times in the past and see this as the lesser grief.
Your mileage?
2
Comments
Main save file: used for saving whereever and whenever.
Level-up save file: sometimes used before I level up to be able to go back if I click incorrectly or change my mind about proficencies or similar
Final save file: the save I end every sitting with and the one I load when I play next time. Just for convience, it's always named "FINAL" so that in a huge list of saves with different character, I know in which save I have progressed the furthest.
Sometimes I add situational saves if I'm at a forkroad in a story plot or before experimenting with NPC's, quest rewards and want to be able to reload later on if it didn't work out well.
I like to have a bunch of chronological saves so I can load up a game at any level/point in the story if someone has a bug or trouble with something on the forums.
To many saves, however, tend to slow down the game on my iPad, or before that, my windows '98 machine. So occasionally I have to go back and do some housekeeping, which makes me sad.
Next, when I play Baldur's Gate, I tend to do what I call "sitting on the quicksave button". I press Q after every fight, trap disarm, new location discovered and entered, and sometimes just because I don't remember when I pressed it last. This habit got started back when the game was first released, and I had to reload a lot, and I didn't want to have to repeat "easy" fights leading up to the one that killed me. Then, I had a few experiences with power failures causing me to lose several hours of play. I also had some occasions where I got corrupt save files for unknown reasons. It only took one or two of those "AUGH!" experiences to get me into the habit of quicksaving constantly - I got paranoid about it.
My motto - "If you don't remember saving within the last minute, it's time to save again."
Then, I have three additional save files that I usually name "Extra Save One", "Extra Save Two", and "Extra Save Three". I use these to make saves before doing something dangerous that I'm not sure I'm ready for or that I have a bad feeling about doing, and after accomplishing quests or game objectives. I rotate among them regularly. I also usually back up my main save file at the end of a play session in "Extra Save One".
I've found autosaves to be next to useless in older games, because they don't do it nearly often enough. Newer games are getting better about autosaving more important points in the game, giving them a better chance to save play hours if something goes wrong for the player.
Managing those five slots per run has worked well for me. I don't like to go over the five and wind up with dozens or even hundreds of saves in my save folders, though, because then I lose track of what they all are for, and I can't find anything. So, I regularly clean out my save folders. If I haven't played a character in so long that I don't remember what I was doing with it, or where in the game I was with it, I delete all the saves associated with that character.
But the ''official'' ones are only three. It gets tiring to have to click the ''Save'' button everytime I want to make a safe save, so I'm an adept of the ''Quick Save'' key command xD I overwrite the files all the time, but if I ever want to save something just in case it goes the wrong way, or I regret having chosen certain options or done certain things, then I make a safe save I make sure not to overwrite because of habit. I use Auto-Save as well, but only when that certain event I want to go back to if regretting actions, isn't that important
I've finished BG2 3 times so far. The first playthrough of a game always gets the most saves, as I don't know what will happen I save more often the first time around. I do 'clean-up' of saves once every so often to stop loading times from getting too long.
My first playthrough counts 948 saves, the second 932 saves and the third one 838 saves
Ps:T -> Hundreds or more than saves per run, Quick Save a LOT to avoid losing progress on crashes.
BG(2):EE -> One save per run, use Quick Save during session, real save later or whenever I want (as the game progresses, I save less as it takes more time, because the .sav file is bigger).
BGT -> One save per run, abuse Quick Save to be on the safe side if the game crashes.
No-reload BGT -> One save per run, I only save at the end of the session, Quick Save a lot 'cause it's BGT.
IwD:EE -> More than one save per run (I have 3 right now), save a lot, Quick Save even if I don't need to (it's my first time, that's why).
If I'm testing, I usually don't even save ;p
And for non-Infinity Engine games, too...
Divinity - Original Sin -> One save slot, rely on the many autosaves, save before getting in combat and after.
Pillars of Eternity -> Shitloads of saves. It just makes so much autosaves I didn't bother to search for my previous save to overwrite it, so I have a lot of saves so far (and I started the game two days ago...).