NoAutosave mapinfo hint

[Kate]

Note that this would not disable autosaving all together, only the optional one at the beginning of a level.

The main reason for this request is because I have an intermission level that gets visited every time a normal level is finished, in which autosaving is essentially completely useless since the player is guaranteed to never be able to die there since all it is is a 60-second transition scene to the next level like the real intermission, so I want to be able to tell the game that it shouldn't bother autosaving on the intermission stage but still allow it to save at the start of the actual game stages once the map exits to the real next map.

This would also be useful for levels that begin with a cutscene and you don't want to waste an autosave on it only to autosave again at the actual start of the stage itself.

[Xaser]

Before someone posts the inevitable "But what if someone uses it for a regular map?" question, that's easily remedied by also adding a "forceautosave" cvar or another level to "disableautosave," since such a solution works for the crouching/jumping issue.

There's been a couple of scenes where I'd have liked to use an intermission map like this, but have decided against it because of the autosave business. Though I did it anyway for TcA's "MISCOMP" map, even though it's a complete waste of an autosave.

[Salad Viking]

This is a fine feature suggestion.

I think we need to be more lax about people abusing features. Sure, someone could use HudMessage to spout profanities at the player, or someone could put so many sprites on the screen that it crashes computers, but if someone abuses a feature, people simply won't play that mod. As long as it won't affect anything after the player quits the game, there's no problem in simply adding another CVAR to disable it.

[Graf Zahl]

This is a fine feature suggestion.

I think we need to be more lax about people abusing features.

No, we should not, in particular when it comes to features that could be abused to cripple the user's preferences. WADs that do shit internally are another matter but when it comes to saving I will not add anything that can potentially be used to block user preferences without an override.

The farthest I am willing to go here is to still save but not advance the autosave slot so that the next legitimate autosave will simply overwrite the current one. Plus, add a check that will disable it if set for each map in the set.

Don't forget that you are messing around with your user's expectations here. For example, imagine someone who relies on autosaves and takes a break from playing when the new level has started. With this proposition he would not be able to continue as expected because the savegame is not there.

[Enjay]

I think that this suggestion shares some territory with a wider ranging request that I made some time ago that could be used to make maps that are still mentioned in the usual MAPINFO progression but which shared some features with TITLEMAP-like behaviour. This could allow neater ending maps, intermission maps, cutscene maps...

[Kate]

I'd have to disagree with you, Graf. I..I mean, this is getting ridiculous.

It comes down to a matter of trust between the player and the mapper. It always has been this way, even since 1994 before ZDoom was ever conceived as an idea. This is not asking for a virus-creating feature that can ruin your hard drive. This is not even a [wiki=http://zdoom.org/wiki/Compatibility_options]terminally horrible hack (compat_soundslots) that is never used[/wiki]. It's a simple feature to allow skipping creating saves in a place where you know saves are not actually going to be needed, a fairly common thing when you're dealing with a game involving cutscenes. It's simple. (How could you fuck that up?)

What's stopping the mapper from having a background script spam the Autosave call every tic to essentially make the system completely useless since ZDoom only has a limited number of save slots and pretty much force the player to turn it off all together? Absolutely nothing, and there's no difference between that and abusing a feature like this. If they decide to disable autosaving for every map they're obviously fully aware they're being a dick and a half and deserve to have their level stamped with the 0 stars of utter failure and warnings to stay away. It's not like the community is completely [censored word].

It's not the engine's fault people are douche bags, not everyone that makes a map is a total asshole, and it shouldn't have to be 100% retard-proof and organizationally lacking and messy because of it. You should trust that the mapper knows what's best for their map, and if the player doesn't find it fun, they can, you know, not play the map because it quite obviously does not deserve to be played or mentioned in any good light.

That being said, it's not like anyone thought of an option to force autosaving, I mean it's not like there's a [wiki=http://zdoom.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_options]similarly named console cvar and menu option that does the opposite of that[/wiki] or anything like that...

[Graf Zahl]

I'd have to disagree with you, Graf. I..I mean, this is getting ridiculous.

It comes down to a matter of trust between the player and the mapper.

No, in this case it comes down to what the player expects. I expect a valid autosave after each level. Regardless of what the next level is. So if some level does not autosave because a mapper thinks it isn't necessary it means that I as the user am not asked how the game should behave. I want my autosaves also in intermission levels.

[Kate]

Then why not just have an option to force saving? Then both sides of the equasion are solved and it's still left to the user in the end.

I expect a save where a save is needed, extra saves in places where they're not is just being messy and unnecessarily hard drive and cpu busy, not to mention it expires any previous autosaves that were made before it, essentially making the system somewhat useless since you only have a limited number of slots. In my case it turns four previous map saves into two because two get overridden with a useless one at the start of the intermission map that will never get used since it saves again right after the transition. These aren't even needed since the transition is 60 seconds long and has no monsters or even any interaction at all.

Edit: You know what? If it really comes down to it, I'll just have ACS call Autosave again at the start of the actual level after the transition and just warn the player that unless they switch autosave off in the menu, they'll be unnecessarily spammed with two unneeded saves at the start of each level.

If you really think that's how it should work then fine, I won't try to argue because you're apparently the Word of God itself and know infinitely more about how the entirity of the ZDoom community itself works than anyone else on the entire forum does, or at least that's what I'm getting from your messages. If the user has complaints, then screw the user. Alright, chief, close at will.

[Graf Zahl]

That tone won't work here.

[Salad Viking]

Oh shit. I might've said something wrong.

But anyways, in my original post...

As long as it won't affect anything after the player quits the game, there's no problem in simply adding another CVAR to disable it.

If it can screw with people's configurations (console command ACS function) or delete saves or something crazy like that, then I can understand a feature being turned down. What I was trying to say was that instead of expecting players to be complete snobs who will send you angry letters if every banal feature can't be overridden by the player, you should consider them to be competent human beings. Not everything needs to be in complete control of the player, so there's no reason at all why the inclusion of a feature should come into question if a handful of people might be slightly annoyed by it.

As said above me, there is a level of trust between the mapper and the player: if the mapper decides he wants to do some Mock-style retardation to ruin your game, then people just won't play the wad! Someone could attach a virus to a wad, but you're not about to disable loading wads, are you?

So what I'm saying here is that sometimes, it's not the end of the world if the mapper can change something that the player may like the way it is. You're acting like the airport security in America: paranoid that someone might have a bomb in their box of crackers.

[Graf Zahl]

Huh?

I locked this for a reason. And I'm locking this again.

This thread comes close to developer harassment and that's something I really, really do not tolerate. Case closed.

[wildweasel]

This is not harassment. This is a valid point. Why should the autosaves get cluttered with an intermission map?

[Graf Zahl]

I said 'close to harassment' but for me that's enough to end a decision. Especially if it comes from a user who has done it before. This is still a 'feature suggestions' forum, not 'feature demands'.

As for the feature, I have made up my mind about it and I clearly stated my opinion. I think it's ok to mark such an autosave as temporary until a 'proper' one gets created later. But I absolutely find it wrong not to create one at all and will never implement such an option.

[wildweasel]

I said 'close to harassment' but for me that's enough to end a decision. Especially if it comes from a user who has done it before. This is still a 'feature suggestions' forum, not 'feature demands'.

As for the feature, I have made up my mind about it and I clearly stated my opinion. I think it's ok to mark such an autosave as temporary until a 'proper' one gets created later. But I absolutely find it wrong not to create one at all and will never implement such an option.

I still see no harassment here.

[Graf Zahl]

Ok, I added as I described. You can set a 'noautosavehint' map flag. If this is set the initial autosave is still performed but the counter not increased so if another autosave is performed later on it will overwrite the flagged one.

I think this way everybody can be happy: You don't get spammed with useless autosaves but if a player chooses to abort the game right after starting a level with such a hint he'll still get a valid autosave there.

And this is inherently not abusable.