Manual saves for singleplayer

[TheSnives]

There are so many cool and dangerous things to do in ark but that's the thing, its dangerous. I play singleplayer, and i dont play the game very seriously. So i dont want to have to grind for new gear/dinos when i die, especially if im riding my best dino. Unfortunately, this has forced me into a passive playstyle. I have never even attempted a boss due to fear of losing my dinos that i spent 100 hours raising. I also cheat many times throughout a single play session so that i dont die. Bosses and caves and exploring deadly environments are about half of the entire game, and ive barely even attempted them because im too afraid to die, which is a real shame. All this hiding and relying on cheats also makes the game really boring, kinda like minecraft on peaceful mode, theres no point, no challenge. 

          Currently, the game automatically saves at intervals while youre playing, and this is fine, but it means you have no control over when or where the game saves. I think if there was an option for singleplayer servers to turn off automatic saving then it would eliminate the fear of losing your stuff and it would give players like me a chance to take a risk and not lose hours of work if i die. 

         Heres a scenario. Im playing on aberration and its my first time exploring the irradiated area. There are 2 reaper queens up ahead. Ive never fought a reaper queen before so i dont know how strong they are. So instead of risking it all and just fighting them, i decide to cheat and delete them so i dont die. I did this because i dont have a backup save, i have nothing to catch me if i fail. Now, imagine i have auto saving off, i manually saved right before going into the area. I see the two reaper queens and fight them, knowing that i have a save to go back to if i die. I start fighting them and sure enough, i get killed. I simply reload my save and avoid the reaper queens. I didnt feel the need to cheat to keep my progress and i already had more fun in two minutes than i usually have in two hours of playing ark. 

      For me, the risk of dying is too great. I MIGHT kill that boss and get a ton of good loot but i will PROBABLY die, lose my 10 rexes that took me 20 hours to tame, and i will need to get a bunch more materials. Having a save would lessen the impact of failure and would allow more casual gamers like me to take risks and have fun. I would much rather abuse the save system then just type in a cheat and watch the big scary monster disappear.

[Maccster1891]

Use "cheat saveworld", and you can manually save your game

 

Have fun!

[TheSnives]

7 hours ago, Maccster1891 said:

Use "cheat saveworld", and you can manually save your game

 

Have fun!

I know. By manual save i mean something like skyrim or fallout. If you use saveworld then you cant go back to the save if you die.

[Pipinghot]

On 1/3/2018 at 12:10 AM, TheSnives said:

All this hiding and relying on cheats also makes the game really boring, kinda like minecraft on peaceful mode, theres no point, no challenge.

No one can fix that but you. You make the choice to use cheats and then you complain that the game is boring with "no challenge" because... your using cheats. You can't have it both ways, if you want a challenge, then you have to accept the risk of dying and losing things, that's simply how ARK works. Since you're playing in single player you have completely control over how easy or challenging the game is for you, no one else can do anything about this for you.

Or maybe this just isn't your kind of game. Maybe you should be playing WoW, or Rift, or any of the many games where you don't actually lose anything when you die. But if you want to play ARK, well then you have to take responsibility for your choices. If you want it to be more challenging, then make it more challenging - and that means take risks and maybe lose things sometimes.

It's not like you can ever truly lose in singleplayer if you don't want to, you have much more control over the game than most games that are designed and sold as single player games. Even if things go horribly, horribly wrong you can just use admin commands to summon new dinos and equipment. Or you can adjust your settings so that you can breed dino's super fast, and then you can breed more good dinos based on the ones you already have.

Currently, the game automatically saves at intervals while youre playing, and this is fine, but it means you have no control over when or where the game saves. I think if there was an option for singleplayer servers to turn off automatic saving then it would eliminate the fear of losing your stuff and it would give players like me a chance to take a risk and not lose hours of work if i die.

In your the GameUserSettings.ini file there is a setting, "AutoSavePeriodMinutes" that you can use to change the frequency. If you set it to AutoSavePeriodMinutes=1440 (for example) it will only autosave once per day, and then you can manually use the "admincheat saveworld" whenever you want to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RasFW]

I think what he is asking for is an ability to make multiple saves like a skyrim game. Like, before you murder the whole town and go down in a blaze of glory, you save then go back to it.

It's not cheating in any sense of the word and it's not an unreasonable request. 

 

Setting the save interval to something stupid high would probably work, but he would have to remember to manually save his progress. Could result in more frustration than gain.

He is also limited by only one save.

[DizzyDo]

Sounds like your trying to remove what little risk there is and yet complain if its too easy.  If you want to go out exploring just carry the basics on you that way if you die and can't retrieve your stuff your not risking much, leave you guns and 200+ trank darts at home.  Replacing armor and basic metal tools and weapons doesn't take much resouces so not much risk anyway.  Loosing a bulbdog, big deal they are everywhere, don't explore with your highest level.  Use sleeping bags, lay one right before doing something risky so its easier to try and get you stuff.

[TheSnives]

3 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

No one can fix that but you. You make the choice to use cheats and then you complain that the game is boring with "no challenge" because... your using cheats.

I agree. This is mostly a problem that i have, im just looking for a way to not use cheats as much.

 

2 hours ago, RasFW said:

I think what he is asking for is an ability to make multiple saves like a skyrim game. Like, before you murder the whole town and go down in a blaze of glory, you save then go back to it.

It's not cheating in any sense of the word and it's not an unreasonable request.

This is exactly what I meant.

 

3 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

In your the GameUserSettings.ini file there is a setting, "AutoSavePeriodMinutes" that you can use to change the frequency. If you set it to AutoSavePeriodMinutes=1440 (for example) it will only autosave once per day, and then you can manually use the "admincheat saveworld" whenever you want to

Can you do this on console?

[Uueerdo]

2 hours ago, DizzyDo said:

Sounds like your trying to remove what little risk there is and yet complain if its too easy.

The thing is difficulty and risk are not directly related. One can want a challenge without risking hours or possibly days worth of work. You might have a nice team of rexes going into a boss fight, but end up getting wiped due to unfamiliarity with the fight's mechanics. Instead of trying again quickly, you now have to rebuild the team. A save point could remedy this; and it wouldn't negate the difficulty, just the lost effort invested.

Of course, the real problem with having such a save system is how Ark currently saves the game state; with more than a few of them, some people could start running out of hard drive space.

[Salba]

The problem with the saveworld thing is that ark saves when you quit out so it is essentially useless on its own. On pc it is relatively easy to make multiple saves but you have to do it by copying your world data to another location and then overwriting the current world data with previously saved data if you want to go back. 

Considering you asked about console for another suggestion I did a quick google search and it looks like you could use a usb stick to copy your world data. This may mean that if you want a hard save you would have to quit the game to copy the data. (On pc you just saveworld and then alt tab out to copy). 

Hope this helps, or at least gives you a direction to start searching for your own answers.

[DarthaNyan]

5 hours ago, Salba said:

The problem with the saveworld thing is that ark saves when you quit out so it is essentially useless on its own.

can be avoided if you use "exit" console command to close the game, it is also instant. Just remember to "saveworld" beforehand.

[Pipinghot]

16 hours ago, TheSnives said:

Can you do this on console?

I don't know the answer to that, I play on PC. Hopefully someone with console experience will see this thread and help you with that question.

[AngrySaltire]

A save game button in the menu would definitely be beneficial for single player and not just for saving before pulling a risky move. For me it would be good to save progress, too many times I have lost a good mutation or a good bp because the game crashes and goes back about 30 mins.. atm I force a save through commands when I get good stuff  which is great but still need to open the admin commands too tempting lol

[TheSnives]

13 hours ago, AngrySaltire said:

 For me it would be good to save progress, too many times I have lost a good mutation or a good bp because the game crashes and goes back about 30 mins.

Yeah that's happened to me a few times, not that often though.

 

On 1/5/2018 at 9:30 PM, DarthaNyan said:

can be avoided if you use "exit" console command to close the game, it is also instant. Just remember to "saveworld" beforehand.

Huh, didn't know about that one.

 

On 1/5/2018 at 4:20 PM, Salba said:

Considering you asked about console for another suggestion I did a quick google search and it looks like you could use a usb stick to copy your world data. This may mean that if you want a hard save you would have to quit the game to copy the data. (On pc you just saveworld and then alt tab out to copy). 

Hope this helps, or at least gives you a direction to start searching for your own answers.

Yeah I guess if I was obsessed with keeping my dinos in case I die to a boss I could use a usb but I can just put up with arks current save system.

Thanks for everyone's comments/suggestions. It'd be great if wildcard added a save system like Skyrim's but ultimately the save system isnt that bad and I'll just put up with it☺.