Gameplay Mod (GZDoom) Simple Saving - a mod to create a balanced resource-based save system

[sarge945]

 

After being spoiled by games like Dark Souls with complex, resource-based save systems, I have started to find "save anywhere" systems more and more imbalanced over time. As my Doom skill level has increased, I have also found maps in general much easier, and free saving has been part of the reason why - if I do particularly badly in a fight, I can usually reload, and within another 1-2 tries, I can usually crack it with a decent amount of health remaining. I find this often leads to an overabundance of health and ammo on maps, and I am trying to break the muscle memory that I (and I assume a lot of others) have surrounding mashing the quicksave/quickload keys as a get out of jail free card.

 

The entire Doom community seems to have had this realisation as well, with many modern mapsets containing hundreds of enemies per map and generally being very hard - as the skill level increases, so does the incentive to save repeatedly, which undermines the difficulty of the harder mapsets, resulting in even harder maps over time.

 

One day, to try and get around this, I simply unbound my quicksave key and tried to limit myself with saving. But having only one autosave at the start of a given level was a bit too punishing and I was still very tempted to save from the menu when I was in particularly dire situations. With some mapsets containing 200+ enemies per map, it was very tedious and frustrating to lose up to an hour of play after dying towards the end of a map. This was a solution, but it was very rough and wasn't a good option for larger maps.

 

As a result, I decided to make my own mod. Judging by this absolute shitshow of a thread, the ZDoom developers seem pretty averse to the idea, to the point of actively refusing to allow such a feature, so I had to hack my way around the (frankly unreasonable) limitations of the engine. As a result, there's currently no way to actually disable saving in gzdoom. However, there are ways to limit the most obvious save abuse. This mod removes the main menu save game option, and provides an alternate quicksave key, which will create a save, but only if you have the prerequisite item, which drops from enemies. It's a little bit hacky, and requires you to rebind your quicksave key to the save function of this mod, because the original quicksave key behaviour can't be disabled. This is likely something that will never change, and there's nothing I can do about it. Saving via the console and through some other means is still possible, and some scripted maps that use the ACS Autosave function will still be able to save the game. If you are willing to go to that length to cheat the system, there's nothing I can do about it.

 

The mod is very configurable, and you can control the number of save items that drop per map, as well as which maps the item should drop on. The default settings should be pretty good, but you're free to tweak the difficulty for your own skill level. For larger maps or TC's like Ashes, I recommend increasing the number of saves per map to 5, to prevent losing lots of progress while still requiring you to play through your mistakes.

 

For the intended experience, please go to the mod menu (Options->Simple Saving) and bind the mods quicksave key to the key you would normally use to quicksave. You should also change "autosave mode" to "scripts only" if you wish to not autosave at the start of every level. Do not set autosave to "disabled" as this mod requires script saving for it's quicksave key to work.

 

You can download the mod here on github. An optional Brutal Doom patch is also available, which will fix the missing "Brutal Doom Options" menu item, and should be used alongside the mod. Do not use the Brutal Doom patch if you're not playing Brutal Doom! Please report any issues in this thread or on the issues page.

 

This mod should be loaded after any other mods. It's likely to be compatible with everything Including other gameplay mods, except mods that extensively change the main menu (graphical menu changes are okay), which will require patches. It has been extensively tested with Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Strife, and Ashes: Enriched/Afterglow. It should work with any megawad for any of these games as well.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2024 by sarge945
Minor rewrite to improve readability.

[purplerihno83]

Hell yes! Say no to savescuming and save abuse in general.

[Nevander]

There's nothing wrong with saving anywhere whenever you want. I'm sick and tired of people trying to decide how the player wants to play. I always hated it in games where I'm at the mercy of badly placed checkpoints or an inability to play at my own pace in favor of a more casual experience. Thank God for games with manual saving.

[ParadoX6891]

First of all, i want to say, that your idea with this mod is brilliant. I growed up on PSX Doom and want to say, that abusing save feature - is for casuals, that don't want to be careful and accurate. Don't listen anyone's crying about it's difficulty. I think, you made only one mistake - that name, "Simple Saving" completely doesn't fit and doesn't make sense. You should name it something like "hardcore saving".
Also, i have couple of ideas for implementation. Will be good, if you make couple of skins (variants) of those save artefacts. For example, Doom's tech style better matched with some PDA (maybe Doom 3 PDA?). Just an idea to think about.

Spoiler

This sprite from "Doom 3 PDA / Music Changer" topic by esajaxa on zdoom forums is good example about what i meaning.

 

[wackenblight]

I was looking for something like this to make checkpoints feel more rewarding, like finding a bonfire in Dark Souls . 

I'm wondering is it possible to have the ankh drop after you kill x number of enemies, and have the count carry over to the subsequent maps?

So you set it to 100, kill 50 enemies in the first map, 50 in the next and then it drops.

Would also be cool if doomguy dropped a physical checkpoint item on the ground when you use it but thats just being fancy

 

[sarge945]

On 11/14/2022 at 12:50 AM, wackenblight said:

I was looking for something like this to make checkpoints feel more rewarding, like finding a bonfire in Dark Souls . 

I'm wondering is it possible to have the ankh drop after you kill x number of enemies, and have the count carry over to the subsequent maps?

So you set it to 100, kill 50 enemies in the first map, 50 in the next and then it drops.

Would also be cool if doomguy dropped a physical checkpoint item on the ground when you use it but thats just being fancy

 

It should be possible to store the amount in a console variable. I might just do this.

[Underqualified_Gunman]

made a reskin of the save item to be misato's cross from evangelion. thanks for your mod by the way it works quite well with hideous destructor and auto auto save.

misato_cross.zip

[sarge945]

I have massively updated this mod (the link in the OP should still work). I have fixed a LOT of issues and added many features, so I highly recommend anyone who uses this should upgrade. I no longer consider this WIP or POC, it basically works completely.

 

The Brutal Patch fixes the missing "Brutal Doom Options" entry in the main menu when playing Brutal Doom. Don't use it if you're not using Brutal Doom!

 

@Underqualified_Gunman I have implemented your alternate version as an optional style in the newest release. If you don't like that, I can remove it.

 

The only thing currently missing before I consider this complete is a Strife style. Different styles can also have different pickup and use sounds, so some new sounds for some of the styles might be interesting/fun too.

 

If anyone would be interested in contributing a fitting Strife sprite for this, or anyone has any ideas for sounds to use on some of the styles, I would be happy to credit you in the credits file. I am also VERY open to suggestions on the existing styles, I don't particularly like the Doom ones, maybe they can be improved.

[Underqualified_Gunman]

Feel free to keep it in, I'm glad it's easier for others to use now.