Multiple Save files

[ut1stgear]

Have been toying with the idea of trying to break my saves down to saves for each path. Meaning do the Bar and save as I go along then Export that file under say Bar saves. Then do the same for the Club scene. Then as I play through each path import the file for that path. Is it worth the effort to do that or would it have to much of an affect when following the other path?

[JFR]

I started doing the same thing. However, Wolfschadowe has suggested that the new character inclusions will likely "break" many of the old savegames. For example, the saves at the end of the strip club/diner scene would probably be made invalid by the new scenes with Azumi that are being added to those paths. Same for the office scenes with Jasmine. Based on that, I have been sorting my saves and only keeping those that I know won't include the new characters, such as the bar scenes with Faith and Emily. Everything else I'll just go back to a point before the new characters appear and save there. I'm not even sure that will be of any value. It may be that a complete restart from the beginning will work best. We'll have to see. Exported completed achievements should still be ok although there may be some new sub-achievements added that will have to be cleared to keep the old major achievements. It is all a little confusing.

[kexter]

Is it worth the effort to do that or would it have to much of an affect when following the other path?

It shouldn't cause any issues and it might help you keep saves a bit more organized if you have 100+ of them but I don't think it's worth the effort. Also keep in mind that if you're logged in to the forum and open the game in the same browser then the save syncing feature will make it hard for you to keep separate sets since if you import a set of saves it merges it with the current set.

I have been sorting my saves and only keeping those that I know won't include the new characters, such as the bar scenes with Faith and Emily.

Don't do that. Keep all the saves you have, the game will be smart enough to tell you which saves are invalid, refuse to load them, or even drop them automatically. The exact behavior is undetermined at this point.

[ut1stgear]

I have thought about this for a while but never did it. After reading the same posts by Wolfshadowe I decided to make this topic. After this next release it may be something to consider more seriously. However, I don't think the achievements will be affected. In the past I noticed that once you accomplished an achievement it stayed. New releases did add some new sub-achievements but didn't invalidate any previous ones. Just added something to do for one of the earlier scenes.

I also think that at this point saving the Bar path up to rel 5 should be safe since the inclusions for rel 6 don't appear to affect that path. Although including the eighth female might do so since it appears she is in the first bonus scene. That is the biggest question mark for the bar scene. Meaning the Wednesday bar scene. There will be more opportunities to visit the bar in later episodes.

Might be a good idea to keep more than one save and achievement file. One for where you are at and one for where you have been (ie new save/achievement and old save/achievement) just to be sure.

[ut1stgear]

Is it worth the effort to do that or would it have to much of an affect when following the other path?

It shouldn't cause any issues and it might help you keep saves a bit more organized if you have 100+ of them but I don't think it's worth the effort. Also keep in mind that if you're logged in to the forum and open the game in the same browser then the save syncing feature will make it hard for you to keep separate sets since if you import a set of saves it merges it with the current set.

I have been sorting my saves and only keeping those that I know won't include the new characters, such as the bar scenes with Faith and Emily.

Don't do that. Keep all the saves you have, the game will be smart enough to tell you which saves are invalid, refuse to load them, or even drop them automatically. The exact behavior is undetermined at this point.

Thanks for that info kexter. I seem to remember you saying you were working on something like that sometime ago but can't remember where it is.

I have just over 100 saves at this point and only up to but not including Thursday Office morning and afternoon but does include both the bar and club paths. Speaking of which. As I was importing saves at one point I had well over 100 saves due to the game duplicating my saves. I had to go through the saves and delete the dups so I ended up wit less than 100. I have imported saves since then and it hasn't happened again so must be fixed.

[JFR]

...

I have been sorting my saves and only keeping those that I know won't include the new characters, such as the bar scenes with Faith and Emily.

Don't do that. Keep all the saves you have, the game will be smart enough to tell you which saves are invalid, refuse to load them, or even drop them automatically. The exact behavior is undetermined at this point.

Good to know. Thanks for the info. Thankfully I have copies of all my old saves in a separate folder so can recreate any I deleted. The trick, as always, is to create discrete save-game file names that I can still understand a few months later.

[JFR]

... I have just over 100 saves at this point ...

Wow! I only have about 1/3 that and I thought I was being obsessive-compulsive.

[ut1stgear]

... I have just over 100 saves at this point ...

Wow! I only have about 1/3 that and I thought I was being obsessive-compulsive.

lol. I just save it at points I think I might want to come back to. Such as when you have to decide whether to branch to the Natalie corruption path and when you set up to call Azumi just before the diner. I do use a walkthrough when I get stuck on a path though. For instance got stuck getting second bonus and new I had to finish Pole Player to get it. Had to follow the walkthrough for each Pole Player requirement. Ended up having to do all but one of them before I found the right one. Guess that might qualify as OCD but in RL I am anything but OCD.

I have had to recreate saves and achievements about 4 times due to comp problems that thankfully got fixed with Win 10 and replacing motherboard and hard drive. Now I can play both online and offline and bypass playing from PF1 since the game isn't kept up-to-date on it. So I am the 5th time doing that.

Almost decided to quit playing because of that.

[Wolfschadowe]

I'm making a strong effort to try and keep all save files as valid, and have found solutions to many of my concerns.

Here's one example. When playing through the Jasmine Inclusion, there will be opportunities to score relationship points. Associated with some relationship points are reputation points, which affect the score for Emily and everyone else as well. This could cause Emily's score to become higher than expected on some relationship checks, making it possible to pass some that otherwise would be impossible. This could cause a "Path jump" to an unexpected route, breaking continuity, especially since some variables are re-used across multiple paths. This misaligned variables could cascade causing errors, and similar.

I can't easily increase the threshold for the relationship checks to account for the Jasmine Inclusion because that would then cause problems for players that have saves just before the checks, but after the new content, who missed out on those reputation points from the Jasmine Inclusion, thus we could call that scenario an invalid save. In this case, the solution is to prevent reputation points from accruing during the new content, limiting them to only relationship points.

As for a recommended number of save games....Well, it depends on if you want to see all the content, or to just see the major paths. It would really be a rolling set. Those with at least Lunch access can look at the Bored thread chart I posted a few days ago. Each box at the end of a scene could be considered a minimum save point. So From that chart, focusing on Emily, There would be two saves at the end of Wednesday office. Six saves at the end of the Wednesday Bar (Reminder: This is only Emily. This doesn't count Faith oriented saves). These Bar saves could replace the Wednesday Office saves. Next would be six saves at the end of the Thursday Morning coffee, Seven saves at the end of the Thursday Office, (9 if you include major branches along with main paths), I'm going to jump past the late afternoon here, and say that after the Thursday night date, one would need 8 saves for Emily main paths, or 24 saves for all the major branches. Assume Faith would be similar, so for both Emily and Faith, that's 16-48 saves. Add Natalie for 24-72 Saves. Add about 4 for Sere since she's not too active yet, and...well, you're starting to get the idea. Back up your saves everyone!

[ut1stgear]

Thanks Wolfshadowe and will back up my save file now. Good information.

[ut1stgear]

I have now started to start saving games as I complete a path such as Club elite and club on the corruption path and do it in-game. Once I think Wednesday paths are complete I will delete any saves no longer needed and do the same for the bar path. Not sure at this point if EP6 will complete Wednesday or not since there will probably be changes to the club path relating to Azumi. Going forward I will try to do the same for each day. My assumption is that after the inclusions there will not be a need to change previous content in the game. At least not changes that will affect the major paths.

That means that both the bar and club paths will need to be completed through Wednesday night before I start deleting saves.

I hope this isn't flawed thinking.

[Sebastian]

OMG New computer means I need to redo all my saves

[Wolfschadowe]

OMG New computer means I need to redo all my saves

They should be backed up on the server. If playing online, they should load in automatically. If playing offline, enable the online features and they should restore.

[Sebastian]

Only the ones that were currently on the server updated. All the ones that were exported into my organization system did not but that's what I thought would happen. Gives me something to do till the end of November

[JFR]

Since this seems to be the place for "Save-Game" discussion, I thought I'd drop a hint for newer players from something that has become apparent after several episode updates. Take it as a kindly "word to the wise."

In case you haven't figured it out yet, be sure to create "save-games" at what seem to be "bad endings" in addition to the more obvious "good endings" which seem to point toward continuing paths. A number of us have found several continuing story-lines or stubs to future story-lines at what seem to be disastrous points in the story. An example that Wolf gave in another thread is the point where Brad gets thrown out of the strip club by the bartender after breaking the rules. That seems like a "Bad End - Game Over" point but it actually has some intriguing potential. Another that I found is the point where Brad gets in "trouble" with Azumi at the strip club. There are others like this at other points throughout the story. We will probably have little idea what actions will lead forward as new episodes come out. Wolfschadowe is a bit demented about this sort of thing.

Don't neglect the bad endings. They just might lead to interesting actions in later episodes.