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Thursday, August 3, 2017

Developers should stop making saves non-backward compatible

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  3. Developers should stop making saves non-backward compatible
It has happened far too many times with me now.

I have overall two ps4's. One at my current place and other in my hometown (different country - my younger bro uses it when he is home).
My hometown has horrible internet speed so I no need to even think of playing online or downloading updates.

Whenever I go to my home for month or two, I take game saves on USB and try to resume them on other ps4.
But soo many games don't even accept a save game from newer version on old version of game installation.

They should stop doing this.
I know posting here won't help, but just want to know if there are others here facing similar problem..
(edited 1 day ago)quote
You'd need some might chunky sava data for it to allow for support for various patch levels and content discrepancies. The saves themselves would almost need to be standalone games or they could just use magic since that's the only your little issue would ever be solved.
It's geeks who really make or break a TV show or movie or videogame.
(edited 1 day ago)quote
nihilist212 1 day ago#3
So because YOU have this "issue", everything should change? 

Ok guy.
First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.
Kino 1 day ago#4
It causes a lot of technical and logical problems. Not going to happen.
What you are asking is almost impossible.
PSN: Shadowstrike002. Currently playing: FF12,undertale,Digimon new order
https://psnprofiles.com/ShadowStrike002
Alltra 1 day ago#6
There's a better solution:

They should just stop patching games.
The meaning of life is to suffer and be miserable.
Online is the worst thing to happen to gaming.
kyncani 1 day ago#7
Your best bet when moving between different places would be a handheld, a phone or a laptop IMO.
Alltra posted...
There's a better solution:

They should just stop patching games.


This is 2017, not 1917. Software and hardware will get patches. Also, the TC's issue applies to any form of content that has been added to the base game. Any change would render a save useless without said change.
It's geeks who really make or break a TV show or movie or videogame.
frost014 1 day ago#9
Can't you use an external? I haven't used one but maybe you can copy the updated game data on your ps4 to your external and use it on the other one?
Currently playing: Toukiden 2, Shadow of Mordor, Disgaea 5
Alltra 1 day ago#10
Should stop changing games too. I really do miss the days when a game would release, as is, and that was the end of it.
The meaning of life is to suffer and be miserable.
Online is the worst thing to happen to gaming.
Doyen 1 day ago#11
cool-aquarian posted...
It has happened far too many times with me now.

I have overall two ps4's. One at my current place and other in my hometown (different country - my younger bro uses it when he is home).
My hometown has horrible internet speed so I no need to even think of playing online or downloading updates.

Whenever I go to my home for month or two, I take game saves on USB and try to resume them on other ps4.
But soo many games don't even accept a save game from newer version on old version of game installation.

They should stop doing this.
I know posting here won't help, but just want to know if there are others here facing similar problem..


Simple. Download the update onto another USB drive and update the PS4 in the other country. I know; mind blown.
Alltra posted...
Should stop changing games too. I really do miss the days when a game would release, as is, and that was the end of it.

Yeah, the sweet days of games so buggy they're not broken but shattered.
First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.
Lollybomb 1 day ago#13
nihilist212 posted...
Alltra posted...
Should stop changing games too. I really do miss the days when a game would release, as is, and that was the end of it.

Yeah, the sweet days of games so buggy they're not broken but shattered.

Yep, and if they did patch anything, you had to pay full price for that patch.

Doyen posted...
Simple. Download the update onto another USB drive and update the PS4 in the other country. I know; mind blown.

Yeah, my mind is blown that you've figured out how to download game patches onto USB. Something Sony doesn't allow.
I would, but it violates an axiom I live by.
Never do anything phenomenally stupid.
(edited 1 day ago)quote
Alltra 1 day ago#14
nihilist212 posted...
Yeah, the sweet days of games so buggy they're not broken but shattered.


How many games exactly were like that? Cause I don't remember seeing a hell of a lot of games that were buggy to the point of being broken. The ones that were broken were so fucking awful that the bugs were the LEAST of their issues.
The meaning of life is to suffer and be miserable.
Online is the worst thing to happen to gaming.
rafamaximo 1 day ago#15
Dude, what you are asking is simply not feasible at all. Too many work, time and money spent on something that is simply NOT the standard and will NOT be used by 99,99% of gamers. 

You would be better off taking your own PS4 with you back home or simply trying to update your backup PS4 at home somehow.

Curious though (as I'm not from US too), where are you from?
Insert funny / cool / original / meaningful quote here.
Foppe 1 day ago#16
The first revision of Final Fantasy VI could crash if you used Relms Sketch attack.
The DOS port of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got a gap that you cant pass without using a cheatcode, which they never fixed.
The Atari 2600 port of Impossible Mission got an item that you need to pick up in order to open the last door behind the locked door.
et Set Willy, which was a big game back in the days, got a memory leak that killed you in some rooms that you need to pass. The programmer lied about it being poison gas a couple of years before confessing that it was a glitch.
Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Pac-man all got killscreens, which are impossible to beat levels.
Duck Hunt for Nes got a killscreen where the birds are flying too fast to be shot.

Etc etc.
GameFAQs isn't going to be merged in with GameSpot or any other site. We're not going to strip out the soul of the site. -CJayC
I'm going to disagree with TC on this one. What you're asking for is forwards compatibility, which is not only an unreasonable expectation in terms of technical implementation, it's also going to be an incredibly rare problem and therefore not worth the developer effort. When you download a game or an update, you cannot revert to an earlier version, so this only applies to people using 2 consoles, 1 of which has no internet. How rare must that be? You can't reasonably expect a newer versions save file to work on an older version of the game, when the older version knows nothing about how the game or the save file may have changed, what new features may have been added, what scripts may have been modified, etc.

OTOH, if the complaint was actually about backwards compatibility of saves, e.g. when a dev releases a GOTY type version of the game and it won't read the saves from the original game (I think Witcher 3 did this?), that is BS.
Put. That coffee. Down. Coffee's for closers only.
(edited 1 day ago)quote
Alltra posted...
nihilist212 posted...
Yeah, the sweet days of games so buggy they're not broken but shattered.


How many games exactly were like that? Cause I don't remember seeing a hell of a lot of games that were buggy to the point of being broken. The ones that were broken were so fucking awful that the bugs were the LEAST of their issues.

Most games today aren't broken either, that's the problem. Patches exist to fix all sorts of various issues, the vast majority of which don't remotely come close to breaking a game, but people love to spout bullshit about broken games.

Don't know how old you are, but just about every single NES game EVER is riddled with bugs. Games throughout history really with miserable frame drops, tearing, games freezing, saves vanishing, the list goes on and on and on.
First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.
NettoSaito 1 day ago#19
That's not how save files work. A simple example of a file is something like this

[Inventory]
Item=0
Quantity=0

Item=0 would be the first slot in the inventory, with the 0 being the ID of the item in that slot. In this case 0 being nothing. Now what if item ID 38462 is a DLC item that is now in place. How do you expect a game to read a save file with an ID of something that doesn't exist in the version you are playing on? Other DLC may even add their own new sections to the save file, or greatly alter how the save is laid out.

In short it's not really something you can convert backwards without making a new file. Which is exactly what you have to do.
PSN/XBL/NN - NettoSaito | 3DS - [1203-9218-7780]
Netto's Game Room - Reviews and what not - http://www.nettosgameroom.com
huyi 1 day ago#20
cool-aquarian posted...
It has happened far too many times with me now.

I have overall two ps4's. One at my current place and other in my hometown (different country - my younger bro uses it when he is home).
My hometown has horrible internet speed so I no need to even think of playing online or downloading updates.

Whenever I go to my home for month or two, I take game saves on USB and try to resume them on other ps4.
But soo many games don't even accept a save game from newer version on old version of game installation.

They should stop doing this.
I know posting here won't help, but just want to know if there are others here facing similar problem..


yeah these patches lock your save file behind previous patch versions so if you roll back and delete the game data and try to reload your save they will not work, what's even worse is if you play on a console with internet, update the game and then play without internet with game data v1.0 later you can never load those saves again as they will not work.

i don't think they will ever stop doing this either, what i do is copy the previous save before updating to another usb drive and then update so i can always roll back, maybe that is a idea that you can do but you have to take note which save file to load and from which drive, it is awkward doing this though.

Alltra posted...
There's a better solution:

They should just stop patching games.


not just stop but to stop the aggressive patching/ large patch sizes, they break too much things more than they fix them and your saves is a huge issue too.
UK Female Gamer
Who needs special edition consoles when you have this --> http://tinyurl.com/jxaf4j4 You don't have to buy it, it's optional m'kay.
(edited 1 day ago)quote
Alltra 21 hours ago#21
Patches would be fine if all they did was fix glitches. But when they go in and tweak mechanics in the name of balance, aka nerfs, or something in a similar vein, you're fundamentally changing what the game is. 

Some glitches don't need fixing either. Some, like the Bottomless Box Glitch in DkS, or the Vanish glitch in FFVI, are beneficial and enhance the game, even if they were unintentional.
The meaning of life is to suffer and be miserable.
Online is the worst thing to happen to gaming.
huyi 21 hours ago#22
Alltra posted...
Patches would be fine if all they did was fix glitches. But when they go in and tweak mechanics in the name of balance, aka nerfs, or something in a similar vein, you're fundamentally changing what the game is. 

Some glitches don't need fixing either. Some, like the Bottomless Box Glitch in DkS, or the Vanish glitch in FFVI, are beneficial and enhance the game, even if they were unintentional.


and to add to this, when they fix the exploits they still leave the game buggy and broken, it's like their upmost priority to fix the exploits first before they fix the bugs which is the whole point in the patches in the first place, this aggressive approach especially when they nerf weapons and items can be game breaking in some cases.
UK Female Gamer
Who needs special edition consoles when you have this --> http://tinyurl.com/jxaf4j4 You don't have to buy it, it's optional m'kay.
Alltra 17 hours ago#23
It's ultimately futile as well, because no matter how hard they try, they can't ever remove every exploit. Many times, the attempt creates new, sometimes worse exploits.

This whole situation reminds me of something my art teacher said to us in High School:

"Seeking perfection ruins the work"

As he explained it, there's always a flaw in any work. Scrutinizing your work for flaws, or trying to add more to it in an attempt to make it better, tends to ruin the work.
The meaning of life is to suffer and be miserable.
Online is the worst thing to happen to gaming.
(edited 17 hours ago)quote
SaveRem 17 hours ago#24
Is always been like that, there is prob something important for that
huyi 1 hour ago#25
Alltra posted...
It's ultimately futile as well, because no matter how hard they try, they can't ever remove every exploit. Many times, the attempt creates new, sometimes worse exploits.

This whole situation reminds me of something my art teacher said to us in High School:

"Seeking perfection ruins the work"

As he explained it, there's always a flaw in any work. Scrutinizing your work for flaws, or trying to add more to it in an attempt to make it better, tends to ruin the work.


LOL you should give this advice to game devs, spot on.
UK Female Gamer
Who needs special edition consoles when you have this --> http://tinyurl.com/jxaf4j4 You don't have to buy it, it's optional m'kay.
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