Syntax
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Having just played RH: 1N, 1E (the one with 40 odd golems and big golems), I have no desire to ever play it from scratch again. However, it would be nice to restore to some point during my battle and perhaps optimise from there.

Having since then crossed the room several times, the 5 Xs have been hit and I was reminded with how difficult it sometimes is to preserve previous saves (ie avoid hitting Xs after conquering the room). If I watch my demo, say, and spot a mistake in the last few moves, I'd now have to start over and re-enact my previous attempt up to that point before being able to fix my mistake.

Now, unless I'm mistaken, there's no longer any way for me to restore to when I hit an X during one of my demos. My request would therefore to be to save all checkpoint info within the demo data and be able to restore to there. For security sake, this would only be possible if the demo was owned by the player (I realise this will never be 100% secure but it's a start).

The other alternative would be to allow to restore to the Conquer token (and would make this element more "useful"). This type of restore would also have the checkpoint info of all previously hit checkpoints hit when making that demo and would cycle through them with 'r'. A conquer token's "memory" would not be over-ridden by touching it when passing through a room as is currently the case with checkpoints.

schep
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That data is already in demos. It should be possible to add a button to the Demos screen which restores you to the end of a demo (minus one move if it ends on exiting the room) if created by the current player. Would that cover what you want here?

I'm not going to touch the question of whether this is a good idea, since I still don't really understand why we don't have UU. This would pretty much equate to a Save-Anywhere feature, which I guess has also been a bit controversial at times.

Syntax
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Yeah that would work. It's still different from save anywhere as you could only restore to checkpoints you'd touched whilst making that demo...

eytanz
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Since Schep misunderstood Syntax and then Syntax appeared to agree with Schep, I'd like to clarify what is being proposed:

- Syntax is proposing that you could restore to checkpoint states in demos, basically as a way of going around the fact that the restore screen only lets you restore to the last time you hit the checkpoint.

- Schep thought that Syntax is re-suggesting the old "restore to the end of a demo" feature request, which turns demos into full saves independent of the checkpoint system.

I see no harm in implementing Syntax's suggestion, though I can't shake the feeling there should be a simpler way to get the same effect (not that I have any ideas, mind you).

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Dolan42
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How about allowing restores to the end(or rather end -1) of victory demos. That would allow restoring back to every checkpoint stepped on during that demo and would not allow UU.

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eytanz
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That's more limiting, because it would only work for rooms you solved. So it would be good for optimizing, but little else.

A full implementation of Syntax's suggestions would allow the following - there's a room I don't know how to solve. It has a checkpoint somewhere that's easy to reach. I play a bit and hit the checkpoint, but then I'm not sure how to proceed. So I can press F4, save a demo, and replay the room in a different way, again hitting the checkpoint. But now, if I decide that my first attempt was in fact correct, I can use the demo to restore from the old checkpoint state without having to replay the beginning of the room.

This is not a "save anywhere" option, but it increases the utility of checkpoints considerably, more than limiting it to victory demos. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your POV, of course. I like it - it reduces time wasting and potential tedium of replays while still keeping control over where you save in the hands of the architect.

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[Last edited by eytanz at 05-09-2007 03:45 PM]

Banjooie
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eytanz wrote:
That's more limiting, because it would only work for rooms you solved. So it would be good for optimizing, but little else.

Theoretically, it helps in rooms that affect other rooms--you know, when the architecture build is fuzzy socompleting rooms in the wrong order makes the hold unsolvable.

Syntax
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eytanz wrote:
That's more limiting, because it would only work for rooms you solved. So it would be good for optimizing, but little else.

A full implementation of Syntax's suggestions would allow the following - there's a room I don't know how to solve. It has a checkpoint somewhere that's easy to reach. I play a bit and hit the checkpoint, but then I'm not sure how to proceed. So I can press F4, save a demo, and replay the room in a different way, again hitting the checkpoint. But now, if I decide that my first attempt was in fact correct, I can use the demo to restore from the old checkpoint state without having to replay the beginning of the room.

This is not a "save anywhere" option, but it increases the utility of checkpoints considerably, more than limiting it to victory demos. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your POV, of course. I like it - it reduces time wasting and potential tedium of replays while still keeping control over where you save in the hands of the architect.

Thanks for clarifying my point. I meant as you suggest. I believe this feature would reduce frustration with some longer/complex rooms.