in-game exiting

[killybob]

i cannot count how many times i've been force to quit in the middle of a game against the AI for some reason or other, and been dismayed at the sight of my decreased stats because of the automatic loss.
i can easily see why zanz would make it an automatic loss and i completely agree with that decision, but, lets say your computer crashed right as you were about to EM the most productive FG out there. after either getting a little frustrated, or smashing the keyboard with relish, you would go back on and start grinding again wishing for better luck. now i'm not in any way suggesting that we take away the automatic loss rule, but, instead, the game, much like a word document, emergency saves your progress in the battle so you can carry on any time. if this has any major flaws in it like loading issues or memory space please say immediately, but i'm not convinced that this is very hard to set up and it would save a lot of people a lot of trouble and time.

[kitty45]

that would be good except.in top50 people will quit so they can get to a rare farm 

[zzz124]

how would one then prevent the player from quitting any time he's about to lose?

[killybob]

because the second he logs back into the game he must finish it.  i'm talking about quitting the whole thing not just the current battle. this way it'll help people who have to come off the computer very quickly or those who's computers often crash.

[Ydriel]

I too was thinking of suggesting something similar.

Crash recovery for in-progress rounds is always a nice feature of any game that saves players from frustration if the server can handle the saved game load (I don't know if this already exists for the PvP matches so long as one player stays connected? I can visualize the logistics for this one better for the AI games than the live PvP ones).  In any case, playing from an ancient computer that dies all the time myself, I know that I would like to see some sort of crash recovery when it is feasible in the future.

I also agree with the OP that being able to save a PvE game if you have to leave your computer on short notice would be a nice little extra too, but again would add yet even more server load so I can't see it being a priority - just something to keep as a thought for when time and space allow perhaps?

I don't know if I should make a separate thread for this (haven't had time to see if anyone else has but it is not in the sticky list) so I'll just add it here:

A related saving feature suggestion I had was for a "save and logout" function for people that play from public computers, or more than one location. 
I've noticed a lot of people play browser games at school, work, the library, etc, and unfortunately none of us are immune (even if we are the most cautious of internet user) from forgetting to clear cookies and shut it down just that once - and that once can cause a whole lot of headaches if bad luck is involved in who sits down to use that computer next.

[YoungSot]

This would be awesome. Any knowledgeable people out there who know if these "saved" games are a reasonable possibility to add?

[catalyzeme]

Disclaimer: This could be all wrong.

So your computer only actually communicates with the game when you see the "saving" symbol in the corner. It saves at the beginning of every match you start to save the loss and lower score/electrum, and then it saves again after the match (either the same lower score/electrum, or with the increased win total and higher score/electrum). It also saves upon exiting the deckbuilder, bazaar, or card upgrading spot (I believe). You could actually not be connected to the internet, play for hours, and then when your internet reconnects, save then. You can also sell a card in the bazaar, change your mind, and close the game, since it doesn't save until you leave the bazaar.

For this to work, you would basically have to operate every match like a PVP match. If you've ever played a PVP match with someone in the same room as you, you know that it can take upwards of 20 seconds for the other player to register that you ended your turn and theirs has begun. You would basically be doing this every match against the computer, if you wanted it to save your progress. If you wanted it to save the progress locally on the computer, that might be possible (I don't really know), but none of the important data in this game is saved on your computer. If you had that local save, and then went to another computer and sold the cards in your deck, and then came back to your computer, what would happen when you loaded up that mid-game save? I don't think it will work locally, and for it to be done server-side would make the game unbelievably slow.

I could be wrong though. This is my interpretation of how the game works.

[UTAlan]

Saving locally would not work as that would open the door for cheating by modifying that local file.

[BluePriest]

Saving locally would not work as that would open the door for cheating by modifying that local file.

Not if it only saved the state of the current game and nothing else. Well, I suppose you could modify your opponents cards and stuff huh? Dont know too much about that. Server side would probabl be best, but I doubt feasible. It may be possible though....

I picture it as
End your turn. After all cards are played, the game saves. Opponent ends his turn. After all cards are played, the game saves. idk how long that would take though, and would require a cheatsafe where if it didnt save for 1 turn, then it would wipe the save data. Then the instant it is able to save again it would be all good. IDK, im seeing too many exploits as I try to explain how it would work and not be cheat proof.

[YoungSot]

Ok, so local saves make it easy to cheat, and saving to the server is going to slow the game down by an amount proportionate to how often the game saves. So it doesn't sound like every-turn-autosaving is a desirable feature for most games.
What about if it was something you could enable/disable in the game settings? That way if you were worried about unintentional quitting, you can opt to have a game at pvp speeds, and if you're just farming or pretty sure you're safe, you would leave it disabled and play at normal speed?
Course the next question would be is that really worth the effort to implement?

[Ydriel]

Would a server side save-state upon timeout work for crash recovery?  I don't think it would have to save after every turn in that case would it?  I don't have programming experience, so I'm not sure what is logistically feasible and what is not.

[RagingAlien]

The title kinda confused me. I would like, however, an option to "log out" of your account in-elements without having to refresh the page. Oh sure, all you people with 3mil electrum can tell me about the "Import-Export" thingy, but since it only works with your current cards, it's kinda pointless. I often see, in Kongregate, people refreshing the page to change to another account, with different cards.

Thought i'd put this here and not make a thread with a highly similar title.