New death penalty option for single player: Reload backup on death

[Guedez]

In theory it's a very simple request, but I guess the implementation would be a bit harder, but here it is:

When you sleep, the game backups the save
When you die, it force quits and rewinds the save to the backup

I'd love to have that as an alternative to the current "just respawn through winter who cares" that is too easy or the "Delete the world on death" that is too hard

[LadyWYT]

Making a backup can take a little while though, as can loading a backup, especially for weaker systems and/or big worlds(or heavily modded ones). I don't see it being worth it, especially when having to take a couple of minutes to respawn is a lot more frustrating than just taking a couple of seconds. I also don't see a difference between this proposed change, and the current respawn mechanics, outside of having to wait longer to respawn.

2 hours ago, Guedez said:

I'd love to have that as an alternative to the current "just respawn through winter who cares" that is too easy or the "Delete the world on death" that is too hard

Hence why you lose items on death by default--death has a penalty that way, in that you have to retrieve your stuff/make new stuff, but it's not so harsh that you lose the entire world. If that's still "too easy" then you could try just giving yourself a limited number of lives at the beginning of the game. That way your world doesn't get deleted just because you had an accident or two, but you can't very well play too recklessly either.

[Guedez]

Currently I've been force quitting the game each time I die, so I've been paying the "wait" price on death anyways.

Sure it would work better if the game split the save in two pieces, "committed save" and "volatile save", where one is a current save game and the other would be the "diff" between the current save and the last sleep save, that would make the whole process a lot faster and take a lot less disk space, but then the feature now is turning into a huge overblown thing compared to the original proposal.

As for "just play with the current settings" argument, I don't really see the point, since it's already what I am doing

[Thorfinn]

Most obviously, it would not work with multiplayer, and keeping the gameplay similar is evidently important, or there would be many other things that would probably be different.

But give it a try. Use the console commands for save world, backup world, then play for a while, then have it load backup. My sneaking suspicion is that @LadyWYT is correct -- way too slow.

[Guedez]

I already am doing it manually, the feature request is because I'd like it to be done automatically by the game.
It is slow, yes, but it's a price I accepted to pay. Really makes me not want to die.

[Thorfinn]

Right, you said that's what you do, twice.

You can do that with a pair of macros. Every time you sleep, press F9 (or whatever) to do your backups, and if you die, click on respawn to reappear in moments, and then press whatever you have assigned to "Crap, I died" that reloads from your backup.

It's just so counter to anything that could be used in multiplayer, I doubt it would be implemented. Not without figuring out some way to make sleep work well in multiplayer, anyway.

"Respawn, but you have to redo your day's progress" is not only a lot "easier" than "Respawn without your stuff", I can see choosing to go swimming and not resurface being useful in lots of cases. Exploring for resources, for example. If you don't find limestone heading east, die. You don't have to return home, you get back all that time, and you don't have to go get your stuff. Don't want to have to figure out how to recover your stuff from the sawblade? No problem. It never happened.

Edited May 22, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Lookstothestars]

On 5/21/2025 at 3:49 PM, Guedez said:

In theory it's a very simple request, but I guess the implementation would be a bit harder, but here it is:

When you sleep, the game backups the save
When you die, it force quits and rewinds the save to the backup

I'd love to have that as an alternative to the current "just respawn through winter who cares" that is too easy or the "Delete the world on death" that is too hard

Sounds like the fallout 4 survival mode. I always played on that. I do agree with the other responses that adding it to the game is probably a hassle, though i don‘t think it has to work in multiplayer. I mean, the game doesn‘t pause when you open the handbook or press escape during multiplayer, though i guess that isn‘t a perfect parallel. I also don‘t think just sleeping is the perfect way to implement it, you‘d have to troubleshoot a more finetuned solution. 

In contrast to the other responses i do see the value your putting up. Ultimately the only way a game can truly punish you for losing or dying is the waste of time and resetting the day definitely does that, though again i do see issues here too. What is considered a day? Is dying at the end of a day for a stupid reason really creating a better gaming experience? I guess, in that way i do see a value to the sleeping as a save game or kingdom come: deliverances save potions that save the game for you. But it is getting quite convoluted.

Ultimately, i think where this suggestion falls flat isn‘t the idea itself but how many players actually would benefit from it. As far as i can tell you‘re the only one that wants to play Vintage Story like that with me being at least a bit intrigued to idea if implemented well. I just don‘t see the developers actually spending time on it though, at least until it get‘s more traction perhaps. Maybe talking to other players and trying to troubleshoot a more polished idea could make it more intriguing. The last bit i can give you is maybe ask someone to make a mod implementing it or try coding it yourself ( I know, coding ain‘t easy, but sometimes if no one does it for you, you‘ll have to do it yourself. I have made that experience before). Other than that, i do like the idea.

[Thorfinn]

2 hours ago, Lookstothestars said:

Ultimately the only way a game can truly punish you for losing or dying is the waste of time and resetting the day definitely does that

But it doesn't do that. It does something closer to the exact opposite. Anytime you want a redo, just jump off a cliff or slap a grizzly. This isn't a penalty. It's an Easy Mode.

Look at the same exact mechanism in Stardew Valley. If the day didn't turn out the way you wanted, just reload. In other games, it's called savescumming.

Edited May 22, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Lookstothestars]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

But it doesn't do that. It does something closer to the exact opposite. Anytime you want a redo, just jump off a cliff or slap a grizzly. This isn't a penalty. It's an Easy Mode.

Look at the same exact mechanism in Stardew Valley. If the day didn't turn out the way you wanted, just reload. In other games, it's called savescumming.

Well, you are talking in game which i wasn't. Save scumming very much is wasting time in my opinion. I plan on going to the resonance archives for my first time tomorrow and as far as i can tell having a reset point as a temporal gear at the start of the resonence archives loses me a whole lot less time than having to redo the entire resonance archives if i should die at some monsters hand. Save scumming, the way you talk about, is mostly performed in games where you can save at any time you want in any place you want, like Baldurs Gate 3 (i did my fair share of save scumming in that game, trust me).

In contrast stardew valley is such a vastly different game than vintage story is, at least considering the actual gameplay of it and the rules of how days work in that game. I think it's rather worth it to compare vintage story to other survival games or rpgs, like Kingdom come deliverance and perhaps even the forest. I don't know if the rules changed in The Forest, but from my last memory you were only able to save the game at shelters you first have to construct (Mind you, the forest is a bit leneant by not having you be dead immedietly if you should die, but instead you getting a second chance). And trust me, i understand your point, i wouldn't like to redo the resonance archives as little as i liked to redo dungeons in fallout 4's survival mode. No possibility to save made me reconsider every single action i performed while in them because i wasn't ready to lose 2 to 3 hours of progress.

And if a mechanic like that can be abused to save scum, then trust me it hasn't been well implemented. The resonance archive feed well into that gameplay already since you can't place blocks there, so at most you'd have to sleep outside the archives. The only issue here is that players can simply leave the archives without finishing it's challenges, but that is something that would need to be considered in dungeon design, rather than in the mechanic.

I'm going to say that this mechanic on it's own isn't really about making the game more difficult but in making it more punishing. These are different things that stand by themselves. If you want to see it as easy mode, then sure, it is, i can see that. You avoid the possibility (though however small that is) of losing your items and making mistakes can be rectified in a second attempt, which is how most games work. But if it is implented correctly, you sure as hell lose a lot more time through it, which is more punishing in that regard. Whereas losing items has a potential to lose you time, this mechanic guarantes it, and i don't want to sound like a broken record, but again, if it is implented correctly and i've seen plenty of times where it has been implented mostly correctly.

[Guedez]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Right, you said that's what you do, twice.

Well. I was asked to try it out manually with the ingame commands right after I said I was already doing that.

4 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

You can do that with a pair of macros. Every time you sleep, press F9 (or whatever) to do your backups, and if you die, click on respawn to reappear in moments, and then press whatever you have assigned to "Crap, I died" that reloads from your backup.

I was unaware there is a command for restoring backups, that would certainly be helpful, what is it? I can't find it on the wiki.

5 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

It's just so counter to anything that could be used in multiplayer, I doubt it would be implemented. Not without figuring out some way to make sleep work well in multiplayer, anyway.

The thread title specifically mentions for Single Player, so I am not sure how this is relevant. I guess devs wouldn't bother with Single Player only features?

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

But it doesn't do that. It does something closer to the exact opposite. Anytime you want a redo, just jump off a cliff or slap a grizzly. This isn't a penalty. It's an Easy Mode.

Look at the same exact mechanism in Stardew Valley. If the day didn't turn out the way you wanted, just reload. In other games, it's called savescumming.

In what situation you would ever want a "redo" in Vintage Story? Taking too much damage in a fight? Messing up a smith? All of these are much faster fixed with ingame means than save scumming.
Being able to starve 300 times to "survive" winter that is easy mode. When the backup restores so does the time of day. It's still winter no matter how many times you try to die through it. The only setting that is harder than reloading from backup is Perma Death, or "Delayed Permadeath" which imo is not any different.

[Thorfinn]

55 minutes ago, Lookstothestars said:

having a reset point as a temporal gear at the start of the resonence archives loses me a whole lot less time

That's not remotely the same thing.  That's what the OP wants to replace with something where it is simply turning the clock back in time to before the bad random event happened. That is  save scumming. What you are doing, and I think most people probably did, at least if they thought about it, does not undo the bad thing, but rather makes you forge on from there, doing the best you can. Which probably means the first step is recovering your stuff.

 

4 minutes ago, Guedez said:

I was unaware there is a command for restoring backups, that would certainly be helpful, what is it? I can't find it on the wiki.

I don't know whether the command exists. I don't do anything remotely like that. Permadeath is my style. I was taking your word for it, since you said that is how you do it now. I just assumed what you were talking about is it took too long to type all that into the console. In any event, the Wiki is not the greatest place to look. I'm pretty sure it's out of date. Last I looked, it even said it was, right at the top of the page. Check the in-game command book, accessed via

.chb

 

6 minutes ago, Guedez said:

The thread title specifically mentions for Single Player, so I am not sure how this is relevant. I guess devs wouldn't bother with Single Player only features?

Look through the changelogs. See if you think they have been adding a lot of single-player only functionality.

 

11 minutes ago, Guedez said:

In what situation you would ever want a "redo" in Vintage Story? Taking too much damage in a fight? Messing up a smith? All of these are much faster fixed with ingame means than save scumming.

I gave an example in the very reply you quoted. Let's say you are looking for limestone or bauxite or olivine, and run east a few days without finding any. So you jump off cliffs until you restart at home, knowing what's to your east, but without having lost any game time or food or healing or durability or anything. Repeat until you find what you are looking for, never losing any calendar days or resources. Easy Mode.

 

17 minutes ago, Guedez said:

All of these are much faster fixed with ingame means than save scumming.
Being able to starve 300 times to "survive" winter that is easy mode.

Presumably something like creative mode? Would someone who is fine with giving himself a scythe blade have any compunction about giving himself a stack of pie?

Besides, on respawn you restart with, say, half satiation. Stand still until the game lets you sleep. Congratulations. You have advanced the calendar so, no, in your solution, it's not "still winter".

[LadyWYT]

28 minutes ago, Guedez said:

Being able to starve 300 times to "survive" winter that is easy mode. When the backup restores so does the time of day. It's still winter no matter how many times you try to die through it. The only setting that is harder than reloading from backup is Perma Death, or "Delayed Permadeath" which imo is not any different.

If a player is getting through the winter by dying constantly to starvation, that's not really surviving. The starvation argument doesn't really work in favor of this "backup plan" either, as if a player is already at the point they're starving to death in the dead of winter, rolling them back to their previous "save point" probably doesn't fix the issue. Maybe if they didn't sleep for a very long time, but in that case they've just lost a LOT of progress they probably aren't going to be very excited about working through again...

In any case, I think the main hurdle to get over is just the extra time it takes to make and reload backups. It can potentially take a couple of minutes, or even longer, and if one is accident-prone and/or sleeping frequently to save their progress, that ends up being a lot of downtime. A lot of downtime in which the player is just waiting, with nothing to do other than wait. That's not very fun, and can become frustrating rather quickly.

5 hours ago, Lookstothestars said:

Ultimately, i think where this suggestion falls flat isn‘t the idea itself but how many players actually would benefit from it. As far as i can tell you‘re the only one that wants to play Vintage Story like that with me being at least a bit intrigued to idea if implemented well. I just don‘t see the developers actually spending time on it though, at least until it get‘s more traction perhaps. Maybe talking to other players and trying to troubleshoot a more polished idea could make it more intriguing. The last bit i can give you is maybe ask someone to make a mod implementing it or try coding it yourself ( I know, coding ain‘t easy, but sometimes if no one does it for you, you‘ll have to do it yourself. I have made that experience before).

Agreed, especially on the mod bit. A mod is often the proving ground for concepts before they're added to the game. Not every popular mod gets added, of course(nor should they), but the more traction a mod gets then the more likely it is some iteration of that idea will be added to the game later. Otherwise, yeah, I don't really see this being a feature that a lot of players want.

[Guedez]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

Check the in-game command book, accessed via

.chb

Just did, unfortunately there was nothing for restoring a backup, but there was two save file size reducing commands I will try if my world ever gets too big.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

I gave an example in the very reply you quoted. Let's say you are looking for limestone or bauxite or olivine, and run east a few days without finding any. So you jump off cliffs until you restart at home, knowing what's to your east, but without having lost any game time or food or healing or durability or anything. Repeat until you find what you are looking for, never losing any calendar days or resources. Easy Mode.

I see. I was only thinking of not being able to waste time forward to get past through winter, but reloading from back up would enable you to save up on days before winter too.
In my mind I was thinking that one could simply run naked toward a direction and simply respawn home (so long it is close enough to the spawn) later to replicate the same thing in either non permadeath modes, but in that case you lost days before winter and your food decayed.

59 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

A mod is often the proving ground for concepts before they're added to the game. Not every popular mod gets added, of course(nor should they), but the more traction a mod gets then the more likely it is some iteration of that idea will be added to the game later. Otherwise, yeah, I don't really see this being a feature that a lot of players want.

That was the first avenue I've tried to pursue. Making backups through commands is trivial, and apparently you can "check the mounted state of the player to see if it's a bed" to detecting sleeping. So the first half of auto backups on sleep is easy. (And honestly I would rather just keep using macros instead if it's all that it does)
The issue is restoring the backup after. You can't touch the save file while the game is running, and the mod can't run while the game is closed.
So a mod can't restore a backup on death. Thus I made a post under Suggestions

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Guedez said:

The issue is restoring the backup after. You can't touch the save file while the game is running, and the mod can't run while the game is closed.
So a mod can't restore a backup on death. Thus I made a post under Suggestions

I see, though I'm not entirely convinced there's not a way to restore from a "save point" with mods. It's sounding more like a mod that achieves something to that effect is going to require some rather heavy coding, and I'd hazard a guess that if that's truly what's required for a mod to achieve the goal...then it's probably going to take a lot of work to get the concept functioning properly in the game as well. And as I noted earlier, I don't believe there's a lot of demand for such a thing(especially when you can already achieve the desired effect in the present state of the game by backing up your own files), so I don't believe it would be worth the effort to try to add such a system.