The fate of console commands in v1.0
aeroripper
Join Date: 2005-02-25 Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
Join Date: 2005-02-25 Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
Anybody else think console commands should be restricted until after the player beats the game once? Once the game is completed, it asks if you want to continue your game or start a new one. All new games would now have a "cheats enabled" checkbox available afterwards.
Comments
I'd say, default startup of the game could be without the console enabled. And if you want to go pro mode or dev mode add an option to enable it in advanced settings or set it with a "-dev" or "-console" startup parameter.
I wouldn't completely disable it for debug reasons. Also I'm not entirely sure what the issue everyon has with people "cheating" in a single player game. They are spoiling the game for themselves, not exactly my problem if they want to do that by not having self-restraint
In the Trello, developers mentioned something about "auto-save on exit". This could be catastrophic if the game is saved in (the only one existing save slot) in a non-playable condition like fallen off the map.
The usual way games do that for campaigns and single player in general is to have an auto save slot alongside your manual or quick save slots
There will be achievements in the game, however. Sure, they are nothing more than a set of virtual and meaningless trophies, but I can see some of the more competitive players complaining that console commands mean cheating. Perhaps automatically disabling achievements on a save where console commands have been used would be a solution here? Anything to avoid pointless drama this game does not need.
Maybe we need to segregate certain non-cheat commands and cheat commands, that way, things like "/stuck" can be used at any given time, because that isn't exactly a cheat when the game's collisions bugs out
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Crossing the streams, are we?
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Rinse, repeat, until ABBA gets you stuck behind a wall. xD
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For that, you win good sir!
Not to mention all the fun that can be had with the spawn and teleport commands.
yeah, even after V1.0 theres bound to be bugs leftovers from the beta stage unfixed yet that will require console commands to alleviate, short of remaking a new game. Plus, since this is a single player game only anyway, theres no real harm in leaving it in as plenty of single player games got a built in console, Bethesda games immediately comes to mind.
TVTropes entry "Classic Cheat Code", header paragraph:
Well, the Devil just shot himself in the foot
Assuming the devs wouldn't want people cheesing achievements with the console, this would be the way to go. They didn't want people skipping into the Lava Zones early, so I wouldn't imagine they'd approve of using the console to breeze through achievements either. However they're still useful for when stuff goes wrong. So having an option when launching the game (That can't just be swapped in or out of afterwards, like starting in Creative then console'ing into Survival) feels like the best route.
Factorio has a pretty good way around this: using commands disables achevements for that world.
The fixed immediately part still leaves players who were affected by the bug potentially stuck with a bad save that the console could have fixed, but because they haven't finished the game yet, they have to start over from the beginning. Not a good situation.
If unlocking the console and creative mode depends on winning the game, then players who want to use the console to cheat (or who need to use it to fix their game) will just find a guide to download the appropriate save state or find which file to edit to enable the console.
In a singleplayer game, there really isn't cheating in the same sense as a multiplayer game. It doesn't really make sense to lock out the console. Obviously you don't want it to be front and center so players are encouraged to try the game first without resorting to the console, but it should still be available for players who want it.
Locking out creative mode doesn't really make sense either. For many players, they just enjoy building random seabases more than anything else or just casually cruising around to enjoy the scenery. Sure you can use it to "cheat" by exploring the world to find things in advance so you know where to go in survival, but a YouTube video guide would do exactly the same thing.
Edit: As for comments about achievements, if someone is desperate to cheat achievements into their steam profile, there's ways to do that without even launching the game.