[IDEA] Using the chrono-cam to roll back game for practicing build orders/defensive strategies.

I've been in since the alpha but have not played a huge number of games. I've been playing some bot games to practice build orders and managing my economy.

The chrono-cam is currently used as a replay tool or checking how that scout died etc. This is a great feature and love it's inclusion. However, considering the long load times currently, restarting a game to try something new takes an excessive amount of time, I was wondering if it could be used to aid practice vs bots.

- Scroll back in time to before you built 20 power gens before factory, or got attacked by that AI that you forgot about.
- Click a button and confirm via prompt.
- You now have control from the that point in the game and are now rewriting history.

Is the back-end of the chrono-cam system set up so you can scrap some of the replay from a selected point? Considering that the simulation is server-side, does this affect much at the client end?

I see this as a great practice tool for beginners, but also for high level players that are practising together. In a custom game where this feature is enabled:

- Player 1 suggests rolling back the game 5 minutes to try their strat again.
- Player 2 accepts the request.
- Server rolls back and requests ready-up from clients.
- Server gives clients 5 second countdown before resuming.

I apologise if this has been suggested before, I did used the search function but couldn't find anything relevant.

Yes, you will be able to save games and to retake control of any player from any point of any replay.

That's good news! I do remember them saying something about that now.

I wonder though - is there any talk of specifically being able to roll back the game server of a game in progress, instead of reloading from the replay, though? I don't know how their system works but I can imagine loading from a save state and manipulating time of a live game on the fly are potentially a different kettle of fish.

Saving and loading is not the only possible solution and not the most convenient one. Rewinding Prince-of-Persia-style would be awesome. I don't think it would work well in multiplayer, but when you play with bots - that would be awesome. Quickly test build orders, or try out different tactics in the same situation. Or avoid "whoa, wasn't ready for this" and "oops, shouldn't have done that" moments when you are learning the game or just want to have fun.

Yeah, that's what I mean! I agree though, it would have to be limited to a custom game mode specifically for the feature or vs AI to stop someone spamming a roll-back request in a proper game.

I am pretty certain that this won´t be possible ingame. Basically, how Uber wants it is that you play a game, and then the savefile can be used to jump in at any point and try to see if a different strategy works. So the game is already played, you´re just playing it again. Would be especially cool at something like competitive play where a major match is put online and everyone can replay it to see if they can turn it around.

Why not? We have access to the replay file from inside the game. We can look at it, why you think we couldn't play it?

That's the original intention, yes, but who said that we can't change it? I don't think it will be that much of a work.

I like this idea. Reminds me of Braid and Grid.