HTH Dialog Developers Group

tabby, whats the best method for saving, loading, and modifying save data?

Because Flash has no file write feature (it barely has any means of file read access) the only way to save data is AS2 SharedObject class. It was originally designed for web browser flash player for online flash programs to save some little data locally in user computer the same way web page cookies are stored. Standalone Flash Projector saves the same data deep in <user>\Application_data\... folder. That way you can save and load player settings (not all) and NPC dialog progress in HTH_vT067x.

If you want to do any Flash programming seriously, check following ActionScript 2 language reference manual. It describes literally everything you could need to know about AS2.
https://anonfiles.com/N0U544Lcu2/as2-langref_pdf
However, it's in the form of reference manual. So it expects user to be somewhat experienced in programming and be familiar with programming terms to fully understand that. If you know how to program and just need to find how to do that in this particular language, a reference manual is exactly what you need.