Another Steam Cloud post

[El Bisiv'ni]

Steam Cloud just deleted 500+ hours of my Wildermyth saves.
No error, no input, no account or software or hardware changes on my end.. just gone.
[anyone who's played WM will understand how messed up that is]

Why does Steam Cloud not have at least one rollback save? Less than a Mb?
Even if you stored it locally.. it just makes zero sense to not have it. It's 2024.

Sure, added up between all Steam users, it equals a good amount of space.. but not enough to justify what I'm guessing is hundreds of thousands, or even millions of times this has happened. Ruining the massive amounts of time, real money, and gaming experience for paying customers. .. and losing trust in Steam and Valve as a whole.

If Steam can't host cloud saves correctly, why offer it as a service..?

[IFIYGD]

Help (top left corner of your screen) > Steam Support > My Account > Data related to your account > (scroll down) Uploaded Content > Steam Cloud.
There are generally multiple files saved there for games you are using Steam Cloud Saves for, as well as other user data. You'll have to fins the game on the list and move a Cloud save there into the game's save slot(s), which is a pain, but backups do exist if your PC didn't eat them all due to a HW or SW issue on you machine causing the save corruption or loss.

Direct link: https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage

(Quick edit due to typonese)

[Kargor]

Ursprungligen skrivet av IFIYGD:

Help (top left corner of your screen) > Steam Support > My Account > Data related to your account > (scroll down) Uploaded Content > Steam Cloud.
There are generally multiple files saved there for games you are suing Steam Cloud Saves for,

IF the game is doing that, and IF other saves have survived whatever happened.

The problem with Steam Cloud is that they sync it to match your local saves -- so if your local saves are gone/damaged, so will your cloud saves.

Heck, I'm considering a backup facility for the Steam Cloud as a potential feature to think about...

[nullable]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Kargor:

The problem with Steam Cloud is that they sync it to match your local saves -- so if your local saves are gone/damaged, so will your cloud saves.

This. The other problem is users treat cloud saves as their only backup of data not realizing it syncs with your local data and you can overwrite or delete cloud saves and sometimes that happens accidentally.

Ultimately cloud saves don't negate or replace more traditional hard backups. Personally I've used Gamesave Manager to automate the process, backup selected games into an archive on my local machine. That archive is also stored in dropbox. I know how to get at the archive in either location, and what decisions I made concerning it.

In short if data is important to you back it up yourself. Make sure you do it yourself so it's done right, you know how you did it, and how to recover it. Automatic services that do stuff for you that you don't really manage or configure may not always yield the results you assume. Do your own backups and you won't be at the mercy of automated processes you don't really understand.

[IFIYGD]

Ursprungligen skrivet av nullable:

The other problem is users treat cloud saves as their only backup of data not realizing it syncs with your local data and you can overwrite or delete cloud saves and sometimes that happens accidentally.

In short if data is important to you back it up yourself. Make sure you do it yourself so it's done right, you know how you did it, and how to recover it.

Yep. There is a reason making manual backups has been a thing since PC gaming first came into being. Heck, some developers/publishers even recommend it or recommend only using local saves for their game(s) (even though they have Steam Cloud saves enabled because people demanded it) after getting pummeled by bug reports after corrupted could saves have wiped out long saves due to desync or Steam servers having issues. I will never not do manual backups for The Long Dark and Grim Dawn, especially for really long runs I am emotionally attached to, because bugs happen, power outages happen, and Steam Cloud saves have a long history of being fickle for those games and several others I play.

Heck, it's not only gaming either. Back up your work manually if you are writing a thesis, or preparing reports for work, or working on creator content you play on uploading to a streaming service- because if you are relying only on The Cloud, and The Cloud suddenly disappears when your ISP decides "It's downtime while we back up our servers or install a new line!", guess what happens to that work you didn't have backed up and that didn't get saved to The Cloud because... oopsie- bad timing!

[El Bisiv'ni]

Ursprungligen skrivet av nullable:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Kargor:

The problem with Steam Cloud is that they sync it to match your local saves -- so if your local saves are gone/damaged, so will your cloud saves.

This. The other problem is users treat cloud saves as their only backup of data not realizing it syncs with your local data and you can overwrite or delete cloud saves and sometimes that happens accidentally. [...]

This this.
I should have known better, I come from the age of triple-backups.. and maybe a hardcopy just in case all three rigs went down lol

Still.
The way things happened is weird to me..

- I originally installed WM to Drive C:

- I uninstalled WM years later [local default folder stayed; some data (?) and screenshots]

- I recently bought new WM DLC

- Reinstalled WM, but on Drive D: instead of C:

- I started WM, all data was gone. I instantly quit out, but it was already too late.

- No Sync or Cloud errors, it didn't ask me about replacing data like it normally would

- ALL local screenshots are gone, Steam screenshots and Achievements are still there

- I bugged Steam and Valve enough that a supervisor reviewed it and said it's gone.

- I was trying to use data recovery tools where the C: Wildermyth install was, but not having much luck.


I asked a WM dev if it's possible that the reinstall of the game on a different drive
with the new DLC , is there a way it didn't check for other WM folders, overwrote it on install locally, then synced with Steam Cloud on launch..?

Dev said the DLC/Game couldn't do that. I'm no programmer, so I'm inclined to believe them.
It's just so strange.. any input would be awesome.

i tried to start a new campaign.. "anustart" .. but just couldn't. Felt wrong.

[El Bisiv'ni]

Ursprungligen skrivet av IFIYGD:

Heck, it's not only gaming either. Back up your work manually if you are writing a thesis, or preparing reports for work, or working on creator content you play on uploading to a streaming service- because if you are relying only on The Cloud, and The Cloud suddenly disappears when your ISP decides "It's downtime while we back up our servers or install a new line!", guess what happens to that work you didn't have backed up and that didn't get saved to The Cloud because... oopsie- bad timing!

I make music and videos, and save everything on the Cloud AND two seperate drives [and usually a 3rd party hosting service].. so I feel silly I trusted in Steam/Valve so much.

[El Bisiv'ni]

Ursprungligen skrivet av IFIYGD:

Help (top left corner of your screen) > Steam Support > My Account > Data related to your account > (scroll down) Uploaded Content > Steam Cloud.
There are generally multiple files saved there for games you are using Steam Cloud Saves for, as well as other user data. You'll have to fins the game on the list and move a Cloud save there into the game's save slot(s), which is a pain, but backups do exist if your PC didn't eat them all due to a HW or SW issue on you machine causing the save corruption or loss.

Direct link: https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage

(Quick edit due to typonese)

I tried this first, I downloaded all the cloud saves and .json files and shuffled everything around.. it was the same newest "wrong" save on everything.