Deleted achievements come back, can I stop this?

[KrakenGreywolf]

Hello, everyone. I have tried using the guide below to remove Steam Achievements from 3 games I earned exactly one achievement in YEARS ago and simply will never complete (one I cannot complete-it is a dead online game, one of the others is a online game with 600+ achievements). The third and final one is an offline game where the rest of the achievements are purposefully boring/time-consuming.

Reset Game Achievements on Steam 

A Guide for Evil Genius

By: TabMising

This guide explains how to reset game achievements in Steam.

I played them all once years ago and do not care to look at them again (and one I cannot look at again, as mentioned previously). As someone who actual CARES about Steam achievements now (I didn’t then), is there anything I can do to fully delete them from my account and ensure they never come back?

ETA: Extra info: I have launched none of the games in question since manually deleting them. I also play only on Steam Deck ATM, but deleted the achievements using this guide on an ancient PC I have.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

No, you cant.

[KrakenGreywolf]

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

No, you cant.

Are you sure? I have heard of people successfully doing it-I just can’t find the exact information about HOW they did it.

[Yujah]

How do you mean "they come back"? The linked guide has correct instructions for resetting achievements (other than from some user-global statistics from which they can't disappear anymore). You might need to be be logged out of Steam on all systems other than the one you're doing the resetting on so as to make sure stuff syncs properly. but other than that and in the sense of those statistics, the guide is proper. In what way do you mean that "they come back"?

[Kryzz]

not sure if it helps but if you private a game it will no longer factor into your public achievement statistics like avg completion as seen by others (though it will still affect the statistics you see yourself while logged in)

[KrakenGreywolf]

Originally posted by Yujah:

How do you mean "they come back"? The linked guide has correct instructions for resetting achievements (other than from some user-global statistics from which they can't disappear anymore). You might need to be be logged out of Steam on all systems other than the one you're doing the resetting on so as to make sure stuff syncs properly. but other than that and in the sense of those statistics, the guide is proper. In what way do you mean that "they come back"?

I mean they disappeared on all of my devices (save my Steam Deck, which was turned off at the time of resetting). But a week or two later, they’re ALL back, on all devices. And I haven’t launched any of the games in that time either.

I absolutely don’t want to go the “cheap” route of unlocking all achievements on those three games and privating them forever, but I also don’t want my achievement stats severally slanted due to 1) A dead MMO I pinged one achievement in naturally while playing within a month of its death and 2) A MMO I got a “tutorial completed” achievement for that has over 600 achievements. The third one I could probably suffer through-but I’d much rather not waste…far too many hours of my life playing a boring game that I nonetheless HAVE to stay focused on with troll-level achievements.

But the other two games: one’s unobtainable legitimately, period. The other…just…no. Do I need to find and delete the save files for the games on my PC and turn off cloud saving for those three games as well (if they have it) before trying this again? Do I need to try doing it with my Steam Deck on?

[KrakenGreywolf]

Originally posted by Kryzz:

not sure if it helps but if you private a game it will no longer factor into your public achievement statistics like avg completion as seen by others (though it will still affect the statistics you see yourself while logged in)

Ugh…really? Maybe I do need to go the “cheap route” for at least two of those games then if I can’t manage to delete them permanently. What happens if I private a game then remove it from my account? Are my public statistics still unaffected? Those three games are already privated (and will stay that way unless I can remove their achievements permanently-or for the third-force myself through the miserable grind).

[Yujah]

Originally posted by KrakenCrow13y:

I mean they disappeared on all of my devices (save my Steam Deck, which was turned off at the time of resetting). But a week or two later, they’re ALL back, on all devices. And I haven’t launched any of the games in that time either.

Thing is that that seems highly unexpected; the methods from your linked guide work, no ifs and buts about it. Yes, what is in a savefile is fully specific to any given game, and some games could/would on loading one run through potentially in the savefile stored unlock-conditions to unlock them again -- but on loading. If you have very definitely not started any of those games after resetting the achievements then this would not be a possibility.

Are you talking about the achievements for the game being back on the library page for the game themselves? Or maybe only from the games list reachable via the profile or some such?

AFAIA also the second case should work but most certainly the first one should. Mentioned already that thing about being logged out everywhere except the system on which you do the resetting but frankly even that is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥: it's not like a logged-in Steam client would "sync back" its idea of obtained achievements. Maybe (maybe!) that a logged in system (your Steam Deck included) could temporarily or as a matter of a bug have obtained and not released an account-data lock but that's as far a my imagination goes here...

... actually, unless maybe the games you speak of are games with a third-party account that syncs achievements back to a linked Steam account. That's (technically) possible, although at least that "offline" one you mentioned seems to not fit the bill.

Did you do this once? Did you just get unlucky to roll through a Steam-sides oopsie with it restoring a user account-data backup? It should in any case not be necessary to do anything to/with savefiles; Steam does not itself unlock achievements; only the game (or something like SAM that pretends to be the game) does.

[KrakenGreywolf]

Originally posted by Yujah:

Originally posted by KrakenCrow13y:

I mean they disappeared on all of my devices (save my Steam Deck, which was turned off at the time of resetting). But a week or two later, they’re ALL back, on all devices. And I haven’t launched any of the games in that time either.

Thing is that that seems highly unexpected; the methods from your linked guide work, no ifs and buts about it. Yes, what is in a savefile is fully specific to any given game, and some games could/would on loading one run through potentially in the savefile stored unlock-conditions to unlock them again -- but on loading. If you have very definitely not started any of those games after resetting the achievements then this would not be a possibility.

Are you talking about the achievements for the game being back on the library page for the game themselves? Or maybe only from the games list reachable via the profile or some such?

AFAIA also the second case should work but most certainly the first one should. Mentioned already that thing about being logged out everywhere except the system on which you do the resetting but frankly even that is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥: it's not like a logged-in Steam client would "sync back" its idea of obtained achievements. Maybe (maybe!) that a logged in system (your Steam Deck included) could temporarily or as a matter of a bug have obtained and not released an account-data lock but that's as far a my imagination goes here...

... actually, unless maybe the games you speak of are games with a third-party account that syncs achievements back to a linked Steam account. That's (technically) possible, although at least that "offline" one you mentioned seems to not fit the bill.

Did you do this once? Did you just get unlucky to roll through a Steam-sides oopsie with it restoring a user account-data backup? It should in any case not be necessary to do anything to/with savefiles; Steam does not itself unlock achievements; only the game (or something like SAM that pretends to be the game) does.

I’ve only done it once. I tried to do it again on both PC and my Deck after the achievements disappeared on everything but my Deck, but those operations failed (b/c I’m guessing at the time the achievements had already been “deleted” even though they were still showing on my Deck under “your stuff”). Now they’re showing again on the Deck, mobile app, and PC. Just really bizarre.

[Yujah]

Just now ran into this: https://github.com/gibbed/SteamAchievementManager/issues/100

That seems to be saying that for some games stats/achievements can indeed act this way. If I look at the Steamworks documentation at:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/achievements

then it would indeed seem a possibility if those achievements were linked to a "Progress Stat" that is in turn marked Increment-Only.

Mmm. The last post in that SAM github thread may be interesting, but I expect that was just someone running into a very specific bug so YMMV.

If it's in that above sense of linked increment-only stats you may not be successful. I'd be trying again but would also be trying to use SAM now to see what happens to its view of things when you try to relock, as per that github thread.

[Kryzz]

Originally posted by KrakenCrow13y:

Originally posted by Kryzz:

not sure if it helps but if you private a game it will no longer factor into your public achievement statistics like avg completion as seen by others (though it will still affect the statistics you see yourself while logged in)

Ugh…really? Maybe I do need to go the “cheap route” for at least two of those games then if I can’t manage to delete them permanently. What happens if I private a game then remove it from my account? Are my public statistics still unaffected? Those three games are already privated (and will stay that way unless I can remove their achievements permanently-or for the third-force myself through the miserable grind).

i actually asked support about this before out of curiosity. games stay privated if you remove them from your account, so they won't affect your statistics that others see but will continue to affect the statistics you see yourself. maybe hiding the games in your library could be a better idea for the time being incase you find a better solution that requires owning the game again.

[KrakenGreywolf]

Originally posted by Yujah:

Just now ran into this: https://github.com/gibbed/SteamAchievementManager/issues/100

That seems to be saying that for some games stats/achievements can indeed act this way. If I look at the Steamworks documentation at:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/achievements

then it would indeed seem a possibility if those achievements were linked to a "Progress Stat" that is in turn marked Increment-Only.

Mmm. The last post in that SAM github thread may be interesting, but I expect that was just someone running into a very specific bug so YMMV.

If it's in that above sense of linked increment-only stats you may not be successful. I'd be trying again but would also be trying to use SAM now to see what happens to its view of things when you try to relock, as per that github thread.

Thank you! Will try again later using the method in the thread (probably won’t be viable for the third (dead) game, though).

Originally posted by Kryzz:

Originally posted by KrakenCrow13y:

Ugh…really? Maybe I do need to go the “cheap route” for at least two of those games then if I can’t manage to delete them permanently. What happens if I private a game then remove it from my account? Are my public statistics still unaffected? Those three games are already privated (and will stay that way unless I can remove their achievements permanently-or for the third-force myself through the miserable grind).

i actually asked support about this before out of curiosity. games stay privated if you remove them from your account, so they won't affect your statistics that others see but will continue to affect the statistics you see yourself. maybe hiding the games in your library could be a better idea for the time being incase you find a better solution that requires owning the game again.

Thanks for the info! That’s good to know, at least. And I will (at least one is already hidden, I think).

[FafnirChaos]

The best thing to do, is what somebody mentioned to me a long time ago - Private your games you want to remove, use SAM to unlock the achievements from those games to bring your percentage up - then remove those games from your profile - If the rules were different - like Having an option to opt-in and Opt-out of achievements, or achievements being completely removed from your profile when you remove it, then yeah we wouldn't have this discussion.

Resetting achievements doesn't bring up your overall score - it will lower it cause it's auto calculated on your profile - so if you start up a game the achievement list is permanent. So if you didn't like that game, congrats your percentage just went to the toilet.

Edit: Or enjoy following a guide, while playing a game you can't wait to remove from your profile.

Edit 2: I don't think it's right to punish people for trying out games getting 1 or 2 achievements then refunding/removing from your profile - it's anti-consumer - Considering the fact that a lot of these achievements are basically "Tie your shoe" awards, and really what they show is that you played the game - and didn't actually achieve anything worthwhile.

[KrakenGreywolf]

Originally posted by FafnirChaos:

The best thing to do, is what somebody mentioned to me a long time ago - Private your games you want to remove, use SAM to unlock the achievements from those games to bring your percentage up - then remove those games from your profile - If the rules were different - like Having an option to opt-in and Opt-out of achievements, or achievements being completely removed from your profile when you remove it, then yeah we wouldn't have this discussion.

Resetting achievements doesn't bring up your overall score - it will lower it cause it's auto calculated on your profile - so if you start up a game the achievement list is permanent. So if you didn't like that game, congrats your percentage just went to the toilet.

Edit: Or enjoy following a guide, while playing a game you can't wait to remove from your profile.

Edit 2: I don't think it's right to punish people for trying out games getting 1 or 2 achievements then refunding/removing from your profile - it's anti-consumer - Considering the fact that a lot of these achievements are basically "Tie your shoe" awards, and really what they show is that you played the game - and didn't actually achieve anything worthwhile.

Thank you. Will definitely go this route if I try to remove them again and it doesn’t work. And I agree about the “opt in or out” of achievements thing. I wish it were a thing on ALL platforms with achievements.

[FafnirChaos]

Originally posted by KrakenCrow13y:

Originally posted by FafnirChaos:

The best thing to do, is what somebody mentioned to me a long time ago - Private your games you want to remove, use SAM to unlock the achievements from those games to bring your percentage up - then remove those games from your profile - If the rules were different - like Having an option to opt-in and Opt-out of achievements, or achievements being completely removed from your profile when you remove it, then yeah we wouldn't have this discussion.

Resetting achievements doesn't bring up your overall score - it will lower it cause it's auto calculated on your profile - so if you start up a game the achievement list is permanent. So if you didn't like that game, congrats your percentage just went to the toilet.

Edit: Or enjoy following a guide, while playing a game you can't wait to remove from your profile.

Edit 2: I don't think it's right to punish people for trying out games getting 1 or 2 achievements then refunding/removing from your profile - it's anti-consumer - Considering the fact that a lot of these achievements are basically "Tie your shoe" awards, and really what they show is that you played the game - and didn't actually achieve anything worthwhile.

Thank you. Will definitely go this route if I try to remove them again and it doesn’t work. And I agree about the “opt in or out” of achievements thing. I wish it were a thing on ALL platforms with achievements.

Well I mean, Xbox and Sony does things different - Xbox has a gamer score: so you don't need to 100% games. - Sony has a leveling system: again you don't have to 100% games.

Steam on the other and has a 100% ribbon and over all game completion score - like if your going to farm for achievements/trophies - it's better to do it on Console.

Achievement system on steam is complete trash - like why would they give us an overall completion rating and not allow us to remove the values of achievements from games not on our profile anymore.

If it's not on my profile, It's not like I want that "gold star sticker" award either.

[KrakenGreywolf]

Originally posted by FafnirChaos:

Originally posted by KrakenCrow13y:

Thank you. Will definitely go this route if I try to remove them again and it doesn’t work. And I agree about the “opt in or out” of achievements thing. I wish it were a thing on ALL platforms with achievements.

Well I mean, Xbox and Sony does things different - Xbox has a gamer score: so you don't need to 100% games. - Sony has a leveling system: again you don't have to 100% games.

Steam on the other and has a 100% ribbon and over all game completion score - like if your going to farm for achievements/trophies - it's better to do it on Console.

Achievement system on steam is complete trash - like why would they give us an overall completion rating and not allow us to remove the values of achievements from games not on our profile anymore.

If it's not on my profile, It's not like I want that "gold star sticker" award either.

Sony does give you a platinum trophy for 100%-ed games-which is an incentive to me at least-(and what started my achievement hunting). I’ve never been that hung up about Xbox achievements, though. But I agree. If I remove something from my account-remove the achievements with it, I obviously removed it for a reason. I just wonder what happens if you have all achievements for a game, delete it, and then more achievements are added after you delete the game. Does that also mess up your score I wonder? (The active MMO I only unlocked the tutorial achievement for apparently has event-specific achievements that aren’t even obtainable anymore, so even if I wanted to spend hundreds of hours getting 100% the legit way-I literally can’t. And I think they’re still adding achievements…ughhh).