Game achievements automatically unlocked?

[JonbiiTV]

I was booting up Crash Bandicoot which i'm trying to play through Family Share, and once i hit the main menu every achievement automatically popped. The account i'm lending it from has all of them unlocked which is why i think it has something to do with Family Share.

"Steam Family Library Sharing allows family members and their guests to play one another's games while earning their own Steam achievements and saving their own game progress to the Steam Cloud. It's all enabled by authorizing shared computers and users."

I was hoping i could play on my own save files and unlock achievements as i've earned them, but they're now already unlocked and i'm playing on old save files.

How do i go about resetting what's just happened?

[ReBoot]

SAM, Steam Achievement Manager, can lock achievements. They may be bugged and unobtainable afterwards. What you should do is use a separate account so you won't get the saves present on the account you're currently using.

[JonbiiTV]

Hey thanks for the reply, i searched up what you suggested and i don't feel comfortable installing software like that. Also i'm having trouble understanding the second half of your answer, are you saying i need a third account so my second account (This one) won't use the saves of the first account (Family Share lender)?

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

Hey thanks for the reply, i searched up what you suggested and i don't feel comfortable installing software like that. Also i'm having trouble understanding the second half of your answer, are you saying i need a third account so my second account (This one) won't use the saves of the first account (Family Share lender)?

No, you need a SECOND account. A second OS account, that is. Games, like any well-behaved programs, tend to save their stuff inside the user profile folder(s) so if you want separate saves, you need separate user profile folder(s) thus a separate profile.

[JonbiiTV]

Oh wow ok, well... that kinda sucks. I wish they explained that on the family share page, now i've either gotta go through the hassle of setting up multiple OS accounts to get the features i thought i would, or to contact support and explain it to them what's happened and hope it's either a bug or i don't flagged for cheating.

Thanks for the help ReBoot.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

Oh wow ok, well... that kinda sucks. I wish they explained that on the family share page

That's not related to family sharing AT ALL. That effect will happen when you play on two Steam accounts on the same user account when both Steam accounts have the game. That effect will happen without Steam at all, install a somewhat modern game from DVD or, let's say, The Witcher 3 from GoG.

This isn't even related to gaming. When two people use the same account to, let's say, write documents and save them in the documents folder, you both will see each other's files all the time.

Or rather simple, when you and someone else share an email account, you'll see each other's mail all the time.

That's how multiuser operating systems have been working for decades. You gotta admit, if an "issue" isn't specific to Family Share or even Steam, explaining it on the Family Share info page doesn't make sense.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

You won't get flagged for a ban.

[JonbiiTV]

I just thought with it being two different profiles, with two separate steam I.D's, using their own directories for steam cloud, i could have what was written on the Family Share page. To be able to share each others games, earning their own steam achievements and using their own saves.

So my own way around this is to create another user account for the other steam profile, and only log in to that steam account on the new profile? Would that work?

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

I just thought with it being two different profiles, with two separate steam I.D's, using their own directories for steam cloud, i could have what was written on the Family Share page. To be able to share each others games, earning their own steam achievements and using their own saves.

So my own way around this is to create another user account for the other steam profile, and only log in to that steam account on the new profile? Would that work?

You though of Steam as an own operating system, akin to XBox system software. But it runs on an operating system and having an operating-system layer on top of an operating system would be a horrible design. It goes in techie circles as "inner platform effect" and is generally perceived as being a bad idea because it is. Steam separates cloud saves all right, but that's only for cloud saves. And its a good idea to have separate accounts anyway, imagine someone else cheats on your account and your Steam account gets compromised.

Running a separate user account wont alleviate damage already done, but will prevent this from happening in future.

[JonbiiTV]

Yeah i think i'm beginning to understand what's actually going on, sorry it took you a while to explain it. I still think Steam should've made it a bit clearer on how to set it up properly but it is what it is. I sent a ticket to Steam support around the time i started this thread explaining what's happened, maybe they'll have some answers.

I deactivated the Family Share feature and deauthorized the accounts and PC, i think it would be less of a hassle to just purchase the games again should someone else want to play them.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

Yeah i think i'm beginning to understand what's actually going on, sorry it took you a while to explain it. I still think Steam should've made it a bit clearer on how to set it up properly but it is what it is. I sent a ticket to Steam support around the time i started this thread explaining what's happened, maybe they'll have some answers.

I deactivated the Family Share feature and deauthorized the accounts and PC, i think it would be less of a hassle to just purchase the games again should someone else want to play them.

Again, this is in no way related to Steam family sharing not to Steam itself! I already explained you that this will happen without Steam so there really isn't any point for "Steam", in reality Valve, to explain this. The Valve documentation explains how to set up Steam family sharing and that's what its supposed to do. A document outlining how user accounts of operating system works is better suited for support pages of your operating system.

Again: This is in no way related to Steam family sharing! Purchasing the games again will cause THE EXACTLY SAME SITUATION because the saves are shared via the user account, not Steam family sharing. So keep on using Steam family sharing.

I don't think you owe me an apology as I'm explaining that on my own leisure. I however wonder whether you're actually thinking along the explanations as you seem to think that buying games again wont have this effect. Which it totally will.

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

I deactivated the Family Share feature and deauthorized the accounts and PC, i think it would be less of a hassle to just purchase the games again should someone else want to play them.

It makes no difference.

If two people are using the same PC and the same Windows account, regardless of Steam account, saves will generally go into the same place - this varies from game to game but is normally either a folder under "my documents" or under the hidden "appdata" folders.

This happens with steam games and without steam games.

Because its the same windows account, if the game save folder contains achivement progress items, when it opens the game it checks it and adds the items onto the account. This is also why two people can load a game and find they are overwriting each others saves, they are both in a save file in the same account folder - /accountname/gamename/save001.sav.

If it's a DIFFERENT pc.... then no, it shouldn't happen as none of the files are on the pc you are using, unless you copied over some save file/setup file manually.

[JonbiiTV]

So it doesn't have all that much to do with the Steam directory itself where all the games install and stuff, game data is saved someone else under the user profile signed into the OS?

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

So it doesn't have all that much to do with the Steam directory itself where all the games install and stuff, game data is saved someone else under the user profile signed into the OS?

Hm, let's see...

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

Hey thanks for the reply, i searched up what you suggested and i don't feel comfortable installing software like that. Also i'm having trouble understanding the second half of your answer, are you saying i need a third account so my second account (This one) won't use the saves of the first account (Family Share lender)?

No, you need a SECOND account. A second OS account, that is. Games, like any well-behaved programs, tend to save their stuff inside the user profile folder(s) so if you want separate saves, you need separate user profile folder(s) thus a separate profile.

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

Oh wow ok, well... that kinda sucks. I wish they explained that on the family share page

That's not related to family sharing AT ALL. That effect will happen when you play on two Steam accounts on the same user account when both Steam accounts have the game. That effect will happen without Steam at all, install a somewhat modern game from DVD or, let's say, The Witcher 3 from GoG.

This isn't even related to gaming. When two people use the same account to, let's say, write documents and save them in the documents folder, you both will see each other's files all the time.

Or rather simple, when you and someone else share an email account, you'll see each other's mail all the time.

That's how multiuser operating systems have been working for decades. You gotta admit, if an "issue" isn't specific to Family Share or even Steam, explaining it on the Family Share info page doesn't make sense.

Not understanding something is fine. Ignoring everything, pretending you've read it all instead of explicitly asking for clarification isn't.

Why don't you even read my replies?

[JonbiiTV]

I read all your replies, it wasn't until i re-read the whole thread in it's entirety did i start to understand where exactly the problem was coming from. Between the multiple steam account and multi-user operating systems it overwhelmed me.

I'll start setting up some new user accounts for the steam profiles.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by JonbiiTV:

I'll start setting up some new user accounts for the steam profiles.

It's generally advised to keep one account per user, per person using the computer. Associating every Steam account with a user account is, while feasible, more complexity than needed. Unless you have a really good reason, that is.

In future, when you don't understand something, ask the explaining person to clarify on what you don't understand. Speaking from professional experience here, I used to be a foster teacher in mathemathics and physics and students learn a lot from asking follow-up questions with me going into details or explaining specific terms they might not grasp at first.