Set Achievements to Pop Again

[Slave Of Want]

This idea comes from this reddit thread.

I was incredibly frustrated when some achievements for my game FATE bugged and popped before I had earned them. Now I can't have the satisfaction of seeing them pop when I do earn them.

Achievements can't be reset for security reasons, but if there was an option to set already earned achievements to pop when the requirements are met again while leaving the achievement status untouched, then not only would bugged achievements not cause this problem, but it would be easier to do achievement runs multiple times with the same account.

A lot more satisfaction could be obtained from replaying games in our libraries if this change was implemented.

[?!]

I would love to be able to re-earn achievements in certain games.

[JPMcMillen]

Then talk to the developer of the game to make that a feature. Valve isn't going to start messing with other companies code to make this possible. There's more to re-earning an achievement than just removing it from Steam.

[Slave Of Want]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Then talk to the developer of the game to make that a feature. Valve isn't going to start messing with other companies code to make this possible. There's more to re-earning an achievement than just removing it from Steam.

How is it messing with the other companies code? It's not changing the achievements, it's just allowing them to pop again through the Steam client.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by Slave Of Want:

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Then talk to the developer of the game to make that a feature. Valve isn't going to start messing with other companies code to make this possible. There's more to re-earning an achievement than just removing it from Steam.

How is it messing with the other companies code? It's not changing the achievements, it's just allowing them to pop again through the Steam client.

Because you also have to reset all the data the game is using to track your progress. If you just clear the achievements and restart the game, most games will immediatly re-award the achievements as a way to make sure that ones that didn't properly award in the past get awarded.

Then there's the counters and flags that let the game know that an award was already earned or how much progress you've made, so the game may not re-award an achievement properly because the achievement data shows it was already awarded or gives it early because it didn't know to start counting all over.

And there's no required standard for how games store that data. Some may only keep it locally, some in the Steam Cloud, and for those with online functionality the data may be stored on the dev/pub's servers. Valve isn't going to take the time to figure all this out for thousands of 3rd party games, and would probably never be allowed to just tamper with another companies data.

So in short, it's up to the developer to do this. TF2 only allows this because the developer, Valve, added that to the game.

[Slave Of Want]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Originally posted by Slave Of Want:

How is it messing with the other companies code? It's not changing the achievements, it's just allowing them to pop again through the Steam client.

Because you also have to reset all the data the game is using to track your progress. If you just clear the achievements and restart the game, most games will immediatly re-award the achievements as a way to make sure that ones that didn't properly award in the past get awarded.

Then there's the counters and flags that let the game know that an award was already earned or how much progress you've made, so the game may not re-award an achievement properly because the achievement data shows it was already awarded or gives it early because it didn't know to start counting all over.

And there's no required standard for how games store that data. Some may only keep it locally, some in the Steam Cloud, and for those with online functionality the data may be stored on the dev/pub's servers. Valve isn't going to take the time to figure all this out for thousands of 3rd party games, and would probably never be allowed to just tamper with another companies data.

So in short, it's up to the developer to do this. TF2 only allows this because the developer, Valve, added that to the game.

I told you, the idea isn't to reset the achievement, it's to set up the achievement to fire again. Think of it as creating a temporary shadow achievement of which the only purpose is to pop-up.

[Dr. Fronkensteen]

Family share the game to a new account.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

The developers are the only ones that can do this for their game. Ask them or do as Dr. Fronkensteen says and Family Share it.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by Slave Of Want:

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Because you also have to reset all the data the game is using to track your progress. If you just clear the achievements and restart the game, most games will immediatly re-award the achievements as a way to make sure that ones that didn't properly award in the past get awarded.

Then there's the counters and flags that let the game know that an award was already earned or how much progress you've made, so the game may not re-award an achievement properly because the achievement data shows it was already awarded or gives it early because it didn't know to start counting all over.

And there's no required standard for how games store that data. Some may only keep it locally, some in the Steam Cloud, and for those with online functionality the data may be stored on the dev/pub's servers. Valve isn't going to take the time to figure all this out for thousands of 3rd party games, and would probably never be allowed to just tamper with another companies data.

So in short, it's up to the developer to do this. TF2 only allows this because the developer, Valve, added that to the game.

I told you, the idea isn't to reset the achievement, it's to set up the achievement to fire again. Think of it as creating a temporary shadow achievement of which the only purpose is to pop-up.

Except if the game knows the achievement was already awarded it might not send the call to Steam to make it pop up again. Or, in the case of progressive achievements, it may only award when the counter is at a specific number but if the game has counted past that it wouldn't hit the number to make it pop again. The achievement pop-up only happens when the game awards the achievement, so if the game thinks it's already been done... it may not make the request again.

So even if it could pop up again, it would be up to the developer to make sure that their game sends the award call every time it happens.

[Slave Of Want]

What if the Steam client had the knowledge of what a clean, unplayed game looked like and what the achievement looks like? What if you could just reset data on games that weren't tied to competitions or special rewards? There are possible solutions more hassle-free than contacting every developer or family-sharing every game you want to recomplete.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Only the developers for those games can do that as it was they who coded the achievements for their games.

Valve let TF2 users have the ability to reset achievements because they spent the extra time coding them so it can be possible. Each develper must do this for their own game.

[Slave Of Want]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Only the developers for those games can do that as it was they who coded the achievements for their games.

Valve let TF2 users have the ability to reset achievements because they spent the extra time coding them so it can be possible. Each develper must do this for their own game.

:qr:

Would it be too much to ask Steam to start encouraging this?

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by Slave Of Want:

What if the Steam client had the knowledge of what a clean, unplayed game looked like and what the achievement looks like? What if you could just reset data on games that weren't tied to competitions or special rewards? There are possible solutions more hassle-free than contacting every developer or family-sharing every game you want to recomplete.

Which requires the developers to impliment such a system. Valve isn't going to do this work, for thousands of games, just to satisfy the tiny, tiny percentage of the Steam userbase that want's this. All Steam does is revieve the achievement request from the game, and if the achievement hasn't been awarded, it awards it. That's pretty much the beginning, middle, and end of any involvement Valve has with achievements on Steam.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Slave Of Want:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Only the developers for those games can do that as it was they who coded the achievements for their games.

Valve let TF2 users have the ability to reset achievements because they spent the extra time coding them so it can be possible. Each develper must do this for their own game.

Would it be too much to ask Steam to start encouraging this?

They do that already. It is all in the Steamworks docs for them.

And since Valve decided to add the reset for TF2, there have been a few developes working on their own for their games.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by Slave Of Want:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Only the developers for those games can do that as it was they who coded the achievements for their games.

Valve let TF2 users have the ability to reset achievements because they spent the extra time coding them so it can be possible. Each develper must do this for their own game.

:qr:

Would it be too much to ask Steam to start encouraging this?

Except the vast majority of Steam users don't care to have this feature. Remember, to get even 1% of active accounts supporting an idea would require more than 1 million users asking for it. This suggestion has never had anything close to that kind of support. So, from a business standpoint, it's not worth the costs to add a feature that almost nobody will use.

[Slave Of Want]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Originally posted by Slave Of Want:

Would it be too much to ask Steam to start encouraging this?

Except the vast majority of Steam users don't care to have this feature. Remember, to get even 1% of active accounts supporting an idea would require more than 1 million users asking for it. This suggestion has never had anything close to that kind of support. So, from a business standpoint, it's not worth the costs to add a feature that almost nobody will use.

Okay, so first you say it's a thing the devs have to add, but now you're saying it's a feature Steam has to invest into?

It's one or the other. Either it's a feature that Steam has to put effort into, but they can implement themselves, or it's something the devs have to do and Steam doesn't put in any direct investment.