Remove achievement timestamps as a feature

[Reuben]

Achievement timestamps have been broken ever since they were added and serve no purpose because most of the time they don't accurately record when the achievement was actually earned and as such is bad at its function as a memento and a method of sussing out real cheaters because it's very easy to run into chronological ambiguities.

Examples:

• Some games like the original Darksiders refuse to unlock achievements during a session if at anytime you were taken offline whilst playing.
  
• Some games like Halo: MCC are buggy and will unlock certain achievements at random or not at all.
  
• Some games like the ones EA brought over to Steam after years of Origin exclusivity will unlock all the achievements you earned on Origin when you launch them on Steam for the first time without importing timestamps and instead all your achievements will have the exact same timestamp as when you first launched the game.
  
• When achievements were first added to games like the ones included in The Orange Box they originally didn't record timestamps, so users who unlocked achievements prior to the achievement timestamp update don't have any recorded timestamps (as it should be).
  
• Many games tell Steam to unlock achievements only after closing the game, causing all unlocked achievements (sometimes after many hours of playing) to have the same timestamp.
  
• When playing some games offline, the same timestamp will be applied to any achievement earned upon contacting the servers again.

Achievement timestamps is a failed experiment and at this point a feature for the sake of it and should be removed for the same reason Steam Greenlight was. Perhaps Valve should focus more on quality of life updates rather than the gamification of the platform if they want to stay relevant in the face of its competitors.

[м]

to make a tl;dr:

basically you don't care, but at the same time you care enough to get the timestamps removed for any reason.

and i don't like the idea.

they should rather add more details to them, maybe a checkmark that shows that they were unlocked in game... or they could make sure that programs like sam get blocked.
i mean if that's even possible somehow.

but please don't remove the timestamp just because one person that doesn't care at the same time, wants them gone, that would be utter nonsense.

and to be clear, i don't show my achievements, neither am i using the ugly achievement collector showcase, but for myself it's neat to see when i unlocked something, so i can tell how long certain things took to achieve for example.

[Edifier]

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

Yes, achievements mean nothing because Valve never locked down the part of the API that let's it get abused and it was never tied to trading cards like it should have been, the latter of which instead uses time played (which SIM also abuses via the same part of the API and you can get in-store credit for). Valve haven't cared about people cheating to unlock achievements for more than a decade when some games or sale events gave inventory items for unlocking achievements (some still do).

So why then are timestamps still around? It can't be for policing profiles since they haven't done that in a while and it can't be for vanity purposes because of the way some of these achievements are bugged or recorded, producing inaccurate timestamps or none at all.

Haven't seen an achievement without a timestamp.
As for being inaccurate. Well because I don't check my achievement and the time I got them I wouldn't know how true this is.

But there is no reason to remove the timestamps. Other than helping those who use SAM and aimbotters to not be spotted easier.

Originally posted by davidb11:

PAyday 2 doesn't do that any more, and hasn't done that for literally years.
Why are people still coming up with the idea they still do that?
I think they stopped literally 3 months after they started doing that.

Because they where doing it for years. Also haven't played that game in years as well so don't keep myself updated on what they do.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

...

I suppose there are other ways of cheating achievements like SAM that is currently (but not totally) beyond Valve's control (e.g. importing other people's save files in some games and mods from the workshop or other sites), even for online Steam games and can never be solved unless fully locking down the platform.

That's a good point about certain achievements being too unreasonable to unlock for a trading card. Some games are also only played for their mods too and some achievements don't work with that. Although, a large percentage of achievements are unlocked just by playing the game, that's not always the case, so I suppose trading cards should be tied to playtime but something has to be done about programs like SIM then because trading cards actually have monetary value unlike achievements.

Yeah, there are some achievements that are only unlockable on certain dates, but many offline games use system time in order to determine that (as Steam should when in offline mode because you could come back online days later and have an inaccurate timestamp that on the face of it looks no better than if you could set the system clock as such as to backdate achievements timestamps to achievements that you can't unlock anymore) and have nothing to do with achievement timestamps IIRC. Recording timestamps of achievements expressly for the purpose of knowing if someone has unlocked an achievement before or after it could be unlocked is moot since it's not policed though.

I wouldn't mind if achievements disappeared altogether as for some; fun is derived from what someone does in a game and not always what a game directs someone to do. But, even when achievements can be cheated and not all of them give a reward, they still serve a purpose to some people in providing a checklist of all the things left to do in a game, especially if someone doesn't have the game installed or the original save file(s) marking previous progress, is missing.

Originally posted by м:

to make a tl;dr:

basically you don't care, but at the same time you care enough to get the timestamps removed for any reason.

and i don't like the idea.

they should rather add more details to them, maybe a checkmark that shows that they were unlocked in game... or they could make sure that programs like sam get blocked.
i mean if that's even possible somehow.

but please don't remove the timestamp just because one person that doesn't care at the same time, wants them gone, that would be utter nonsense.

and to be clear, i don't show my achievements, neither am i using the ugly achievement collector showcase, but for myself it's neat to see when i unlocked something, so i can tell how long certain things took to achieve for example.

I care about the consistency of it all, it's a nice feature in theory, but some of us earned achievements before the timestamp update, some of us earned achievements out of order because of bugs, some of us earned achievements offline and all three instances cause inconsistencies with timestamps that makes it messy and an unreliable way of knowing who cheated or when you completed something in a game.

Originally posted by Edifier:

Haven't seen an achievement without a timestamp.
As for being inaccurate. Well because I don't check my achievement and the time I got them I wouldn't know how true this is.

But there is no reason to remove the timestamps. Other than helping those who use SAM and aimbotters to not be spotted easier.

The original post details how timestamps can become inaccurate or not show up at all under the current system.

You don't detect game cheats by looking at someone's achievements for reasons listed in the original post as well. You have to implement better anticheat systems and overwatch programs for that.

[Edifier]

Originally posted by davidb11:

How would removing the achievement timestamp help aimbotters?
I mean, they're literally very obvious.

They're not called aimbotters for nothing.

People who are VAC banned and claims they don't cheat can often be proved wrong by just looking at the achievements they have gotten.

But at this point it really doesn't matter as they are already banned. Still, if you remove time stamps it would only help these cheaters to hide better.

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

The original post details how timestamps can become inaccurate or not show up at all under the current system.

I looked at my TF2 achievements and they do lack a time stamp but it's more of mark of honor at that point because you played it before most other people.
This is not an issue anymore because the I have yet to find any of the later ones missing a time stamp.

As for the other scenarios. Those are more rare. Halo MCC is the only game I know of that unlocked achievements at random.

But due to these few issues that happens in just some games, you think they should remove the time stamp completely. There is no need to remove it.

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

You don't detect game cheats by looking at someone's achievements for reasons listed in the original post as well. You have to implement better anticheat systems and overwatch programs for that.

You can tell if someone has cheated by looking at the achievements. As I have stated earlier, they'd have gotten some of the harder achievements within the last few hours and then just end up banned.

Then we have those who have cheated achievements by unlocking them all with SAM at the same time.

You can spot these to use as proof against people who claim they didn't cheat.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by Edifier:

Originally posted by davidb11:

How would removing the achievement timestamp help aimbotters?
I mean, they're literally very obvious.

They're not called aimbotters for nothing.

People who are VAC banned and claims they don't cheat can often be proved wrong by just looking at the achievements they have gotten.

But at this point it really doesn't matter as they are already banned. Still, if you remove time stamps it would only help these cheaters to hide better.

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

The original post details how timestamps can become inaccurate or not show up at all under the current system.

I looked at my TF2 achievements and they do lack a time stamp but it's more of mark of honor at that point because you played it before most other people.
This is not an issue anymore because the I have yet to find any of the later ones missing a time stamp.

As for the other scenarios. Those are more rare. Halo MCC is the only game I know of that unlocked achievements at random.

But due to these few issues that happens in just some games, you think they should remove the time stamp completely. There is no need to remove it.

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

You don't detect game cheats by looking at someone's achievements for reasons listed in the original post as well. You have to implement better anticheat systems and overwatch programs for that.

You can tell if someone has cheated by looking at the achievements. As I have stated earlier, they'd have gotten some of the harder achievements within the last few hours and then just end up banned.

Then we have those who have cheated achievements by unlocking them all with SAM at the same time.

You can spot these to use as proof against people who claim they didn't cheat.

There's no point to that subforum as threads there always devolve into diatribe and people getting penalised for it. False VAC bans are always automatically reversed anyway and nobody ever has a real discussion about VAC on that subforum.

An argument could be made that third party achievement trackers need timestamps to police their communities but that's outside Valve's purview and such trackers could always apply their own timestamps since they're connected to the relevant API and know when an achievement unlocks on someone's profile, but then again, there's always the issue of offline or buggy achievements causing timestamp ambiguities that could potentially result in a ban on those platforms (especially if it's a niche game, bug or circumstance that not everyone is aware of).

So using timestamps to police profiles is moot.

[Radene]

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

Originally posted by Edifier:

People who are VAC banned and claims they don't cheat can often be proved wrong by just looking at the achievements they have gotten.

But at this point it really doesn't matter as they are already banned. Still, if you remove time stamps it would only help these cheaters to hide better.



I looked at my TF2 achievements and they do lack a time stamp but it's more of mark of honor at that point because you played it before most other people.
This is not an issue anymore because the I have yet to find any of the later ones missing a time stamp.

As for the other scenarios. Those are more rare. Halo MCC is the only game I know of that unlocked achievements at random.

But due to these few issues that happens in just some games, you think they should remove the time stamp completely. There is no need to remove it.



You can tell if someone has cheated by looking at the achievements. As I have stated earlier, they'd have gotten some of the harder achievements within the last few hours and then just end up banned.

Then we have those who have cheated achievements by unlocking them all with SAM at the same time.

You can spot these to use as proof against people who claim they didn't cheat.

There's no point to that subforum as threads there always devolve into diatribe and people getting penalised for it. False VAC bans are always automatically reversed anyway and nobody ever has a real discussion about VAC on that subforum.

An argument could be made that third party achievement trackers need timestamps to police their community but that's outside Valve's purview and such trackers could always apply their own timestamps since they're connected to the relevant API and know when an achievement unlocks on someone's profile, but then again, there's always the issue of offline or buggy achievements causing timestamp ambiguities that could potentially result in a ban on those platforms (especially if it's a niche game, bug or circumstance that not everyone is aware of).

So using timestamps to police profiles is moot.

Profiles do not need to be "policed" for anything other than inappropriate or illegal content.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by Radene:

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

There's no point to that subforum as threads there always devolve into diatribe and people getting penalised for it. False VAC bans are always automatically reversed anyway and nobody ever has a real discussion about VAC on that subforum.

An argument could be made that third party achievement trackers need timestamps to police their community but that's outside Valve's purview and such trackers could always apply their own timestamps since they're connected to the relevant API and know when an achievement unlocks on someone's profile, but then again, there's always the issue of offline or buggy achievements causing timestamp ambiguities that could potentially result in a ban on those platforms (especially if it's a niche game, bug or circumstance that not everyone is aware of).

So using timestamps to police profiles is moot.

Profiles do not need to be "policed" for anything other than inappropriate or illegal content.

I know, it's pointless since it's ungovernable (has been for years) beyond the forums and pre-existing automation (those systems being unreliable too) even for the reasons you state, that's what I'm saying, yet people do it, I'm mostly going on about third party trackers policing their own users using inaccurate data from Steam.

[Torcqua]

Not to resurrect a thread from earlier this year or anything, but I was having the same sentiments over this very subject.

Most other platforms, be it Ubisoft Connect, Xbox (PC App & Console), EA Origin etc. have an "Unlocked Date X, Year X" and that's it, no mention of time.

I'd love for Steam to implement a similar date-stamp, rather than the current datetime-stamp, or allow the Client user to have control over what is displayed from the Privacy page to themselves and public viewers.

[Pscht]

If you feel the need to use SAM, live with the consequences.

[Torcqua]

Originally posted by Pscht:

If you feel the need to use SAM, live with the consequences.

What a highly intellectual, assumptive response.

As per OPs points, this is nothing to do with SAM, nor the use of that external application, but the inconsistencies highlighted in this thread that result in incorrect data.

It's a personal frustration to see numerous Achievements unlock with the exact same time due to some erroneous syncing or unlocking by the game itself.

I'd much prefer to have the current format of "Unlocked X Month, X Year" without the timestamp, as it still provides an inclination of when it was achieved.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Originally posted by Torcqua:

Originally posted by Pscht:

If you feel the need to use SAM, live with the consequences.

What a highly intellectual, assumptive response.

As per OPs points, this is nothing to do with SAM, nor the use of that external application, but the inconsistencies highlighted in this thread that result in incorrect data.

It's a personal frustration to see numerous Achievements unlock with the exact same time due to some erroneous syncing or unlocking by the game itself.

I'd much prefer to have the current format of "Unlocked X Month, X Year" without the timestamp, as it still provides an inclination of when it was achieved.

The time literally doesn't matter to anyone but nit pickers. It could not exist or exist as it does and nothing would change.

[Gus the Crocodile]

On the plus side, anyone using timestamps to act out their Gamer Police fantasy is efficiently showing you that you can safely add them to your blocklist.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by Torcqua:

Not to resurrect a thread from earlier this year or anything, but I was having the same sentiments over this very subject.

Most other platforms, be it Ubisoft Connect, Xbox (PC App & Console), EA Origin etc. have an "Unlocked Date X, Year X" and that's it, no mention of time.

I'd love for Steam to implement a similar date-stamp, rather than the current datetime-stamp, or allow the Client user to have control over what is displayed from the Library settings page.

Exactly, most of the industry is innovating whilst Valve is stagnating, which is very bad when people have most of their game library on Steam.

For example, most of the industry migrated accounts over to a UUID format whilst Valve still insists on SteamIDs and regrettable account names that can't be changed.

Valve needs to give us greater control over user data, I want to opt out of seasonal badges (do something with steam points instead), timestamps and change my account name as well as anonymise posts of a certain age.

[Torcqua]

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

Exactly, most of the industry is innovating whilst Valve is stagnating, which is very bad when people have most of their game library on Steam.

For example, most of the industry migrated accounts over to a UUID format whilst Valve still insists on SteamIDs and regrettable account names that can't be changed.

Valve needs to give us greater control over user data, I want to opt out of seasonal badges (do something with steam points instead), timestamps and change my account name as well as anonymise posts of a certain age.

One can remain hopeful, upon the release of the Steam Deck that various areas of the Client have been brought more into current times, but we'll see. I believe the main focal point there is a Steam Big Picture UI overhaul and little else.

The issue with timestamps, as per the exposed Steam APIs, is that the date-time isn't actually recorded exactly as it is shown in your Achievement list. It's converted, meaning the APIs would need a minor rework if this was ever to happen.

Interrogating the API for say, Halo Infinite, that I've been playing recently gives an insight into how it works.

If we take the first Achievement brought back from the API for my stats, we see below;

{
  "playerstats":{
  "steamID":"XXXXXXXXXXXXX4548",
  "gameName":"Halo Infinite",
  "achievements":[
{
  "apiname":"NEW_ACHIEVEMENT_1_0",
  "achieved":1,
  "unlocktime":1639076429
}

The unlock time is actually a Unix Epoch integer value. The value is the amount of seconds since 1st January, 1970.

Putting that integer value into an Epoch converter gives me the correct Date & Time it was earned, 9th Dec 7:00pm.

I appreciate this may have ended up slightly technical, but I thought I'd provide a bit of insight into how it currently works, however that it is also not a large task to change, should Valve ever consider.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by Torcqua:

Originally posted by ReubenUKGB:

Exactly, most of the industry is innovating whilst Valve is stagnating, which is very bad when people have most of their game library on Steam.

For example, most of the industry migrated accounts over to a UUID format whilst Valve still insists on SteamIDs and regrettable account names that can't be changed.

Valve needs to give us greater control over user data, I want to opt out of seasonal badges (do something with steam points instead), timestamps and change my account name as well as anonymise posts of a certain age.

One can remain hopeful, upon the release of the Steam Deck that various areas of the Client have been brought more into current times, but we'll see. I believe the main focal point there is a Steam Big Picture UI overhaul and little else.

The issue with timestamps, as per the exposed Steam APIs, is that the date-time isn't actually recorded exactly as it is shown in your Achievement list. It's converted, meaning the APIs would need a minor rework if this was ever to happen.

Interrogating the API for say, Halo Infinite, that I've been playing recently gives an insight into how it works.

If we take the first Achievement brought back from the API for my stats, we see below;

{
"playerstats":{
"steamID":"XXXXXXXXXXXXX4548",
"gameName":"Halo Infinite",
"achievements":[
{
"apiname":"NEW_ACHIEVEMENT_1_0",
"achieved":1,
"unlocktime":1639076429
}


The unlock time is actually a Unix Epoch integer value. The value is the amount of seconds since 1st January, 1970.

Putting that integer value into an Epoch converter gives me the correct Date & Time it was earned, 9th Dec 7:00pm.

I appreciate this may have ended up slightly technical, but I thought I'd provide a bit of insight into how it currently works, but also that it is not a large task to change, should Valve ever consider.

That would explain a few things like bugged achievements from some of my friends showing 1st January, 1970 as the timestamp. If Steam survives past 2038 then simply changing the signed 32-bit integer to a signed 64-bit integer would work.

The Steam Deck creates another issue as to how timestamps work for achievements because of the mobility of the device and the high probability that it'll be in offline mode when used some of the time, if it ever went mainstream like Nintendo handhelds then users would complain that only some achievements unlock (along with an inacurate timestamp) when connecting to a network again (the current logic of the Steam client). Most other consoles have the ability to unlock achievements whilst not connected to the Internet.