How does Steam handle achievements earned while offline?

Once you reconnect to Steam, any achievements earned offline will sync to your account and will appear. Obviously you can't unlock multiplayer or online-only achievements while offline.

]I’m curious how Steam tracks that data as I do see some people having multiple unlocks at the same time and I want to make sure if they are using a tool like SAM or actually got them all offline and when they went online, they uploaded with the same time.

Curious, why do you care how some random person in the world unlocked an achievement? So what if they used SAM, achievements have zero value and give zero rewards. A lot of achievements require the player to do really stupid and boring tasks which is why you can't blame people for using SAM to unlock them.

Again, just curious.

That depends on the developer.
Some save achievement status to file (in or next to save games), and run a sync check on game startup or when an achievement is earned while online.

Others don't cache the achievement status and have no system in place to handle offline play.

Originally posted by BloodShed:

That depends on the developer.
Some save achievement status to file (in or next to save games), and run a sync check on game startup or when an achievement is earned while online.

Others don't cache the achievement status and have no system in place to handle offline play.

So, to understand this correctly, some achievements might just all indicate they have been unlocked at the same time once the player goes online, therefore looking rather suspicious.

Originally posted by Vasharal:

Originally posted by Hi Im Swat:

Curious, why do you care how some random person in the world unlocked an achievement? So what if they used SAM, achievements have zero value and give zero rewards. A lot of achievements require the player to do really stupid and boring tasks which is why you can't blame people for using SAM to unlock them.

Again, just curious.

I've got a community of players on my Discord server, that I reward for completing games, so if their unlocks are forged, I will need to disqualify them from the reward program. This is to ensure fairness for others that are actually putting effort. There's also other websites like Steam Hunters that removes SAM users off their leaderboard for cheating.

This is all to preserve fairness. I personally don't have anything against SAM users. It's their stats and their own decision to use it, it's more of a personal matter in this case as I verify the validity of people's entry and I want to make sure they play by the books.

Originally posted by Vasharal:

Originally posted by BloodShed:

That depends on the developer.
Some save achievement status to file (in or next to save games), and run a sync check on game startup or when an achievement is earned while online.

Others don't cache the achievement status and have no system in place to handle offline play.

So, to understand this correctly, some achievements might just all indicate they have been unlocked at the same time once the player goes online, therefore looking rather suspicious.

Yes

Originally posted by Vasharal:

Originally posted by BloodShed:

That depends on the developer.
Some save achievement status to file (in or next to save games), and run a sync check on game startup or when an achievement is earned while online.

Others don't cache the achievement status and have no system in place to handle offline play.

So, to understand this correctly, some achievements might just all indicate they have been unlocked at the same time once the player goes online, therefore looking rather suspicious.

Correct. You choose to use the word suspicious though. You can usually tell if SAM or a save file has been used if you know the game because some achievements just dont pop that close together.

I can also tell you I know of multiple MP games that have had achievement issues, with them popping without requirements being met. This, as an example, in one game it can appear that you reached iridescent level before reaching gold. Youd call that suspicious, I know it was a bug.

I was playing a game, online recently, achivos didn't pop, ok fine, log off

A bunch popped when I was asleep in bed, and a bunch more when I logged in to the game again

Depends on how the dev has implimented it, and some have not done that in a great way, even AAA devs

Originally posted by Vasharal:

Originally posted by Vasharal:

I've got a community of players on my Discord server, that I reward for completing games, so if their unlocks are forged, I will need to disqualify them from the reward program. This is to ensure fairness for others that are actually putting effort. There's also other websites like Steam Hunters that removes SAM users off their leaderboard for cheating.

This is all to preserve fairness. I personally don't have anything against SAM users. It's their stats and their own decision to use it, it's more of a personal matter in this case as I verify the validity of people's entry and I want to make sure they play by the books.

Achievements have nothing to do with completing games smh!

Originally posted by biggeordiegeek:

I was playing a game, online recently, achivos didn't pop, ok fine, log off

A bunch popped when I was asleep in bed, and a bunch more when I logged in to the game again

Depends on how the dev has implimented it, and some have not done that in a great way, even AAA devs

Ok, but what if I played the game, so did another friend that spotted the issue and we both had normal unlocks, but someone else suddenly had 3-4 achievements that theoretically can't be unlocked in the same time got them that way?

Originally posted by SLAYER187:

Originally posted by Vasharal:

I've got a community of players on my Discord server, that I reward for completing games, so if their unlocks are forged, I will need to disqualify them from the reward program. This is to ensure fairness for others that are actually putting effort. There's also other websites like Steam Hunters that removes SAM users off their leaderboard for cheating.

This is all to preserve fairness. I personally don't have anything against SAM users. It's their stats and their own decision to use it, it's more of a personal matter in this case as I verify the validity of people's entry and I want to make sure they play by the books.

Achievements have nothing to do with completing games smh!

They do for my community if at the end of the day, they come to request for their reward because they completed the game, but faked their achievement unlocks sometime in the game.

If partially they used a tool like SAM while the rest was obtained naturally, it matters a lot to me.

Originally posted by biggeordiegeek:

I was playing a game, online recently, achivos didn't pop, ok fine, log off

A bunch popped when I was asleep in bed, and a bunch more when I logged in to the game again

Depends on how the dev has implimented it, and some have not done that in a great way, even AAA devs

I guess if others experience similar situations that can be known as a common bug. I'm okay with that one. But I'm curious if one plays primarily offline, would the times reflect the time they unlock them or would it show when they logged back in and would indicate that they are all unlocked at the exact same time?

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Originally posted by Vasharal:

So, to understand this correctly, some achievements might just all indicate they have been unlocked at the same time once the player goes online, therefore looking rather suspicious.

Correct. You choose to use the word suspicious though. You can usually tell if SAM or a save file has been used if you know the game because some achievements just dont pop that close together.

I can also tell you I know of multiple MP games that have had achievement issues, with them popping without requirements being met. This, as an example, in one game it can appear that you reached iridescent level before reaching gold. Youd call that suspicious, I know it was a bug.

If others have experienced and reported it for that particular game then I'd have no problem with it. What I would find most suspicious is when me and another friend who pointed out the situation, had normal natural unlocks, but another didn't.

cool

Originally posted by Vasharal:

Originally posted by biggeordiegeek:

I was playing a game, online recently, achivos didn't pop, ok fine, log off

A bunch popped when I was asleep in bed, and a bunch more when I logged in to the game again

Depends on how the dev has implimented it, and some have not done that in a great way, even AAA devs

I guess if others experience similar situations that can be known as a common bug. I'm okay with that one. But I'm curious if one plays primarily offline, would the times reflect the time they unlock them or would it show when they logged back in and would indicate that they are all unlocked at the exact same time?

Yes. The time recorded is when the achievement pops, not when its earned. So the offline user will see a bunch of achievements pop at the same time with the same timestamp.

Heres another: when a game adds achievements that has not had them. Any earned achievements now included will all pop at the same time. Ive had those achievements pop at the time the achievements went live, without even launching the game.

Heres another thought: If one uses SAM one achievement at time, you wouldnt know unless there is some kind of out of order progression.

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Originally posted by Vasharal:

I guess if others experience similar situations that can be known as a common bug. I'm okay with that one. But I'm curious if one plays primarily offline, would the times reflect the time they unlock them or would it show when they logged back in and would indicate that they are all unlocked at the exact same time?

Yes. The time recorded is when the achievement pops, not when its earned. So the offline user will see a bunch of achievements pop at the same time with the same timestamp.

Heres another: when a game adds achievements that has not had them. Any earned achievements now included will all pop at the same time. Ive had those achievements pop at the time the achievements went live, without even launching the game.

Heres another thought: If one uses SAM one achievement at time, you wouldnt know unless there is some kind of out of order progression.

Yeah, perfectly aware of that aspect. I am not trying to catch now every culprit. I mean, if they are smart enough to use that technique, well, I can't justify it unless I ask them provide proof when submitting the game completions, but that's overboard. I do believe the truth will reveal those that are cheating, but I wanted to make sure, based on those criteria achievements will somewhat indicate different time zones, at the time of the unlock, instead of showing all at the same time.