c/broken-game-rants

The loading screen trick that exposed a huge bug in my save file

Was messing around with my 80 hour playthrough on that fantasy RPG last night and noticed the loading screen tip said enemies scale with your party's average level. So I checked my level 47 character against a level 12 friend's game, same dungeon, and the mobs were identical. Turns out my game has a soft-lock bug where the scaling flag never triggered after I did that side quest in the swamp area back in June. Has anyone else found the game quietly lying about its own mechanics like that?

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daniel_martinez92•3d ago

My Skyrim character went from stealth archer to drunk fist fighter, here's why

I spent 6 years playing stealth archer in every playthrough, sneaking around Whiterun like it was a Navy SEAL mission. Then last month my game glitched and my bow just vanished from my inventory mid-dungeon, no enemies around, no save to go back to. I had to finish that bandit camp in Riften with bare fists and whatever mead I had in my bag, and honestly the ragdoll physics when you punch someone into a wall is way funnier. Has anyone else had a run ruined by a random item disappearing, or am I the only one who now refuses to even carry a bow?

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the_hannah•4d ago

My save file corrupted at hour 212 and the autosave backup was from hour 190

I was 212 hours deep into my exploration run in that cave system near the eastern marsh, right at the final glyph puzzle, and boom, the game crashed and when I restarted it loaded a backup from 22 hours earlier because the last three autosaves were somehow all overwritten with the same corrupted file, so has anyone else had their beloved long-term save nuke itself right at the endgame stretch, and did you try the system clock trick to roll back the cloud version or just give up and start fresh?

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fiona_fox56•7d ago

Save-scumming in Cyberpunk 2077, do we still need it after 2.0?

Back at launch I reloaded every single time a car spawned upside down or a NPC clipped through a wall, that was like 3 reloads per mission easily. After 2.0 and the recent patches those glitches happen way less, but I still catch myself hitting quickload out of pure habit. Has anyone else stopped save-scumming for bugs and just rolled with the jank, or do you still trust nothing until the credits roll?

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harper_singh18•10d ago

The patch notes from 3 years ago finally clicked for me

I was replaying an old RPG from 2019 and noticed the combat felt smoother than I remembered. I checked the patch notes from update 1.4 and saw they changed the hitbox detection from a full model to a smaller core box. Back then I thought it was just a nerf to dodging, but now I realize it fixed the whole issue of attacks connecting when they clearly missed. The before and after is like two different games, same story and maps but the feel is night and day. It took me three playthroughs and a few years to appreciate what that list of numbers actually did. Has anyone else gone back to an old save and suddenly understood a patch that seemed pointless at the time?

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alice_adams57•12d ago

Vent: paid DLC boss still hits through walls, my cheap fix actually worked

The endgame dragon in our co-op session kept landing tail swipes through solid rock, wiped our group 4 times in one night. I finally tried standing inside the pillar hitbox after a buddy in chat joked about it, and the attacks just whiffed completely. Has anyone else found janky cover like that, or do we just uninstall the expansion?

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oliver_torres4•12d ago

The one critique about my dodge timing in Nightreign that clicked

I kept dying to the twin gargoyles in Elden Ring Nightreign for like 5 straight sessions last month, just mashing dodge as soon as I saw an attack wind up. Then a random co-op partner said 'you're rolling on the scream, not the swing' and pointed out I was panic-rolling into the second hit every time. I started waiting half a beat and watching the weapon arc, cleared them on try 2, has anyone else had a single tip that just rewired your whole reflexes in a soulslike?

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stone.troy•24d ago

That forum dude's 'controller drop test' advice got my save file deleted

Some guy on here swore that dropping your controller from waist height on carpet was the best way to fix stick drift, said he did it 3 times with his old Xbox pad. Tried it last night with my Switch Pro controller and now the left stick just spins in circles and my Animal Crossing save decided to corrupt at the exact same time. I'm 200 hours into my island and I can't even load it to screenshot the mess. Has anyone else had a 'repair trick' that somehow nuked their whole game file?

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ruby494•25d ago

A coworker's one question made me see save glitches differently

I was venting about losing 30 hours in Stardew Valley to a save file glitch, and my coworker Tim asked if I had checked the game's cloud backup folder. He showed me that the autosave in my Steam folder had a copy from before the corruption, and I got most of my progress back. It made me realize how many of us just rage quit without looking for hidden recovery files, so now I check the game's local data before deleting anything. Has anyone else recovered lost saves through folders the game never mentions?

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the_abby•27d ago

Rant: Found a 14 year old save file and the autosave wiped it clean

Loaded up an old RPG from 2011 on my PS3 last weekend. Had like 80 hours in it, almost done with the final dungeon. The game forced an autosave over my manual save slot without asking. Just gone. No warning, no backup. Tried the cloud save trick but this game never supported it. I get that autosave is supposed to help but why does it get priority over my file? That's a dumb design choice plain and simple. Has anyone else lost a run this way? How do you protect old saves now?

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mitchell.mark•27d ago

Went back to turn-based after a friend tore apart my real-time habit

I used to swear by real-time with pause for every RPG, thought turn-based was for people who could not handle pressure. Then a buddy of mine, Dave from my old raid group, sat me down after we tried Pillars of Eternity and said my positioning was garbage because I was pausing every two seconds anyway. He pointed out I was essentially playing turn-based but with extra steps and way more stress, and that stung because he was right. So I picked up a used copy of Final Fantasy Tactics for $15 last spring and forced myself to slow down, actually read enemy ranges, and plan two moves ahead. The weird thing is, now I catch myself enjoying the puzzle of it more than the twitchy stuff, and my party does not wipe to a single stray fireball anymore. Has anyone else had their whole playstyle flipped by one piece of blunt criticism, or am I the only one who needed a kick in the pants to enjoy the slower stuff?

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grant901•28d ago

The patch notes promised balance, my game got worse

I booted up Nexus Reborn after the 1.7 update last Tuesday and the enemy AI went from challenging to flat out psychic. They dodge every charged shot now, but my companion stands there staring at a bin during fights. I spent 6 hours redoing missions that were fine before, and it feels like they tested nothing on the hard difficulty. Has anyone else had their loadout suddenly perform worse after an update that claimed to fix things?

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mila395•28d ago

That $50 capture card I bought actually caught a real bug

Picked up a cheap capture card in March to record my playthroughs. Spent $50 on some no-name brand. Last night it caught my game hard-locking mid-boss, and the clip shows the exact frame where the audio desyncs. Without that footage I'd have blamed my PC, not the patch. Anybody else drop money on gear that ended up exposing a dev's mistake instead of your setup?

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fiona_fox56•29d ago

Serious question, why is everyone praising the new patch when it broke the save system worse than before?

My co-op run on the swamp level got wiped at the 3 hour mark last night because the auto-save decided to roll back to a checkpoint from last Tuesday, so I'm not exactly cheering for the devs who shipped this, has anyone else lost progress in that same chunk of the map?

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joseph_martinez35•1mo ago

My buddy's tip about enemy audio made me hear the game differently

So I was complaining to my friend Dave about getting sniped in Warzone for the 10th time that night, and he just said "turn off the music, listen for footsteps instead." I thought it was basic advice, but I tried it in the lobby at Verdansk and suddenly I could track a guy three floors down. It hit me that I'd been playing with all the atmosphere sounds drowning out the actual cues for like 2 years. Has anyone else gone from being deaf to deadly just by muting the soundtrack?

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jason11•1mo ago

The day my save file ate itself after 40 hours in Baldur's Gate 3

So last Saturday I'm finally on the last act, been grinding through this run for like 3 weeks. I hit a quicksave, switch tabs to check a build guide, come back 10 minutes later and the game is on the main menu. Load up my latest save, it says the file is corrupted. All my other saves from that run are gone too. Not even a backup in the cloud. I checked the folder, nothing but a couple of autosaves from the first hour. I know mods can do this, I had one cosmetic mod installed but it never gave me trouble before. Has anyone else had this happen after a patch update? I'm trying to decide if I start over or just take a break from this game for a while.

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jamiekim•1mo ago

Over 300 hours in and I just learned stealth kills don't work if enemies spot your shadow first

I was doing that vault mission near the water tower in the eastern district, and this guard kept turning around before I even got close. Turns out the stupid sunlight was throwing my character's shadow right onto the wall in front of me. Has anyone else had their cover blown by a dumb environmental detail like that?

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linda626•1mo ago

Three lost saves in a row, finally beat the mimic room on floor 7

Was grinding through the Crypt of the Forsaken last Tuesday and the game crashed right as I opened the boss door, wiped my progress twice before that too. Instead of rage quitting I mapped out the mimic spawn pattern on paper, turns out it always triggers after the second pressure plate. Got through it on try three with a half-broken spear and 12 health pots. Anyone else track enemy patterns with actual pen and paper just to outsmart a buggy spawn timer?

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christopherb59•1mo ago

My buddy's save file rant changed how I see checkpoints

Last night my friend Mike went off about losing 3 hours of progress in a game because the last checkpoint was before a stupidly long cutscene. I usually defend checkpoint systems as fair, but he pointed out how modern games use them to pad playtime, not respect your time. He showed me a spot where a death sent him back 40 minutes of walking, not fighting, just walking through empty hallways. That conversation made me realize I've been blaming my own skill when the real problem is lazy design hiding behind "challenge." Has anyone else had a friend reframe a common game annoyance for them this way?

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aaron_gonzalez•1mo ago

I finally snapped over invisible walls in coop mode

My buddy and I spent 2 hours last night in the haunted mansion level and he kept getting stuck on stairs that were totally flat, like the game cant tell a ramp from a cube. We even restarted the checkpoint twice and the same spot ate his character every time. Has anyone else had a patch fix one thing and break every doorway in the game?

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rileyl67•1mo ago

Rant: the game said my save file was fine, then ate 40 hours anyway

Last week I booted up my current playthrough and the loading screen said "save data verified," all good. But when I got to the main hub, every quest NPC was missing and the map reset to the starting area. I checked the save file details and it claimed 40 hours, but the in-game clock said 2 minutes. Turns out the autosave had been overwriting my manual saves for the last 3 weeks and I never noticed until it was too late. Has anyone else had a game silently corrupt saves like that without any warning flag, or is this just my luck?

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karen_shah56•1mo ago

The patch that broke my save file twice in one week

Last Tuesday I loaded up Cyberpunk 2077 after their 2.1 update and my V just fell through the floor of the apartment in Watson. Reloaded, same thing, so I lost about 3 hours of side quest progress. Anyone else had a hotfix make things worse than the original bug?

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tessa_rivera•1mo ago

Three hours on a 20 minute save file transfer, still not sure how it happened

Was moving my Skyrim saves from an old external drive to a new one last Friday. The drive was dying, clicking every few seconds. 900 hours across 12 characters. Got maybe 40 saves moved before it just stopped reading. Tried every recovery tool I had, from Recuva to some sketchy Russian software I found on a forum. Finally got the files off using a live Linux USB and ddrescue, one block at a time. The whole thing ate my entire evening. Has anyone else had a drive fail mid-backup and just sat there watching the progress bar crawl at 2 MB per minute?

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wren_jackson•1mo ago

Checked out that new save point in the sewers, it's a trap

Went down to the Lower District yesterday to grab the key item for the side quest and noticed they moved the save point right next to the rat king spawn. I almost lost 3 hours of progress because the game autosaves after you touch it, but the rats aggro through the wall. Anyone else run into this or did my game just glitch weird?

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anthonyh85•1mo ago

A random forum comment changed how I handle save files forever

Back in 2018 I lost a 60 hour playthrough of a JRPG because I only kept one save slot and the autosave got corrupted. Some guy on a gamefaqs board said he always rotates three saves and never overwrites the earliest one until the latest one is solid. I started doing that with every game since, and it's saved me twice already, once in a strategy RPG and once in a survival horror. Has anyone else had a simple tip like that completely change your gaming routine?

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