Petition for AC:NH game save backup

[MarcelTheFool]

hey! not to put you down or anything but i hacked my switch in ten minutes and also took the precautions to not get banned haha. also hacking on the 3ds was as simple as dragging some files to the sd card and using an exploit. beginners might have a hard time with it but hacking nintendo systems is quite easy..

having said this, i don't think its the solution for this problem. yes, hacking is a solution but its not one that many can do. as KesRoden stated, one misstep and you could get banned from online play. bricking your system and corrupting save files is easy to avoid but getting banned is something that nintendo is coming down hard on. BUT this can be easily avoided by not pirating software. having a save manager on your switch won't be enough to get you banned (most likely)

** also
getting banned from online play and services was extremely rare on the 3ds, but it's VERY common on the switch. so no, definitely not the solution.

but back to the main point, this petition is a good idea and i definitely think that cloud saves are important - at least to fans like us who are devoted to the game. in response to traceguy saying that we didn't have cloud saves on the 3ds and we made it through: the saves were on the cartridge itself and on the switch, they'll be on the actual device.
we're paying for a cloud service that nintendo provides and they aren't even letting us use it on a popular game. this is just like the pokemon home/bank and pokemon swsh debacle. kinda outrageous.

Lmao no offense taken XD I'm super dumb with that stuff, and it's really confusing took me over two hours! I'm glad you find out it easy though! It was my first time hacking so that may be why. I got banned scared earlier this week, turns out my wifi just crapped out lmao. Good to know its easy to get banned on a switch, I'll be avoiding hacking on it then....don't really wanna shill out another 300 bucks if it does happen.

 

[Stevey Queen]

I think Nintendo should offer cloud saves for the game but compromise to stop cheaters. (Personally, people can do whatever the heck they want with their games, I really dont care and I don't know why Nintendo cares either especially with a game like animal crossing)

Maybe you can only use your cloud save when your switch is damaged. Idk

 

[will.]

Lmao no offense taken XD I'm super dumb with that stuff, and it's really confusing took me over two hours! I'm glad you find out it easy though! It was my first time hacking so that may be why. I got banned scared earlier this week, turns out my wifi just crapped out lmao. Good to know its easy to get banned on a switch, I'll be avoiding hacking on it then....don't really wanna shill out another 300 bucks if it does happen.

honestly if you don't wanna be banned, avoid hacking your switch at all costs... it's just way too easy unless you're an expert. i hacked mine to use the save manager to back up my saves without using nintendo switch online, but i haven't batted up custom firmware in months just because im way too scared for a ban. and maybe it's okay to use nintendo consoles like they were intended instead of sneaking around lol

 

[Loonep]

Save file SD card exploits like the ones used on the 3DS are a big part of the reason Nintendo has clamped down so hard on how save data is managed. I hope they will find a middle-ground solution to this problem, but I find it unlikely. I expect further hostility toward any avenues that can be used for exploitation, as protection of their IP is the most important thing for their long-term survival.

I imagine for Animal Crossing their concern is item duplication. The reason they care so much is that cheating (even in non-competitive games) when online play is involved cheapens the experience for those playing the game legitimately. This degradation of the experience harms sales as people who would have otherwise enjoyed the game and recommended it to others become disenfranchised. This is just my opinion, but I believe this is a big part of why cloud saves are unlikely. It would definitely cheapen the experience for me if I knew groups of people were out there trading duplicated rare items. It would make me ponder: why bother spending hours digging or fishing when people are just duplicating it? I could just get the item from one of them easily. And so the slope begins into achieving game-ending control.

The argument could be made that they should allow cloud saving without any bells or items, but I doubt the cloud saving infrastructure is that customizable per game. Again, not a Nintendo developer or employee, so I don't know. I am a software developer and I do know that things you would think are simple can be very expensive if they weren't in the initial design plans. If these are their lines of reasoning, I think it's reasonable.

Hey, you're probably right about Nintendo wanting to protect the "image" of the game, and I can understand them for that. But what I can't figure out is why is this so difficult for Nintendo to find a solution to that. I mean, sony and microsoft found a way to allow save cloud without having too much cheating issue, and they have a lot of multiplayer game too. We know nintendo has money, engineers, great devs, I'm sure if others can do it, they might have the ressources to do that too!
Plus Nogami added in an interview quite recently that they know how much we get attached to this game by playing every day, for a "very" long time. Kyogoku said that they want to make gameplay AC:NH in a way that we can play for a very long time. So they seem to really think about that and know how important your town/island can be to you.
I don't know it just seems really weird to me that a big company like they are have the capacity to make cloud save as efficient as other companies, that they know how important it can be to their players, but keeps saying no

 

[Loonep]

Save file SD card exploits like the ones used on the 3DS are a big part of the reason Nintendo has clamped down so hard on how save data is managed. I hope they will find a middle-ground solution to this problem, but I find it unlikely. I expect further hostility toward any avenues that can be used for exploitation, as protection of their IP is the most important thing for their long-term survival.

I imagine for Animal Crossing their concern is item duplication. The reason they care so much is that cheating (even in non-competitive games) when online play is involved cheapens the experience for those playing the game legitimately. This degradation of the experience harms sales as people who would have otherwise enjoyed the game and recommended it to others become disenfranchised. This is just my opinion, but I believe this is a big part of why cloud saves are unlikely. It would definitely cheapen the experience for me if I knew groups of people were out there trading duplicated rare items. It would make me ponder: why bother spending hours digging or fishing when people are just duplicating it? I could just get the item from one of them easily. And so the slope begins into achieving game-ending control.

The argument could be made that they should allow cloud saving without any bells or items, but I doubt the cloud saving infrastructure is that customizable per game. Again, not a Nintendo developer or employee, so I don't know. I am a software developer and I do know that things you would think are simple can be very expensive if they weren't in the initial design plans. If these are their lines of reasoning, I think it's reasonable.

Hi, I think you're probably right about nintendo wanting to protect the "image" of their franchise, and I totally can understand that.
In the same time, I mean : Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo are all three big companies. Microsoft and Sony found a way (a long time ago) to use all the capacity of cloud save, without having too much trouble with cheating. And they have a lot of multiplayer games. Nintendo has money, engineers, great devs, they should be able to do the same thing I guess. The might/should have the capacities to make cloud save as qualitative as their "concurrency".
Plus Nogami, really recently, said that he knows how much we get attached to our town/insland and that we might play it for a very long time. Kyogoku said that they want to make the gameplay so players can play for a very long time.
I don't know, it just seems really weird to me : I really think they have the same capacities as Microsoft and Sony to do it + they know how long we will play the game, but still, they just say no without even saying "we are looking for a solution". To me it just feels like it's not a problem for them to stay behind on this matter.

- - - Post Merge - - -

I think Nintendo should offer cloud saves for the game but compromise to stop cheaters. (Personally, people can do whatever the heck they want with their games, I really dont care and I don't know why Nintendo cares either especially with a game like animal crossing)

Maybe you can only use your cloud save when your switch is damaged. Idk

Really true! We tried to talk about different ways of protecting our game data. Maybe you can use cloud save only one a month : if you are truly using it just because your switch broke it would not be a problem to you, but if you want to cheat it you can't to do more than once a month.
Or they might have solutions that we never thought about. Like I said I really don't see how microsoft/sony can do it, but nintendo can't. That seems really strange to me to use "risk of cheating" as an excuse. At least just saying "we are looking into it to find a solution" would be so great to us!

 

[EvilTheCat6600]

I've been hesitant to share this story due to the fact that when the incident happened I was attacked simply for asking for help, however from the original post I'm assuming New Horizons won't be covered by cloud saves, I feel it is imperative that I share this story:

On December 30, 2018 I saw that Grim Fandango: Remastered was on sale for $4.99 on the Switch. I decided to double dip (own the PC version) but when I tried to access the eShop, I was given an odd error message. One without an error lookup code. So I popped in Splatoon 2 and saw that Off The Hook wasn't showing up. I know from experience that, if you're not connected to the internet when starting Splatoon 2, you're taken directly to Inkopolis.

Curious, I tested my connection settings. My Switch was connecting just fine...I just was unable to use the internet. I went online, asked for help and got attacked verbally for a variety of reasons to the point where I felt like I was just being bullied for not knowing what was going on.

The next day I called Nintendo and explained the problem I was having. They forwarded me to a supervisor who interrupted me in the middle of my explanation and said "I just found out what the problem is." What she said next shocked me: This is our fault. We just updated the servers we use for My Nintendo accounts and an unforeseen side effect is that some accounts are barred from accessing the internet.

I asked what the solution was and her response was thus: You'll have to delete your user account on your Switch and make a new one. When I asked how that would affect saves she said any games not backed up to the cloud would have their saves permanently lost. And that there was no guarantee this wouldn't happen again.

Basically, I lost a year and a half of all my data in Splatoon 2 as well as my Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu progress (Post game, Mewtwo caught, missing about only 10 or so Pokemon to complete the Pokedex). There is ZERO justification for banning a game from being accessed by the cloud.

In the case of Splatoon 2, I got the game at launch. I lost a year and a half worth of progress and was told I'd just have to start over. And this could happen again depending on when the next update for managing My Nintendo accounts happens....so, essentially I'd lose my Splatoon 2, Let's Go Pikachu AND my New Horizons data.

Anyway, that's the story of what happened to me. I fully support any and all attempts at having Nintendo change their cloud save policies and I can safely say if New Horizions isn't going to be supporting cloud saves, that we should all band together and refuse to support the online service.

I've told this story knowing full well that anyone who doesn't like hearing what happened to me WILL verbally attack me but I feel it's important to share what happened to me. Nintendo told me it was their fault, apologized for the inconvenience and, to be fair, it apparently only affected a VERY small number of people. But it's still no excuse, in my brutally honest opinion.

Any petitions to bring cloud saves to New Horzions? Give em to me. I'll sign them in full support. So if you want to attack me for sharing this story...go right ahead. I just won't dignify what you have to say with response.

 

[will.]

story quoted above^^

this story is insane. i didn't even take into account that server malfunctions could mean that we lose all our save data. and the fact that this could happen to anyone! insane. whats so annoying about this story is that they didn't even offer you anything in return for a mistake that effected you but it was an error made by them.

so to the people saying that it's unlikely that our switch will break or we'll be fine without save data being backed up: there's always accidents. some made by nintendo, some made by us, and if i want to be prepared for the worst (if the worst is losing hundreds of hours of data on my new horizons save) then let me! if you don't want save data in the cloud, ignore it.

sorry that this happened to you as well!! it sucks that that data is lost forever

 

[EvilTheCat6600]

this story is insane. i didn't even take into account that server malfunctions could mean that we lose all our save data. and the fact that this could happen to anyone! insane. whats so annoying about this story is that they didn't even offer you anything in return for a mistake that effected you but it was an error made by them.

so to the people saying that it's unlikely that our switch will break or we'll be fine without save data being backed up: there's always accidents. some made by nintendo, some made by us, and if i want to be prepared for the worst (if the worst is losing hundreds of hours of data on my new horizons save) then let me! if you don't want save data in the cloud, ignore it.

sorry that this happened to you as well!! it sucks that that data is lost forever

Thanks. I'm still rebuilding my Inkling in Splatoon 2 as a result of the data. I feel that games like New Horizons are just like Splatoon and Pokemon: People put a lot of effort and hours into various aspects of these games, and we should be able to protect the time and effort we put in.

I sincerely hope Nintendo changes their stance on not having cloud saves for this game.

 

[Fey]

Any petitions to bring cloud saves to New Horzions? Give em to me. I'll sign them in full support. So if you want to attack me for sharing this story...go right ahead. I just won't dignify what you have to say with response.

I?m also sorry that happened to you?the experience with your games, as well as with people online. Why anyone would attack you for sharing this story is beyond me.

Here?s hoping that neither you, nor anyone else, will have to go through something similar for New Horizons.

 

[pensenaute]

This is so true!

- - - Post Merge - - -

I think Nintendo should offer cloud saves for the game but compromise to stop cheaters. (Personally, people can do whatever the heck they want with their games, I really dont care and I don't know why Nintendo cares either especially with a game like animal crossing)

Maybe you can only use your cloud save when your switch is damaged. Idk

I feel the same, It doesn’t concern me if people want to cheat, but I’m trying to respect the developers’ wishes. I really, really hope they give us some sort of compromise because I plan to play this game for so many hours!

- - - Post Merge - - -

Wow. After I read what happened to you I just stared at my phone for a while... this is the first time that I hear this issue and IT’S SCARY! This just goes to show that you can do everything perfectly and STILL you can have something like this happen. You don’t deserve to be attacked for this at all, your story needs to be heard! I can’t imagine having to be forced to wipe your Switch clean. You gave me strength to keep working on this, I think ALL Nintendo games should be played safely. Thank you so much for sharing this story!

 

[jefflomacy]

Hi, I think you're probably right about nintendo wanting to protect the "image" of their franchise, and I totally can understand that.
In the same time, I mean : Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo are all three big companies. Microsoft and Sony found a way (a long time ago) to use all the capacity of cloud save, without having too much trouble with cheating. ...

The primary concern for Animal Crossing is item duplication. A google search for the phrase "item duplication cloud saves" reveals hundreds of forum threads where people discuss exploiting XBox and PlayStation cloud saves to duplicate items. Microsoft and Sony have not resolved this issue. I would argue that there may not be a solution to this problem when multiplayer is involved, unless you clear all user inventory and every dropped item on the map.

For Animal Crossing this wouldn't be as devastating as starting over, but all you could really keep in a cloud save is your villagers and the status of various locations (like the state of Tom Nook's store and the museum, if applicable). I'm not even sure you could save trees or flowers without risk of duplication exploits. They would have to delete: everything in your inventory and inbox, all outgoing mail, every flower and tree, all bells on your person and in the bank, and every dropped item such as inside and outside furniture. The town you download from the cloud would have to regenerate starter-game trees. If they went to this length, I think they could prevent item duplication.

This is a non-trivial problem that Microsoft and Sony appear to be ignoring. The one thing I do find absurd, however, is Splatoon 2 ranking data being stored on the local device. I could be missing something, but it's hard for me to imagine why it was implemented this way.

 

[EvilTheCat6600]

I’m also sorry that happened to you—the experience with your games, as well as with people online. Why anyone would attack you for sharing this story is beyond me.

Here’s hoping that neither you, nor anyone else, will have to go through something similar for New Horizons.

Some people thought I was covering for a hacked Switch, but my Switch is as vanilla as it comes. And others thought I was making stuff up because it had never happened to them. Truth be told, I didn't expect it myself. And yes, here's hoping it doesn't happen.

I dunno how to merge posts so I'll just respond to pensenuate here *fail anime style sweat drop*

You're welcome.

I think all Nintendo games should be played safely too. I've been playing Nintendo all my life, and while I enjoy other consoles as well (I mostly do Nintendo/PC myself) Nintendo's always been a big part of my life.

Sometimes I feel the need to get critical about choices they make because I don't like seeing them receive backlash when people think a decision is bad. I've even been critical about Switch Online and this only furthered my issues with the cloud saves.

Either way, this hasn't changed my decision to get New Horizons...though I might be annoyed at having to restart the island if something like this happens again.

 

[will.]

Some people thought I was covering for a hacked Switch, but my Switch is as vanilla as it comes. And others thought I was making stuff up because it had never happened to them. Truth be told, I didn't expect it myself. And yes, here's hoping it doesn't happen.

I dunno how to merge posts so I'll just respond to pensenuate here *fail anime style sweat drop*

You're welcome.

I think all Nintendo games should be played safely too. I've been playing Nintendo all my life, and while I enjoy other consoles as well (I mostly do Nintendo/PC myself) Nintendo's always been a big part of my life.

Sometimes I feel the need to get critical about choices they make because I don't like seeing them receive backlash when people think a decision is bad. I've even been critical about Switch Online and this only furthered my issues with the cloud saves.

Either way, this hasn't changed my decision to get New Horizons...though I might be annoyed at having to restart the island if something like this happens again.

i stated before that it's risky to hack your switch because theres a high chance of a ban, but i will say that if you have the knowledge, i would go ahead and do it just so you can access a save manager. losing a game like this is so devastating and im sure we're all big enough fans to feel the same way about losing something we've worked hard on...

 

[EvilTheCat6600]

i stated before that it's risky to hack your switch because theres a high chance of a ban, but i will say that if you have the knowledge, i would go ahead and do it just so you can access a save manager. losing a game like this is so devastating and im sure we're all big enough fans to feel the same way about losing something we've worked hard on...

I dunno a thing about hacking to begin with. I can't even get my livestreaming stuff set up correctly. I'm that hopeless lol.

 

[MarcelTheFool]

tbh all i hack for is giving people dream villagers or rare items. i always make it clear theyre hacked and wont offer flowers since hacked ones are glitched. They seriously need to allow cloud saves.

 

[pensenaute]

The compromise you explained is obviously really bittersweet but it?s much better than losing everything. That?d be a compromise for at least protecting a part of all those hours we?ll spend playing!

 

[Loonep]

The primary concern for Animal Crossing is item duplication. A google search for the phrase "item duplication cloud saves" reveals hundreds of forum threads where people discuss exploiting XBox and PlayStation cloud saves to duplicate items. Microsoft and Sony have not resolved this issue. I would argue that there may not be a solution to this problem when multiplayer is involved, unless you clear all user inventory and every dropped item on the map.

For Animal Crossing this wouldn't be as devastating as starting over, but all you could really keep in a cloud save is your villagers and the status of various locations (like the state of Tom Nook's store and the museum, if applicable). I'm not even sure you could save trees or flowers without risk of duplication exploits. They would have to delete: everything in your inventory and inbox, all outgoing mail, every flower and tree, all bells on your person and in the bank, and every dropped item such as inside and outside furniture. The town you download from the cloud would have to regenerate starter-game trees. If they went to this length, I think they could prevent item duplication.

This is a non-trivial problem that Microsoft and Sony appear to be ignoring. The one thing I do find absurd, however, is Splatoon 2 ranking data being stored on the local device. I could be missing something, but it's hard for me to imagine why it was implemented this way.

Thanks for you answer, I don't own an xbox or a ps4 so I don't know a lot about how it works!
So it means that it can be really hard for Nintendo to prevent cheating, and I'm not too much into cheating mechanics into AC. But at the same time they know they are building a game for player to invest a lot of hours and love, it can't be less important than some cheaters. They know our feelings are really involved in this franchise, they built it this way, this is their goal, so they should know how important it is to protect our save. Way more important than item duplication or whatnot

 

[Kirbyz]

The people saying it’s “not a big deal”, stop continuously saying it’s “not a big deal” as this forum was literally made for anyone who wants to sign the petition as it’s a big deal for them. No one asked for you to comment that, so if you disagree, fine, just leave the forum and move on to the next. Is that a “big deal”? Everyone keeps saying it, like holy, I understand the first comment, everyone gets it already. Multiple people do not need to comment that. Pensenaute literally wrote this out in the nicest way possible. The’re trying to let everyone know that’s there’s petition if we want to get involved and get Nintendo to fix this issue (which is a problem for a lot of people). If you don’t want to sign the petition, just go in peace and no problems have to be made. You saying it’s “not a big deal” won’t change anyone else’s mind about doing so. It’s not a big deal for you, it’s a big deal for them. People have different opinions and you should respect it rather than saying that.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

I would rather be able to save on my game cart.

Make a petition to kill autosave and I'll sign that.

 

[Loonep]

I would rather be able to save on my game cart.

Make a petition to kill autosave and I'll sign that.

Hi, I understand your point of view.
Unfortunately we wanted to ask something doable. Allowing cloud data for AC is doable easily for Nintendo. On the contrary asking them to put the data on the cartridge is not imo, since none of the game on the switch has save data on the cartridge.
For autosave I can see why you would want a petition about that, but if we did we surely won't have 2200+ signatures. Even with just asking for save backup we had a lot of backlash from people, and a lot of them wants cheating to be not allowed. We thought about it and the more important for most people imo is to have backup protection for their saves, so that's our best shot to be heard by Nintendo. Not with save data on the cartridge or autosave I think !