How to roll back (downgrade) a Steam game to older patch - Depot & Manifest via the console didn't work. Any other ways to do it?

[Euphoria]

I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn, Steam auto-updated it 2-days ago and now the game has a lot of issues for me and apparently many others.

I spent hours trying this way with the console, deport and manifest trick: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1086279994
Even trying the newer [Manifest] way but it won't download.

 

I've heard there are other ways but I can't find them. I did manage to find DepotDownloader but I have no idea if it's safe and you have to login through it, including 2FA.

[Mark Kaine]

yeah... that guide isnt outdated,  its flat out wrong... i do have a proper guide saved somewhere but unfortunately i cant find it rn... i mean maybe its changed but i doubt it,  even in the comments someone points out the guide is wrong (in parts) so maybe you can figure it out through this. 

The proper guide is far longer thats why i think its just wrong...

 

the "updated" guide is also a mess and i personally wouldn't use that depot downloader, that sounds *highly* sketchy 

 

if i find the guide ill post the link, however pro tip for the future: always make backups in case an update messes with your skimpy mods creates issues I mean i have seen the HZD mods, theyre really good ; )

 

 

: D well, good luck and seriously sorry, but if i find it I'll let you know , but i think you're just missing some

"[    ...    ]" brackets somewhere tbh.

 

 

[Geneslaw]

DepotDownloader is just a terminal program. On Windows, you have to open your command prompt and then run your commands. Something like "dotnet DepotDownloader.dll" followed by parameters. I installed it from the Arch repo on my system, so my command is slightly different from Windows, but it's the same concept. Something like "depotdownloader -app 1151640 -depot 1151641 -manifest 8564283306590138028 -username [your username]". If you're on Windows, you'll use "dotnet DepotDownloader.dll" insteal of "depotdownloader". For more info on the depot IDs and manifest IDs for Horizon Zero Dawn, there is this link: https://steamdb.info/app/1151640/depots/

 

However, it seems to just be downloading the latest version of the files listed in that particular manifest. Meaning it's the 1.11 version of those files. I can't get it to download older versions. It seems that the manifests themselves just point to some file names, but not to a specific version of those files. I don't see anyway to get a different version. Unless @Mark Kaineknows of a way to do it, I don't see how. So yeah, I'm also stuck on 1.11, even though I didn't have any problems getting DepotDownloader to work.

 

It's a shame. 1.11 completely borked foliage for me. Makes it feel like my eyes are being pulled out of their sockets. And I'm certainly not the only one complaining about it.

[Mark Kaine]

6 hours ago, Geneslaw said:

I don't see anyway to get a different version. Unless @Mark Kaineknows of a way to do it, I don't see how.

honestly i dont know how im not finding this information (i know i have it saved somewhere,  but with 10 thousands of screenshots its more difficult to find than id like lol...) but i do remember that you really needed to specify the exact version/depot number,  otherwise it would just dl the newest anyway.  I don't know if it has changed,  that steam thread didn't convince me however and i would really like to see for myself-- if i ever find this stupid tutorial... (google is of no help either... so much for "the internet forgets nothing..." !)

 

 

 

[Euphoria]

Thanks for the info and advice, I do appreciate it. I've now effectively tried everything that is known to work and as @Geneslaw said it doesn't seem to work, even when I get something to work it won't roll back so we are stuck  

 

Oh well, my game still runs but it looks and feels worse. I guess I know now to copy *all* the game files, usually I only backup game files I'm editing or modding.

Thanks again. 

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/15/2021 at 7:25 PM, Euphoria said:

Thanks for the info and advice, I do appreciate it. I've now effectively tried everything that is known to work and as @Geneslaw said it doesn't seem to work, even when I get something to work it won't roll back so we are stuck  

 

Oh well, my game still runs but it looks and feels worse. I guess I know now to copy *all* the game files, usually I only backup game files I'm editing or modding.

Thanks again. 

 

i just looked this up -- they made the game actually *worse* with purposefully higher cpu usage etc...  this is exactly why updates being optional should be mandatory...!

 

However,  i found something  (i'll try to find the link in a sec) and yes, its true they *did* change this, but they also said they "don't plan to disallow downloading of old game versions at all" ... lol ...   

 

So tldr, it should work, unless the devs actually removed the files - which they may or may not be allowed to do legally,  i do find this malicious however - for obvious reasons...

 

ps: ive seen reports as far as going from 60fps to 8 fps at same settings lol...  and since i *know* updates can do that, i believe it (customer has no reason to lie about such things)

 

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/steam-beta-suggests-you-wont-be-able-to-revert-to-old-game-builds-much-longer/

 

 

 

"We are actually not planning to disable downloading old builds. What we are working on is an approach on handling edge cases involving unowned content, and helping partners more easily take down builds that need to be removed for things like copyright issues," the statement reads. "We’ll have more to share on that work when it’s ready to ship."

 

 

"copyright issues" so basically whenever they feel like it = )

 

[Euphoria]

Hi @Mark Kaine, thanks for the info, appreciate it.

I don't know if it's placebo or not but there was another update (hotfix) a few days ago and for me at least the visuals did look better, less foliage flickering, pop-in, and LOD issues so I've been playing again as I frickin' love this game once everything is disabled (HUD I mean) then it's beautiful and can be challenging.

 

The fps issue is still not resolved though, I've had to disable a big chunk of a customer ReShade I made for the game as my fps has dropped from around 100fps on average to barely 50fps, I had to disable a lot to bring it back above 60.