Best way to go about storing in game player profiles?

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When handling player profiles in Roblox, it is usually best to load the profile once when the player joins and keep it server-side for the entire session! This way the server holds the authoritative copy and you avoid constant client requests…

You can implement a simple caching system with a counter so the client only receives updated values when something actually changes. This reduces bandwidth and keeps the game responsive, especially for games with many players. For persistence, you can save the profiles to DataStoreService or use a community tool like ProfileService (Save your player data with ProfileService! (DataStore Module)) which makes handling saves, loads and data versioning much easier!

I would Store profiles in server-side tables, track changes with a counter and send updates only when needed.

--  a simple table
local PlayerProfiles = {}

game.Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(function(player)
    -- initialize profile
    PlayerProfiles[player.UserId] = {Gold = 0, Level = 1}
end)

game.Players.PlayerRemoving:Connect(function(player)
    -- clean up thing
    PlayerProfiles[player.UserId] = nil
end)

This keeps server load low, prevents exploits and ensures the client sees accurate data!!

-- profileservice usage
local ProfileService = require(game.ServerScriptService.ProfileService)

local profileStore = ProfileService.GetProfileStore("PlayerProfiles", {
    Gold = 0,
    Level = 1
})

game.Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(function(player)
    local profile = profileStore:LoadProfileAsync(player.UserId)
    if profile then
        profile:ListenToRelease(function()
            player:Kick("Profile released")
        end)
        player:SetAttribute("Gold", profile.Data.Gold)
        player:SetAttribute("Level", profile.Data.Level)
    end
end)

game.Players.PlayerRemoving:Connect(function(player)
    local profile = profileStore:GetProfile(player.UserId)
    if profile then
        profile:Release()
    end
end)

And then use DataStoreService or ProfileService to save player progress. Increment version numbers when your data structure changes so updates remain compatible and only store or send the parts of the profile that actually changed.

-- simple datastore usage
local DataStoreService = game:GetService("DataStoreService")
local ProfileStore = DataStoreService:GetDataStore("PlayerProfiles")

game.Players.PlayerAdded:Connect(function(player)
    local profile
    local success, err = pcall(function()
        profile = ProfileStore:GetAsync(player.UserId)
    end)
    if not success or not profile then
        profile = {Gold = 0, Level = 1} -- default values
    end
    player:SetAttribute("Gold", profile.Gold)
    player:SetAttribute("Level", profile.Level)
end)

game.Players.PlayerRemoving:Connect(function(player)
    local profile = {Gold = player:GetAttribute("Gold"), Level = player:GetAttribute("Level")}
    pcall(function()

For more info the official DataStore best practices and ProfileService tutorial are great resources to understand how these systems work!!

Hope this helped!

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