Everytime I try to save it as it is, let's say it comes out as
1,1,3,0,2,0,1,2 -- Random numbers made for an example
If I attempt to save this value as a datastore, I get an error
Cannot store Array in data store. Data stores can only accept valid UTF-8 characters.

2 comments
You can save arrays to data stores. I don't know why your error says otherwise.
Could this error be displaying because it's trying to save 1,1,3,0,2,1,2 instead of {1,1,3,0,2,0,1,2}?