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Developers don't give a shit anymore about patch files size

M

Mass_Pincup

Banned
So I bought a PS4 again last week since my first one broke when I traveled (I'll miss you P.T) and I had to redownload all my digital games.

Between now and the last time I did that I moved out of my parent's place to go to university and the connection is extremely bad in campus. I had fibre back home so files size didn't bother me, but now that I have a slow, shitty connection I just realized that those files size are huge. It's been 2 days since I received the console and I am still downloading The UC collection (Thankfully have separated each games so UC1 is complete and I can play it while the rest download), Driveclub, AC Freedom Cry and Bloodborne's and The Witcher 3's patches. Only MGSV Ground Zeroes ended up being completed.

The Nathan Drake collection is 45.5Go ok that's normal, it being a full game and all, but how come Bloodborne, which I have on disc, greets me with a 9Go patch? The Witcher 3 with 17Go is just insane, they just don't have us shitty connection folks in mind with this.

I know that I can play all of those without the patches but it really hit me now that I have experienced it myself. I shudder to think how people with shitty internet connection and data caps are doing this generation.
 
Chozo_Lord

Chozo_Lord

Member
A lot of patches nowadays are more than just fixes. The Bloodborne patch adds a whole entire new guild for instance.
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Keeping the console in Rest mode alleviates a lot of issues with giant patch sizes since they autodownload. I don't have a great connection myself and that's been a huge help.
 
ss_lemonade

ss_lemonade

Member
I hate this too. Where I'm from (Philippines), the average internet connection speeds there are straight up horrible (200Kbps on good days?) so these patches don't sound inviting at all.
 
G

Grisby

Member
I don't want to install Dead Rising 3 again because of the humongous patches that were released for it.

I think the Witcher 3 is going to permanently stay on my HD because I'll be damned if I'm going to DL that 17gb patch again. Don't even get my started on something like Little Big Planet.
 
MultiCore

MultiCore

Member
Feep said:
Is "Go" a thing for Gigabytes? o_O
Click to expand...

FX-GMC said:
I found this somewhere else:
Click to expand...

Fahzgoolin said:
No, it's just an embarrassing mistake. ;)
Click to expand...

Jonneh3003 said:
Must be autocorrect.


Or this
Click to expand...

21x2 said:
In some parts of Europe, France I believe.
Click to expand...

I do enterprise network monitoring, and octets is used in our product for specificity, as bytes hasn't always been 8 bits.

Avoids confusion, even if for the majority, a byte is 8 bits as well.
 
G

GotchaForce

Member
My download is .5 megs. It's a nightmare with functionality (especially on Xbox One) but for the most part I can actually play most things online in a somewhat tolerable manner. I have the patience (usually) for stuff to download but I get throttled into having barely internet to nothing often. Luckily I have friends who will do it for me and work is kind enough to let me use the internet there, too. I've transported my Xbox One so much that recently the disc drive won't work, though.
 
B

Backfoggen

Banned
These patches include DLC content. With Bloodborne I get it because of the "always-on multiplayer" that game uses, so clients need to be on the same page. Witcher 3 made no sense to me. Just make it a seperate download.
 
nkarafo

nkarafo

Member
I live in Greece. 90% of population who have internet connection have around 5 to 6 Mbps speed. That's like 500-600kb/sec maximum.

So, having any current gen console sucks here. Thankfully, PC games still have reasonably sized patches. It's funny how the whole patching thing was a PC only issue a decade ago and now consoles are FAR worse.
 
J

Jack The Nipper

Banned
Have they fixed dlc yet. No multi select. Have to do each one separately. Get an email for each one also. took me 30 minutes just to start all the batman dlc
 
N

Nephtes

Member
Hate to break it to you... As a dev, we care more about fixing our software than blowing up your datacap...

Especially when our end users complain at us how broken our software is and it ruins their lives...

I guess what I'm saying is... We can't win. ^_^;
(You know... Short of not shipping broken stuff in the first place, which I'll be honest is hard... Software is just way more complex these days and finding all the bugs and fixing them before a release just isn't as easy as it used to be...)
 
8

8bit

Knows the Score
What do you expect them to do? Reduce the size of a patch just because you have shitty internet? Aren't most patches optional anyway? Stay in your 1.0 world if you can't upgrade.
 
Fbh

Fbh

Member
Yep. It's also annoying with these small HDD's.

I have to constantly delete stuff from my 500gb ps4 and I feel like I really don't have many digital games... but even retail games are like a 30gb install + 10 gb of patches
 
F

family_guy

Member
Game saves too. Maybe it's just a PS4 thing, but nothing is lower than 10mb regardless of the game, and they balloon to ridiculous sizes. PC game saves are much smaller.
 
S

studyguy

Member
I personally haven't given a fuck about patch sizes on PC for a while now either. If there's someone causing problems here, it's not developers but ISPs and networks failing to keep up with the media demands. Data caps in 2016 are fucking stupid.
 
M

Mass_Pincup

Banned
Nephtes said:
Hate to break it to you... As a dev, we care more about fixing our software than blowing up your datacap...

Especially when our end users complain at us how broken our software is and it ruins their lives...

I guess what I'm saying is... We can't win. ^_^;
(You know... Short of not shipping broken stuff in the first place, which I'll be honest is hard... Software is just way more complex these days and finding all the bugs and fixing them before a release just isn't as easy as it used to be...)
Click to expand...

Yeah I totally understand, the thread title is a bit inflammatory, it's just that I didn't realized until now that some patches have the size of several last gen games.

8bit said:
What do you expect them to do? Reduce the size of a patch just because you have shitty internet? Aren't most patches optional anyway? Stay in your 1.0 world if you can't upgrade.
Click to expand...

Adam Orth is that you?

robotrock said:
I think you have the wrong guy.
Sweet Billy maybe?
Click to expand...

Yeah thanks.
 
C

ciddative

Member
As has been said before, its often more than just fixes.

tBe thankful you can play those games without updating. Try an online only game and you're looking at 10-20Gb mandatory update
 
E

etta

my hard graphic balls
8bit said:
What do you expect them to do? Reduce the size of a patch just because you have shitty internet? Aren't most patches optional anyway? Stay in your 1.0 world if you can't upgrade.
Click to expand...
They could employ more efficient methods of compression.
 
R

Regiruler

Member
MultiCore said:
I do enterprise network monitoring, and octets is used in our product for specificity, as bytes hasn't always been 8 bits.

Avoids confusion, even if for the majority, a byte is 8 bits as well.
Click to expand...

I think that's more likely to be confused with octal, which is 3 bits.
 
J

javadoze

Member
Seeing as how I'm in one of the unlucky test markets for Comcast's data caps, I usually think twice before installing updates for certain games.

Stuff like this makes me wonder why gaming companies aren't lobbying against ISPs setting data caps.
 
R

Ravidrath

Member
It's not that they don't give a shit, it's that they can't give a shit.

With PS4, you submit your initial package file.

When you patch, you rebuild the entire game and submit the entire package file again, and their system does the diff to generate the patch file.

So it's entirely out of developers' hands.


Also, MS owns the patent for file diffs on consoles. So Sony had to come up with another way to patch files to work around their patent. It works in "chunks," and thus might be less efficient than a standard diff.

So before you complain about developers, complain about Microsoft and shitty US patent laws.
 
M

maxcriden

Member
This is something I appreciate about Nintendo and I wonder how they will manage it with the next generation when they are presumably at more X1-level power. They usually have surprisingly small file sizes and I'm curious if they will be able to maintain that going forward.
 
Sakura

Sakura

Member
It does kind of suck.
My PS4 doesn't give me great speeds most of the time, then on top of that I have stupid data caps as well (though I don't think there is any actual punishment for hitting them).
I can't imagine having to redownload everything in one go.
 
T

TurtleSnatcher

Member
It's factored but some engines are finicky. If you change any small minute thing on a level in Unreal, you have to repackage the whole level and send it in the update. So something like changing a slight piece of collision could lead to a huge update due to needing the whole map again.
 
M

Mass_Pincup

Banned
Ravidrath said:
It's not that they don't give a shit, it's that they can't give a shit.

With PS4, you submit your initial package file.

When you patch, you rebuild the entire game and submit the entire package file again, and their system does the diff to generate the patch file.

So it's entirely out of developers' hands.
Click to expand...

TurtleSnatcher said:
It's factored but some engines are finicky. If you change any small minute thing on a level in Unreal, you have to repackage the whole level and send it in the update. So something like changing a slight piece of collision could lead to a huge update due to needing the whole map again.
Click to expand...

Oh thanks for the insight, I was not aware of this. Does it has more to do with the submission process that is in place or is it OS based? Can it be updated?
 
Green Yoshi

Green Yoshi

Member
Yeah, it's annoying but normally you don't buy five games at once and there is a rest mode that let you download patches over night.
 
R

Ravidrath

Member
Mass_Pincup said:
Oh thanks for the insight, I was not aware of this. Does it has more to do with the submission process that is in place or is it OS based? Can it be updated?
Click to expand...

Edited this in after you started your reply, which might explain it:

"Also, MS owns the patent for file diffs on consoles. So Sony had to come up with another way to patch files to work around their patent. It works in "chunks," and thus might be less efficient than a standard diff.

So before you complain about developers, complain about Microsoft and shitty US patent laws."
 
B

bobbychalkers

Member
its at the point where if I finished with a game and I uninstall it, I have more incentive to sell it off than deal with data caps and shitty bandwidth.
 
Shpeshal Nick

Shpeshal Nick

aka Collingwood
So how was the 360 structured?

How could games have such tiny patches on 360 and yet the same game on PS3 would have a MUCH bigger patch?

What wizardry was Microsoft working with there?
 
M

Mass_Pincup

Banned
Ravidrath said:
Edited this in after you started your reply, which might explain it:

"Also, MS owns the patent for file diffs on consoles. So Sony had to come up with another way to patch files to work around their patent. It works in "chunks," and thus might be less efficient than a standard diff.

So before you complain about developers, complain about Microsoft and shitty US patent laws."
Click to expand...

Fair enough, thanks.
 
J

JumpCancel

Banned
etta said:
They could employ more efficient methods of compression.
Click to expand...

This combined with better dev cycles allowing them more time to prepare a game before it's released would make for a better world. MGSV on PS4 was around 25GB's wasn't it? Now THAT'S compression.

Developers use patches as crutches way to often. Day 1 patches are a requirement these days and god forbid you play a game without it.
(I'm looking at you Evil Within)

Not like playing Super Mario 3D World and the games fucking done. All 1702MB of it. No patches required.

Man, that amiibo money goes a long way. That's their secret.
 
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