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(Steam) Valve should, going forward, mandate patch notes

J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Edit: By "mandate" I mean "include as part of public build update form". Nothing more, nothing less. If you're not sure as to what that means, please read through my replies in this thread before responding.

Preface: In the interest of not unnecessarily cluttering the thread title, I'm referring specifically to updates pushed through to the public branch (i.e. the build that every Steam user sees by default).

But, yeah. I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds it annoying when a game is quietly patched, which sets off a quest to search for notes only to find threads full of people asking the same question. Now, obviously it's unrealistic to expect developers/publishers to provide fine-grained information each and every time, but something would be better than nothing.

Latest case in point: That Totally Awesome PC Port Everyone Loves:

a day ago
+ branches/public/buildid: 669341 › 673395
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Great, the game has been patched! What's not-so-great is that the only thing users can agree on is that Batman is now wet in certain situations. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
I definitely agree, but how would Valve enforce this? I don't think Valve would (or should) remove a game just because it doesn't have patch notes.
 
JaseC said:
But, yeah. I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds it annoying when a game is quietly patched, which sets off a quest to search for notes only to find threads full of people asking the same question. Now, obviously it's unrealistic to expect developers/publishers to provide fine-grained information each and every time, but something would be better than nothing.
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Yes, I agree.

I would love to know the exact changes made during updates and it is annoying to have to search through lots of forums, or threads to find out. Sometimes, you can't even identify what has been updated.
 
SuperChoco said:
I definitely agree, but how would Valve enforce this? I don't think Valve would (or should) remove a game just because it doesn't have patch notes.
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Well, implementation would just be a matter of forcing the developer/publisher to add data to a text form before updating the public build. As I said, it's unreasonable to expect such a move to result in minute details, but "Improved performance" is better than the umpteenth forum thread with the title "Anyone know what the patch did?"
 
Slippery slope. Valve is not the type of company that wants to be mandating anything from developers. I believe their approach is more like, lets give developers who do solid updates extra exposure. A recently updated list on the Steam home page with prominent real estate would work well, if it excluded developers who put out shitty patch notes.
 
SuperChoco said:
I definitely agree, but how would Valve enforce this? I don't think Valve would (or should) remove a game just because it doesn't have patch notes.
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Send an email to developers/publishers letting them know that you're trying to make the change, and ask if they can comply. It's not unreasonable,and everybody wins except for the person that spends that extra 2 minutes writing the patch notes.
 
You mean like the nintendo 3ds patch notes: "Further improvements to overall system stability"
It's impossible to enforce and in some cases you don't want to reveal what you patched, or that you even did a patch to catch cheaters/hackers/whatever
 
Visualante2 said:
Slippery slope. Valve is not the type of company that wants to be mandating anything from developers. I believe their approach is more like, lets give developers who do solid updates extra exposure. A recently updated list on the Steam home page with prominent real estate would work well, if it excluded developers who put out shitty patch notes.
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It's not a slippery slope. Devs could just add "Asuahsuasa" if they wanted to, but most would instead take the exact same amount of time to input something of more substance and updates could be automatically broadcast as announcements via the game's Steam Community hub. There's literally no downside.
 
JaseC said:
Well, implementation would just be a matter of forcing the developer/publisher to add data to a text form before updating the public build. As I said, it's unreasonable to expect such a move to result in minute details, but "Improved performance" is better than the umpteenth forum thread with the title "Anyone know what the patch did?"
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Sigma Corporation is proud to present you version 2.3.0.2 of THE GAME.

Please note that updating to version 2.3.0.2 may be or not be required to continue or start usage of online services for THE GAME.

Compared to the previous version 2.3.0.1, version 2.3.0.2 improves performance and stability of the code. It is also possible that available options changed, and/or that gameplay was tuned for further balancing, and/or new downloadable content has been introduced. For information on the latter, check THE GAME's store page.
 
At the very least, the Update page in Steam should have a link to the Community Hub for the game. It took me a while to work out Store Page -> Community Hub
 
It would be great if Valve just made it so every patch pushed a patch note to users to view via steam library, either in the links section or one of the main sections in the center, every time an update happened. Devs wouldn't be forced to fill it out, but we'd still have easy access to patch history. I also think having you game with easily viewable blank patch notes would push devs to put something in them.

Caronte said:
We should also be able to not update games if so we choose. As far as I know you can't do that.
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You can turn off updates(although I've heard steam sometimes doesn't let you play unless you update), but it would be cool to be able to go back to previous versions.
 
Plus the 'we're releasing a new update, please see the patch notes on our official forum/community'. Completely defeats the purpose of following the game.
 
SuperChoco said:
I definitely agree, but how would Valve enforce this? I don't think Valve would (or should) remove a game just because it doesn't have patch notes.
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i imagine you could set up a system where you have to fill in patch notes before the patch is allowed to be pushed?
 
Further improvements to overall stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user's experience.


Valve aren't in the business of babysitting interactions between developers and their customers. It's not going to happen, and if it did it would be too easy to bypass.

Can't you disable auto-updates?
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Yes, but often you can't launch a game until you allow it to update. It's a per-game behaviour.
 
JaseC said:
Well, implementation would just be a matter of forcing the developer/publisher to add data to a text form before updating the public build. As I said, it's unreasonable to expect such a move to result in minute details, but "Improved performance" is better than the umpteenth forum thread with the title "Anyone know what the patch did?"
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So are you thinking that there should be minimum character count for note patches? I could see that being a problem if the minimum character count is too high with some games like dota 2, where a patch would just be adding items to the in game store. If the minimum character count is too short, then that could make devs just put "increased stability" for their notes. It is better than nothing though and it would be a step forward.
 
HeebieJeebies said:
Plus the 'we're releasing a new update, please see the patch notes on our official forum/community'. Completely defeats the purpose of following the game.
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I agree. That's why I said that the patch notes should be automatically pushed through Steam's backend as a community announcement. Some devs do this already by their own volition. Announcements appear on the front page if the game is featured as a recently-updated title and are also pushed through the top of the game's news feed if the user is using Detail View in the client (to be clear: this is already how announcements work).
 
SixFourMike said:
Send an email to developers/publishers letting them know that you're trying to make the change, and ask if they can comply. It's not unreasonable,and everybody wins except for the person that spends that extra 2 minutes writing the patch notes.
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It might take even less if the developers use meaningful notes/check-ins with their source control software. Most source code management solutions have patch notes built in and will automatically create a change log for you. You may have to remove a few overly specific details, but the leg work can be done for you by the software.
 
If the Google can enforce a patch notes policy in the Play store, then Valve can. It would have proved very useful in the case where music was patched out of that old GTA game
 
It's pretty weird that on my PS4 I know what basically every patch I've gotten does but on PC I've got literally more than one game a day patching and I know fuckall what most of 'em even do.

Patchnotes aren't a lot of work (and the changes should already be in the commit messages anyway) with tangible benefit to consumers. I don't like forcing things on devs but I'd be fine with this.
 
Totally agree, it's a thing that you shouldn't have to hunt for after downloading a big or small patch, it's especially frustrating when the update is multiple gigs and you have no idea what you are downloading.
 
Sir TapTap said:
It's pretty weird that on my PS4 I know what basically every patch I've gotten does but on PC I've got literally more than one game a day patching and I know fuckall what most of 'em even do.

Patchnotes aren't a lot of work (and the changes should already be in the commit messages anyway) with tangible benefit to consumers. I don't like forcing things on devs but I'd be fine with this.
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The difference is that PSN and XBL have certification processes, which require such notes, whereas Steam does not. I think that's where the knee-jerk misunderstanding is coming from: I'm not asking for a tighter noose. I'm simply saying that if somebody wants to update the public build of a game then they should need to fill in a text form to some degree. If they'd rather type in gibberish than any sort of information, more power to them, but there is no sense in doing so and I'd wager the vast majority of devs/pubs on Steam realise that even something as vague as "I just got me some more of those stability updates" is of more use than absolutely nothing.
 
Agreed. I want to know what's changed and shouldn't have to hunt down the notes every single time. Sometimes I see an update start, go to find the notes and they're not even posted online yet. Its just ridiculous.
 
I think ultimately the efficacy of this probably depends on why one thinks more developers don't include patch notes already. If one thinks it's because they are not aware that patch notes are useful, but would be willing to write them if they knew, then there's value here. If one thinks it's because they view it as a total waste of resources or they want to actively conceal what they changed from users, then your "ahsiauhsuifhhuisf" scenario or "Made changes that affect operation of game and/or service" will be likely. I don't think it's likely to hurt because it's not much of an imposition at all, though.

Actually, doesn't Valve sort of encourage (obviously not require) this by allowing studios access to the front page rotating news/updates brick for <x> number of impressions if they do a patch and release change notes? The "carrot" approach seems pretty good.
 
Stumpokapow said:
I don't think it's likely to hurt because it's not much of an imposition at all, though.
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Indeed. I have no delusions that such a move would suddenly result in PSN/XBLesque notes of import each and every time, but there would be no downside, either.

Actually, doesn't Valve sort of do this by allowing studios access to the front page rotating news/updates brick for <x> number of impressions if they do a patch and release a patch note?
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Yeah. It resulted in quite a few devs pushing through "empty" updates for a spot.
 
I never got why developers don't release patch notes, surely it's something they're already keeping track of. It's not like some dude clocks into work, does some unknown work and leaves without telling anybody what he's done for the day.
 
I feel like this would be a great idea. I'm not sure how much effort it would cause developers, but it would sure help the community. The Arkham Knight patch post with the roadmap gave me a lot of peace if mind and now I feel confident they are addressing all the major issues.
 
I'd rather them not force a patch before we get patch notes.

I still miss when steam let you play unpatched sibgle player/offline games instead of forcing you to download the 5 games a day that want some small silly update.

Mainly because I play in offline mode alot. I know no valid reason that a game should be locked out in offline mode dur to requiring a patch. Unfortunately my Steam library is already too vast to move to a different platform :(
 
I don't believe it should be forced because then people wouldn't do it out of spite. But an optional spot for developers who are more open about the patches would be appreciated.
 
We're actually on a bit of a crack down on internal documentation at my workplace, a (non-gaming) software developer, that documentation being a major source of patch note detailing; in principle a person should just be able to tag together all the source commentary for the checkins since the previous released build and easily form patch notes from that, with a bit of editing.

The thing is, though, as I said, we've got lax, and they're becoming harder to produce as a result.

The thing is, I have also worked in the game development industry, and while my current employer is lax on that front, they're still infinitely more refined and disciplined in the systems of software development than my previous one.

I think that's the thing. There's something still a bit, well, ramshackle about gaming development, at least in terms of the company I worked for. And when you're firefighting and desperately trying to bodge together a sufficiently-robust solution for a crisis, good documentation can go kind of out of the window.

Which isn't really meant to excuse it; indeed, I think better development discipline would help companies across the board; I'm just trying to explain why I understand that patch notes can kind of fall by the wayside when you're flying by the seat of your pants.
 
Seems like something they should build the functionality for into the game page.

But even then I bet a lot wont use it. Even on consoles that have that built in a lot of the time its "We fix some shit. Go to Bungie.net to find out more"


Still would be nice to have though
 
Totally support that as a customer. But would valve enforce it? I don't know. They might be hesitant to irritate the developers without proper organized crowd demand.
 
I dunno why people seem to believe this to be a bigger task or change than it actually is. A mandatory text field is hardly some crime against Valve's principles. That's all we need - when they submit a patch, there is a text field they have to put something in. It could literally just be "a" for all I care.

So that's not Valve policing the content of patch notes or even enforcing any standards. Some developers would just stick with the standard "bug fixes" or "performance improvements", but I think at worst nothing changes but at best we see developers slightly more encouraged to provide some useful information in there. It'd also for that information to be tracked and presented in a better way, so I can easily view a list patches released and their patch notes in a consistent and standard view. The current system for that isn't too great, i'd like for it to be integrated into the steam client (e.g. right click > updates or right click > properties > updates > update list).
 
I really think they should add a page in the community hub area for the games that has a version history, which lists all prior versions of the games and allows devs to update that area with patch notes for each of the previous versions. This would allow retroactive patch notes (for devs who don't keep up) and would also allow people to see if the devs bother to put up notes at all. Would also keep the Valve involvement at a minimum, as they could just have the page auto-update with a new area when a new version is released\accepted.

If the devs already maintain a forum/news feed with patch notes, the solution is simple, paste a link. 2 seconds. Heck, I'm even happy when devs post an announcement saying "We patched the game, notes can be found here: LINK". Not having patch notes available for a game is quite frustrating though, especially if you're waiting for a particular bug or issue to be patched.

Does anyone know where we can submit suggestions for steam?
 
I completely agree.

No developer can tell me that it's too much of an imposition to write up some patch notes.

If you have any sane development process at all you already have a change list in your source control log anyway.
 
Durante said:
I completely agree.

No developer can tell me that it's too much of an imposition to write up some patch notes.

If you have any sane development process at all you already have a change list in your source control log anyway.
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In many cases they don't need to write a thing because many games contain patch notes in their local files so somebody from dev team just needs to copy that text on Steam Community. It's not that hard.
 
Even if they mandate it, they won't give you exact details.

PS4 and Vita has mandate patch notes, but they can vary from lots of good detail to a single line of "fixed some bugs"
 
dex3108 said:
In many cases they don't need to write a thing because many games contain patch notes in their local files so somebody from dev team just needs to copy that text on Steam Community. It's not that hard.
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Yeah, I've also seen cases where devs put patch notes on their own forum but not on Steam. A mandatory changelog field and built-in version history would at least fix that.
 
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