Update #101: Update 2.02 is Live

[Gunnar.Maluf]

And download 6gb with every new 200mb patch?

Nah.

[sapientNode]

And we are still waiting to resolve this issue.

Is this thing a soft hand to force us into using Galaxy?

As stated above downloading 6gb to patch 200mb or less is not ok for me.

I do not have ultra high speed net and my bandwidth can be limited.

 

The patches up to 2.02 worked as soon as I figured them out.

But once I got to 2.01 to 2.02 it went all bad.

 

I am not able to patch the main game from 2.01 to 2.02 without an absurd amount of errors and then massive crashing.

 

As I have said before they need to make a single patch with all the changes that checks if the expansion is installed and then installs what is needed.

Also the forced patching order also makes no sense because each patch should be cumulative and have within it the former patches files.

 

Perhaps they have to do this way because they cant touch the files or they are not tracking with each iteration what is being patched.

Or perhaps Obsidian is not giving them a detailed list of what files are changed in each patch.  If they had a list of changes they could incorporate them all in one patch and we could potentially patch from a version 1.06 to 2.02.  In addition a simple check for White March expansion would alleviate this issue with having to manual patch 2 separate patches.

 

And the Galaxy system seems totally inefficient since it is downloading about 1/2 of the total game just to patch it up one minor iteration.

I imagine they are quite competent coders and some legal or communication issue between Obsidian and GoG is occurring.

 

Because this is a slopfest

Edited October 5, 2015 by sapientNode

[Gunnar.Maluf]

The way I see it, the gogs patching system as is today is not professional.

 

I don't know if it's gog or obsidian to blame. I fear it's obsidian's fault since they are the ones that compile and distribute to Gog all files/patches.

 

All needed files to patch from any version to any other version, expansion or not in one file. That's the correct way to do it.

[vv221]

All needed files to patch from any version to any other version, expansion or not in one file. That's the correct way to do it.

This would end up in a *huge* patch. It would work on any version, and could patch it to any other version, but in the end the patch itself would be bigger than the whole game.

[Gunnar.Maluf]

Well, if that happens then you would have to agree that the game shipped in a ****ty state. Patches are not the norm, they are the exception. If we end up patching the whole game then I would not buy anything else from such a company.

 

That's not the case with pillars however, all patches so far were small. My only complaint is about how patching is done.

[Gunnar.Maluf]

Note that Gog's galaxy downloads gigs for each patch we have so far.

 

Also note that huge patches are not a problem for some games ie Batman Arkham Knight

[vv221]

Well, if that happens then you would have to agree that the game shipped in a ****ty state. Patches are not the norm, they are the exception. If we end up patching the whole game then I would not buy anything else from such a company.

 

That's not the case with pillars however, all patches so far were small. My only complaint is about how patching is done.

It’s a problem with how patches are built actually.

To be able to patch a game from any version to any other version from a single file you would need an awful lot of data and meta-data, and that would lead at some point to a really huge file.

 

What could be (should be?) done however is multiple patches, each one working on a different version of the game and patching it to the last one. So you would just need to download a single patch depending on the version of the game you’re using, instead of having to download one patch for each version you’re behind the last one.

 

Note that Gog's galaxy downloads gigs for each patch we have so far.

That’s bad design

I hope it won’t be the case anymore when Galaxy goes out of beta.

Edited October 5, 2015 by vv221

[Gunnar.Maluf]

 

It’s a problem with how patches are built actually.

To be able to patch a game from any version to any other version from a single file you would need an awful lot of data and meta-data, and that would lead at some point to a really huge file.

 

What could be (should be?) done however is multiple patches, each one working on a different version of the game and patching it to the last one. So you would just need to download a single patch depending on the version of the game you’re using, instead of having to download one patch for each version you’re behind the last one.

 

 

Yep. Like that idea too

[sapientNode]

 

All needed files to patch from any version to any other version, expansion or not in one file. That's the correct way to do it.

This would end up in a *huge* patch. It would work on any version, and could patch it to any other version, but in the end the patch itself would be bigger than the whole game.

 

 

Not necessarily and honestly unlikely.

And even if they got too large they could do a new install when it reached lets say 2gb patch altogether.  And that is cumulative because often the same files will get patched throughout the process.

 

New installs with each patch to make sure it works is not a good way to go.  I as of now have 3 full installs of the game weighing in at about 30gb and about 2 to 3 days download time.

That is absurd!

[Ineth]

 

 

All needed files to patch from any version to any other version, expansion or not in one file. That's the correct way to do it.

This would end up in a *huge* patch. It would work on any version, and could patch it to any other version, but in the end the patch itself would be bigger than the whole game.

 

 

Not necessarily and honestly unlikely.

 

I agree. If they used proper incremental patching, then all patches combined could be smaller than one of the current ones.

[vv221]

(…)

(…)

Just so you see I’m not making up what I’m writing here

 

There’s been 8 published versions of PoE that I can think of:

1.02, 1.03, 1.04, 1.05, 1.06, 2.0, 2.01, 2.02

To be able from a single file to patch any version to any other version (later version, let’s forget downgrading here) this file would need to include 28 patches.

 

Now I take the average size for one patch from the ones I’ve built (keep in mind they’re lighter than the official patches):

http://www.dotslashplay.it/patchs/pillars-of-eternity/

It averages to something close to ~87MiB (we would need more patches for a better estimation).

 

So we would already be at something like a 2.4GiB "meta-patch" today!

Bigger than what you had in mind?

 

-----

 

What I’m saying here is that we actually need an improved patching method, but a single all-purpose "meta-patch" is not a viable solution.

 

-----

 

EDIT: I’m wrong in what I’ve written here.

Like Ineth suggested we could end up with something (much?) lighter with well-crafted incremental patches (the meta-patch would need to include 7 patches instead of 28).

 

I didn’t keep the incremental patches I wrote for PoE, otherwise I would have done the maths for them too…

Edited October 6, 2015 by vv221

[Gunnar.Maluf]

vv221, they could have a base version for which all following patches would be built on and earlier versions forgotten.

 

Let's say 1.0 is the base version. So we would have the patch file upgrade till they mark the next base version.

If in this example they remarked the next base version to 1.06, then after that someone would only be able to download the vanilla game in version 1.06

and the patches wouldn't need to have information prior to 1.06. In this example, we would have 2 patch files available: one that upgrades from 1.0 to 1.6

and another one that upgrades 1.06 to whatever comes next. Although we have two files, as soon as the second file is made public the first one will not be needed anymore.

 

This way the patch file would have all patches in one file and they could keep track of it's size.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Gunnar.Maluf

[vv221]

(…)

And by carefully planning the "base versions" it would avoid the patches to grow too much in size…

Okay, I think I got it and I approve that it would be a good method!

[Ymarsakar]

GOG is designed for Good Old Games, to reverse engineer code and make the games compatible, which they do a very good job at.

 

Their coding system was not designed to pump out weekly patches for modern games, especially not modern engines like Unity.

 

Galaxy will or should solve that, but coding Galaxy to make it equal to steam's efficiency will take time, which is why Galaxy is still beta more or less.

[Oralaina]

GOG is designed for Good Old Games, to reverse engineer code and make the games compatible, which they do a very good job at.

 

Their coding system was not designed to pump out weekly patches for modern games, especially not modern engines like Unity.

 

Galaxy will or should solve that, but coding Galaxy to make it equal to steam's efficiency will take time, which is why Galaxy is still beta more or less.

 

And.... that's one reason I'm probably not going to mess with gog for anything "new" in games.  True, I'm not all that happy with steam (I REALLY REALLY HATE game frontend crap, just give me the damn game! - hate the blizz launcher, got rid of trion's glyph won't play rift if trion forces glyph eventually....) but at least it works - for me.  I know there are those for whom steam doesn't work very well at all.  I'm not one of them, and as long as it works, it works for me.

[Torm51]

 

GOG is designed for Good Old Games, to reverse engineer code and make the games compatible, which they do a very good job at.

 

Their coding system was not designed to pump out weekly patches for modern games, especially not modern engines like Unity.

 

Galaxy will or should solve that, but coding Galaxy to make it equal to steam's efficiency will take time, which is why Galaxy is still beta more or less.

 

And.... that's one reason I'm probably not going to mess with gog for anything "new" in games.  True, I'm not all that happy with steam (I REALLY REALLY HATE game frontend crap, just give me the damn game! - hate the blizz launcher, got rid of trion's glyph won't play rift if trion forces glyph eventually....) but at least it works - for me.  I know there are those for whom steam doesn't work very well at all.  I'm not one of them, and as long as it works, it works for me.

 

Ya same here.

[gkathellar]

So, hey, are the Bracers of Spiritual Power still broken? Because I recall reading that they were, but I don't think I've ever seen that addressed in any patch notes, ever.

[BelgarathMTH]

I'm sorry if this has been mentioned, but this patch apparently does not fix the bug with the priests' Withdraw spell.

 

It still does not heal endurance as the spell description says.

 

I kind of wish this would get fixed, as Withdraw should be one of the priests' most powerful spells.

[Kriber22]

So, hey, are the Bracers of Spiritual Power still broken? Because I recall reading that they were, but I don't think I've ever seen that addressed in any patch notes, ever.

Wait, what? They're broken? And I was so thrilled at having found a pair, I've never seen these before in my other playthroughs. What's wrong with them, do you remember?

[sapientNode]

GOG is designed for Good Old Games, to reverse engineer code and make the games compatible, which they do a very good job at.

 

Their coding system was not designed to pump out weekly patches for modern games, especially not modern engines like Unity.

 

Galaxy will or should solve that, but coding Galaxy to make it equal to steam's efficiency will take time, which is why Galaxy is still beta more or less.

 

What do you mean their coding system was not designed for weekly patches?

Do you work there?

I have not had any issues with other games from GoG just this one.  I definitely dislike their confusing numbering system but other than that all of the games new or odl I have gotten from there has been great.

If anything they have the ability to do more with Code because they make games playable on newer systems.

 

Honestly I do think its some bad communication between Obsidian and GoG and potentially a push for us to get on Galaxy.

As stated above by someone else I despise third party systems to launch games I own so they can track my demographics info and then push games to me or monetize my traffic.

Now if they cut me in on a % I might reconsider using their systems.