Ubisoft just made Rainbow Six Siege players download a 70 GB patch to "restructure game files and reduce the size of the game..."

[Mullet2000]

...but after the 70 GB patch (100.3 GB if you use the HD texture pack!!) the overall game was reduced by *drumroll* 5 GB total compared to what it was before.

Gee. Thanks.

Can we figure out how not to do this, please? A 70 GB patch is can lock down your internet speed for hours if you have a slower connection. If you have a cap that's 70GB you have to use to reduce your install by 5GB or else you're locked out of the game. I'm pretty sure given the choice almost no one would take that trade off.

Between this, Modern Warfare, and a few other games patch sizes are getting really goddamn nuts. I really hope this can get streamlined in the coming few years because it just sucks right now finding time to play a game, sitting down, and realizing you're locked out for an hour or more.

There's way too much pre-playing coordination my friend group has to be constantly on top of before a session reminding everyone to check for patches before we all sit down to play. You can't just rely on setting a time and simply playing anymore. One person forgets to turn on the client an hour beforehand, and we're all waiting and not playing for a significant chunk of our play time, waiting for someone's 28 GB patch. It just sucks.

/rant

 

[zombiejames]

Next-gen can't come soon enough. I wonder how much of that is duplicated data.

 

[PanzerKraken]

The more we advance in tech, the larger the patches become, not a whole lot that can be done when we keep pushing higher quality assets and games get bigger and bigger.

This is also why most systems have background auto updating features now that folks should take advantage of

 

[El_TigroX]

There's way too much pre-playing coordination my friend group has to be constantly on top of before a session reminding everyone to check for patches before we all sit down to play. You can't just rely on setting a time and simply playing anymore. One person forgets to turn on the client an hour beforehand, and we're all waiting and not playing for a significant chunk of our play time, waiting for someone's 28 GB patch. It just sucks.

/rant

Click to shrink...

Rant away, it's trash. This happens to us all the time, and even when we warn everyone a whole day in advance, inevitably there are issues - download didn't start, slow speeds... it really derails us. We play every Tuesday, once a week, and it inevitably causes problems.

I didn't even know about this patch, and now I will warn everyone since R6 is usually in the rotation.

 

[Ahti]

A 45 GB patch for R6 Siege popped up yesterday on my PS4. I`ve deleted the game, don`t have time for hour long "copying".

 

[Tohsaka]

The Elder Scrolls Online had a similar patch recently where you had to redownload the whole game to reduce the file size.

 

[Mesoian]

Expect this to get worse, not better.

 

[Arion]

Next-gen can't come soon enough. I wonder how much of that is duplicated data.

Click to shrink...

How is next gen going to solve this? If anything games will only get bigger.

 

[elyetis]

I can only guess they made the math and see it as a saving bandwidth/time for player down the line given the number of time the game get downloaded ( and maybe patched if it impact patch size too ).

 

[TronLight]

How is next gen going to solve this? If anything games will only get bigger.

Click to shrink...

Fast SSDs should reduce the need for data duplication.

 

[Odeko]

I'd download any size patch if it would decrease the total size of Hitman 2 T_T

 

[PanzerKraken]

Fast SSDs should reduce the need for data duplication.

Click to shrink...

Data duplication is largely a part of making the patch process quicker and easier from what I understand. Instead of making patches that update specific items in a game, it's just easier to modify the existing content and assets and just send them out. It's just about making the patches easier to make and quicker to produce and get out for certification reviews

 

[zombiejames]

How is next gen going to solve this? If anything games will only get bigger.

Click to shrink...

A dev who worked on Spider-man on the PS4 (the only real example we have because they did a GDC presentation detailing this) said roughly 10GB of the game was duplicated data. That's ~20% of the game. Moving to SSDs will completely eliminate this.

 

[Mullet2000]

Fast SSDs should reduce the need for data duplication.

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I mean I'm already using NVME SSDs on my PC and this is still a problem. If your internet connection is limited, doesn't matter how fast the SSD is.

 

[mute]

The more we advance in tech, the larger the patches become, not a whole lot that can be done when we keep pushing higher quality assets and games get bigger and bigger.

This is also why most systems have background auto updating features now that folks should take advantage of

Click to shrink...

Even so, the game files should be organized in a way that when you are downloading an update, only the minimum number of changed files is included in the update.

 

[Rocketz]

Games make improvements especially service games. I'm assuming sometimes those improvements work off a different build that needs a fresh install. It sucks for data cap people but I don't see this type of thing going away especially for games that last years like Siege. It comes with the territory of these types of games.

COD made you install the whole game so for the people that played Warzone and wanted to play the main game, they could just buy and play.

 

[ryan299]

It's been out of control all gen. I think modern warfare has really brought more attention to the issue. My friends are constantly complaining about mw update sizes.
Hope we see improvements going forward.

 

[PanzerKraken]

Even so, the game files should be organized in a way that when you are downloading an update, only the minimum number of changed files is included in the update.

Click to shrink...

It should but it's more about "lazy" patch making. SSD is not going to change anything if they don't change how they make the patches themselves.

 

[Patitoloco]

I mean I'm already using NVME SSDs on my PC and this is still a problem. If your internet connection is limited, doesn't matter how fast the SSD is.

Click to shrink...

That you, or a small amount of players, have SSDs doesn't mean that they're going to redo their engine and file structure. They're made with duplication so that HDDs are able to stream everything properly.

But with nextgen consoles making SSDs standard, that's a whole different story, that streaming problem ends and the necessity of having uber compressed, duplicated files will mostly be gone.

 

[Franco_Tech]

Preparing for next gen Days Gone did one too recently.

 

[mute]

It should but it's more about "lazy" patch making. SSD is not going to change anything if they don't change how they make the patches themselves.

Click to shrink...

Agreed, and yes, I'd expect SSD to have minimal impact here. Moreso the project needs to be planned for optimized patch sizes from day one.

 

[R2RD]

I have an 8 Mbps so 70 GB will take more than a day to download that's why I avoid purchasing digital games and will never understand people that say it's the future.
The worst part is when you try to reinstall a game and have to wait for the patch to download to play the game. Like the other day I try to show my 8 year old cousin Spider-man and couldn't cause it needed to download a patch when I was reinstalling the game.

 

[darthkarki]

I agree, those sizes are pretty absurd. I hope everyone is doing everything they can to make sure patches are as small as they can be. Unfortunately, it's going to be a necessary part of live service games. If those are the kinds of games you like, you need to be set up to deal with constant patches.

Personally, I've had no issues with leaving my PS4 in standby and having updates download automatically. I just get a notification that the game was updated and I have to restart it. If you don't have a data cap and aren't manually deciding which games to update and when, there's really no reason not let it handle itself. I leave my PC on most of the time as well so it does the same, not sure if Xbox handles it any differently.

 

[JohnnyToonami]

I'd download any size patch if it would decrease the total size of Hitman 2 T_T

Click to shrink...

I deleted the entire game and only downloaded the stuff I would actually play. Went from 100+ GBs to 60ish GBs. Got rid of the Hitman 1 Levels (100%'d them in Hitman 1 years ago), Sniper Maps and Bonus Missions.

 

[Rabalder.]

Isn't the whole point to reduce future patch sizes? The downloads aren't what bother me on PS4. It's the fucking copying.

 

[Mullet2000]

That you, or a small amount of players, have SSDs doesn't mean that they're going to redo their engine and file structure. They're made with duplication so that HDDs are able to stream everything properly.

But with nextgen consoles making SSDs standard, that's a whole different story, that streaming problem ends and the necessity of having uber compressed, duplicated files will mostly be gone.

Click to shrink...

Right. But with cross-gen being a thing and HDDs still being used on PCs, I wonder how far off we are from games actually moving away from that type of file duplication.

 

[Alric]

Well now I know why I bought the game 2 days ago, downloaded and played and then yesterday couldn't because of a 100gb install. Christ

 

[Devil]

Isn't this patch meant as a base so upcoming patches can be be smaller than before? So downloading 70GB right now may be annoying, but if that's necessary for the improvement you are seeking... Maybe wait for the next patch to see if the new file structure made any improvements before ranting.

Maybe I misunderstand, though.

 

[spineduke]

Isn't this patch meant as a base so upcoming patches can be be smaller than before? So downloading 70GB right now may be annoying, but if that's necessary for the improvement you are seeking... Maybe wait for the next patch to see if the new file structure made any improvements before ranting.

Maybe I misunderstand, though.

Click to shrink...

i think this is the 2nd time they do this.

this is the fastest way to get me to disengage with your game, because my connection is dead beat slow.

 

[ty_hot]

Id guess the new patches will be a lot smaller, they wouldnt make that huge ass download only for 5gb reduction now and no improvements down the road. I believe Sea of Thieves did something similar but honestly I dont know how later patches are (and I think there was a bigger reduction in install size too).

 

[PopsMaellard]

It's the 11th and between a few 4K movies and Modern Warfare updates, I've used over half of my ISP cap.

Guess I'm not playing Siege until next month.

 

[headspawn]

I saw a patch start downloading and was shocked to still see the patch being downloaded five minutes later, what a fucking waste.

 

[Tiny Chihuahueño]

Next-gen can't come soon enough. I wonder how much of that is duplicated data.

Click to shrink...

Next gen games may not include duplicated data, but they higher fidelity geometry, textures and overall complexity of the games will most likely ballon those file sizes beyond what we've seen this gen. SSDs will become the norm and they'll be a necessity rather than a "plus"

 

[chandoog]

Next-gen can't come soon enough. I wonder how much of that is duplicated data.

Click to shrink...

Why would you assume this won't be an issue next-gen either ?

 

[Patitoloco]

Right. But with cross-gen being a thing and HDDs still being used on PCs, I wonder how far off we are from games actually moving away from that type of file duplication.

Click to shrink...

It depends on how much are devs able to do that work, or who will take care of current-gen/next-gen games.

If the next-gen version is just a fork of the current project, then yes, not that much will change. If it's a more specialized version, then it might not be equally as bad.

Next gen games may not include duplicated data, but they higher fidelity geometry, textures and overall complexity of the games will most likely ballon those file sizes beyond what we've seen this gen. SSDs will become the norm and they'll be a necessity rather than a "plus"

Click to shrink...

True, but the patches themselves won't need to go though enormous processes to reach the file they want to patch (which is the problem right now with patches, the files are so tightly compressesed that changing a single thing from one of them requires you to send the whole new file again, that's how you end up with 70GB patches).

Those cases of file management can be streamlined with the newer tech.

 

[Sabercrusader]

Worst part about this all is that you couldn't even preload the patch like normal. Didn't get a chance to play with my coworker last night for the new operators because his install was going slowly. We ended up booting up Overwatch instead, which, while fun, was not what we were wanting to play.

I don't really expect this to get better, but at least if you're going to have ridiculous patch sizes, please allow preloading the patch. Typically Siege is better about this so I don't know why they didn't do it this time for such a large patch.

 

[Arsenic]

Many of you are getting the SSD benefits wrong.

It's not the speed that's being relied on, but that all next-gen (Sony systems) will use SSDs only. This provides a standard for Devs to work with, instead of compensating for slower HDDs, such as the case on PC.

 

[Arsenic]

Also, Overwatch did this about 1.5 years ago. Game was ballooning to 26GB and was reduced to 18-19. Percentage-wise, it was worth it.

They also did other work with the engine and sound profile to handle the chaos. It was worth it.

I don't see R6S doing this as well. Can't even get decent netcode

 

[nihilence]

I think of it's vital files or geometry, depending on the game type these may be unavoidable? I remember when Dead Rising 3 had a patch that re-download the whole game because it's open world and geo was tinkered with during an update.

 

[Komo]

Fast SSDs should reduce the need for data duplication.

Click to shrink...

I mean Sony copied games to apply patches then copied back. Even if the games 100GB it'll still take a while to patch.

Sony needs to change their entire patching system as it sucks.

 

[catboy]

overwatch did this constantly on consoles and it was so annoying

"this patch will stop us from needing massive patches in the future!"

and then another redownload of the whole game 6 months later

 

[Madao]

my brother was telling me about this kind of thing a while ago, where he and his friends would pass on playing some games because a patch came out and they didn't realize and just downloading it ate their free time (they all have jobs at this point)

some of these devs need to start compression tech at least for downloads.

 

[Zonal Hertz]

This game is 5 years old. It's perfectly fine to do stuff like this for the people still enjoying the game.

 

[TrueHero]

Yeah sucks for us with data caps, I can't even download it until next month.

 

[Kingpin Rogers]

Oh, so that's why my hard drive lost a ton of space all of a sudden.

 

[jroc74]

I mean I'm already using NVME SSDs on my PC and this is still a problem. If your internet connection is limited, doesn't matter how fast the SSD is.

Click to shrink...

That you, or a small amount of players, have SSDs doesn't mean that they're going to redo their engine and file structure. They're made with duplication so that HDDs are able to stream everything properly.

But with nextgen consoles making SSDs standard, that's a whole different story, that streaming problem ends and the necessity of having uber compressed, duplicated files will mostly be gone.

Click to shrink...

IMO, a perfect example of the difference SSD being a requirement makes.

I think for next gen SSD is going to be the real game changer.

 

[ss_lemonade]

That you, or a small amount of players, have SSDs doesn't mean that they're going to redo their engine and file structure. They're made with duplication so that HDDs are able to stream everything properly.

But with nextgen consoles making SSDs standard, that's a whole different story, that streaming problem ends and the necessity of having uber compressed, duplicated files will mostly be gone.

Click to shrink...

But Series X games will also work on the Xbox One right?

 

[Patitoloco]

But Series X games will also work on the Xbox One right?

Click to shrink...

No, Xbox One games will work on Series X, not the other way around.

What you're thinking about is that Microsoft said that, during the first couple of years, their games will come out both in Xbox One and Series X.

Matt Booty (Xbox): Our titles for the next year or two will not be next gen exclusive

Tried to paraphrase for the title, and searched for other threads saying this, but couldn’t find any. https://www.mcvuk.com/we-need-to-deliver-on-the-promises-that-we-make-xbox-game-studios-matt-booty-on-the-future-of-xbox/ Interesting strategy. Makes sense from an install base perspective...

www.resetera.com

 

[Deleted member 3038]

IMO, a perfect example of the difference SSD being a requirement makes.

I think for next gen SSD is going to be the real game changer.

Click to shrink...

That you, or a small amount of players, have SSDs doesn't mean that they're going to redo their engine and file structure. They're made with duplication so that HDDs are able to stream everything properly.

But with nextgen consoles making SSDs standard, that's a whole different story, that streaming problem ends and the necessity of having uber compressed, duplicated files will mostly be gone.

Click to shrink...

That's not at all what happened here with siege.

The game used to be bundled in huge ass files that would take forever to patch, and they are currently in the process of trimming those files & splitting them so map rework updates & new ops won't bloat the game like they did before. This has almost nothing to do with "oh it was designed for a HDD so they duped all the data" the engine just didn't have support for this kind of GAAS updating (this is the Assassin's Creed III Engine mind you)

 

[TheYanger]

I mean, I would prefer they not do it because I value my bandwidth more than my 5 gigs of Hard Drive space. I have to assume the space concern is more for consoles than PC, since console space is so limited. Which sucks.

And yes, to whoever asked, this is the second time they've done it in 3 or 4 years, which isn't that bad but still.

EDIT: and yeah, see above. Has nothing to do with duplication. This has everything to do with actual file management so that future patches are smaller and the file structure can be more efficient.