Is it wrong a game company announce small updates that turns out to a big overwrite format?

[Lil C]-[ew C]-[ew is ☂д☂]

Lately the past these two years playing games like Dying Light 2 Stay Human, Chernobylite complete Edition, and Dead Island 2 whenever these companies launch an update showing 300 megas to 3 gigas of content then upon download, it start to patching like downloading a clone of the game, and only to overwrite the previous files with the current.
I mean isn't that even unethical? Shouldn't they warn every update if you don't want to exceed your free space in the disk, uninstall and install back because they end up cloning the game onto your disk without ever noticing and not only use an large space in the disk but these updates become too frequent, ''patching'' procedure and third procedure to ''verify'' the game directory files takes for an hour or so to complete. It makes my PC unusable because use 100% of resources from time to time. I can't run other games while downloading but use part of desktop area like Steam client itself to browse on community and such.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3386384808
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3366355518
Shouldn't they be delivering these update changes lighter and less stressful to us?

[Priest]

Its not unethical, its maybe criminal to cause Hundrets of Euros for Traffic if you are not at home and have no Flatrate on your phone. (and yes a few years ago (pre 5g) the cheapest flatrate in my region was 200+ Euro per month)

[Lil C]-[ew C]-[ew is ☂д☂]

Another issue is that even if I don't utilize my PC just to make these updates to be installed as meant to be. It have 70% of chance failing to ''verify'' and warn my files are corrupted? My god...this method is flaw...I just have downloaded fresh DL2 three days ago and this update corrupted the files and tell me I'm the one got file broken? As you said it might start to look suspiciously wrong.
Now is verifying again 46,7 gb for the second time. I always end up uninstalling this game because of this broken system this game company gives. Other games like Chernobylite complete Edition and Dead Island 2, their updates even how big they get upon ''patching'' and overwrite the game directory. It never fails or get corrupted.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Lil C-ew C-ew is ☂д☂:

Another issue is that even if I don't utilize my PC just to make these updates to be installed as meant to be. It have 70% of chance failing to ''verify'' and warn my files are corrupted? My god...this method is flaw...I just have downloaded fresh DL2 three days ago and this update corrupted the files and tell me I'm the one got file broken? As you said it might start to look suspiciously wrong.
Now is verify again 46,7 gb for the second time. I always end up uninstalling this game because of this broken system this game company gives. Other games like Chernobylite complete Edition and Dead Island 2, their updates even how big they get upon ''patching'' and overwrite the game directory. It never fails or get corrupted.

Failing verification and corruption usually means your connection is losing packets, and thus whatever you're using for an internet connection is not stable. Or your AV is wrongfully flagging files thus removing them causing errors.

Lastly, valve doesn't make that game so however big the download size is vs patch size is primarily due to how the file structure works and how much data is in any one file.

Sounds like a local system issue or internet connection issue not so much valve.

[Komarimaru]

Not sure how it's unethical. It's a standard patching process for decades. You uncompress what needs to be patched, patch it, recompress and clean up.

[Lil C]-[ew C]-[ew is ☂д☂]

Patching the game files without the need to download the whole game again then yes it should be normal but this ain't normal. It double the disk size but Steam steps to patch and verify these downloaded files are utterly slow and if that doesn't end up in corrupting the update. Most of other games don't go through that way. And I've seen DOOM Eternal get 3 updates last year without having to ''patch'' and overwrite, the clone game files and verify all over again. Neither had Destiny 2,Fallout 4 or Grand Theft Auto V games. These game companies deliver updates as was meant to be withou the need to download a clone of the actual game, and only to overwrite the previous files and verify again.

[Komarimaru]

Originally posted by Lil C-ew C-ew is ☂д☂:

Patching the game files without the need to download the whole game again then yes it should be normal but this ain't normal. It double the disk size but Steam steps to patch and verify these downloaded files are utterly slow and if that doesn't end up in corrupting the update. Most of other games don't go through that way. And I've seen DOOM Eternal get 3 updates last year without having to ''patch'' and overwrite, the clone game files and verify all over again. Neither had Destiny 2,Fallout 4 or Grand Theft Auto V games. These game companies deliver updates as was meant to be withou the need to download a clone of the actual game, and only to overwrite the previous files and verify again.

It's not double the disk size, not permanently at least. And the speed is limited by your hardware. I can download a 68GB patch and have it patched into the file in under 20 minutes with no slow down.

So, hardware related your end, why you don't fill a drive fully amongst several other reasons.

[Crazy Tiger]

Game developers like to use big container files cause that's easier for them to manage. So, blame them.

[Ben Lubar]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Game developers like to use big container files cause that's easier for them to manage. So, blame them.

The reason games are packed into big combined files is that on Windows one of the slowest things you can do is open a file. So game engines optimize for as few "file open" requests as possible and make their own pseudo-filesystem inside the game's files.

[Satoru]

In today's news, updating your game is now bad

Also not updating your game means its a dead game

Like what do you people want

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Game developers like to use big container files cause that's easier for them to manage. So, blame them.

Note that was more of a thing with UE3/4. Back then due to spinning disks, FAT32 and windows defragmentation, it was optimal to put all your stuff into one single giant file. Its why many games from that era are basically one giant file with everything in it. This did improve read times and game performance.

However that was more or less short lived once NTFS became standard on consumer windows, and windows began defragging drives in the background. Single file also became untenable as games started becoming 10GB and larger, which meant that build times for any patches was extremely painful.

Containerizing data into several larger files makes way more sense. It makes it much easier to add stuff to your game later on as you just have to append data to the end of the file. Also having a zillion small files can actually tank windows file performance (trust me I know this first hand from programs that do this) where even doing basic file system queries can basically cause the OS to have a seizure. I've seen some places who want to use teh filesystem as a 'sorting' mechanism, basically use the file name as a bizarro directory structure b-tree. Its stupid, but it is fast to query and find a specific file. Also traversing the directory structure doesn't take 15 years to load

Indie games can sort of get away with individual files for every asset class. But for a lot of AAA game where game sizes are ballooning up to 50-100GB of actual data and not movie files, you likely couldn't even load the directory structure of the texture pack of a Call of Duty game of a single map.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Lil C-ew C-ew is ☂д☂:

Patching the game files without the need to download the whole game again then yes it should be normal but this ain't normal. It double the disk size but Steam steps to patch and verify these downloaded files are utterly slow and if that doesn't end up in corrupting the update. Most of other games don't go through that way. And I've seen DOOM Eternal get 3 updates last year without having to ''patch'' and overwrite, the clone game files and verify all over again. Neither had Destiny 2,Fallout 4 or Grand Theft Auto V games. These game companies deliver updates as was meant to be withou the need to download a clone of the actual game, and only to overwrite the previous files and verify again.

You keep saying "download the whole game again". That's not what's happening. You are only downloading the small patch file. That patch file is applied to the game files you already have which creates new game files. Once Steam verifies the new game files, it deletes the old game files. So while you may have two sets of game files, you didn't download them again. Your PC created the second set.

I feel like you've had this misconception in the past and refused to understand the patching process back then as well.

[Nx Machina]

Thread title: Is it wrong a game company announce small updates that turns out to a big overwrite format?

Delta patching: A delta update is a software update that requires the user to download only those parts of the software's code that are new, or have been changed from their previous state, in contrast to having to download the entire program.

Those files which have changed are being replaced throughout the game install, they are not simply tacked on the beginning, middle or end.

Unethical? No.

Efficiency? Yes or would you prefer when a patch arrives it completely uninstalls the game and re-downloads the game in it's entirety.

[Lil C]-[ew C]-[ew is ☂д☂]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

I feel like you've had this misconception in the past and refused to understand the patching process back then as well.

Am I in denial? Never used those words, you did. These game companies listed don't carefully verify the integrity of the sent package before delivering the update and that is being careless.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3387036321
I still don't understand and that is part of my line of thought why force the client to redownload the whole game and only to update instead of getting the update modules and apply these changes. This update took less than 8 minutes to complete when anything bigger than 30 gb takes 30 minutes to download and pass the procedure to ''patch'' and ''verify'' taking another 30 minutesish to an hour to complete.

[RedLightning]

I personally think that it takes less time to just uninstall and reinstall some of these games that patch this way.. far more efficient.

[Tristin]

So do you want your game updates to arrive faster or do you want to save world-wide some bandwidths and some disk wear-and-tear?

I think you want games to arrive faster.