Constant Game Updates

[bug_of_war]

So I just saw Payday 2 update itself for the 22nd time and it got me wondering, "How many people actually enjoy their games being frequently updated?".

Personally I hate it, I think that the game should only ever have to be updated 2-3 times including for DLC bug fixes (DLC should be released 100% compatible with the game).

So yeah, do you like it when publishers frequently update the game? Or do you find it frustrating that after paying full price for a game it is still being worked on months after the release?

 

[Legion]

Ideally I'd prefer they designed games so they didn't need so many updates post-release in the first place.

Seeing as in most cases that is unlikely to happen, I'd prefer they kept working on fixes and have to deal with regular small patches than them simply leave them alone while needing fixes. They don't affect me that much as I normally run Steam and leave it for a few minutes before actually doing anything with it.

 

[lacktheknack]

Why on earth would I find it "frustrating" that the devs are still stamping out tiny issues months later? That's some damn good support right there and I wish it was more common. It treats the customers as more than a transaction to be forgotten about the instant the money transfers.

Also, "DLC should only be released 100% compatible with the game"? That's a really weird set of words there and I don't think you understand what they mean.

 

[Roxas1359]

Why on earth would I find it "frustrating" that the devs are still stamping out tiny issues months later? That's some damn good support right there and I wish it was more common. It treats the customers as more than a transaction to be forgotten about the instant the money transfers.

Pretty much took what I was gonna say. I mean ideally there wouldn't be many bugs at all, but as games get bigger the chances that some bugs might escape QA testers might slip through, and a company still supporting it is nice. Heck SEGA is still updating, fixing, and adding characters to Sonic Dash, an iOS game of all things, and while it had the F2P model, you don't have to use it to acquire the extra characters as they can be bought with the in game currency.

 

[Barbas]

Well, having most of my games on Steam and using a lot of Workshop mods means that I more or less have to leave my PC running for a few hours a day while I'm a away for it to update all of that stuff. I almost never turn it off, preferring to put it in sleep mode. Then again, the internet here isn't the fastest, so downloads take longer. Not too much of a hassle.

@Legion: Indeed. The current system is probably in about 2nd place, 1st place being a stable game out of the gate so we don't need very frequent patches, 3rd place being an unstable game with no fixes or updates whatsoever after release.

 

[josemlopes]

What somewhat annoys me is when a game becomes different from what it was when I bought it, kind of like Team Fortress 2 or Battlefield 3 (I do believe that in Team Fortress 2 there are still vanilla servers though).

Battlefield 3 at the start was somewhat different then Call of Duty with the guns, if you wanted to hit something far away you had to use single shots for example, now you can basicly just go full auto a la Call of Duty. That is just one example but overall the pacing of the game changed multiple times over multiple updates (its like they have no clear idea of what game they want to make).

Team Fortress 2 is just way too random for me now, I liked how tight and class based everything was at the start but now a any class can do anything depending on their gear so a game that originally felt like rock-paper-scissors now feels like any other shooter where you just hope that you have the upper hand.

 

[Comocat]

I'm at home today because my kids daycare is closed. I want to play some Steam games but for some reason steam needs to update. I'm like fine I'll play SimCity- fuck me Origin needs to update and now the game itself needs an update. What happened to being able to buy software and play whenever you want? If I wasn't on a lousy 3 Mb/s connection maybe I wouldnt notice, but my kid is going to wake up any minute now, and yeah I got to watch some downloads happen.

 

[TehCookie]

As long as it's optional I don't mind it. That support is nice and if I can ignore the updates and play it when I want it's the best of both worlds. When they're forced I'm not so happy, especially if you're busy and don't have time to wait.

 

[momijirabbit]

I think you would love TF2.
It updates fairly frequently and adds stuff to the game.
If a game updates it is because they are fixing stuff or adding stuff.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

The PS3 is horrible when it comes to this kinda thing. It seems everytime I boot the thing up there is a firmware update, then at least 3 patches for each game that average around 200-500MB. It's really damn frustrating when you just want to play a game without any hassles.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I think you would love TF2.
It updates fairly frequently and adds stuff to the game.
If a game updates it is because they are fixing stuff or adding stuff.

"The fuck, why am I lagging? I didn't leave any downloads on"

*tabs out*

"STEAM! WHY ARE YOU DOWNLOADING MORE HATS?! FUCK OFF!"

Oh I you know Arkham Origins was pretty much perma updating for the first month or so, it still is receiving fixes now as well. I think my Bane boss fight is still broken, albeit in a different way. They fixed one not so common bug and dropped it into a second one.

#1 QA testing, 10/10 would use again.

Basically the game shouldn't be needing so many fixes unless it's a constant multiplayer game like DOTA or League and those are usually content patches, game balance, item changes etc etc. Unless you're playing on EU West then they patch the latest piece of gaffa tape onto the server every month to keep it from fully buckling under the pressure of people wanting to play the fucking game it's designed to play.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

So I just saw Payday 2 update itself for the 22nd time and it got me wondering, "How many people actually enjoy their games being frequently updated?".

Personally I hate it, I think that the game should only ever have to be updated 2-3 times including for DLC bug fixes (DLC should be released 100% compatible with the game).

For a single player game perhaps, but for a multiplayer game like Payday 2 the odd tweak every once and awhile is to be expected.

 

[bug_of_war]

Why on earth would I find it "frustrating" that the devs are still stamping out tiny issues months later? That's some damn good support right there and I wish it was more common. It treats the customers as more than a transaction to be forgotten about the instant the money transfers.

Also, "DLC should only be released 100% compatible with the game"? That's a really weird set of words there and I don't think you understand what they mean.

I'll go a bit more in depth, after what is roughly 8 -10 months after release you should expect all the bugs to be stamped out. Payday 2 still has a magnitude of bugs that they have either ignored or has come about because of a previous update. After 22 updates (that is not an exaggeration) you would think that they should have polished the game by now.

Also yes I could have worded "DLC should only be released 100% compatible with the game" better, so I will. DLC is content made after the main game has been finished. DLC should only ever be released (especially when it's paid DLC) once it is fully completed and does not cause any issues with the base game ie: adds more bugs, causes game crashes.

Look at how much shit EA/DICE have gotten over Battlefield 4 and how they're being blasted because people are saying the game shouldn't have needed updates.

Why on earth would I find it "frustrating" that the devs are still stamping out tiny issues months later? That's some damn good support right there and I wish it was more common. It treats the customers as more than a transaction to be forgotten about the instant the money transfers.

Pretty much took what I was gonna say. I mean ideally there wouldn't be many bugs at all, but as games get bigger the chances that some bugs might escape QA testers might slip through, and a company still supporting it is nice. Heck SEGA is still updating, fixing, and adding characters to Sonic Dash, an iOS game of all things, and while it had the F2P model, you don't have to use it to acquire the extra characters as they can be bought with the in game currency.

I'll explain a little more why in Payday 2's case it's more annoying then helpful.

After 22 updates there are still issues with AI shooting through walls, heists not being possible to complete, and crashes that were present from day 1 still not being addressed. Also, there were roughly 5 updates that were purely to tweak how weapons/skill trees are used (either making them weaker or completely useless) which in a game where in which ALL the enemies are AI and not human players kinda seems unnecessary. Then add on top of the fact that there are those of us who do not have great download speed and then we're stuck waiting anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour for minor tweaks to a game.

I don't mind large updates if they fix lots of issues, what is bugging me though is that after 22 updates the game itself still has bugs and I've just about downloaded the same amount of GB that the base game is.

What somewhat annoys me is when a game becomes different from what it was when I bought it

That's pretty much Payday 2.

 

[lacktheknack]

Why on earth would I find it "frustrating" that the devs are still stamping out tiny issues months later? That's some damn good support right there and I wish it was more common. It treats the customers as more than a transaction to be forgotten about the instant the money transfers.

Also, "DLC should only be released 100% compatible with the game"? That's a really weird set of words there and I don't think you understand what they mean.

I'll go a bit more in depth, after what is roughly 8 -10 months after release you should expect all the bugs to be stamped out. Payday 2 still has a magnitude of bugs that they have either ignored or has come about because of a previous update. After 22 updates (that is not an exaggeration) you would think that they should have polished the game by now.

Also yes I could have worded "DLC should only be released 100% compatible with the game" better, so I will. DLC is content made after the main game has been finished. DLC should only ever be released (especially when it's paid DLC) once it is fully completed and does not cause any issues with the base game ie: adds more bugs, causes game crashes.

Look at how much shit EA/DICE have gotten over Battlefield 4 and how they're being blasted because people are saying the game shouldn't have needed updates.

You've clearly never worked in software development, because for software of this scale, your expectations are flat-out impossible.

No, 22 updates is NOT unreasonable for any software over a gigabyte in size. Frankly, the success rate that game developers have in bugfixing is bloody astonishing and puts other fields of development to shame. My dad works for a company that does GPS services, and their firmware is a good piece of work (I've seen it). I think it's in its fortieth firmware iteration, and it still breaks. No one complains, because it's totally standard. They won't get much better uptime on the GPS unit anywhere else.

Adding glitches with updates is expected, not cataclysmic.

You act as if devs release DLC that they know to be broken. They don't. They think it's ready, so they move it out of their tiny QA team into the wild, where a million gamers promptly find errors the team of twenty testers didn't. If you think that's unreasonable, then there's no hope for you.

Also, who's saying "Battlefield 4 shouldn't have needed updates"? I wanna slap them for being unreasonable prigs, but I haven't talked to anyone who's said that.

 

[bug_of_war]

You've clearly never worked in software development, because for software of this scale, your expectations are flat-out impossible.

No, 22 updates is NOT unreasonable for any software over a gigabyte in size. Frankly, the success rate that game developers have in bugfixing is bloody astonishing and puts other fields of development to shame. My dad works for a company that does GPS services, and their firmware is a good piece of work (I've seen it). I think it's in its fortieth firmware iteration, and it still breaks. No one complains, because it's totally standard. They won't get much better uptime on the GPS unit anywhere else.

Adding glitches with updates is expected, not cataclysmic.

You act as if devs release DLC that they know to be broken. They don't. They think it's ready, so they move it out of their tiny QA team into the wild, where a million gamers promptly find errors the team of twenty testers didn't. If you think that's unreasonable, then there's no hope for you.

Also, who's saying "Battlefield 4 shouldn't have needed updates"? I wanna slap them for being unreasonable prigs, but I haven't talked to anyone who's said that.

First off, I never meant to imply that I expect a game to come out being 100% perfect, I get that there are going to be issues that cannot be found with a small team. What I am saying though is that when it comes to the 22nd update and issues that were existing from day one have still yet to be fixed, THAT is what I find frustrating. As for DLC, yeah glitches are to be expected, however game crashing glitches are something that should be ironed out. In Payday 2's case you don't even have to do 45 precise steps to have the game crash, it crashes. Note that I am using Payday 2 as an example and that I don't believe all games should be treated as black and white, there are always areas of grey.

Secondly, I don't find it unreasonable for bugs to be found when 1 million people are all playing in their own unique ways, technology is always going to be flawed and bugs will always be apparent. Having said that, (remember this is all heavily based off my experience with Payday 2) when enemy AI are able to shoot through walls and around corners since day 1 and you've yet to fix that problem it becomes very frustrating for players whom have to keep pointing out that flaw.

Thirdly, I apologies that I haven't worded my sentences very clearly and I will try and do so should you respond to this with some confusion.

As for who's been saying "Battlefield 4 shouldn't have needed updates", check a lot of threads regarding the game and some youtubers, many a people have been angry that Battlefield 4 has required updates.

 

[lacktheknack]

You've clearly never worked in software development, because for software of this scale, your expectations are flat-out impossible.

No, 22 updates is NOT unreasonable for any software over a gigabyte in size. Frankly, the success rate that game developers have in bugfixing is bloody astonishing and puts other fields of development to shame. My dad works for a company that does GPS services, and their firmware is a good piece of work (I've seen it). I think it's in its fortieth firmware iteration, and it still breaks. No one complains, because it's totally standard. They won't get much better uptime on the GPS unit anywhere else.

Adding glitches with updates is expected, not cataclysmic.

You act as if devs release DLC that they know to be broken. They don't. They think it's ready, so they move it out of their tiny QA team into the wild, where a million gamers promptly find errors the team of twenty testers didn't. If you think that's unreasonable, then there's no hope for you.

Also, who's saying "Battlefield 4 shouldn't have needed updates"? I wanna slap them for being unreasonable prigs, but I haven't talked to anyone who's said that.

First off, I never meant to imply that I expect a game to come out being 100% perfect, I get that there are going to be issues that cannot be found with a small team. What I am saying though is that when it comes to the 22nd update and issues that were existing from day one have still yet to be fixed, THAT is what I find frustrating. As for DLC, yeah glitches are to be expected, however game crashing glitches are something that should be ironed out. In Payday 2's case you don't even have to do 45 precise steps to have the game crash, it crashes. Note that I am using Payday 2 as an example and that I don't believe all games should be treated as black and white, there are always areas of grey.

Secondly, I don't find it unreasonable for bugs to be found when 1 million people are all playing in their own unique ways, technology is always going to be flawed and bugs will always be apparent. Having said that, (remember this is all heavily based off my experience with Payday 2) when enemy AI are able to shoot through walls and around corners since day 1 and you've yet to fix that problem it becomes very frustrating for players whom have to keep pointing out that flaw.

Oh, your issue is the number of updates that don't address day-one issues.

That makes more sense.

And yeah, I can imagine that being frustrating. I haven't experienced it myself, though.

As for who's been saying "Battlefield 4 shouldn't have needed updates", check a lot of threads regarding the game and some youtubers, many a people have been angry that Battlefield 4 has required updates.

 

[bug_of_war]

Oh, your issue is the number of updates that don't address day-one issues.

That makes more sense.

And yeah, I can imagine that being frustrating. I haven't experienced it myself, though.

Pretty much, my initial statement of "2-3 at max" is supposed to be about day one problems. Probably could have worded it better.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

For a multiplayer-only game, I guess I can tolerate needing to update. Being unable to play retail games I've bought because they now require huge updates and Steam won't let me play without them? Fuck that noise.

Shogun 2 can piss off.

In a nutshell, I don't mind frequent updates as long as I can still play the damned game in single-player without installing them. My internet wasn't reliable enough for that shit until very recently.

 

[chattycathy]

I personally prefer when a game is fully tested and all possible errors fixed before they push it live. I know it can't always be a 100%, bugs will arise as more and more people find it. My problem is that some updates are weekly but issues that started in week 1 are still not fixed in week 20. The first problem is that - 1. every time you get used to something, they fix it so it's like you're getting into the groove again 2. They fix the most recent complaint instead of fixing all problems that arise. My mum says I should concentrate on playing jigsaw puzzle games and other "educational games" on sites like http://www.knowledgeadventure.com (She's a preschool teacher and uses that for her kids). Apparently something needs to be done about my rage. But this perfectly normal. NORMAL I tell you. It is so frustrating.

 

[FPLOON]

Updating Trophies...

Wait... What? Why do you keep doing that, PS3 game?? It's not like the trophy names are going to change or anything like that... or add any new trophies? I already have the platinum trophy... Why do you keep updating?? WHY???

*ahem*

Constant Updates don't really bother me, per se... They just sometimes do NOT make sense to me... *continues to stare at the "Updating Trophies" loading bar for the umpteenth time* (I don't think those trophies have DLC attached to them that only appear if I unlock them...) I think the reason why CGUs don't bother me as much as some people is because I probably lack that particular emotion to actually feel like it's an actual problem... (or something like that... I don't know...)