The Big, Frequent Patches Often Prevent Gameplay

I usually have little time on the weekdays to play SoTA, but occasionally I have a spare hour. Often I load up steam in the hopes of playing, only to see something like 3-7GB downloads necessary (and this is not including regular monthly releases). The download usually takes longer than I would have had time to play.

Even on weekends when I have a lot more time, I sometimes lose a morning or afternoon waiting for epic downloads and end up doing something else.

Ive had this feeling for years, though it feels a lot worse in the last couple of weeks.

Im super excited that the game is expanding, deepening, and all around getting cooler. Thanks for the work that goes into these patches. I am starting to feel a bit gloomy about setting expectations to watch downloads instead of playing, though.

Is there any way they could be smaller payloads? Why do most games usually have updates in the KB-MB range, but SotA rarely has an update lower than 2GB? In the past, I attributed this to the pre-Alpha nature of the development cycle, but its been like 5 years. I kinda hoped patches would be a simple 5 minute thing by now.

Im not keen on leaving my machine running and connected to internet all day long just for this one purpose.

As an aside, is there a resource to help me better predict when patches will happen, so that I can perhaps optimize for them? Im probably asking for a bit much, but is there a centralized place where these things are announced days before hand (doubt it, but figured Id try...) ?

/em *decorates house IRL instead*

 

The way SotA is delivered on Steam means whole files have to be downloaded rather than patching, use the SotA launcher for manageable patch sizes.

 

you can also track them by following the torrent server's rss feed. the files are available before the launcher has permission from the devs to actually install them, but it can't SEE them until it can install them, so if you download them with another torrent client ahead of time and stick them in the launcher's download directory, when it DOES get permission it will see it already has the file and just install it.

http://patchserver.shroudoftheavatar.com/sotalive/torrents/SotATorrentFeed.xml

 

I recommend using a Firefox-based browser to use this, since they will attempt to make the RSS XML look like a web page.

 

uh, no. use an actual feedreader. i DO use a firefox-based browser, but just to get to newsblur.

 

SO this issue has been brought up by many players since the initial early access persistence launch. Instead of addressing it and fixing the process to be convenient for players, the devs have not addressed it, nor has it become convenient for players. It would be nice if the method to enter the game was easy, fast, and simple. Playing this game is like running a race with a hurdle every 10 meters. If you are not a hurdler, you will not like this race.

 

It is easy and fast, just not thru Steam. *shrugs* The last patch took me exactly 3 minutes of downtime before getting back in game. Not happening with Steam. I experience both as I bring my 2nd account in via Steam.

 

I always used to play with steam. The devs would not let me unlink my char from steam. I dont know if I could use the launcher, do I have to install this game twice on my computer, it is all a hassle so i sold everything and uninstalled the game. I check back to see if they have made the necessary changes to make the experience palatable. It appears not.

 

It's yet another damn app to deal with, no thanks. I just need the links to the torrent files. I'm not trying to watch a podcast or something like that, most of those items are completely useless to me..

That's because it's still forever linked to Steam such that even if you deleted it from Steam, you can still get them to yank the account back to you. Steam's fault, not Port's. Still no reason you can't stop Steam from updating and use the native launcher, I know people do that.

 

Yes, you would have to have the Steam version and the stand alone version on your machine. Yeah I've heard of issues with unlinking from Steam. On the other hand, one could just start a new free account and transfer all your assets from 1 account to the other. Of course your char would need to be rebuilt (downside)

 

No, you can use either there's no need for both.

 

OK, that's even better, I just have mine set up that way so I can play 2 accounts at once on my PC.

 

You can start the game multiple times by loading Shroud of the Avatar.exe directly bypassing the launcher.

 

Not sure why anyone would want to play SOTA through Steam based on how they make you do full files for patches. Just install the regular client and run it from the launcher. You will still be able to log in and patches will be much smaller and faster.

True fact. I have run 3 and sometimes 4 different accounts from one PC (two monitors, run in windows mode so I can split 2 on each screen) with no issues.

 

Thanks @Lained , @Daxxe Diggler

 

I play Sota through steam and its convenient for me to use. I am on a Fiber connection tho, so downloading bug patches on steam has never been an issue for me. It takes a few mins at worst.

They dont control steam and there is a workaround so

 

I use both and strangely I have the opposite problem.

Because the SotA client doesn't auto-update itself in the background, I almost always have to sit and wait a couple minutes for /each/ patch to do its thing. If there's a set of them I need to go through, it can be really annoying.

Yet with Steam, it's always running and patching for me in the background. In the many years of playing the Steam version, I've only ever seen it pop up perhaps 2-3 times to tell me it's patching, out of thousands of launches and thousands of hours playing on Steam. YMMV.

But I do wonder if the devs have the bandwidth to change their patching methodology between must-have and optional patches for different kinds of things (critical fixes, regular bug fixes, content, etc) on different schedules. I highly doubt it.

 

They already do, if you run the game directly bypassing the launcher sometimes you can lag behind the updates and other times you won't be able to login without patching first.

 

Looks like Im going to be switching from Steam to the SoTA patcher

 

Sorry, I never experienced anything like this on steam, it usually downloads in the background... In fact I don't hardly ever use steam for anything, I use the stand alone client patcher and my patch time are seconds, meaning 60 sec to 120 sec and it usually only patches after the monthly rollout for about 5 days after, then it has no patches at all...

I use Windows 7 x64 and a 250 mb ISP, so maybe you might look at those for a solution...