What should be done to address FAF patch download issues?

FtXCommando · 22 Sept 2021, 11:19

It really isn’t, I could download and play Witcher 3 faster. If I treated FAF like any random game I would have uninstalled it and probably came back somewhere in the next 6 months once the 2nd 30 minute download happened because I’d think this was a constant occurrence.

If it’s going to be like this then you might as well as automatically turn on file caching for players.

Sheikah · 22 Sept 2021, 11:27

We already do offer caching for files. Develop just changes enough that it needs to be redownloaded.

FtXCommando · 22 Sept 2021, 11:32

Yes, but it isn’t enabled by default. If this is going to keep being a problem I’m saying you might as well as enable it and if people have a memory problem they can disable it instead. People might grudgingly tolerate the first mega slow download but it consistently happening might just make them decide to stop bothering with the client.

Sheikah · 22 Sept 2021, 11:35

The caching is only useful if you go back and watch old replays. For most players this is never any issue. The download happens when a patch is released and then it is over.

It is a much bigger issue to consume all the memory with the cached files as people may have limited space on their C: drives.

FtXCommando · 22 Sept 2021, 11:43

Is it not useful for joining/watching FAFdevelop games and then having to join/watch normal games and then potentially going back to FAFdevelop? I mean it isn’t like tons of FAFdevelop lobbies are up, I guess.

BlackYps · 22 Sept 2021, 12:44

I don't think the average user really plays fafdevelop at all

Brutus5000 · 22 Sept 2021, 13:24

@sheikah said in What should be done to address FAF patch download issues?:

The caching is only useful if you go back and watch old replays. For most players this is never any issue. The download happens when a patch is released and then it is over.

It is a much bigger issue to consume all the memory with the cached files as people may have limited space on their C: drives.

I thought we added a file (size) limit and that it is on by default. We should really do that as it seems stable.

Swkoll · 22 Sept 2021, 13:27

I think this issue is actually quite a large problem. I somewhat regularly get PMs from users with (allegedly) fast internet that are running into extremely slow downloads trying to download coop/mods outside of patching periods. I have no idea how often this is actually due to the server's bandwidth being saturated, but I suspect it is somewhat often. Considering that the percentage of people who will message a mod (and me specifically) about an issue is typically an extraordinarily small percentage of people who experience this issue, this problem may be widespread outside of patching periods. (Someone with server analytic access can tell me if I'm totally off base if the bandwidth actually isn't saturated outside of patching periods)

We should also strive to provide the best user experience possible during patching periods. Creating a 1-2 day window where FAF is basically unusable for users outside of Europe every few months should be avoided if possible. We should not expect the average user to use some random mirror that no one knows about. If players can't play FAF, they go somewhere else and they might not come back. If we have someone willing to set up a CDN that costs $400/month to avoid this issue, we should do it, we can afford it. Will it eat into the the tournament budget? Yes, but ensuring the best possible UX is most important.

Sheikah · 22 Sept 2021, 14:07

@brutus5000 said in What should be done to address FAF patch download issues?:

@sheikah said in What should be done to address FAF patch download issues?:

The caching is only useful if you go back and watch old replays. For most players this is never any issue. The download happens when a patch is released and then it is over.

It is a much bigger issue to consume all the memory with the cached files as people may have limited space on their C: drives.

I thought we added a file (size) limit and that it is on by default. We should really do that as it seems stable.

I am not aware of any file size limit. Right now there is just an option for users to specify how long the cache exists for.

TheVVheelboy · 22 Sept 2021, 15:44

I agree with Skwoll, for die hard fans of FAF it might not be that big of a problem. But for newer or more casual players this might be something that is really off putting, even more that it doesn't happen only on patch periods.

I myself while not suffering as hard as others still get mildly annoyed when I have to spend 5-10 minutes downloading older patches just to download the current one in about half an hour later, and that's not even on the patch days. Considering that some might even spend 10 times the amount of time downloading few rather small files seems like something that we should look into.

Giebmasse · 22 Sept 2021, 16:44

I feel lucky as my patch downloads usually take 10-15 seconds. Also at the same time when many others experience download issues on several occasions, making me believe we are not saturating the server bandwidth but rather networks/ISP's along the way have routing issues or are throttling traffic.

ThomasHiatt · 22 Sept 2021, 17:03

I'm always able to download the patch instantly while other people have been having the issue for several days in a row, so it seems to be more complex than just bandwidth. I also live in the US.

Exselsior · 22 Sept 2021, 18:33

Yeah I can count on one hand the number of times I've had issues downloading patches or maps and none of those occurrences were recent. I am also US based. I am also wondering if what Gieb said is a part of the issue, I remember when myself and other burgers stuck with Comcast as their ISP basically couldn't play FAF without awful lag for a month or whatever it was.

Edit: Also I completely agree with Swkoll. Sure I'm not going anywhere if I can't download a patch for a day or two, but that's not the case with new people.

Swkoll · 22 Sept 2021, 19:10

Having a CDN could fix other non-saturation based issues as (insert random ISP) is less likely to have issues communicating with the nearest cloudflare server than a single dedicated server in germany.

Brutus5000 · 22 Sept 2021, 19:15

Well we had the same problem with Github downloads which has a worldwide CDN, so I'm still not sure if CDN can actually fix it.
So apart from just throwing money at some company, how would we measure that we actually improved the situation?

Askaholic · 22 Sept 2021, 20:18

Isn’t that just a feature of github though? They don’t want to be used as a free CDN so they’re going to throttle download speeds. It just makes sense.

I think the biggest bottleneck is once again manpower. We don’t really have the free time to figure out how to set up a cdn, and how much it would cost, and how it would integrate into our stack.

If I had infinite time and money I’d love to do the following:

Enable a CDN for patch distribution
Fix our awfully inefficient distribution method so it only gives you the data you don’t already have
Integrate a proper version manager into the client so you never have to download the same patch twice, even if you watch a lot of replays on different patch versions or on fafdevelop.

Sadly my money and time are only finite and already allocated to many FAF projects like TMM.

Anachronism_ · 22 Sept 2021, 20:33

@brutus5000 said in What should be done to address FAF patch download issues?:

Well we had the same problem with Github downloads which has a worldwide CDN, so I'm still not sure if CDN can actually fix it.
So apart from just throwing money at some company, how would we measure that we actually improved the situation?

Perhaps we could get data on download times and look at averages/medians/etc?

Sheikah · 22 Sept 2021, 20:35

@emperor_penguin said in [What should be done to address FAF patch download issues?]

Perhaps we could get data on download times and look at averages/medians/etc?

Problem is someone has to develop all that and then parse through the data.

archsimkat · 23 Sept 2021, 02:48

I personally wasted like 20 minutes refafing trying to join a lobby without realizing it was downloading a new patch, and then spent around another hour downloading the new patch, leaving me with no time to play the game I was originally excited to play. It was such a frustrating experience I haven't really played since. I'm obviously not going to leave FAF because of this, but I can see less committed players quitting because of it.

It's a really bad player experience because it's not clear what's happening when you are downloading a new patch—the download progress is small and in the bottom right corner and not at all descriptive. I think it was downloading something called env.nx2 and the loading bar was not even visibly moving, so at first I assumed something was wrong.

I understand that this is a very difficult problem to tackle, and I know how much work you devs are putting in already, but I really think this should be one of the highest priority problems to tackle. For average users like me, if the actual download issues can't be solved, I think at least communicating clearly that it's downloading a new patch and that I should just sit tight and wait for it to finish would be a big improvement.

Sheikah · 23 Sept 2021, 02:58

@archsimkat said in What should be done to address FAF patch download issues?:

I think at least communicating clearly that it's downloading a new patch and that I should just sit tight and wait for it to finish would be a big improvement.

So no complaining when I put a big blinky flashing box about the patch downloading and you think it pops up too often