Migration to PlayStation®4 Version Patch System

[Fawkes]

PSN downloads are usually pretty slow for me compared to the rest of the internet.

[Caitlinzulu]

Do you use wireless connection on ps4? i have noticed the wireless implementation isnt very good at all

[TalithaSolarien]

What are you basing this off of? Why do you think a patcher is bad for larger games?

From my personal experience with large games like TESO (which is in the same ballpark figure like FF14 sizewise) or Overwatch. The speed of your internet connection really doesn't matter very much here as the most part is spent checking the existing file and then reassembling them. This will take some time. Smaller patches for TESO (which were 200-300 MB) took 30-90 minutes, depending on if the console was in rest mode or in use (using the console for anything else while downloading/installing a patch will drastically slow down the patch process. Larger patches took from 1 hour (rest mode) to 4 hours (console online).

One other caveat regarding Auto Download: in rest mode the console will only check once every 24 hours at a random point in time if there is an update available. It's not guaranteed that putting the console to sleep means that it had picked up an update a few hours later.

[Iscah]

The announcement says we need 31 GB of space available on the PS4. Is that going to be the size of the patches that we need to download? If so, I’ll need to plan around it or I’ll be using up my whole month’s bandwidth on that download.

[TalithaSolarien]

The announcement says we need 31 GB of space available on the PS4. Is that going to be the size of the patches that we need to download? If so, I’ll need to plan around it or I’ll be using up my whole month’s bandwidth on that download.

That's how I understood that message, yes. I seems everything except he base game needs to be redownloaded (incl. all patches and expansions).

[AppleJinx]

Hopefully my ps plus can become useful and have the patches start automatically downloading in the future

[ShadowHunterrX]

From my personal experience with large games like TESO (which is in the same ballpark figure like FF14 sizewise) or Overwatch. The speed of your internet connection really doesn't matter very much here as the most part is spent checking the existing file and then reassembling them. This will take some time. Smaller patches for TESO (which were 200-300 MB) took 30-90 minutes, depending on if the console was in rest mode or in use (using the console for anything else while downloading/installing a patch will drastically slow down the patch process. Larger patches took from 1 hour (rest mode) to 4 hours (console online).

That depends on the game and not really if the game is large, Overwatch is only around 23gb and TESO 100gb. Ever since the 4.0 OS patch, Sony put in *copying* in the patch progress. Which is in another words *overwrite*. So they can slash the requirements GB for installing and make it smaller. They did it also for Overwatch 27gb to 13gb in 2017. Today still smaller with all new content added to it. Patch with 200mb small files can make things *copying* longer then one 1-2 gb big file. Only a faster HDD or SSD will help.

The old patch system was only adding new files and the old files stayed, fast install-bigger games.

I am happy with this new FFXIV patch system. PS4 download was always capped around 8mb when updating. On PSN I have around 30mb.

[Tint]

awesome!

i had to redownload the whole game a couple of times because of that version check error. hope this will fix it ^^

[Derio]

31GB, essentially you need that space to download the update which will then replace the 31 GB you already have of the existing patches. But at the same time who doesnt have 31GB of free space.

I am glad they are finally doing this.

[Niwashi]

Actually it's bad news for PS4 players. The PS4 patcher is ill suited for large games like FF14. Expect regular patches to take anytime from 1 to 5 hours. Any large game on the PS4 takes this long to patch.

The FFXIV launcher that's now handling our patch downloads isn't any better. I'd far rather the console spend 1 to 5 hours while I'm sleeping downloading a new patch than have the launcher spend 1 to 5 hours on it, which, due to the login requirement, has to be done while I'm there ready and waiting to play.

I don't quite get the date? Can we re-download it before september 4th like from august 28th - september 3rd, or does it have to be re-downloaded exactly september 4th to avoid any mistakes or wasting time etc?

We can start downloading the new patches on Aug 28th. On Sep 4th, those (hopefully already downloaded by then) patches will be applied to the game client. It's so that the rather significant download time doesn't interrupt gameplay time. Only the much shorter process of applying them does.

Auto download requires PS Plus which some people do not use to play FF14 though so there is that.

Actually, auto download works either with or without Plus. The difference is that without PS Plus, it requires the console to be turned on, whereas with PS Plus, it can work even while the console is in sleep mode (provided it's configured to keep your internet connection on during sleep mode). But either way it can kick off the download on its own while you're sleeping or at work, which is the real point of it. Those without Plus just have to leave their console running when a new patch is expected.

Will I need to delete the game and redownload it, or will I just have to download essentially a very big patch? Im a little confused. If I do have to download again, just downloading stormblood from my psn library will do it or do i have to download arr and hw as well. If I initiate the download on the 28th will i be ready to go on patch day. Sorry just a little confused on what to do exactly.

For the transition, it's replacing the already applied patches with new versions of those patches. And since it's an MMO, patches comprise the majority of the software, so it's nearly as much as if it were re-downloading the full game. But the patch-applying process (that will happen Sep 4th) will take care of piecing it all together and removing the obsolete bits. Essentially, we're just going to be downloading a really really big patch for the transition to the new version.

The announcement says we need 31 GB of space available on the PS4. Is that going to be the size of the patches that we need to download? If so, I’ll need to plan around it or I’ll be using up my whole month’s bandwidth on that download.

Yeah, we'll have to re-download 31 GB worth of patches. That transition will really suck for those with limited bandwidth internet connections like yours. (Maybe you can get part of that done the end of August and part at the beginning of September if that helps it fit within your monthly limits.)

On the bright side, it sounds like after the transition, new patches will be smaller than they used to be.