[2021] Owlcat, please add beta branches of previous updates to steam when you release a patch

Original Post — Direct link

The last couple of patches in particular have resulted in gamebreaking bugs for everyone (1.0.7, act 4) or many people (Dismemberment crashes in the latest).

It's incredibly frustrating when your game is working well enough, then an unavoidable patch breaks your game and there's nothing to do but wait and hope it gets fixed sooner rather than later.

The easy solution is to just upload the current version as a beta version when you release a new version. Lots of games already do this, especially games recently out of early access/beta periods who know their patches won't have time to go through a full QA cycle.

It doesn't take long, at all. Here's the steamworks documentation showing how easy it is: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/branches

External link →

about 3 years ago - /u/OwlcatStarrok - Direct link

Originally posted by MythicalPurple

Hey u/owlcatstarrok Can we please get beta builds on steam now, since the last two updates have introduced major game-breaking bugs?

It’s weird that owlcat refuses to give players the ability to roll back while we wait for them to fix things.

Do you/they not realize how easy it is to do steam beta branches? It doesn’t take long at all.

There are certain workflow specifics that prevent it for minor patches like the few recent ones. For large patches there will be open betas some days/weeks prior.

about 3 years ago - /u/OwlcatStarrok - Direct link

Originally posted by MythicalPurple

Right. It’s clear that pirating the game is the way to have it actually be playable, then.

I’m sure that decision won’t backfire on the studio at all. Great forward-thinking.

Major problems introduced by new patches are usually hotfixed within 24 hours.

For those using GOG, there's an in-built way to revert to previous patch, and there have been occasions where we offered previous versions on Steam in the past if the introduced issue was impossible to solve quickly.

As an option, you may turn off automatic updates and use offline mode in Steam to circumvent patching completely.

I would also like to remind that pirating games is an illegal procedure.

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