I purchased Mount & Blade 2 on monday Oct 5th. Today, Oct 9th, I was still downloading the over 32+ gb of install files. I go to my pc and find that the download has stalled. I know why but decide to make sure. Yep, gog has updated the install files. I can no longer get setup_mount__blade_ii_bannerlord_1.5.2.242118_(64bit)_(41677)-8.bin or setup_mount__blade_ii_bannerlord_1.5.2.242118_(64bit)_(41677)-9.bin. I was 3/4 thrue *8.bin.

I have to start the 32+ gb download over again because the 8 files that have been downloaded are of no use. I went over my plan to get the 8 files

Its a large download (10 files, 8 are 4gb), don't update the install files with every minor change - thats why patches were invented.

its Oct 14 and gog did it to me again.

I got 9 of the 10 files needed for install but gog updated the install files again!

What the holy hello is going on at gog? why update install files with every minuscule update. they aren't even minor updates. why change the install files from 1.5.2.242543 to 1.5.2.242758.

Since the 5th of this month I have downloaded 50+ gigs of unusable crap! GD

Unfortunately this is a long-standing issue and unlikely to be resolved. This is not the first enormous game to have updates like that without a standalone patch.

Even games that had the standalone patches to download here did NOT list all patches...only like the last few. So if you missed even one patch, the next patch in line isn't compatible and you'd have to download the whole installer.

Imo, GOG the company wants you to be frustrated (which you are rightfully frustrated), to use their "optional" client Galaxy to auto-update games. I have to believe this is by design.

I myself take the giant updates to new games as part of "the cost of doing business" by remaining DRM-free. It is annoying, but having an offline installer is worth it.

On that note, try to keep your old offline installers...no guarantee I see that support will provide them if an update breaks a game and you want the old version in the future.

It's fun, isn't it? Sometimes you miss a patch and have to redownload the whole thing if you're two small patches behind, otherwise you might not finish the whole download when your Internet is slow enough. Been there, done that. And if the Web browser pauses the download during the night, boo-yah!
I resorted to using Galaxy to download the files of big games, but I avoid GOG for these more often than not.

that sounds like pain... Still glad bannerlord 2 is on gog and I do plan on getting it.

Is it GOG or the developer who decides whether the offline installers receive patches or just main installer updates? Because some games get patches, some don't, which kinda implies the input for patches (or not) comes from the developers?

There may be other reasons too like the updates are so extensive (= the patch is very big) that it makes more sense to update the main installer only, instead of releasing a 20GB patch.

Anyway, I personally see that offline installers are mainly for archiving games and playing stable games that don't receive updates often, while Galaxy (autoupdate) is the sensible way for constantly updating games, like online multiplayer games, in-dev or brand new games, etc. (I don't use Galaxy though, so I guess I mainly play stable games that have already received the important updates and DLCs.)

I am more annoyed about the opposite, ie. that there are games where the main installer is not the latest version, but you have to download and install a separate patch to make it up to date. :)

Nope, it's a GOG thing. As you note, it's a bit weird they do patches for offline installers at all (and don't for Mac/Linux).

They don't push them because of Galaxy. There are loads of games that are out of date from offline installers and according to support only available from the latest versions via Galaxy.

I only looked at Galaxy closely when a demo I wanted to try was not showing download links in the normal GOG website in my account. From the output I was getting from "Lgogdownloader" unofficial open-source tool, Galaxy stores game "builds" separately, different from how the installer downloads appear in the GOG website. I haven't tried it yet, but it seemed you could download any version they've ever had for each of your games, at least at the API level.

Of course, those being "galaxy builds" they might have quirks and unwanted features compared with the normal "Good Old" offline installers. But it's a shame the GOG website doesn't have this versioned "builds" model, so the version you are downloading won't get killed by GOG mid-download. :/ If they are doing day-zero updates to Cyberpunk in that way, there will be a lot of unhappier gamers next month, clearly, 70 GB, wew. As someone who only plays games offline, I hope the non-Galaxy side gets more support, and at least keeps what it has.