Every time a patch is released for any larg game via GOG, it seems like the whole game is being re-downloaded. I've spent 16 hours redownloading 2 patches for Mechwarrior 5 today. 16 hours. I can compare this with a few games I have on Steam, and the same fixes appear to be differential size only, rather than all or nothing approach.

That's it. I've had enough. I won't spend a single penny in GOG store until you guys finally decide to improve the customer experience.

Too bad that recent survey they shrugged and threw ashore on a bottle didn't ask us about the technical experience with GOG.

Aside from technical issues with the website, there are several other issues this survey didn't even begin to get into.

I am a little confused by your post.
You write: "it seems like the whole game is being re-downloaded".

Did you re-download the entire game, or just the two patches?
(And how come TWO patches to download, instead of just one?)

Also: 16 hours seems to be extremely long...no matter what you've downloaded.
(sidenote: I don't own MW5, so I don't know how big its patches are, respectively, whether there are patches at all)

Could it be that for recent updates, gog galaxy is downloading the new updated installer instead of a patch?

That seems to be what I'm seeing from the complaints in the wishlist: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/always_offer_patches_stop_forcing_us_to_download_the_whole_game_repeatedly

I'm no expert but looks like when some games are recently updated, they do not yet have a patch so you have to download the new installer.

I don't bother with gog galaxy. I always wait for the offline patch to be released. If I don't have problems with bugs or I don't want the new features, I don't download the new patch.

Yeah that's exactly it. Thanks for sharing https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/always_offer_patches_stop_forcing_us_to_download_the_whole_game_repeatedly , I've seen this issue report earlier, initially assumed this was resolved since it's status is now "Completed" but it looks like GOG users find evidence this is not fulfilled at all.

Yes, I have indeed had multiple times where Galaxy -- instead of just downloading updates -- downloaded the entire game (again). Ah GOG... *sigh*

Yeah that is definitely bad. But then so is installing via Galaxy. All of which is GOG's fault.

However, with patches when it comes to Offline Installers, it would be down to the provider of the game to GOG, and not GOG. And some games clearly have decent size patches, and others don't.

Maybe there is more effort involved in providing a smaller patch, versus an almost full download of the game again. In fact, many games seem to forego patches altogether and just have updates, which is downloading the whole game again.

It's weird, because I took a peek at gogdb regarding Mech. 5, and the offline (patch) installers generated for the recent update are only about 6mb each DLC... didn't spot the base game though (I only had a quick glance).

If Galaxy redownloaded the whole game, then clearly something went wrong to invalidate the entire installation, or somehow the devs screwed up a little somehow (I dunno how the whole API/submit system works). I would agree though that Galaxy needs work regarding keeping patching as small as possible, which is yet another reason I don't use it. Offline installers, although slower-updated than Galaxy, gives me the freedom to update when I want to, how I want to (as long as the devs continue to release patches, not just new installer versions). Clearly the latest M5 update wasn't so much a stability thing but more so a preparation for their new DLC coming out iirc. In that case I wouldn't have updated it, I'd have kept playing it as-is. But there is an element of FOMO to knowing there's a patch out there too, soooo... maybe I would have updated it anyway :P

Too bad for files they don't have a diff/delta option. Certainly re-downloading changed files works, but in many cases today they are hundreds of megabytes big because...

yeah it's just dumb....