Is there a way to force the client to download all assets?

This game seems to use a system similar to the original Guild Wars wherein it downloads assets on the fly when needed. In Guild Wars, there was a command line argument that forced the client to download all assets at launch the next time the client was started.

Does this game have a similar feature? I want to enjoy this game, most of the requisite parts are there, but the streaming assets are killing it for me because they create such a huge delay when going to a new area or dungeons.

 

When you open the client, do you wait for the "all elements loaded" (not exact wording) message to appear in the bottom 20% of the client window?

The devs send out new releases every month or two, but also often drop "hot fixes" in between full releases. Be patient before clicking on the LOGIN button and your experience with load lags may go away.

 

The patcher does not download all assets, even if you wait for the bar to fully complete. The patcher only updates critical - my presumption being those related to logic and/or scripting - assets.

The reason that you see t-posed characters and large squares of placeholder assets when first entering a map you've never been to is because unlike Guild Wars - which connects, downloads all assets and then loads the map - this game connects and then loads the map before all assets have been streamed from the server.

Like I said, this inefficient method of streaming assets for load is killing the game for me and since I don't think there's any way to force the client to simply download everything, I think I'm just going to move on.

 

It's not even that. Textureless ground and t-posed characters appear from time to time even when revisiting maps. It's just how the game's engine is built. I don't know the details, but if a map you've already been to loads for 5-10 seconds with stable connection and good quality SSD drive, it is clearly not just a streaming problem.

I guess it's not easy to fix either, since they're using a custom 15 (or such) years old engine, and from what I've seen, they're not good enough at low-level coding to improve it really (code may be a mess by now tbh).

 

Ultimately, I gave up on trying to fix this and played through the game to level 20 or so (in the middle of Act I, Chapter 4) and the game's method of streaming assets probably at the bottom of the list of things I dislike. I really enjoy the actual combat gameplay and the story is fairly engaging, but the itemization is bonkers and the fact the vendors want Anderwhatever is a pretty blatant P2W push. I guess, ultimately, even outside the technical issues I'm just looking for something less Free2Pay.