I'm reporting this in severity "enhancement" because it is an RFE, not a bug.

The following is from my latest run of "zypper patch --with-update":

> Loading repository data...
> Reading installed packages...
> Patch '8464-1' is optional. Use 'zypper in patch:8464' to install it, or
> '--with-optional' to include all optional patches.
> Resolving package dependencies...
> 
> The following 2 NEW packages are going to be installed:
>   ffmpeg-3 libzimg2
> 
> The following package is going to be REMOVED:
>   ffmpeg
> 
> The following 14 packages are going to be upgraded:
>   libavcodec57 libavcodec58 libavdevice57 libavfilter6 libavformat57 libavformat58 
> libavresample3 libavutil55 libavutil56 libpostproc54 libsodium23 libswresample2 
> libswresample3 libswscale4
> 
> 14 packages to upgrade, 2 new, 1 to remove.
> Overall download size: 8.5 MiB. Already cached: 0 B. After the operation, additional
> 997.9 KiB will be used.
> Continue? [y/n/...? shows all options] (y): 

Of course, these 1 removed, 2 new and 14 updated packages are from patch 8464,
and after letting this update run its course, "zypper lp -a" shows patch 8464
as "installed". So "--with-update" should not believe that it won't install
optional patches: ideally, it should have said instead: "The following patch is
going to be installed: 8464".