General Discussion - Trendspotting: POE Playerbase almost halved on Steam alone since the release of Awakening - Forum

They destroyed a lot of builds. Dualwield melee is absolutely fucked without tons of currency. The accessability basically dropped down to Zero.	Posted by Chimmy81 on Oct 7, 2015, 10:08:36 PM Quote this Post
It was 50/50 at Steam release (October 2013) but it isn't 50/50 anymore. Here's what Krillson says in April 2014: " The ratio of steam to non-steam players can change over time based on environmental factors. At release it was about 50/50, due to heavy promotion on their front page. There are a lot more people playing on our platform than on Steam currently. That the ratio moved towards non-Steam also means that retention is higher for non-Steam players. So you can't compare Steam population to the rest of the population. Rinku desu: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/22idx6/in_two_weeks_poe_will_have_less_players_than_at/cgnh19n GGG banning all political discussion shortly after getting acquired by China is a weird coincidence.	Posted by Xavderion on Oct 7, 2015, 11:54:05 PM Quote this Post
" Chimmy81 wrote: They destroyed a lot of builds. Dualwield melee is absolutely fucked without tons of currency. The accessability basically dropped down to Zero. This is very interesting. I'd love to know why dual wield melee is messed up. The reason for this is that, I did start a dual wield duelist at the release of awakening, and the game got near impossible for me to progress around a2 to a3 cruel. However I had no idea why. I'd made sensible choices on the passive tree, tried keeping up in levels with respect to the area level as much as possible. The one thing I didn't do was trade for gear,since I always usually play self found. Unable to progress, I quit playing. So, it's interesting for me to hear you say that dual wield melee is unplayable. If I'd known before I started my dual wield duelist, I'd probably have gone with a different build.	Posted by Ashwin on Oct 8, 2015, 12:07:42 AM Quote this Post
" Ashwin wrote: " Chimmy81 wrote: They destroyed a lot of builds. Dualwield melee is absolutely fucked without tons of currency. The accessability basically dropped down to Zero. This is very interesting. I'd love to know why dual wield melee is messed up. The reason for this is that, I did start a dual wield duelist at the release of awakening, and the game got near impossible for me to progress around a2 to a3 cruel. However I had no idea why. I'd made sensible choices on the passive tree, tried keeping up in levels with respect to the area level as much as possible. The one thing I didn't do was trade for gear,since I always usually play self found. Unable to progress, I quit playing. So, it's interesting for me to hear you say that dual wield melee is unplayable. If I'd known before I started my dual wield duelist, I'd probably have gone with a different build. I'm currently playing a dual wield melee (claw Wild Strike). I indeed had trouble around A2 Cruel, especially with Invasion bosses being everywhere... but I upgraded my weapons and now it's going rather well despite shitty gear. The build would be unplayable without fortify though. GGG banning all political discussion shortly after getting acquired by China is a weird coincidence.	Posted by Xavderion on Oct 8, 2015, 12:11:52 AM Quote this Post
" Xavderion wrote: I'm currently playing a dual wield melee (claw Wild Strike). I indeed had trouble around A2 Cruel, especially with Invasion bosses being everywhere... but I upgraded my weapons and now it's going rather well despite shitty gear. The build would be unplayable without fortify though. When you say you "upgraded your weapons", how exactly? I was having trouble progressing through the game, so finding upgrades wasn't exactly easy. Also, shouldn't fortify be an optional buff that you can use, if you are building an extra tanky character, rather than being absolutely necessary for your character to even play through the game?	Posted by Ashwin on Oct 8, 2015, 10:17:03 AM Quote this Post
" Ashwin wrote: When you say you "upgraded your weapons", how exactly? I was having trouble progressing through the game, so finding upgrades wasn't exactly easy. Also, shouldn't fortify be an optional buff that you can use, if you are building an extra tanky character, rather than being absolutely necessary for your character to even play through the game? I bought them :D My RNG always sucks so yeah. Fortify is too strong to be optional imo, if you could easily survive without it, using it would make you pretty much unkillable. I also don't like that we have obligatory support gems but that's how it is atm. GGG banning all political discussion shortly after getting acquired by China is a weird coincidence.	Posted by Xavderion on Oct 8, 2015, 10:45:13 AM Quote this Post
" Xavderion wrote: It was 50/50 at Steam release (October 2013) but it isn't 50/50 anymore. Here's what Krillson says in April 2014: " The ratio of steam to non-steam players can change over time based on environmental factors. At release it was about 50/50, due to heavy promotion on their front page. There are a lot more people playing on our platform than on Steam currently. That the ratio moved towards non-Steam also means that retention is higher for non-Steam players. So you can't compare Steam population to the rest of the population. Rinku desu: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/22idx6/in_two_weeks_poe_will_have_less_players_than_at/cgnh19n Anecdotally, I can confirm that a non-dedicated platform like Steam (or, in my case, PoE Garena, when I tried it for some laughs) attracts players who are looking at a variety of games, often of very different types. They aren't there to dedicate themselves to one game, as many PoE players who use GGG's launcher do; rather, they sample what's available, select what they like, play it for a while, then move on to something else. Steam (and Garena) represent largely transient gamer populations. To point at participation in PoE on Steam as an indicator of overall trends is fallacious. ='[.]'= =^[.]^= basic (happy/amused) cheetahmoticon: Whiskers/eye/tear-streak/nose/tear-streak/eye/ whiskers =@[.]@= boggled / =>[.]<= annoyed or angry / ='[.]'= concerned / =0[.]o= confuzzled / =-[.]-= sad or sleepy / =[.]= dazzled / =^[.]~= wink / =~[.]^= naughty wink / =9[.]9= rolleyes #FourYearLie	Posted by Raycheetah on Oct 8, 2015, 11:00:24 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
. Last edited by Entropic_Fire on Oct 26, 2016, 5:04:21 PM	Posted by Entropic_Fire on Oct 8, 2015, 12:07:49 PM Quote this Post
Interestingly player numbers went up for a short while from 5 to 11 k in october the 2nd after GGG made changes to difficulties, maps and droprates and the numbers dropped constantly again just within 3 weeks to around 6k again. Its actually around 4.4K at the moment and i expect it will be around 5k on avarage at the end of the day. Even i (non-steam) came back because of the announcements and played for around an hour but then i closed the game again. Btw. Steam numbers are very relevant for stochastical analyses since they're the only available and even more importantly "independently collected" numbers at hand :) - Best Signature Ever - Last edited by BestUsernameEver on Oct 23, 2015, 9:09:59 AM	Posted by BestUsernameEver on Oct 23, 2015, 8:41:41 AM Quote this Post
" Chimmy81 wrote: They destroyed a lot of builds. Dualwield melee is absolutely fucked without tons of currency. The accessability basically dropped down to Zero. The usual GGG's love for the rich players (the smallest part of the player base) -.-	Posted by Wispo on Oct 25, 2015, 5:50:10 PM Quote this Post