The Goodbye Thread
" It's because of my wonderful reading comprehension, that I could deduct that you actually do view "goodbye" as feedback ;) Doesn't matter where/when you wrote it directly, when all of your posts indirectly shout it. You did prove my point, though - you do view "goodbye" as feedback. But you are right, "goodbye" is refering to changes made, and is as valuable as "I will say goodbye" would be on future changes. But again, we just have to agree to disagree (second attempt). I'll give you the last word now, as the gentleman I am, please don't draw me in with yet another question. I hope we're done now. Sometimes, just sometimes, you should really consider adapting to the world, instead of demanding that the world adapts to you. Last edited by Phrazz on Aug 30, 2021, 9:59:28 PM
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" Meh, I only mentioned feedback only after you kept mentioning it. You can say that you know what I mean more than I do but you have no credibility because you can't back up your claims. I kept saying "goodbye" and other negative threads are bad publicity which is actually more important than feedback. Hmm let me try to quantify that. After checking the forums for awhile I think that the value of the "Goodbye" thread breaks down into 10% feedback, 90% bad publicity. Does GGG really care about feedback? I not so sure but I know they care about revenue loss. Hmm, in light of this, when white knights say that this thread is useless...it is mostly useless in terms of feedback. But in terms of negative publicity, this thread is gold. I'm fine about people disagreeing with me but I don't like people putting words in my mouth. I don't need you to interpret me. I'm putting my thoughts here in writing for the record. I hate it when people put words into my mouth and then refute that argument and then they think they won. So what you did was start a argument with yourself and then refute yourself and think you won. Of course you pick weak arguments for me to have so you can refute easily. Cool...you won an argument with yourself. I won't ask you another question. You have no answers. Pour one out for my Syndicate homies. Complex PoE mechanics are getting Diablofied. GGG: What's better than stable income? Random income of course. Last edited by zakalwe55 on Aug 30, 2021, 11:41:15 PM
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" Yes I have recently provided a fair amount of data analysis regarding this league and player performance. I've always backed that up with the source, my reasoning for why I've selected or not selected particular data and then comparisons to related data. I've represented the data accurately and without bias. Of course, interpretation of data particularly when it has some limitations can result in discussions from varying points of view, that's really one of the functions of these forums. I do not however take numbers out of context. For the sake of the discussion I have just reviewed this entire thread from start to the end of page 57. In total there are 142 unique members indicating they are no longer playing PoE but only 52 of these state they are done for good. The majority typically mention they are not enjoying the game as it currently stands and will perhaps play again in future leagues if the game improves, or they are just not playing now and did not state a future intent. Of the 142 goodbyes, 53 provided no feedback, they just said they were out or words to that effect. 47 players provided at least a limited amount of feedback, one or two simple reasons such as nerfs suck, it's not fun, etc. and the remaining 42 provided quite a detailed amount of feedback. There are also numerous other forum members that have contributed their feedback on the league here but they did not state they were leaving so I have not counted them in the data. Some other notable points I gleaned from reading the thread is that a larger proportion of the farewells were, as you'd reasonably expect, in the earlier part of the topic thread. As the thread progressed the number of goodbyes started to decrease which is reasonably indicative of people leaving within a short period of time from starting the league. While there is a couple of people that said their goodbye and then have kept playing the game, the vast proportion of people that were quitting have low to no achievements in the game indicating it's likely they have walked away, at least for the league. I too have noticed there are still people starting their own individual farewell thread or stating goodbye in other topics. While not everyone is exclusively using this thread, a good number of people are so I would subjectively say that it has been of benefit and has contributed somewhat to constraining unnecessary forum spam. Now let's revisit context momentarily. You asked that we count the number of participants in this thread and compare it to the player base. Well of course, that is an unreasonable comparison as it's clear that the entire player base does not post on the forums here. All of these topics here are merely representative of a particular proportion of all players. Anecdotally though I can say that in all my years with the game and participating on the forum, that I've not seen a similar goodbye thread with as much participation as this one. Now given, that is anecdotal and I'm not bored enough to trawl back through the forums in detail so let's set that aside and talk about context again. By itself this thread is not a very solid source of assessment for the current league, however when viewed in context with other information, it certainly helps to flesh out the picture a bit more. Here's some of those stats again for you. These stats are all taken from https://steamdb.info/app/238960/graphs/ as it allows me to download the individual daily records from the start of PoE. (apologies for the lack of table formatting, it looked all nice when I wrote it out then the forums condensed it into a mess). This report https://www.pcgamesn.com/path-of-exile/player-count from the time of 3.13 indicates that Steam accounts for roughly 60% of the player count. The table below is peak numbers on day 1 of league. We start to see a lot more consistency in the player volumes from the launch of Betrayal onwards. Players League % change previous league 21455 Talisman 36997 Perandus 72.4% 25913 Prophecy -30.0% 22289 Essence -14.0% 45376 Breach 103.6% 64317 Legacy 41.7% 86604 Harbinger 34.7% 68539 Abyss -20.9% 81866 Bestiary 19.4% 90505 Incursion 10.6% 75919 Delve -16.1% 117436 Betrayal 54.7% 112505 Synthesis -4.2% 114336 Legion 1.6% 74930 Blight -34.5% 115957 Metamorph 54.8% 133357 Delirium 15.0% 126680 Harvest -5.0% 122094 Heist -3.6% 157103 Ritual 28.7% 154917 Ultimatum -1.4% 116240 Expedition -25.0% As for player abandonment rates, I'll only show the stats from Betrayal onwards as this seems to demonstrate the new normal for the game volumes (i.e. in excess of 100k Steam players). I tend to find the abandonment rates by day 9 are the most relevant as it's the end of the first two full weekends and when the most people are playing the game. Day 9 League % change from day 1 103108 Betrayal -12.2% 75262 Synthesis -33.1% 90236 Legion -21.1% 51849 Blight -30.8% 93962 Metamorph -19.0% 99444 Delirium -25.4% 79518 Harvest -37.2% 92931 Heist -23.9% 124824 Ritual -20.5% 116213 Ultimatum -25.0% 62594 Expedition -46.2% Previously a player pointed out this league's significant drop off in players by identifying that by a certain date the league had lost 65% of the starting players. I looked into this particular measure to compare it against other leagues and in retrospect I think it's a reasonable point to review on the basis that it represents almost 2/3rds of the starting players and tends to be around where player volumes start to tail off historically. That is, the vast majority of players have now finished the league and those who remain will typically play for much longer, if not continuously. Expedition lost 65% or more of their players on day 23 when they hit 66.4% abandonment. If we want to look at 65% (I'm working to one decimal place and not rounding up) abandonment representing a significant volume of player abandonment that potentially has a detrimental impact to item and currency trading then these are the number of days till that happened in each league. League 65% player abandonment day Betrayal Day 47 Synthesis Day 26 Legion Day 35 Blight Day 33 Metamorph Day 46 Delirium Day 40 Harvest Day 32 Heist Day 39 Ritual Day 40 Ultimatum Day 32 Expedition Day 23 Obviously when reviewing these numbers it's also important to consider the starting volume. For example, Blight seems like an average perform for player retention however it started with a much lower launch number so player experience might have deteriorated prior to meeting the 65% loss rate we're looking at here. Additionally, when considering how a league performs we need to consider the totality of the game state including the league mechanism itself and the balance changes made to the game. Synthesis seemed to be a very polarising league primarily due to the league mechanic itself rather than any sweeping balance changes. Some people might argue that Harvest players abandoned the game because it was too easy to get powerful items. Other players appeared to abandon it because they didn't like the mechanic of the garden itself or that it broke the preferred gameplay of efficient mapping. Ultimately though, while it remains a contentious league for a variety of reasons its launch day stats were relatively within the average and it 65% abandonment rate was also around average. It did however have a high initial abandonment by the day 9 time period. Anyway, lots of stats for everyone to interpret in different ways and discuss. So the Goodbye thread and contributors don't add to the stats, but they do provide some context. I think it's important to ask why people feel they need to post here. From what I've read it's because players feel the need to express their disappointment and concerns. There's a lot of long term players in this thread that are suddenly compelled to abandon the game, even for a single league. None of them seem to hate the game outright, quite the contrary. The majority seem to have enjoyed the game to a greater or lesser degree in the past and would like to enjoy it again. Is the game dying? I highly doubt it. Did this league prove disappointing to a large proportion of the player base? Absolutely yes. Last edited by Aldora_the_Summoner on Aug 31, 2021, 6:19:08 PM
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" Of course it did, they nerfed "everything". And people have the right to be upset if they no longer find the game fun. I'm not debating that at all. What I'm debating, is whether or not this thread is "helpful" in providing valuable feedback. It is not placed in "Suggestions and Feedback", where GGG have stated that they read way more posts. Leave if you don't find the game fun. Never play a game you don't find fun. But ALWAYS provide feedback. Always criticize what you feel deserves criticism - in a productive manner. Just my two cents. Sometimes, just sometimes, you should really consider adapting to the world, instead of demanding that the world adapts to you.
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" Thanks for the research Aldora. A subtitle for this thread could be "Generic negative review thread #2". There are a few "generic negative review threads" on the front page of General Discussion. It seems that a new one is started every other day. There were some "generic positive review threads" but they drop off fast. Do negative reviews on General Discussion effect player numbers and revenue? I think so. Maybe less impact than on reddit and steam but I think the needle is moved a little. I think negative reviews are sort of a force multiplier. Pour one out for my Syndicate homies. Complex PoE mechanics are getting Diablofied. GGG: What's better than stable income? Random income of course. Last edited by zakalwe55 on Aug 31, 2021, 5:56:19 PM
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" OFFTOPIC Don't mean to sound condescending when quoting you (or, at least alluding to your text rather than actually quoting you), but I hate how this forum handles long quotes. I don't really bother posting myself but since this league was a dumpsterfire and reading forums has been a lot more fun than usual I've been focusing more on that, and I noticed something peculiar. Amongst all the vitriol and half-assed assumptions (which is admittedly 90% of the reason to read the forums; just grab popcorn and enjoy the ride) I've been seeing these temperate, well-formatted, and number-driven responses that have been a particular pleasure to read. That is to say, yours. So, without too much but with rather just the right amount of virtual dick sucking, I wanted to show my appreciation (for all that's worth) for the time and effort you put into what you say, here and in other threads. As a fellow wordsmith (likely) and numbersmith (possibly?) I really respect your message and hope that it was as enjoyable to write it as it was to read it. /OFFTOPIC As for staying on topic, just want to weigh in real quick. Quit the league about a week in, deleting my only toon after dumping my ill-gotten gains on a guildie. First time I ever did that, by the way; usually my league toons stay naked in limbo to later go onto the chopping block once in Standard. I just knew I'd have 0 desire to return, even after the inevitable league fixes that would bring the game up to a somewhat presentable state would drop. I could write a thesis about the issues I had with the league, and a dissertation about how the game as a whole could be improved, but what would be the point? No one that matters would ever read it, and if by some divine will they did, it would be dismissed outright because we the players don't know anything. |
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Really bad numbers forced them to implement option to not render items if hidden by filter and now consider color blind stuff.
So if you want product of acceptable quality - don't login, don't give them money. [Removed by Support] Last edited by Al_GGG on Sep 1, 2021, 12:36:24 PM
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Pretty sure the low numbers and the work done to not render items hidden by a filter had nothing to do with each other. Coincidence doesn't imply causality.
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" Yes, correlation is not causation. But, also: First time happenstance. Filter hidden items. Second time coincidence. Colorblind support for gems. Third time enemy play. ??? These things have been mentioned for years. They are getting fixed NOW during lower revenue numbers. The motive is there. Pour one out for my Syndicate homies.
Complex PoE mechanics are getting Diablofied. GGG: What's better than stable income? Random income of course. | |
" Desync existed for years. And then they suddenly fixed it, with almost no build up. Lock step was not advertised, nor was it teased. It just came out. You're looking for reasons to make everything support your position. Them doing nothing would likely be twisted that way too. It's called confirmation bias. Last edited by Nubatron on Sep 1, 2021, 4:51:27 PM
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