Imagine Telling the Devs To Scrap Another League, Again (Harvest ̶i̶s̶ was Amazing for Many Reasons)

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Char1983 wrote:

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yamface wrote:

2. "Everyone" enjoyed it? Everyone? Very interesting statement to pull randomly out of your ass when harvest had the worst retention rate in years. But yes, "everyone". As in like.. the 12 people left in the game that actually liked the league.

Not sure who "randomly pulls statements out of their ass" here, but do you have data to back up your claim about the worst retention rate in years?

The only data I could find was the steam charts, who give per-month average and peak players. Peak of a league consistently occurs at the beginning. So let's compare peak vs. 2 months in for the last few leagues (source: https://steamcharts.com/app/238960):

Harvest:
Peak players at start (June 2020): 125432
Avg. players 2 months in (August 2020): 18829
Retention: 15.0%

Delirium:
Peak players at start (March 2020): 132508
Avg. players 2 months in (May 2020): 18854
Retention: 14.2%

Metamorph:
Peak players at start (December 2019): 117757
Avg. players 2 months in (February 2020): 17581
Retention: 14.9%

Blight:
Peak players at start (September 2019): 74653
Avg. players 2 months in (November 2019): 12076
Retention: 16.2%

Legion:
Peak players at start (June 2019): 113258
Avg. players 2 months in (August 2019): 10943
Retention: 9.7%

Synthesis:
Peak players at start (March 2019): 111114
Avg. players 2 months in (May 2019): 13104
Retention: 11.8%


The data are not quite perfect, as the leagues started in different weeks of the month, giving Harvest a bit of an edge especially over Legion and Synthesis, but I can't find steam charts broken down per week (can they be had somewhere?). But yeah, Harvest seems to be doing about as well as the three leagues before (Delirium, Metamorph, and Blight). Legion and Synthesis did worse in terms of player retention.

So yeah, I really can't see where "Harvest had the worst player retention in years".

Also it would be interesting to know why people quit. Because the garden was complex, or because they thought the crafting was too strong?

Well you see, you chose 2 months, specifically 2 months, because that is only way that makes harvest look reasonably average. This is despite the fact that the league is dead 2 months in regardless of what league it is and therefore means nothing at that point.

As for actual, relevant pieces of information, harvest is literally dead last in player retention 1 week into the league.

https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/hi47ig/harvest_league_broke_historical_records_for/

In fact, the dropout rate was so bad that harvest lost more % of its players in 1 week than most recent leagues lost in ONE MONTH.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/hggobt/according_the_steamcharts_harvest_has_lost_almost/

So yes let us talk about pulling numbers out of our asses for a moment. Because OP apparently thinks "everyone" loved harvest and you, for whatever reason, tried to justify the retention rate at a time period where less than 20% of the players even play the league... aka nobody even cares what the league looks like 2 months in. The reality is when you factor in the entire playerbase, or at least the steam playerbase, harvest was a dogshit league by numbers.

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yamface wrote:

So yes let us talk about pulling numbers out of our asses for a moment. Because OP apparently thinks "everyone" loved harvest and you, for whatever reason, tried to justify the retention rate at a time period where less than 20% of the players even play the league... aka nobody even cares what the league looks like 2 months in. The reality is when you factor in the entire playerbase, or at least the steam playerbase, harvest was a dogshit league by numbers.

Is it your contention that the players you're discussing dropped out due to them having strong crafting options available to use?

Harvest was a 0/10 this league is a 2/10 so far...

POE used to offer some guaranteed fun, hasnt been true since legion...

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yamface wrote:

Well you see, you chose 2 months, specifically 2 months, because that is only way that makes harvest look reasonably average. This is despite the fact that the league is dead 2 months in regardless of what league it is and therefore means nothing at that point.

Honestly, I chose two months because I was unaware that there is per-day information available on steam, even with data download (awesome!). Thanks for pointing that out.

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yamface wrote:

As for actual, relevant pieces of information, harvest is literally dead last in player retention 1 week into the league.

Pretty much true (see below), though I am not quite sure how much information can be pulled from the player retention one week in. Harvest was, as pretty much all leagues, riddled with bugs in the beginning. Honestly I find it interesting that GGG doesn't do more play-testing before releasing a league, seeing how many players they typically lose in the first 1-2 weeks, quite some of them probably to bugs...

Also, wasn't there something about players complaining about end-game rewards being too bad in Harvest? Weren't they bumped after a while only, so the reason for them leaving can't be the too strong crafting? Not sure...

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yamface wrote:

So yes let us talk about pulling numbers out of our asses for a moment. Because OP apparently thinks "everyone" loved harvest and you, for whatever reason, tried to justify the retention rate at a time period where less than 20% of the players even play the league... aka nobody even cares what the league looks like 2 months in. The reality is when you factor in the entire playerbase, or at least the steam playerbase, harvest was a dogshit league by numbers.

Sorry for implying you pulled numbers from nowhere, it seemed like it, since you didn't give the sources you give here in your first post.

Also not sure who tries to claim that everyone loves Harvest crafting. I certainly do, but I am sure there are people who do not. Also probably a lot of people who do not care either way.

As for Harvest: It wasn't great, but honestly it wasn't that bad either. Let's look at some numbers.



Player retention compared to first 2 days of the league (first 2 because the numbers fluctuate a bit the first days, could also do first 3, doesn't change the result much). As we can see, there are good and bad leagues after one week:

Good: Betrayal, Legion, Delve, Metamorph, Delirium
Bad: Blight, Synthesis, Harvest

So yeah, Harvest looked pretty bad after a week. Not worse than Blight or Synthesis, not "the worst league ever", but not great for sure.

Now, let's normalize by the number of players in the second week:



As we can see, the three "bad" leagues have something in common: A very bad launch week. Synthesis continued to be bad, Harvest and Blight were doing fine after that.

So the question is, what made players leave Harvest in the first 1-2 weeks? I seem to remember there were a lot of issues not related to the crafting per se, but to other things: Bloom in the garden, bugs, the fact that the garden was complicated to set up. I don't think many players left in the first week because the crafting was too strong, do you?

So I don't think we can use the available data to show that players oppose crafting options (as opposed to gambling).

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Azdgari wrote:

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yamface wrote:

So yes let us talk about pulling numbers out of our asses for a moment. Because OP apparently thinks "everyone" loved harvest and you, for whatever reason, tried to justify the retention rate at a time period where less than 20% of the players even play the league... aka nobody even cares what the league looks like 2 months in. The reality is when you factor in the entire playerbase, or at least the steam playerbase, harvest was a dogshit league by numbers.

Is it your contention that the players you're discussing dropped out due to them having strong crafting options available to use?

people from my small guild left harvest early or ignored the garden but played the league more or less like standard because they all disliked gardening. Nobody disliked the crafting options but hated the mechanic of the garden.

My opinion is: very few left because of overpowered items and the vast majority left because of the garden mechanic. Some even stayed in harvest and endured with the mechanics although they hated gardening, just to get some good items. Without the powerful crafting results I believe harvest would have been an incredible catastrophe.

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Antigegner wrote:

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Azdgari wrote:

Is it your contention that the players you're discussing dropped out due to them having strong crafting options available to use?

people from my small guild left harvest early or ignored the garden but played the league more or less like standard because they all disliked gardening. Nobody disliked the crafting options but hated the mechanic of the garden.

My opinion is: very few left because of overpowered items and the vast majority left because of the garden mechanic.

Your opinion indeed, because the vast majority of players I have asked on the global chat during Harvest, on Twitter polls and on Reddit all have said that they like the change of pace and enjoyed the alternative content or role-playing aspect of gardening that came with Harvest and that the item crafting was just a nice bonus that came with it.

I know it's hard to fathom around here apparently that people enjoy doing things other than killing in this game given how many people just decorate their hideouts instead of doing the main game, but yes, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, people did enjoy the gardening aspect that came with Harvest.

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MLGonthorian wrote:

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Antigegner wrote:

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Azdgari wrote:

Is it your contention that the players you're discussing dropped out due to them having strong crafting options available to use?

people from my small guild left harvest early or ignored the garden but played the league more or less like standard because they all disliked gardening. Nobody disliked the crafting options but hated the mechanic of the garden.

My opinion is: very few left because of overpowered items and the vast majority left because of the garden mechanic.

Your opinion indeed, because the vast majority of players I have asked on the global chat during Harvest, on Twitter polls and on Reddit all have said that they like the change of pace and enjoyed the alternative content or role-playing aspect of gardening that came with Harvest and that the item crafting was just a nice bonus that came with it.

I know it's hard to fathom around here apparently that people enjoy doing things other than killing in this game given how many people just decorate their hideouts instead of doing the main game, but yes, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, people did enjoy the gardening aspect that came with Harvest.

I'm happy you liked it.

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Antigegner wrote:

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MLGonthorian wrote:

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Antigegner wrote:

people from my small guild left harvest early or ignored the garden but played the league more or less like standard because they all disliked gardening. Nobody disliked the crafting options but hated the mechanic of the garden.
My opinion is: very few left because of overpowered items and the vast majority left because of the garden mechanic.

Your opinion indeed, because the vast majority of players I have asked on the global chat during Harvest, on Twitter polls and on Reddit all have said that they like the change of pace and enjoyed the alternative content or role-playing aspect of gardening that came with Harvest and that the item crafting was just a nice bonus that came with it.

I know it's hard to fathom around here apparently that people enjoy doing things other than killing in this game given how many people just decorate their hideouts instead of doing the main game, but yes, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, people did enjoy the gardening aspect that came with Harvest.

I'm happy you liked it.

"the vast majority of players I have asked on the global chat during Harvest, on Twitter polls and on Reddit all have said that they like the change of pace and enjoyed the alternative content or role-playing aspect of gardening that came with Harvest and that the item crafting was just a nice bonus that came with it."

So that must have flown right over your head then? Had to bold and underline this time in case you chose to not read or purposefully disregarded it even though it's true. Or better yet, you're just not willing to see it, sad. IMAGINE, people actually enjoy a new, creative and unique game mechanic that was brought with the Harvest league, I know, it's unfathomable to you, oh well.

Well, people in global after a few weeks of the league are... not exactly a statistically representative sample, are they? ;)

I liked the gardening, too, though, after I got the hang of it.

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MLGonthorian wrote:

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why are u so aggressive? Didn't I say I'm happy for you? And didn't I state that this is just my opinion? What you say is as true as what I say. In the end it's opinions. Please calm down.