3.14 Retention Rates

I think that the OP's post is very good and pretty spot on. I will disagree with him that Harvest was busted...it was not - it was trading of crafts that was busted. I don't even like Harvest that much, but it was good enough to keep me playing for weeks more to fine tune my gear.

The start of the league was an issue for me - it took a pretty big hit on me. And after that I played like usual and a few weeks in I was pretty well geared up (not GG stuff but pretty close). With no Harvest that upgrade path was gone. Also having played Ritual a lot the thought of finishing up the Atlas was not particularly appealing - not to mention GGG for some crazy reason nerfed the map drop %'s in the second round of doing the Atlas (Awakening Bonus).

Anyway, I think my story is more common than people might think - a moderate power player deciding that going through the motions grinding just wasn't cutting it when I did almost the exact same thing in Ritual a month before.

Frankly I like the loot system in Ritual league and running the Ultimatums which were at least less brain dead than Rituals. Just having Ritual loot and a less nerfed Harvest probably would have saved the league.

By the way GGG did provide the #'s on Steam and GGG servers for the first day of either this or last league (I can't remember) and Steam has slightly less than half the players so the Steam charts are a very good extrapolation of total numbers.

The problem I have with the initial post is why retention matters in the first place? Does it have a significant impact on the enjoyment others derive from playing the game? I would suggest - not really.

It would seem the intent of this data is to determine the comparative 'success' of various leagues but why is percentage retention the measurement of choice? I would also like to see the graph as volumes of players because that also contributes to an understanding of the situation.

Ultimately though the only data that really matters to GGG is data that we will never see: revenue and to some degree, the proportion of players that contribute revenue.

If there's less overall players but more paying players, GGG will be happy.

If there's more overall players and more paying players, so long as the server costs are not greater than the paid revenue increases, then GGG are happy.

If player volumes fall and paying players fall, then GGG are not happy.

Anything else really is rather irrelevant.

can't believe ppl are still mad about their item editor lol

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Aldora_the_Summoner wrote:

The problem I have with the initial post is why retention matters in the first place? Does it have a significant impact on the enjoyment others derive from playing the game? I would suggest - not really.

I agree with you completely but it matters to GGG they frequently cite it when discussing balance or game design, as a result we discuss it as players with a similar view.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

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Knivingdude wrote:

I've always thought most people played on the stand-alone client - although looking at the steam charts is interesting too.

I think they do but with samples like this for it to matter that its steam vs standalone you'd need a credible reason why steam players don't represent the norm.

Steam could only be 10% of the playerbase it'd still be a very solid sample to use for stats purposes.

Steam players are quitters who play different games, while standalone players are the core audience.

All of those "retention" stats are useless, players have no say in it. They can't grasp the whole picture, it's ggg stuff to figure out.

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Aldora_the_Summoner wrote:

The problem I have with the initial post is why retention matters in the first place? Does it have a significant impact on the enjoyment others derive from playing the game? I would suggest - not really.

It would seem the intent of this data is to determine the comparative 'success' of various leagues but why is percentage retention the measurement of choice? I would also like to see the graph as volumes of players because that also contributes to an understanding of the situation.

Ultimately though the only data that really matters to GGG is data that we will never see: revenue and to some degree, the proportion of players that contribute revenue.

If there's less overall players but more paying players, GGG will be happy.

If there's more overall players and more paying players, so long as the server costs are not greater than the paid revenue increases, then GGG are happy.

If player volumes fall and paying players fall, then GGG are not happy.

Anything else really is rather irrelevant.

Playing an economy driven game with a very small population isn't very good is it?

The problem with retention rates is pretty obvious to the people who're still playing. The markets are dead. Alot of mirror service items form 1 month ago are gone from trade, selling/buying crafts from TFT is completely dead, there's no rotations in global820, trying to buy stuff in bulk for crafting is impossible because there's no flippers left. Simply buying gear is hard because there's very few options for upgrades since no one is online.

I can't believe that you actually said that the amount of players online doesn't matter in a trading based game.

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This hurt the casual players the most

Casual players don't farm juiced delirium maps. I support Chris (and GGG in general) in that nerf.

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Deadandlivin wrote:

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Aldora_the_Summoner wrote:

The problem I have with the initial post is why retention matters in the first place? Does it have a significant impact on the enjoyment others derive from playing the game? I would suggest - not really.

It would seem the intent of this data is to determine the comparative 'success' of various leagues but why is percentage retention the measurement of choice? I would also like to see the graph as volumes of players because that also contributes to an understanding of the situation.

Ultimately though the only data that really matters to GGG is data that we will never see: revenue and to some degree, the proportion of players that contribute revenue.

If there's less overall players but more paying players, GGG will be happy.

If there's more overall players and more paying players, so long as the server costs are not greater than the paid revenue increases, then GGG are happy.

If player volumes fall and paying players fall, then GGG are not happy.

Anything else really is rather irrelevant.

Playing an economy driven game with a very small population isn't very good is it?

The problem with retention rates is pretty obvious to the people who're still playing. The markets are dead. Alot of mirror service items form 1 month ago are gone from trade, selling/buying crafts from TFT is completely dead, there's no rotations in global820, trying to buy stuff in bulk for crafting is impossible because there's no flippers left. Simply buying gear is hard because there's very few options for upgrades since no one is online.

I can't believe that you actually said that the amount of players online doesn't matter in a trading based game.

I actually have many dozen-ex gear for sale, but I can't be bothered going online anymore. Someone actually pm'd me here in the forum to buy something from me only then I went on to sell.

I usually stop playing when I see the market=dead.

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pifpep wrote:

Steam players are quitters who play different games, while standalone players are the core audience.

According to Wilson, more than 60% of the population is on Steam, and it was years ago. Nowadays it's eventually way higher.

So if standalone players are the core, it doesn't look good for the game.

Yeah it shares a similar slope as Synthesis league.



But still 10 times as many (2 months in) as the next "PoE killer" that is Last Epoch, and more than 20x than the forgotten (another POE killer and put on life support) Wolcel.


But taking into consideration that LE does not have leagues yet and PoE lowest concurrent players are around 11-12k in the last month, the difference maybe not be so extreme if EHG makes their leagues interesting.