The numbers never lie.

Chris always brags that peak numbers are high..

But according to steam charts the average numbers online in the last year are actually going down..

It is clear now even to the unborned babies ,that Chris-es vision is a massive fail.

My personal oppinion is that the game is ALOT more boring now than 1 year before..
- the actual speed of the game( AS Chris talked about ) never slowed down..
- The drops are nerfed to oblivion
-The new atlas changes and the sextants are actually a massive nerf
-Super bloated
-Too many systems
-bilions of shiny mtx-es which makes the party play absolute nightmare..
-Constant changes of builds drove ppl away and most of my friends stopped Poe for good.
-The game actually feels boring now..
-The nerfs killed 70% of the builds and everyone is playing the OP only now..
-Massive raise of game breaking bugs, lags, cpu stutters etc etc etc..
-Many of the cool items got useless..
And many many more ..

The game lost its magic.
PS: The increased numbers of MTX rewards from a league is just a damage control.. And soon that won't be enough to keep the players..

I can't even comprehend how arrogant heartless corporate prick you must be to introduce new MTX-es when ur game is bugged as hell from the current ones. That FACT only makes ppl NOT to donate EVER..

Players are playing a variety of different games for a while. We'll have to wait until Summer's in full swing to know if the dip in player numbers is long-term or short.

Pretty heavy handed review.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

Players are playing a variety of different games for a while. We'll have to wait until Summer's in full swing to know if the dip in player numbers is long-term or short.

Pretty heavy handed review.

When even shagzy don't troll me you know the game is in a bad shape for realz.. :D

"

SneakySanta wrote:

But according to steam charts the average numbers online in the last year are actually going down..

Steam is only one way to access the game, not representative.

"

SneakySanta wrote:

My personal oppinion is that the game is ALOT more boring now than 1 year before..

Great, but thats only that - a personal opinion

"

SneakySanta wrote:

The drops are nerfed to oblivion

Lol? More quant and more free drops on maps via the new atlas tree than ever before. What drops exactly are nerfed to oblivion?

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SneakySanta wrote:

The new atlas changes and the sextants are actually a massive nerf

Aha... how you figure?

"

SneakySanta wrote:

Super bloated

Not more than the last 2 leagues and easier to pass on mechanics you didn´t force with the new atlas tree

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SneakySanta wrote:

bilions of shiny mtx-es which makes the party play absolute nightmare..

"billions", "massive", "tons"... you really need to hyperbole to make a point, dont u?

"

SneakySanta wrote:

Constant changes of builds drove ppl away and most of my friends stopped Poe for good.

So take this unique chance and do the same when all you do is vomit again what others mentioned like 5000 times with way more finesse.

One of the most generalizing posts ever with a lot of false assumptions as well, not worth reading.

This is imho the worst major patch in years. However the game is more casual than ever right now, it's not a loss for everyone and the game has a larger and larger "idle" playerbase, same deal as "warframe"(another Tencent game).

I should have stopped checking for PoE 6 monthes ago, and in all honesty I should never have bought the Kirac pass, but what can I say I love hh and cool effects :/.

This game should shift the formula at a point and mb refactor their marketing/community managers team as well, it's degrading.

"

The game lost its magic.

And yet, you somehow managed to get 32 challenges.

"

DoubleU wrote:

"

The game lost its magic.

And yet, you somehow managed to get 32 challenges.

I'd bet real money that he gets 36 before he gets off probation.

"

SneakySanta wrote:

-Massive raise of game breaking bugs, lags, cpu stutters etc etc etc..

I won't comment on your other opinions, but do you really experience more of that stuff? I'm on the same computer as four years ago and on my end, things actually run better now than ever, and that is with a build that causes more on screen clutter (ice trap) than those I usually play.
Maybe I am blessed, RNG being RNG and all, but for me technical issues are non-existent.

Whether or not the other points, some of which I agree with (Bloat) have an impact on the player numbers, I can't say. However, I played games that use a so called real game engine (as opposed to what people think PoE's engine is) that run worse.

Even though this is just another POE is Ded thread and not really worth the time to write this post, why not...

It's pretty hard to really measure a game like POE, from launch to launch. Some leagues have new end game like this one. Some add more acts. Some are just vanilla league that lands with some and misses with others. There will always be an ebb and flow as a result of that. Throw into the mix the state of everything external to the game over the last few years and it's probably pretty hard to know what is an actual uptick and downtick.

2020/2021 would have had a bump in players just simply from the pandemic and people having extra time. It's hard to know if the numbers during that period were artificially inflated and relevant over a longer period.

This league coincided with several pretty big games that are at least adjacent to the genre; close enough to potentially be statistically relevant.

The players who tend toward new leagues probably align with resets for one reason or another and whatever that thing is from the reset that scratches their itch, over time it will get stale. So naturally there will be a drop off like has been predictably seen every 3-4 months for the last decade.

I have my doubts that GGG cares much about player retention over the full course of a league in large part because I would bet a large chunk of their revenue comes from/during league launch. Players that stick around for the full three/four months are just running up the server cost.

I think these threads too often look at short term trends when they should be looking at multiyear trends. The peaks of late are significantly higher than the peaks 3-4 years ago. In 3-4 years, we'll know whether current trends upward/downward are a long term change or just the normal ebb and flow of league to league variation.

Most of the time these threads are more indicative of the state of the game for the thread creators, than the reality of the state of the game for most. Source: The nearly countless number of POE is Dying/Ded threads since 2012.

Even good leagues typically only last a month and a half before trade goes dead. This league was great but it's basically over.

If they don't add a meaningful grind for players (like a new Delve or a new Heist) player retention might end up in the toilet for the next few leagues even if the mechanics are good. Loot drops and farm viability were maximized across the board this league. So much so that the Archnemesis mechanic wasn't even worth touching. What is the hook going to be going forward? It can't be more loot that we already have. It has to be something new.