Game is dropping like a stone

What's also wierd is that, since they obviously had to rush out this EA before the holiday season, they quickly slapped together 0.10e on 19th December then went on vacation. Even the trial of sekhema only got a small number adjustment for the much hated honor system and that's that, which made no difference judging from these forums and reddit since the honor system is still almost unviersally hated by melee players. So effectively for at least 10 days, possibly 2 weeks, players who have reached endgame are stuck with this unfun, unrewarding mess, and casuals are stuck in campaign wondering why it's so slow and tedious and they can't beat certain bosses, and nothing is happening during this window.

I don't know if there will be a hugh patch the moment they come back to work (unlikely) but considering is is such a long anticipated high profile release and how unfinished this EA version is, if this was an actual Tencent game, they'd be churning out small patches left and right no matter what holiday it is and how important that holiday is to that country, because this is the one project that will make or break the company. I really hope there'd be a big patch before or just after New Year that actually addresses some of the very valid concerns (Trials, ascendancy like Blood Mage pointless and broken, mapping tedium etc, currency drops etc), or I fear some players will get fed up waiting for changes that won't come and quit the game.

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Strickl3r#3809 wrote:

Sry team holiday is over. Emergency crunsh time to fix the endgame! We just discovered a thread by Eldheim who found out that the player numbers are dropping like a stone, we need to act now! Expect a 70 hour week in shifts. The patch must be ready on the 1st of january, no time to party, Eldheim is expecting a wel lrounded endgame with all the crafting options they had in poe1 and an auction house for convinience! If you call in sick you are fired!

Lmfao thanks for this i needed this level of sarcasm tbh

So I was curious and I looked at the steam charts, and we can clearly see a drop off in players after release.



It's nearly 200k active players lost just two weeks after release. It's gotta be scary. You've got such a long campaign that, especially new players, will take a while to finish. And so many players have time off, there's so much positive word of mouth, you'd just expect numbers to just be going up and up and up.

"But wait!" you say. "I just checked the steam charts. That's not what the line looks like for PoE2!"

To which I say, "Dramatic reveal!"



Yeah, it's the Steam Charts for Baldur's Gate III. A much more accessible game, with a far longer campaign, released when a large portion of the player base were on summer break, and that was showered with far more praise and accolades after release.

And it steadily declined in players from launch day.

While it's slower, Elden Ring starts declining in week 2.



Here's Black Myth: Wukong



The newest hotness, Marvel Rivals, just took a huge dip.



And here's GGG's, now second, most successful launch.



Numbers may be hard facts, but they don't mean anything without context. PoE2 has lost a lot of players? Compared to what? How does PoE2's player retention hold up against the rest of the industry?

And more people are on Steam on Christmas? Doing what? Are they playing the games they already own, or are the shopping and playing the games they got gifted?

Look! The game needs work! Bugs need fixed. Systems need tuned, reworked, or outright replaced. And you're right to get on this forum and tell GGG that there's a problem.

But this doesn't help anything.

Your opinion is already valid and important. Just give it! You don't need to try and use data to justify it.

I personally stopped playing simply because I want to wait for full release. Got my warrior to T8 maps, confirmed that I like the game overall despite some issues and decided that I don't want to spend more time with unfinished product.

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NickyRick#1268 wrote:

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Strickl3r#3809 wrote:

Sry team holiday is over. Emergency crunsh time to fix the endgame! We just discovered a thread by Eldheim who found out that the player numbers are dropping like a stone, we need to act now! Expect a 70 hour week in shifts. The patch must be ready on the 1st of january, no time to party, Eldheim is expecting a wel lrounded endgame with all the crafting options they had in poe1 and an auction house for convinience! If you call in sick you are fired!

Your irony doesn't refute the fact that the game has already lost 60% of the players it had at launch.
(Which is still a much smaller number than Diablo 4 had at launch. 2.5m players)

The more time passes, and more people reach the endgame, the more and more people will abandon the game until there is a minority of maybe 4-5 thousand people left. On the Brazilian server, I have seen the same 11-10 people in the chat only.

2.5 million concurrent players?

Where you got those numbers?

Server is ruined by Magic Find already, most casual players finding no purpose to continue until next reset. There is literally no point, you are playing forced SSF on standart league right now. People enjoy trading but if it was normal, you find a rare piece you sell that you enjoy the currency you get. At the moment, when you get a rare piece and sell that for 50 div, you feel absolutely nothing. Because 50 div for magic find stackers are nothing, just a day of farming or less.

You would enjoy more if magic find was not a thing and everyone was equal in terms of currency drops. You would sell it for 20 div and would be the happiest player alive. It's just garbage.

Ascendacy, which is the core part of the builds being hard to unlock is not the play here. You should make 4 tokens for all 4 ascendacy points that is not bricked upon failure, they should have fixated difficulty so it's achievable.

All on death effects and all one shot skills from white mobs or whatever needs to be gone.

Every build from good to bad, must be balanced, so people can play whatever they want.

The game desperately needs more weapons and classes because it feels so limited in terms of builds right now. I heard druid and huntress with some weapons are almost ready to deploy so i expect them to release on the first week of jan.

All these cannot be fixed in the current server we are playing, it's already ruined, people already lost hype. They should fix these big issues then deploy all of it under a new league launch to have some soft reset. You'll see many people coming back for a fresh since the game is already fresh but ruined.

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eldheim#2436 wrote:

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Raycheetah#7060 wrote:

Just an observation...

Yesterday, Kripparian posted a video about issues with the armour system in PoE Deuce:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw-uD-vz_5s

Since it dropped, it has had 286k views. Reasonably assuming that not every player has watched it, that's one helluva lot of views. Deuce may be dropping, but the numbers from this example don't support a precipitous drop-off, at least, not so far. ='[.]'=

What on earth does Kripp's POE related video viewer number have to do with actual numbers pulled from steam themselves?

Steam numbers are data in a vacuum, and do not represent the entirety of PoE Deuce's playerbase. The views of a video related to the game provide a different perspective on interest in Deuce (I watched it because I was curious about Kripp's take, not because I have any interest in playing the game). That many people watching Kripp's video is another indication of the current playerbase at least partially external to Steam's numbers, as some significant portion of those viewers likely do not play through Steam.

The point was that, I didn't expect to see so may views on a video like that, given the apparent rate of decline based solely on Steam numbers. The factors on the ground driving such a decline remain, but their effects will likely not be fully revealed until sometime after the first of the year at earliest. ='[.]'=

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Raycheetah#7060 wrote:

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eldheim#2436 wrote:

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Raycheetah#7060 wrote:

Just an observation...

Yesterday, Kripparian posted a video about issues with the armour system in PoE Deuce:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw-uD-vz_5s

Since it dropped, it has had 286k views. Reasonably assuming that not every player has watched it, that's one helluva lot of views. Deuce may be dropping, but the numbers from this example don't support a precipitous drop-off, at least, not so far. ='[.]'=

What on earth does Kripp's POE related video viewer number have to do with actual numbers pulled from steam themselves?

Steam numbers are data in a vacuum, and do not represent the entirety of PoE Deuce's playerbase. The views of a video related to the game provide a different perspective on interest in Deuce (I watched it because I was curious about Kripp's take, not because I have any interest in playing the game). That many people watching Kripp's video is another indication of the current playerbase at least partially external to Steam's numbers, as some significant portion of those viewers likely do not play through Steam.

The point was that, I didn't expect to see so may views on a video like that, given the apparent rate of decline based solely on Steam numbers. The factors on the ground driving such a decline remain, but their effects will likely not be fully revealed until sometime after the first of the year at earliest. ='[.]'=

Until dec 22 the number were constant, that to me means people are most likely checking of due to holidays rather than be discouraged by the game itself. But to be honest, the end game is not that polished as many content creators agree and most casual players may be reaching that state at this point (me included, but I am not quiting yet). But 2 weeks with 400k players is not a bad start.

Facepalm at the post using one-and-done single player AAA title curves to draw the line for this live service season/league based game. You're comparing apples to oranges. POE2's 24h peak numbers were still at 400-450k even last weekend, which was GOOD, and the holiday is a boost to entertainment and gaming activities. Steam's overall platform-wide online player count has been going UP for a week, and 23rd&24th Dec numbers were only slightly down across the platform but still above December averages. Most other popular titles are either staying steady or seeing small increases not drastic decreases the last few days.

I did film box office and revenue projections professionally for blockbusters, it's really pointless debating numbers with people who don't see what's there and only see what they want to see. If the numbers are good I will call them good. I don't make up stories and narratives. The launch numbers were FANTASTIC, last few days not so much. PoE2 NEEDS to be a bigger success than poe1 to justify its existence and bigger budget. At the beginning, it looked like it might, now, not so sure. With the current state of the endgame, and the current philosophy of the campaign being incompatible with the season/league model they've doing for over a decade, unless theres a big patch in the next 1-2 weeks, or the numbers will be even less rosy. The OP may come across as a bit harsh but trying to justify poe2's numbers the last few days as all rosy and fine is just subjective to say the least.

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Nyon#6673 wrote:

Would be useful with some examples or facts. Instead of blanket statements and your opinion that its not normal.

Poe2 has great player retention so far. Especially if you take into account that alot of people are on holiday and playing less or not at all.

Its early access and the foundation of the game is great and the changes ggg has made so fsr have been swift and on point.

Ofc there are more changes needed and they need to add more content which they obviously will

Yeah they're whining about things that were an issue early in poe1, which were noted and slated for adjustment, when they have a fantastic working file.