GGG should probably address the player retention rate

"

sidtherat wrote:

"

Chris wrote:

Since a few days before 1.0.4 was deployed, our average number of players online (measured over a seven day moving average) has been going up at a decent rate. This is the opposite of the gradual decline that's generally seen in the middle of four-month leagues.

what about this then?

"

http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=238960&from=1383087600000&to=End+Time

What about this?

It's only steam. Do you have any information regarding how many % players use steam to accompany this?

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Jiero wrote:

...
So the question, that I hope can spark a debate, being......

What do we (as a community) think can be done to address situations like that, in which we wanted to love the game but the lack of player retention resulting from numerous other issues causes additional players to leave the game as well?

Seriously... nothing.

You can't control what actions/choices people make: all we can control are our own actions. If you like the game, play it, recommend it and speak highly over it (without being a fanboi). At some point we all grow tired of a game, but enjoy yourself in the meantime. :)

I have friends who've only dipped their toes in POE. They don't jump in fully for a number of various reasons: busy playing other games (currently back into WoW since the special deal and it's familiar), busy creating games, busy with RL, or too scared that they'll get addicted to POE (srs).

Let nature take it's course. People will come and go.

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sidtherat wrote:

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Chris wrote:

Since a few days before 1.0.4 was deployed, our average number of players online (measured over a seven day moving average) has been going up at a decent rate. This is the opposite of the gradual decline that's generally seen in the middle of four-month leagues.

what about this then?

"

http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=238960&from=1383087600000&to=End+Time

erm. the chart does show numbers going up since 1.0.4 (after christmas)

i'm not surprised by the overall drop since release, that's to be expected for any game (and was pretty much the same situation throughout open beta). I'm interested in getting statistics once the new 4 month league, and finally act 4, comes along. Also am keen to see what the final steady state ends up in.

I think it would help if GGG actually acknowledged any of the massive game ending problems in the game mainly the economy (massive amounts of orbs from nowhere) but they NEVER respond to valid criticism frankly the level of respect they show their players is appalling.

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maxor wrote:

I think it would help if GGG actually acknowledged any of the massive game ending problems in the game mainly the economy (massive amounts of orbs from nowhere) but they NEVER respond to valid criticism frankly the level of respect they show their players is appalling.

Yeah,
they
never
respond
to
criticism...
those
BASTARDS!!!

"

Antnee wrote:

"

maxor wrote:

I think it would help if GGG actually acknowledged any of the massive game ending problems in the game mainly the economy (massive amounts of orbs from nowhere) but they NEVER respond to valid criticism frankly the level of respect they show their players is appalling.

Yeah,
they
never
respond
to
criticism...
those
BASTARDS!!!

Several of those were explanations of mechanics and not responses to criticism, but it is good work you did and it's way better than sorting through posts with GGG symbol by them. I learned something.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

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sidtherat wrote:

"

Chris wrote:

Since a few days before 1.0.4 was deployed, our average number of players online (measured over a seven day moving average) has been going up at a decent rate. This is the opposite of the gradual decline that's generally seen in the middle of four-month leagues.

what about this then?

"

http://steamgraph.net/index.php?action=graph&jstime=1&appid=238960&from=1383087600000&to=End+Time

and what is surprising about people playing more during the holidays? true test would be to see if these people that started to play because of more free time remain active.

Firstly: Good to see Chris weigh in, but I bet there are people who are already convinced he's probably just lying.

Secondly: that link is cool! Thanks! I overlaid several games, just to see (and to know). Most interesting was Torchlight II and PoE over all time. Then I threw in a few other games I figured to be relevant: Dark Souls, Titan Quest: Immortal Throne and, just because I quite like it, Forge.

Compared to those, PoE looks like it's doing just fine. Especially TLII. Man, what a plummet.

Still, just steam.

'just steam'? i'm not in any way implying that i know 'steam vs non steam' poe playerbase but anyone dissing steam in this way.. steam is THE place to be if you are not EA or other AAA group with own platform.

link is cool but behaves strangely with more than 2 games! better compare them in pairs if you are after numbers

as for the tl2 - steam and tl2 has this neat feature 'play offline' and many, many players that dont give a rats cheek about 'online' and 'multiplier' plays it that way (me included). o do not show up in tl2 statistics since day 3 or 4 after release. this is 'plane game of choice' if you happen to not have d2. take that into account

as for the 'growth' after 1.0.4. i dont deny it. CEO of a company no matter what cannot lie in such cases. but this is not to say that i cannot question WHY this particular point in time had been selected and what are non-standard circumstances leading to this result

that is - almost 2 weeks of holidays for large population of typical gamers (students, pupils etc) resulting in lots and lots of hours to spare. lets see if this trend continue in 2 weeks when all is back to normal :)

given that trade chat 6 in standard yesterday was EMPTY and i used to trade in channel 46! it is clear sign that people are somewhere else. maybe playing 1week race or maybe testing borderlands 2 just like i do. music in that game is fantastic!

I'll admit to having not read all posts, so forgive me if this has been said before:

This free to play game just had "official release" about 12 weeks ago. The game itself is "weeding out" those players that do not fit into the "niche" of gamers that the devs appear to be targeting. I expect that the players who are still around 12 months after release are going to be more "engaged" than those still playing only 12 weeks in.

I'm pretty sure that the players that are still around 6+ months from now will consist of a large number of people who have "supported" in some way or another, be it through Packs or through MTX. That income alone should be enough to keep PoE going.

I may be wrong about this, but I anticipate the announcement by GGG of another title before too long. PoE is an excellent proof of concept and viability, and if I were a venture capitalist I would be quite interested to hear a pitch from Chris and the gang. Based on their record I imagine that they could get the funding they want without having to whore their souls and principles.

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Sinnesteuer wrote:

I may be wrong about this, but I anticipate the announcement by GGG of another title before too long. PoE is an excellent proof of concept and viability, and if I were a venture capitalist I would be quite interested to hear a pitch from Chris and the gang. Based on their record I imagine that they could get the funding they want without having to whore their souls and principles.

I sincerely doubt that. According to Charan there is a huge backlog of supporter uniques. There propably still is a backlog in unanswered Support queries. And GGG not only has an incredible pace when it comes to patches and new content they also want to release a new chapter every year or so.

So I guess everybody there really has his plates so full that any thought of another title is considered not even for a second.

"

There are only 2 competing aRPG's at the moment, D3 and TL2

D3 had its own set of failures which obviously I am not going to document in this post (half of which are being fixed with RoS). Then there is TL2, which executed very well, but didn't innovate enough, particularly in the skill tree area (this is being fixed with mods, like synergy mod, but its not part of the actual game)

So in terms of aRPG's, there hasn't been any real aRPG released in the past half decade. PoE is luckly that its main competition is either hitting a different demographic, or just majorly screwed up in certain areas

I said this before and Ill say it again, if it wasn't for the skill tree/skill support system, I wouldn't touch this game with a ten foot pole

I did not find TL2 compelling. It has 6 hours played on my account.

People claiming PoE is not hardcore are out of their minds. "Hardcore" is firstly, a nebulous concept. Is playing Minecraft for 48 hours straight hardcore? Or is it casual? Is playing spreadsheets-the-game EVE hardcore? Or is it just a casual asteroid farming simulator? Is playing DF hardcore? Or is it just an ascii Minecraft?

Claiming "only time invested" makes PoE hardcore, and not the mechanics, is complete bullcrap. A casual player - someone who only plays Minecraft and Battlefield 4 - could not make it to maps on one character in one life. They could not survive HC to level 80. They would never figure it out, not without people micromanaging them. And even then, they probably wouldn't have the dexterity to avoid death. Casuals are not experience in games or mechanics, they are used to being spoonfed, which is what makes them casuals.

PoE is not a game which spoon feeds you, ergo, it is not casual. Trying to claim it is not hardcore means your definition of hardcore only extends to those who play unreal tournament professionally, or somebody who just plays Marathon all day. Give me a break - if PoE isn't hardcore, then what is it? You can't just say, "lol you just have to be a nolife grinder" because to me that suggests you haven't mastered the game. How can you belittle all the things you had to learn and experience to get good at this game? Do you even play this game?

It's hard to take you seriously when you give TL2 the pass and say it's more competent than PoE. And no, RoS does not address even half of the issues which make D3 unplayable.