Do stats tell the truth about PoE?

There are a lot of threads pointing at Steams dwindling concurrent players numbers for PoE, as an indication of the game bleeding it's player base, but I'd always take those with a grain of salt. Every game will lose players over time.

But still, these threads made me think about the Global Achievement list that Steam has, and how it can be used as a good indicator of what players are actually doing and achieving in the game.

I'm very well aware that some people will point out that any Steam data regarding PoE is nor relevant because lot of people play the game outside of the Steam, but still, with such a high number of players to use for statistical purposes, you can get a good indication of global player base, just based on Steam number.

So, what's this about?

Let's first try to establish how many people played the game when it launched, and how many were playing it through Steam and how many without Steam.

Chris 2013 review:

"

* Over 3.7 million new players signed up to play Path of Exile.

* We hit a peak of almost 70,000 people playing Path of Exile at the same time. We expect to beat this record as we localise the game to more countries next year!

16 March 2013 PCGamer article:

"

Topping that is Grinding Gear's announcement today that it's amassed 2 million registered accounts since the open beta began in January.

Based on this, we can say that 3,7 million players should be a rough number of players when PoE launched (when Chris say 3,7mil players, he is probably referring to new players gained through 2012, but I'm disregarding the existing player base from 2013 because it's probably minor compared to this number).

Now, when PoE launched, the peak concurrent numbers of players in Steam was 29.000. Chris states they had 70.000 concurrent. Therefor, we can probably say with high certainty that the distribution of total player base was:

* 1.532.857 players through Steam
* 2.167.143 players outside Steam

1,5mil players is a good number to draw conclusions from, even though we can say that, generally speaking, Steam players will be more causal then non-Steam PoE players. Still, I for example played the game through Steam, and I wouldn't consider myself a casual player.

Also, let's assume that out of these 1,5mil players on Steam, 85% played SC and 15% played HC.

So what do Steam achievements tell us about PoE?

How SC players progressed through the game:



Brutus to Piety gap is expected - a lot of people try the game and move on. The gaps between difficulties shows number of players basically reducing in half. It's a bit disappointing to see that less than 5% of initial players got to Merciless difficulty. Maybe the game could have some smoother difficulty?


But I'm more concerned about these ones:



Now, these numbers really look grim. 12k players out of 1,5 mil managed to chance an unique item? Even less managed to 6L - 9k lucky ones.

Still, the percentages are based on total number of players that placed their foot in Normal Strand. More fair thing to do would be to take the percentage of players that got into Merciless and managed these achievements, because Merci players are generally the ones who will attempt these:



I would be willing to bet these numbers more or less can be applied to non-Steam player base as well.

So what was this post about*

Truth be told, this was all just a long winded attempt to say that item and currency drops in PoE are too low and that the game feels incredibly unrewarding. It's been quite a while now that I stopped playing and every new update colors me more and more uninterested in returning to PoE.

Have an unique that increases the drops of uniques.


also - statistics are fun

I've run 4 or 5 characters through Merciless. Have yet to get a level 20 gem because I always quit them and reroll. :D

"

Caessa wrote:

I've run 4 or 5 characters through Merciless. Have yet to get a level 20 gem because I always quit them and reroll. :D

That + the fact that far fewer players even try to chance a unique and far fewer than that try to fuse a 6l makes that last graph pretty worthless info.

You are saying % of the total when it should be % of the % that actually attempt to accomplish these goals, these numbers would be significantly higher.

I have multiple characters that completed merciless and have no lvl 20 gem, no chanced unique, and no 6l.

I have only spent 2 fuses trying to 6l (got a 5l and stopped =) and I have maybe chanced 20 items with the intention of getting a unique. I will have level 20 gems in time, that is a guarantee, it just takes time.

i have to chance a unique

"

Cribstaxx wrote:

"

Caessa wrote:

I've run 4 or 5 characters through Merciless. Have yet to get a level 20 gem because I always quit them and reroll. :D

That + the fact that far fewer players even try to chance a unique and far fewer than that try to fuse a 6l makes that last graph pretty worthless info.

You are saying % of the total when it should be % of the % that actually attempt to accomplish these goals, these numbers would be significantly higher.

I have multiple characters that completed merciless and have no lvl 20 gem, no chanced unique, and no 6l.

I have only spent 2 fuses trying to 6l (got a 5l and stopped =) and I have maybe chanced 20 items with the intention of getting a unique. I will have level 20 gems in time, that is a guarantee, it just takes time.

No matter how you look at it, the end result is X player out of Y managed to 6L.

what is dis thread about? why is it so interesting for you how many players are still online? do you get an exalt from everyone? lol.. na i think statistics are not corret... you count 1 acc to 1 player, and dis is mistake nr. 1 because some players still multiboxing.
you dont know how many they are..

if your basics just wrong, the hole statistic is about nothing... sry dude

Props to the OP for admitting that his whole post was an "I am getting RNG'd" post. Excellent use of the provided statistical materials to argue your point.

Rhetorically, do stats tell the truth about anything?

"

Odoakar wrote:

No matter how you look at it, the end result is X player out of Y managed to 6L.

Lol but there sure is a difference between 15% of merciless players got a 6l (1200 out of 8000 as per your graph) and actually seeing how many of those tried to fuse one. If that number is more like 3000 then the new % is 40%.

When you don't know the amount that attempted spouting a number like 15% is irrelevant.

Also 15% of the population having a 6l is pretty darn good IMO as it is the most sought after item in the game.

Really man,

go play world of warcraft if you WANT it the easy way.

i am glad i found a game that is actually hard to progress.

99% of the games nowadays are easy and made for the mass to make money.

POE is like that, it might take a lot of hours of gaming before you get something good, but thats how i like it.

all your statistics only shows that if you put as much effort in the game than building this post, you would probably have 100 exalt by now.

and who cares if the player base is droping. they cant please everyone. if you dont like the game, dont play it, its not like you paid anything. you dont even have the right to complain.

GGG have made what blizzard couldnt and without the infinite pool of $$$ that blizzard have access to. they deserve a donation if you like the game, and they deserve that you stop polluting their forums and scare potential players.

Go buy a teddy bear and find a cloud to float on it.

UNBELIEVABLE