Just looked at steam player Data

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darciaz wrote:

I don’t think steam charts and indicative of much besides steam players don’t hold out with games long. I mean, we have no data for standalone client.

There is, and has been, no indication over the years that the stand alone client players behave differently, on average, than the steam players. It's just a launcher.

That said the player base statistically is around 60/40 steam vs client. We know this from the announcements GGG makes about player concurrency, and doing simple maths from steam charts.

Lately, past 3 leagues launches, the concurrency numbers have been pretty good. Its seems as though the Twitch marketing has paid off. However they are also setting records for player retention drops percentage wise. So while more players are trying the game at launches, they are leaving, and quicker, in record numbers.

I do think this league retention wise will be disastrous due to the state in which the league launched, so maybe a bit of an outlier, but in fairness that's a self-inflicted wound. I do have some sympathy for the Elden Ring / LA player absorption last league, but what we have seen here this launch is a developmental and professional embarrassment.

When your new plan for leagues is based on having most people just play for 2-10 days while the small majority of whales that stay and pay for most of the profits. It's showing in the design.

The first few days of numbers won't show anything meaningful. The experience was so bad that Chris pushed a double nerf and three manifestos in 2 days. Despite the game being so bad the Steam numbers were over 100k peak Saturday and Sunday. Not all that many people quit, and some people are likely to return once GGG pushes the patch that tones down the BS Archnemesis mods.

I'm personally done with the league but if I really wanted something to play I'd definitely come back after the patch that nerfs the build-destroying mods. And my build wasn't even really that affected.

Recombinators appear to be a very inexpensive shortcut to absolutely insane items. People are already using them as infinite money printers similar to how Awakener Orbs were used as infinite money printers back in Metamorph. Once streamers start making videos with titles like "Recombinators are totally insaaaaaaaane how I made 500 mirrors per second!" people will rush back to try them out.

The sloppy seconds from crafters trying for 6 mod items with a Sentinel mod will mean extremely cheap gearing for all players a week or two from now. The experience should be good for players then.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

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DiabloImmoral wrote:

They lied and promised a league of no nerfs and nerfed players by like 80%. Chris actually made me touch grass on a league start weekend.

I don't blame people for taking a 3 month break. It's the perfect time to do it. Beta testing for the new mods should be done in August for the new league.

I think this ones a little unfair, though personally I think trying to placate your player base on balance is a fools errand anyway - just make the changes that need making.

That being said it was obvious that replacing rare mods with AN mods was going to be a "nerf" as your putting it whereas Chris was clearly talking about character balance specifically not the all encompassing way you can apply "nerf".

Statistically an EA ballista character in the same equipment to 3.17 is the same character this time, that was the no changes.

https://youtu.be/1ZqjpVjCcdM?t=1571

He literary said " builds will work exactly the same", except in reality that is not true at all.
Do I need to explain why?

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darciaz wrote:

I don’t think steam charts and indicative of much besides steam players don’t hold out with games long. I mean, we have no data for standalone client.

I'm a steam player and have over 8500 hours of POE play. I've played very league since April of 2014. :p

While I think the data is accurate because it speaks to how I personally feel. I think it's likely not painting the full picture. Or at least there is a reasonable chance that it does not. It's entirely possible that the people that use the non steam client are a more hardcore player then those who use the steam version. Which could mean a larger portion are online then offline and we wouldn't know it. Only GGG has that portion of information.

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ChanBalam wrote:

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darciaz wrote:

I don’t think steam charts and indicative of much besides steam players don’t hold out with games long. I mean, we have no data for standalone client.

I'm a steam player and have over 8500 hours of POE play. I've played very league since April of 2014. :p

Yeah but you're weird. :P

PLENTY of steam-based players are no doubt as dedicated to the game as stand-alone client users. Buuuuut there's no denying that steam is a game catalogue and very much encourages its users to bounce around, buy bargains, try new early access games, and so on. I'd call it the Netflix of gaming but I'm fairly sure it's the other way around.

Whereas a stand-alone client launcher is on your desktop or start bar or wherever, put there amongst the documents and the pdfs and the whatever else. It's not being constantly jostled about by the very platform it's on.

So you're both right. And I say that as both a steam user (it takes me EFFORT to stick to one game on steam for long) and an Exile (given sufficient motivation, I can stick to one game [even an ARPG] for ages, even if it's launched through steam -- you know which one I'm talking about here).

But when the numbers are this large, and with PoE's steamcharts they really are, then you definitely have a decent metric for the overall. Possibly an even more accurate metric than GGG's own announced ones regarding concurrency, given I'm willing to bet you don't get many bots logging in through steam. ^_~

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Reid777 wrote:

Don't get bated, data is not significantly worse than last few leagues.

The numbers aren't "game is dead" bad, but this league has seen the fastest exodus of players after day one of any league in the history of PoE. You are correct this isn't significantly different than the past few leagues but it's also a statement that has been just as accurate in recent leagues.

For much of the game's history the day 2 and 3 numbers were higher than the day one numbers, which makes sense because day 1 is always a Friday and then more people play on weekends. This was the case as recently as Ultimatum in 2021, and even in leagues where it wasn't the case the day 1/2/3 numbers were all pretty close before that. Then came 3.15, Expedition, the great nerf, day 2 players plummeted in a way the game had never seen before, people tried the new league, ran into the difficulty wall and quickly abandoned it. This repeated to a lesser extent in 3.16 and 3.17, likely people returning to the game hoping things had improved and then quickly leaving again. Now here we are at 3.18 with an even sharper drop off in players than 3.15.

It's not the sign of the end, but it is the sign of a downward trend for the game, and it's pretty clearly linked to certain decisions GGG has been making regarding difficulty and how their core playerbase reacts to it. 3.15 should have taught them something, and the scrambling and PR hoops GGG jumped through after that league start shows it hurt them, but then they did the same ****ing thing again in 3.18 with even worse results.

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Astasia wrote:

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Reid777 wrote:

Don't get bated, data is not significantly worse than last few leagues.

The numbers aren't "game is dead" bad, but this league has seen the fastest exodus of players after day one of any league in the history of PoE. You are correct this isn't significantly different than the past few leagues but it's also a statement that has been just as accurate in recent leagues.

For much of the game's history the day 2 and 3 numbers were higher than the day one numbers, which makes sense because day 1 is always a Friday and then more people play on weekends. This was the case as recently as Ultimatum in 2021, and even in leagues where it wasn't the case the day 1/2/3 numbers were all pretty close before that. Then came 3.15, Expedition, the great nerf, day 2 players plummeted in a way the game had never seen before, people tried the new league, ran into the difficulty wall and quickly abandoned it. This repeated to a lesser extent in 3.16 and 3.17, likely people returning to the game hoping things had improved and then quickly leaving again. Now here we are at 3.18 with an even sharper drop off in players than 3.15.

It's not the sign of the end, but it is the sign of a downward trend for the game, and it's pretty clearly linked to certain decisions GGG has been making regarding difficulty and how their core playerbase reacts to it. 3.15 should have taught them something, and the scrambling and PR hoops GGG jumped through after that league start shows it hurt them, but then they did the same ****ing thing again in 3.18 with even worse results.

I believe that issues like that are usually much more complex or simplier (or actually both) than we see it.


When we talk about play retention, we could blame GGG for mistakes, bad leagues, etc. We might believe that people left because they were disappointed.
Really might be that they already got what they wanted and they are very happy. They came back to their favorite game, played for few days/weeks, spend few dozens or hundreds hours, had quality entertainment and simply moved on. They will come back next league or in a year time or in few years when the game changes more.
This might be simply natural way, how leagues/seasons works. That's how expansion releases work for collectible card games.


At the same time, game is aging and it shows. Visuals are mostly very dated and very uneven. On top of that, game is not new player friendly at all. Game needs steady influx of new new players, it cannot ran forever off its long time players.


On top of that, considering all their projects, they are probably working with very constrained resources. I am more than certain that art team is focusing on PoE2 visuals and design of current leagues is limited to a lot less art demanding ideas.


When we look at the all of above, the release of PoE2 will be major opportunity for marketing push to new players. I would be not surprised at all if the team came up with several great ideas for leagues which have been withhold until PoE2 premiere.


In the end I believe that problems with balance here and there is just a tiny fraction of current PoE1 issues.

I havent played in over a year and I am enjoying this league. So much so that I spent about $120