Game is turning into a glass cannon only builds

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feike wrote:

Legit question for all you guys talking about retention data and whatnot...

What, in your vision, is a good retention rate? What is the percentage of players that complete the story or kill shaper should be for the retention to be considered "good"?

+1, I would also like to know. My point so far was referring to steam achievements not being a valid data for so old game.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

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Nomancs wrote:

If you're getting tired of using subjective data, don't do it, as you're now ;)

Out of 15% that ever finished A10, 40% killed elder. Safe to assume that plenty of people stopped playing after the story.

I mean... You are literally contradicting yourself in two sentences.

If only 15% ever made it to the end of Act 10, then the majority never reached endgame. Which is exactly what I said and also proves what I said earlier about relative data points. And it also affirms what everyone else here has been saying all this time. We got more players and yet, somehow, the relative endgame percentage is about the same. So, this directly affects retention rate; despite the huge influx of new players, they just don't stick around and the data shows that.

Not sure what you are even arguing at this point. Yet you felt the need to say "that's wrong".

I'm not contradicting myself at all, just showing how absurd it is to use steam achievements as any for of reasonable data. And I'm not tired of showing it is absurd to use them.

Half of people from those stats never even run PoE once after downloading it ;) So using 15% while 50% never touched the game, while also this 15% is for Act 10, not for old A4, is just as flawed as it can be. You can't just use it and call it fair data.

Percentage is similar, as the number keeps growing, so it is harder and harder to impact it with each and every PoE added to player steam account. It goes in millions, so you can't show any retention by PoE steam achievements. It is just like fortune telling :).

You can get more exact numbers from steam charts, and those are better than before. How do you fail to see that we have more players in a peak than ever before?

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Nomancs wrote:

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feike wrote:

Legit question for all you guys talking about retention data and whatnot...

What, in your vision, is a good retention rate? What is the percentage of players that complete the story or kill shaper should be for the retention to be considered "good"?

+1, I would also like to know. My point so far was referring to steam achievements not being a valid data for so old game.

This one is easy, because our opinions or takes don't matter. Different as they may be.

I would simply take my cues from the lead game developer. If he believes there is an issue, says as much live on a broadcast, has made adjustments that reflect as much in their next game (PoE2), and spends this previous league adding more casual player QoL and functionality, why doubt it?

We don't necessarily need a hard number (over 80% not making it to maps seems bad :/ though), because GGG has them, or at least some sort of algorithm. If they admit a problem, and are not happy about it, I would just believe them.

On retention, for me personally I don't think it's a compliment to have rising player numbers trying your game, only to have more of them on percentage quit. All that says is that more are willing to try, but they don't like your game. (see brutal Necropolis data)

It's not a coincidence that this most recent League, which had many nods to more casual players, saw it's best numbers. This is a no-brainer imo, and maybe the best evidence yet that appealing to a wider player type is flat out better. Hell I even played a decent amount, after a long break. PoE1 and from what we have seen, PoE2 are moving in the right (imo) direction, and not towards the more elite segments, who will likely play no matter what.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

We don't necessarily need a hard number (over 80% not making it to maps seems bad :/ though)

Except this one is not true, as you have no idea how many people this league made it to maps.

This is my point - achievements can't be used as data here, as they're too old to reflect on current league numbers in any way or form. You can't pick some Joe from 12y ago, that downloaded PoE and removed it because he started playing some racing game, and say "Joe didn't make it to maps in Settlers League" - because his data is from 12y ago and maps didn't even exist back then.

It is like saying "McDonalds wasn't popular in medieval times, because they didn't earn a single USD back then" - while neither USD not McDonalds existed back then :D

Seems pretty lost, and intentional, on someone if they think 80% of people dont make it to maps based on steam achievements.

The correlation is not there.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

despite the huge influx of new players, they just don't stick around and the data shows that.

But dude... this is what happens on every game on the market

Average completion of story on paid game is around 30%, and thats games that people PAY to play, if we compare to f2p, the average story completion is closer to 10%

To give numbers, on yugioh MD, less than 5% summoned from the graveyard, one of the most basic actions of the game
On lost ark, less than 10% completed 10 daily quests
Team Fort 2 have a metric ton of achieves, and virtually all of them are below 20% and half below 10%
World of warships less than 10% even got 10 victories

And to compare with a similar game to poe, lost ark have story completion rate around 20% and uber content rate at 1%

Poe's numbers are completely standard for a f2p

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DarthSki44 wrote:

over 80% not making it to maps seems bad :/ though

You are utterly clueless

You have to search damn hard to find a f2p game where even 10% of the players tack post-story content, heck even among paid games 20% its uncommon

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Mashgesture wrote:

Seems pretty lost, and intentional, on someone if they think 80% of people dont make it to maps based on steam achievements.

The correlation is not there.

Its probably true, but even then. 20% tacking post story is completely normal

Then don't get hung up on numbers, and just listen to Mark. [removed by support]

Many of the folks posting here, especially those that are in fraction of 1% hitting 40/40 each league, are in a bubble, and are experiencing confirmation bias. "All my friends & I play", so the rest of the world must be as well." It's just flawed logic. Its kinda sad tbh.

PoE has a casual and new player problem, and has for a long time. If you want to find fault in the data, at this point, I don't care. The Living my Truth generation is beyond my understanding.

GGG knows, and that's all that is important in the end.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Then don't get hung up on numbers,

But you brough them and they're entirely wrong. You claimed that 80% of players don't reach maps now (based on 12y old data including people who downloaded the game and never played it), this is not representative amount by any way or form, especially not in current league. You just take wrong data and you was proven wrong on using steam achievements multiple times.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Many of the folks posting here, especially those that are in fraction of 1% hitting 40/40 each league, are in a bubble, and are experiencing confirmation bias. "All my friends & I play", so the rest of the world must be as well." It's just flawed logic. Its kinda sad tbh.

Who wrote that? Or is this a strawman?

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DarthSki44 wrote:

PoE has a casual and new player problem, and has for a long time. If you want to find fault in the data, at this point, I don't care. The Living my Truth generation is beyond my understanding.

Game is not aimed at casuals in the first place, I proved that diablo 4 despite casualizing and trying to be as easy as possible, doesn't have much better numbers than poe despite poe being fp2 game and d4 a 70€ thing, so it didn't work. Sadly, I don't know how much more clear I can make it so you would understand your misinterpretation on 12y old data :(

Aside from the conversation being derailed(again):

Taking steam charts as clear evidence of anything is simply utilizing really, really bad information because multiple sources state that steam accounts for 60% of the player base, fluctuation of course. Acknowledging you're ignoring 40% of viable data into any serious study would automatically make that study instead a joke. That applies here. Considering how it's not possible to calculate how many players even know Maven exists, least of all having fought her, it's really laughable how any accurate conclusion can be taken from that data, at all. Data treatment to show patterns must come from 100% of available data, or data treatment becomes data manipulation.

Huge spikes and equally huge dips are built into the financial model of the game's release cycle. PoE isn't about retention day to day or week to week, but league to league. As long as each league release sees a huge spike and that spike reflects financial support, the dips could be literally zero and it doesn't really matter. Conversely, there could be no dip at all but if financial contributions themselves became near zero past the first few weeks, then, technically, it's the exact same situation.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

Aside from the conversation being derailed(again):

Taking steam charts as clear evidence of anything is simply utilizing really, really bad information because multiple sources state that steam accounts for 60% of the player base, fluctuation of course. Acknowledging you're ignoring 40% of viable data into any serious study would automatically make that study instead a joke. That applies here. Considering how it's not possible to calculate how many players even know Maven exists, least of all having fought her, it's really laughable how any accurate conclusion can be taken from that data, at all.

Huge spikes and equally huge dips are built into the financial model of the game's release cycle. PoE isn't about retention day to day or week to week, but league to league. As long as each league release sees a huge spike and that spike reflects financial support, the dips could be literally zero and it doesn't really matter. Conversely, there could be no dip at all but if financial contributions themselves became near zero past the first few weeks, then, technically, it's the exact same situation.

More to it, claim is "80% of players are not reaching maps", based on 12y steam achievements to be a current problem...