I suppose dying is the correct internet term, most MMOs are in decline, if you look at the steam data this is quite obvious for neverwinter. It started off pretty strong, and there was HUGE spike in activity during this mod's release, but it tampered off within 2 weeks, thats less time than it required to see the new dungeons, maybe the daily grind put them off.
There is no denying that it is in steady decline though, if I was cryptic i would try and take a new approach for the future mods, something that would bring in new players.
I think they're relatively correct. The profits made by games that charged subscriptions prior to free to play remain high, but that's because they have a large established base with lots of time and money invested who just keep paying. You can't realistically start a new sub game and survive in any notable way any more, sadly. Players are doomed to be thrown to the F2P sharks for now.
When swtor, lord of the rings online are viewed as "fails" and generally hidden from public view, it's surprising companies keep trying their hand at getting a piece of a pie, F2P is a safe way too go, but most companies do not know how to retain their customers, blizzard are clever because they focus on the gameplay and activities as well as the incentives and carrots, where most other MMOs just focus on the carrots and make skip on the gameplay.
For example each class in WoW (last i looked which was a long time ago) had a welcome role, and raids always included all classes in varying quantity, where in most other MMOs they skimp on balance or think balance just means everyone doing the same thing (e.g. here it seems to be damage).
Why should I? I have PVE gear and PVE feats and from what I understand, everyone in PVP is running around with 20k and glyphs. Why should I even try once a month? "Because it's fun"?
It used to be fun last mod for most classes. Even a CW - but yes you needed PvP gear and spec.
This is however a HUGE failure on Cryptic's part - not providing a Dual Spec that was requested numerous times, so people can have a PvP and PvP spec as well, and change as needed.
PvP is hardly any fun these days though, people use all the broken <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> available in the game, glyphs being the prime example, and matchmaking is full dysfunctional, putting together 10K GS people with 20K ones.
For example each class in WoW (last i looked which was a long time ago) had a welcome role, and raids always included all classes in varying quantity, where in most other MMOs they skimp on balance or think balance just means everyone doing the same thing (e.g. here it seems to be damage).
With few exceptions when Blizz screwed up and made buggy fights where stacking Rogues or whatever was most beneficial (fixed fast), what you say is still true.
There is a place for each class in WoW and people are content in their roles, without trying to be all DPS or all Tank and so on. Healing, DPS, Tanking are all necessary and cannot be skipped.
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chemboy613Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,521Arc User
edited October 2014
Maybe people didn't want to log in to spend an hour waiting for dragons to spawn, or fighting over lightning jars...
I think the thought is the extra time spent on server will lead to more purchases, but instead it leads to more attrition.
The most important information from the steam data is that steam population droped. It is safe to assume that the ratio NON-STEAM : STEAM players remains constant. So we can see from data that from January (fair far from Mod2 release which is obviously peak) to September (fair far from Mod4 release) we see only half users! It's pretty obvious overall population droped the same So game is dying.
BTW. When you pick the "1y" on the chart the dying slope is visible directly (with peaks for mod releases)
There's no doubt the game population has dropped. But you know what? I checked a bunch of other MMORPGs on Steam and they all show the same downward trend over the last 12 months (less time for ESO). And while a few have more players than NW there are some that have around 25% of the current NW population.
MMOs in general are not in a good place right now.
I suppose dying is the correct internet term, most MMOs are in decline, if you look at the steam data this is quite obvious for neverwinter. It started off pretty strong, and there was HUGE spike in activity during this mod's release, but it tampered off within 2 weeks, thats less time than it required to see the new dungeons, maybe the daily grind put them off.
My guild saw that in micro, lots of people who had been on hiatus poked their noses in to see what the new mod was like. Very few of them actually stuck around to play it.
I actually did this sometime in Mod 2 at different times of day and (I think I remember that) the top amount was maybe 20K peak. The impression I get from guilds and channels is that the number of ACTIVE players is decreasing. From the complaints I hear for PvE part of this is the endless boon grinds (especially Mod 4's which is even worse or at least more boring than Sharandar), and for PvP the fact that there is no matchmaking.
I can see 20k during module 2. Steam charts here show that 14k players were playing the game from Steam alone.
The Steam charts also solidify my assumptions that lots of players still hang on to this game and check out every new module, but the recent module seem to have done poorly in keeping the players as there is a very very steep decline right after its release.
A lot of people don't use steam or Arc; in fact I would think a lot of the veteran players dont.
A lot of the older players in the game quit years ago. A lot of the openbeta guilds are either dead or barely alive with 1-7 players online at a time. Steam has been the biggest entry-point to Neverwinter for months and months.
It is safe to assume that Steam accounts for at least 50% of the playerbase today.
Again, you can check all the instances and count the players in each one and you will have a rough estimate of how many players are playing at that particular time. It is not terribly far off from Steam's numbers
To me Module 4 is a big fail. Folks could put up with the dragon waits in SMALL quantities. Making the boons require 100 secrets/sigils AND having extremely low drop rates for good loot pushes people away from the game.
I know I just don't bother with the dragons anymore. Even LoL and SoT. People want to have a reasonable reward when they complete something. Handing out <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> rewards (bosses dropping blue loot and T1 epics is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>) as well as the junk that you get 99.9999% of the time from the chests DEMOTIVATES peoples.
Why on earth would they think people want to run these dungeons if all they can expect to get is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
Folks have had good suggestions on how to remedy this. One improvement if they don't want just outright up the drop rates is implement safety nets. Obviously the expectation isn't to get a belt on every run, but you shouldn't have to run a dungeon more than 50 times to get one.
Right, and I would think that 50% not using it is "a lot". If 14k were on using Steam, that leaves a lot that are not.
I agree though, many old players quit (many with ESO came out). But I see positives with the way the game is progressing, as well as some negatives:
Positives
- The classes are all finally getting some love
- It's actually better for your party to have a GF and DC in it now. I have recently ran some T2s with newly made GFs and DCs, and with the party averaging 9k to 11k, we're able to do the T2s pretty easily now. I think it's great having a balanced party makes the group better. Of course you can still do it with 5 of the same class too, but that's a benefit too.
Negative
- Excessive dailies that keep you from the 'fun' part of the game, which I believe for most people is either running dungeons with friends, or doing PvP.
Positives
- The classes are all finally getting some love
- It's actually better for your party to have a GF and DC in it now. I have recently ran some T2s with newly made GFs and DCs, and with the party averaging 9k to 11k, we're able to do the T2s pretty easily now. I think it's great having a balanced party makes the group better. Of course you can still do it with 5 of the same class too, but that's a benefit too.
Negative
- Excessive dailies that keep you from the 'fun' part of the game, which I believe for most people is either running dungeons with friends, or doing PvP.
A different outlook at the positive/negative:
Positive: A lot of players still care a little bit about this game. Loads of players came back for module 4 that the population doubled for a little while. When module 5 comes, we can expect to see this again
Negative: The population decreased by half when these players left after seeing module 4 was mostly dailies and RNG-gated loot without any real endgame mode introduced (heroic encounters with RNG-gates are closer to dailies than endgame)
It is safe to assume that Steam accounts for at least 50% of the playerbase today.
No, it absolutely is not. It is the opposite of safe, as assumptions go.
As an enthusiastic Steam user, with a large library, it is the first thing I install on a new gaming rig, I love it, it's brilliant; I have no axe to grind. However, it's an extremely poor fit when dealing with MMOs, who patch frequently and seldom push patches out to Steam- so the steam default install is usually many months out of date. If the steam client notices that anything is wrong, it will repair the install, degrading your up to date install to an old one. Then then game's own launcher will patch it back up to date, on startup.
Result? Double downloading at times. For this reason, a lot of smart people try to avoid getting their MMO client via Steam- even when they use Steam and have it running in the background while they're playing the MMO. So no, this is an impressively poor metric.
Its funny. Had this conversation in legit just a few weeks ago. Until a mod there ordered us to stop. Before that happened someone counted the number of players in PE alone. And it was over half what the people saying the game was 'dead' were claiming was all that was left. At 3am in the morning. LOL. They still kept saying it was dead.
The thing is this comes up from time to time in every game. A mod/expansion/patch comes out that someone doesn't like and they swear its the end of the game. That its in decline. That so many people quit it will never recover. Its been said in every game I've ever played. And I've never personally seen it actually be true. (Though I'm sure it has been in some game somewhere.)
Populations rise and fall. What one group of people hates another likes. PvP was brought up. The leaderboard isn't accurate. I know I haven't pvped since it was added. I checked for my characters. When I check with a character it shows up last. But its not there if I check with another character that is also last. Really don't think its showing everyone. I know my kids haven't pvped at all to even be on it. Speaking of which, school has been back for a month or so. That could be part of the 'seeming' decline.
But this is D&D. This is Forgotten Realms. People love it. Many will play it just for that. The only way (imo) for them to kill this game would be to let the bugs completely take over. And its not happening. Personally I think this is one of the better games out there. Plenty of other action-based games are riddled with bugs, lag, interface issues. Most of which Neverwinter seems to have avoided.
And it was over half what the people saying the game was 'dead' were claiming was all that was left. At 3am in the morning. LOL. They still kept saying it was dead.
Do bear in mind that "3am in the morning" (sic) is essentially a local concept.
Also, lack of bugs and interface issues.. Are you actually playing the same game? E-LOL chests anyone? Tried using UIScale other than one and interacting with vendors at all?
No, it absolutely is not. It is the opposite of safe, as assumptions go.
As an enthusiastic Steam user, with a large library, it is the first thing I install on a new gaming rig, I love it, it's brilliant; I have no axe to grind. However, it's an extremely poor fit when dealing with MMOs, who patch frequently and seldom push patches out to Steam- so the steam default install is usually many months out of date. If the steam client notices that anything is wrong, it will reapir the install, degrading your patched install to an old one. Then then game's own launcher will patch it back up to date.
Result? Double downloading at times. For this reason, a lot of smart people try to avoid getting their MMO client via Steam- even when they use Steam and have it running in the background while they're playing the MMO. So no, this is an impressively poor metric.
You don't really represent majority of the Steam Neverwinter players for one. I gave a safe 50% composition coming from Steam. Counting up the player from all the instances, the rough estimates do match up.
To me Module 4 is a big fail. Folks could put up with the dragon waits in SMALL quantities. Making the boons require 100 secrets/sigils AND having extremely low drop rates for good loot pushes people away from the game.
Yup. I have 6 active toons and I already decided that I'll get the first three boons and an artefact weapon for each one. That's it. Any more would be Too Much Grind. So I may never even see the Skirmish and Dungeon - which is a shame.
Do bear in mind that "3am in the morning" (sic) is essentially a local concept.
Also, lack of bugs and interface issues.. Are you actually playing the same game? E-LOL chests anyone? Tried using UIScale other than one and interacting with vendors at all?
3am time is a local concept yes. But checking 3am (us central) versus 8pm and there is a huge population difference. Probably even bigger for pacific or eastern times, where more players are. The point is the time that was checked was a very off time and usually has a much lower population online.
And yes, I know Neverwinter has bugs. Every game does. But the other 'action' games I've played are much worse. One of them has a bug that sometimes removes items from your inventory. Stuff you bought, just gone. The scale of the bugs in neverwinter doesn't even register to some of these. And the interface here is much better as well.
Don't get me wrong. I've complained about bugs here, and will continue to do so. But imo Neverwinter is way ahead of its direct competition in this regard. The problems we have here are minor compared to elsewhere.
Yup. I have 6 active toons and I already decided that I'll get the first three boons and an artefact weapon for each one. That's it. Any more would be Too Much Grind. So I may never even see the Skirmish and Dungeon - which is a shame.
Wow, I salute your determination. I am finding getting stuff unlocked on even a second character is like watching paint grow. I really want to get the skirmish and dungeon unlocked on my CW, so I can at least replace the CN weapon set on her, but it feels like such an uphill struggle right now.
Heck, I have one of every class, and they're all complete on mod 1 and mod 2 campaigns, but most of them couldn't even be bothered to complete IWD, much less the Timers On Dragons campaign slog.
Wow, I salute your determination. I am finding getting stuff unlocked on even a second character is like watching paint grow. I really want to get the skirmish and dungeon unlocked on my CW, so I can at least replace the CN weapon set on her, but it feels like such an uphill struggle right now.
Heck, I have one of every class, and they're all complete on mod 1 and mod 2 campaigns, but most of them couldn't even be bothered to complete IWD, much less the Timers On Dragons campaign slog.
I'm pretty much a solo player due to RL time constraints, so it's not like I have much else to do in game now that PvP is wrecked. And rotating which toon I'm working on keeps it reasonably fresh. Can't say I look forward to logging on each evening with particular enthusiasm, mind.
Comments
There is no denying that it is in steady decline though, if I was cryptic i would try and take a new approach for the future mods, something that would bring in new players.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
When swtor, lord of the rings online are viewed as "fails" and generally hidden from public view, it's surprising companies keep trying their hand at getting a piece of a pie, F2P is a safe way too go, but most companies do not know how to retain their customers, blizzard are clever because they focus on the gameplay and activities as well as the incentives and carrots, where most other MMOs just focus on the carrots and make skip on the gameplay.
For example each class in WoW (last i looked which was a long time ago) had a welcome role, and raids always included all classes in varying quantity, where in most other MMOs they skimp on balance or think balance just means everyone doing the same thing (e.g. here it seems to be damage).
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
It used to be fun last mod for most classes. Even a CW - but yes you needed PvP gear and spec.
This is however a HUGE failure on Cryptic's part - not providing a Dual Spec that was requested numerous times, so people can have a PvP and PvP spec as well, and change as needed.
PvP is hardly any fun these days though, people use all the broken <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> available in the game, glyphs being the prime example, and matchmaking is full dysfunctional, putting together 10K GS people with 20K ones.
It is a great shame we have come to this...
With few exceptions when Blizz screwed up and made buggy fights where stacking Rogues or whatever was most beneficial (fixed fast), what you say is still true.
There is a place for each class in WoW and people are content in their roles, without trying to be all DPS or all Tank and so on. Healing, DPS, Tanking are all necessary and cannot be skipped.
I think the thought is the extra time spent on server will lead to more purchases, but instead it leads to more attrition.
Everything you need to know about CW:
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?780981-Chem-s-CW-Compendium-Everything-you-need-to-know
MMOs in general are not in a good place right now.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
My guild saw that in micro, lots of people who had been on hiatus poked their noses in to see what the new mod was like. Very few of them actually stuck around to play it.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
I can see 20k during module 2. Steam charts here show that 14k players were playing the game from Steam alone.
The Steam charts also solidify my assumptions that lots of players still hang on to this game and check out every new module, but the recent module seem to have done poorly in keeping the players as there is a very very steep decline right after its release.
A lot of the older players in the game quit years ago. A lot of the openbeta guilds are either dead or barely alive with 1-7 players online at a time. Steam has been the biggest entry-point to Neverwinter for months and months.
It is safe to assume that Steam accounts for at least 50% of the playerbase today.
Again, you can check all the instances and count the players in each one and you will have a rough estimate of how many players are playing at that particular time. It is not terribly far off from Steam's numbers
I know I just don't bother with the dragons anymore. Even LoL and SoT. People want to have a reasonable reward when they complete something. Handing out <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> rewards (bosses dropping blue loot and T1 epics is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>) as well as the junk that you get 99.9999% of the time from the chests DEMOTIVATES peoples.
Why on earth would they think people want to run these dungeons if all they can expect to get is <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
Folks have had good suggestions on how to remedy this. One improvement if they don't want just outright up the drop rates is implement safety nets. Obviously the expectation isn't to get a belt on every run, but you shouldn't have to run a dungeon more than 50 times to get one.
I agree though, many old players quit (many with ESO came out). But I see positives with the way the game is progressing, as well as some negatives:
Positives
- The classes are all finally getting some love
- It's actually better for your party to have a GF and DC in it now. I have recently ran some T2s with newly made GFs and DCs, and with the party averaging 9k to 11k, we're able to do the T2s pretty easily now. I think it's great having a balanced party makes the group better. Of course you can still do it with 5 of the same class too, but that's a benefit too.
Negative
- Excessive dailies that keep you from the 'fun' part of the game, which I believe for most people is either running dungeons with friends, or doing PvP.
A different outlook at the positive/negative:
Positive: A lot of players still care a little bit about this game. Loads of players came back for module 4 that the population doubled for a little while. When module 5 comes, we can expect to see this again
Negative: The population decreased by half when these players left after seeing module 4 was mostly dailies and RNG-gated loot without any real endgame mode introduced (heroic encounters with RNG-gates are closer to dailies than endgame)
No, it absolutely is not. It is the opposite of safe, as assumptions go.
As an enthusiastic Steam user, with a large library, it is the first thing I install on a new gaming rig, I love it, it's brilliant; I have no axe to grind. However, it's an extremely poor fit when dealing with MMOs, who patch frequently and seldom push patches out to Steam- so the steam default install is usually many months out of date. If the steam client notices that anything is wrong, it will repair the install, degrading your up to date install to an old one. Then then game's own launcher will patch it back up to date, on startup.
Result? Double downloading at times. For this reason, a lot of smart people try to avoid getting their MMO client via Steam- even when they use Steam and have it running in the background while they're playing the MMO. So no, this is an impressively poor metric.
The thing is this comes up from time to time in every game. A mod/expansion/patch comes out that someone doesn't like and they swear its the end of the game. That its in decline. That so many people quit it will never recover. Its been said in every game I've ever played. And I've never personally seen it actually be true. (Though I'm sure it has been in some game somewhere.)
Populations rise and fall. What one group of people hates another likes. PvP was brought up. The leaderboard isn't accurate. I know I haven't pvped since it was added. I checked for my characters. When I check with a character it shows up last. But its not there if I check with another character that is also last. Really don't think its showing everyone. I know my kids haven't pvped at all to even be on it. Speaking of which, school has been back for a month or so. That could be part of the 'seeming' decline.
But this is D&D. This is Forgotten Realms. People love it. Many will play it just for that. The only way (imo) for them to kill this game would be to let the bugs completely take over. And its not happening. Personally I think this is one of the better games out there. Plenty of other action-based games are riddled with bugs, lag, interface issues. Most of which Neverwinter seems to have avoided.
Do bear in mind that "3am in the morning" (sic) is essentially a local concept.
Also, lack of bugs and interface issues.. Are you actually playing the same game? E-LOL chests anyone? Tried using UIScale other than one and interacting with vendors at all?
You don't really represent majority of the Steam Neverwinter players for one. I gave a safe 50% composition coming from Steam. Counting up the player from all the instances, the rough estimates do match up.
I do not agree with your premise
That is so very reassuring.
It isn't meant to be. I'd rather just take the estimate from instanced numbers rather than one Steam user's predisposition
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
3am time is a local concept yes. But checking 3am (us central) versus 8pm and there is a huge population difference. Probably even bigger for pacific or eastern times, where more players are. The point is the time that was checked was a very off time and usually has a much lower population online.
And yes, I know Neverwinter has bugs. Every game does. But the other 'action' games I've played are much worse. One of them has a bug that sometimes removes items from your inventory. Stuff you bought, just gone. The scale of the bugs in neverwinter doesn't even register to some of these. And the interface here is much better as well.
Don't get me wrong. I've complained about bugs here, and will continue to do so. But imo Neverwinter is way ahead of its direct competition in this regard. The problems we have here are minor compared to elsewhere.
Wow, I salute your determination. I am finding getting stuff unlocked on even a second character is like watching paint grow. I really want to get the skirmish and dungeon unlocked on my CW, so I can at least replace the CN weapon set on her, but it feels like such an uphill struggle right now.
Heck, I have one of every class, and they're all complete on mod 1 and mod 2 campaigns, but most of them couldn't even be bothered to complete IWD, much less the Timers On Dragons campaign slog.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder