I craft my own kits. A lot of people didn't buy into crafting and haven't leveled it one bit. I did the 20 hour thing only and I'm already at 15 in most of the schools. Craft low level items. Use self crafted kits to upgrade. One can get epic quality even before it's mk X and it's incredibly cheaper than buying a mk XII and upgrading it for gold. In fact, get the mats from someone who wants a kit and keep the extras from crits. You don't even need to charge them for the service. The person gets semi cheap kits and you get free kits. Win/Win There's a lot of ways to upgrade on the cheap,
I don't understand all this need for crafting, I have tons of gear that is mk12 rare & very rare that I have picked up just from in game drops since I started playing, not just ship gear but ground gear also.
its no sweat to upgrade some of it to mk14, sure it would be good to get it epic but that's not worth the risk or the expense.
I aim to get two ships fully kitted out with mk14 rare/v.rare and one ground set also and I will do that on all 3 of my characters.
the rest of my ships will be fine with standard gear that is mostly mk10>mk12 rare, especially ships that are T4 and below for sure.
sure it will take me some time to achieve my goal but that's no problem, people seem to forget the idea of sto is to play the game, not to have all the biggest and best of everything so theres nothing to play for anymore.
I dare say there are some out there who might not be happy unless they can boast about how they are always coming in first place in every team game they play but I am happy just to play and have fun.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
First and foremost success is measure in dollars earned. If only 8,000 people purchased a Delta Operations Pack PW made $1 million in bonus item sales for the Quarter. By the time you factor in individual T6 ship sales, T5U Tokens, and all the money spent to Upgrade Equipment DR could easily be their most financially successful launch ever. And that is not even talking into account that T6 will be the play standard for the next few years for all three Factions, meaning even more sales as more people start to phase-out their Fed, Rom, and KDF T5/U ships for full T6s - especially as new Specialization Classes are added to the system.
Now was DR a good mechanical Launch? No, it was handled terribly by Cryptic, but that does not mean it was not a huge financial success for them. In the grand scheme of things people will eventually be looking back on DR's Launch with the same rose-colored glasses they currently look back at the LoR Launch with - and they will probably be complaining about how much the Launch of Cardassia Unleashed sucks compared to Delta Rising. .
Agree with your general sentiments, and as I said the use of Steam stats and anecdotal evidence isn't great for these sorts of reasons. However, it's really all we've got to go on, because Cryptic hasn't exactly been rushing in with further statements about how much extra activity has been generated as a result of the DR launch. I was around for LoR and remember the login disaster well, but information was flowing and patience paid off.
Yet, even if we had access to financial information, that though doesn't change the quality of information into a 'complete picture' - as someone said on another post, rather than buying a bunch of things happily, DR has pushed that person into making a series of 'grudge purchases' to keep their toon at all relevant for their playstyle. If what we generally saw was grudge purchasing, Cryptic could even find itself with a huge influx of money right now, only to see its usual figures dry up as people punish them later with withholding making pleasure purchases. If 'pack' purchases was made on the back of LoR's success (in terms of post-problem enjoyment) then future packs may not sell well as a result of the launch of DR and failure to communicate. Again, we don't know how much money is going to Cryptic, let alone how much is pleasure purchasing and how much is grudge purchasing. We're all operating with sketchy information, including Cryptic. And these sorts of reasons is why I think we won't really see the end result until January at least. Simply, at this early stage, with early information, I wouldn't be buying the "most successful launch ever" PR spin.
This is your opinion and don't match the game player base as a whole.
Take into effect that I only play less than 4 hours per week. During that time, I got my Fed to Lv52, KDF Lv51 and Romulan to Lv51. Since the game launched. My KDF and Romulan should be Lv52 after I play next weekend. As that is when I usually have time to play.
Compared to what time I have to play. I say I'm leveling really nicely. Specially working on 3 characters to boot.
That isn't really a good indicator unfortunately, level 50 to 53 is pretty fast, I hit level 51 with 2x 10min logins to fill my doffing slots. After you hit level 53 there is a massive xp hike to 54 even bigger for 55 and then you are on the steep side of a bell curve in terms of xp per level there after.
I decided for chuckles and gaffores to upgrade my Ferengi energy whip, and I did to Level XIII "very rare" and it didnt cost me anything apart from 1000 dil. and a couple of upgrade tokens.
I'm sure the cost of upgrading your whip to Mk XIII VR would have been 4 superior tokens @ 1075 dilithium per application. Even using 2 of the 2x boosters that would still be 2150 dilithium total, more if you paid past the time gate. With the new system it is pretty easy to miss the true cost of upgrading items, so best to exercise a modicum of caution.
@Mighty_BOB done a ton of data gathering on the crafting system, during beta, I produced a condensed version of his sheet. Please make sure you are fully aware of what it costs you.
Steam Charts says October led to a 42.83 % rise in average player count.
You probably have another source for the information.
I get that you don't like the leveling speed. Me neither. But that doesn't mean it actually is reflected in player counts. Maybe it takes more time to manifest. But for now, it did not.
I like that you mention steamchart, and fail to make the only correct observation with it. You are reading the numbers below, and obviously, DR led to a peak in player activity, thus the 43% increase. It was +58.68% with LoR, just saying.
Anyway, it doesn't show the drop in player after DR launch, only the hype with the release. We will have that next month.
If you check the graph, as of today 11/03, we had 3544 peak players, which is very close to what we had before DR, when there was not much to do in STO and many people are waiting for the expansion/season and not playing.
And this is with all the events and free stuff giveaway.
I'll just list them here, so you see there is definitely something wrong.
-Free lobis.
-Free lobis, delta shuttle and keys for France/Germany/Austria/Switzerland
-Double dil event, probably the most popular of all.
-Mirror Universe event, with a unique weapon, 50K dil and a lot of marks. An event which is also liked by players.
That's probably more events in the past weeks than in the past months. And they are very busy working on the bugs introduced by the expansion.
Anyway, here is the chart. And this is not a decline in player, it's a drop. If it was a mountain, I wouldn't ski on it, it would be too dangerous.
My starter toon just made lvl 51 after doing 'everything old is new' 5 times to get lvl appropriate weapons. He hasn't done a mission since lvl 20 popped and I unlocked KDF play. The other 30 levels were from lore turn ins.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
I haven't seen any figures to help provide an answer to that - even "Player statistics" from Cryptic tend to focus on things like number of toons, number of ships etc. without going into things like "number of inactives".
Thus the Steam stats are useful as indicators, but not as counts. Having said that, it does represent a sample of players.
Basically: Steam stats are useful to see comparative movements or differences in one period to another, but to some extent you have to ignore the 'raw' numbers because that's the sample size, not the population.
Is it useful within this context? I see no reason why not. Few datasets are ever released for anything (including Government stats) that are not a sample from a population except the Government Census... and even that tends to only presume that people are telling the truth. At least Steam's stats are a basic "This many people logged in at this time stamp".
I haven't seen any figures to help provide an answer to that - even "Player statistics" from Cryptic tend to focus on things like number of toons, number of ships etc. without going into things like "number of inactives".
Thus the Steam stats are useful as indicators, but not as counts. Having said that, it does represent a sample of players.
Basically: Steam stats are useful to see comparative movements or differences in one period to another, but to some extent you have to ignore the 'raw' numbers because that's the sample size, not the population.
Is it useful within this context? I see no reason why not. Few datasets are ever released for anything (including Government stats) that are not a sample from a population except the Government Census... and even that tends to only presume that people are telling the truth. At least Steam's stats are a basic "This many people logged in at this time stamp".
This. While incomplete, the Steam Data is the only easy-to-understand, publicly available measure of player activity. It is perfectly reasonable to use the trends in the data to draw conclusions about overall trends in the playerbase; anything else is conjecture without the ARC/classic launcher stats (technically just the classic launcher - ARC is basically an overcomplicated bloatware wrapper for the old launcher anyway) to compare to.
This. While incomplete, the Steam Data is the only easy-to-understand, publicly available measure of player activity. It is perfectly reasonable to use the trends in the data to draw conclusions about overall trends in the playerbase; anything else is conjecture without the ARC/classic launcher stats (technically just the classic launcher - ARC is basically an overcomplicated bloatware wrapper for the old launcher anyway) to compare to.
Indeed, I also feel Steam's simplistic sample is likely more trustworthy as a relative marker, compared to any figures Cryptic would be inclined to publish. Not that you could fault Cryptic for producing figures with a specific bias, they are a business after all.
The problem is Superior Kits (with the new queue revamps) are essentially unobtainable. Which means 12k dilithium PER ITEM to upgrade them to Mk XIII. It even MORE expensive to go to Mk XIV. You are looking at several HUNDRED THOUSAND dilithium just to upgrade ONE character to ONE full set of gear.
Want to go for Rarity increase? Better sell your first born to PWE now...
And unfortunately, from my observation, all those upgrades all those Intel powers and all those tier 6 ships: They do not kick in for 9 out of 10 players and hardly correspond with the advance mode being released and old elite being replaced. Its as if one event gets the wrong tools for the task at hand. One needs a good set for ground and a 15k build for space. Rest is a waist of recourses for most players. But where to get them? Empty queue lists?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
I like that you mention steamchart, and fail to make the only correct observation with it. You are reading the numbers below, and obviously, DR led to a peak in player activity, thus the 43% increase. It was +58.68% with LoR, just saying.
Anyway, it doesn't show the drop in player after DR launch, only the hype with the release. We will have that next month.
If you check the graph, as of today 11/03, we had 3544 peak players, which is very close to what we had before DR, when there was not much to do in STO and many people are waiting for the expansion/season and not playing.
And this is with all the events and free stuff giveaway.
I'll just list them here, so you see there is definitely something wrong.
-Free lobis.
-Free lobis, delta shuttle and keys for France/Germany/Austria/Switzerland
-Double dil event, probably the most popular of all.
-Mirror Universe event, with a unique weapon, 50K dil and a lot of marks. An event which is also liked by players.
That's probably more events in the past weeks than in the past months. And they are very busy working on the bugs introduced by the expansion.
Anyway, here is the chart. And this is not a decline in player, it's a drop. If it was a mountain, I wouldn't ski on it, it would be too dangerous.
I consider "peak" players not very relevant. Peaks represent outliers. Why would they be more important than the average player count?
And even if the peak is more or similar relevant- the peak players have also risen in October, it was at the highest level since June 2013.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I consider "peak" players not very relevant. Peaks represent outliers. Why would they be more important than the average player count?
And even if the peak is more or similar relevant- the peak players have also risen with October, it's at the highest level since June 2013.
Both are incomplete, and both are useful.
Within the context and with the limitations mentioned in my earlier comments, "Peak" is representative of "the most number of players on at any one time" and can show if there were "most on at X period" was comparatively more or less than "most on at Y period".
Average is useful in terms of being a stand-in for "hours played", and again as comparison "there are fewer hours being played at X time period than at Y time period".
It should be noted that neither "peak" nor "average" tells you anything at all about the type of player on.
Let's say that hypothetically, we were to consider a game's player base (not STO, but let's call this hypothetical game "Tiny Game") to consist of regular players who come in regularly and play substantial hours every week or daily; casual players who come in sometimes if there's something on (including 'migrating birds' who go from one game to another, play whatever's new and move on); and New players who have never played that game before. Let's say that an average day has 100 players consisting 50% regulars, 40% casuals, and 10% new players. The 50 regulars are a pool of 50, the 40 casuals are from a pool of 120, and the 10 new players are replacing regulars and casuals creating a status quo in numbers.
Then there's a big launch which after a full day, fails. The first day pulls in the 50 regulars, the full pool of 120 casuals, and the 10 new players as per usual. The failure means the day after you've got an "average players" for the day of +80%. Looks great... but it didn't actually pull in anyone new. If the casuals only played half the time, you've got 50+60+10=120 showing a +20% average players.
The next day, let's say the casuals are all ecstatic. Rather than the 40 as usual, it grows to 80 despite the problems. But the regulars drop by half to 25 and the new players can't even get on at all. So you've lost half your regulars and you've damaged your replacement stream. Yet, your figures show a +5% average on the day before release suggesting a sinking.
The problem only becomes obvious when the New players don't eventuate, further eroding the numbers by 10 per day. But you don't see this till further down the track: trying to assess this on day 1, 2, or even 3 might be a problem. Any which way, it's limited information because you've got Peak numbers and Average numbers only, not player groups.
I could keep going but I think the point is clear: it's vital to look at the whole set of figures and analyze them to understand what they do, and importantly do not show you. Just going for the one with a "%" at the end won't remove that risk, and the +X% tells us nothing of player intention or future intentions. At some point, you have to look at other information.
At the end however, the only reason why the Steam stats were even brought up was to counter the argument being made that people should not express dissatisfaction with Delta Rising because it was so terribly successful. This argument doesn't hold based on the problems expressed by players, by queues, and the Steam stats show it doesn't hold based on player login statistical comparisons either.
At the end however, the only reason why the Steam stats were even brought up was to counter the argument being made that people should not express dissatisfaction with Delta Rising because it was so terribly successful. This argument doesn't hold based on the problems expressed by players, by queues, and the Steam stats show it doesn't hold based on player login statistical comparisons either.
The reason I brought it up was because the OP of this thread claimed that people played less because of a general dissatisfaction of the game.
But there are no metrics to support his. It was just an attempt to make his opinion seem more relevant. But it's a very questionable argumentation technique if it is not based on actual metrics. It's just a kind of "scare" tactic. "Oh woe, the game is dying if you don't do something that is more to my liking".
It doesn't change his opinion, however, and he can voice that opinion. But avoid making unsubstantiated claims. His opinion is his opinion, unless he for some reason lies about how he feels about the game, it can be assumed true. And it can be grounds for a worthy discussion IMO.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
The reason I brought it up was because the OP of this thread claimed that people played less because of a general dissatisfaction of the game.
But there are no metrics to support his. It was just an attempt to make his opinion seem more relevant. But it's a very questionable argumentation technique if it is not based on actual metrics. It's just a kind of "scare" tactic. "Oh woe, the game is dying if you don't do something that is more to my liking".
It doesn't change his opinion, however, and he can voice that opinion. But avoid making unsubstantiated claims. His opinion is his opinion, unless he for some reason lies about how he feels about the game, it can be assumed true. And it can be grounds for a worthy discussion IMO.
There wouldn't be metrics either, unless someone worked out a way to create a numerical measure of player motivations and behaviours and then undertook a measurement of that. Cryptic could do that using market research such as surveys and polls, and could also easily use metrics in-house with the figures they have (although this wouldn't give them satisfaction metrics either, just spending and logging/play behaviours).
I think I mentioned much earlier in this thread that 'metrics' is the wrong word for information like the PvE queues, fleet info, instance numbers, and forum sentiment. However, these still remain anecdotal evidence and is part of what builds up the full picture. Using the information we've got, if the Steam stats showed say, an increase in player numbers that made LoR seem like a blip, and the PvE queues rocking, then complaints in Forum would suggest that a small group of players are disgruntled but pulled back to this location. If the PvE queues were still dead and a huge and maintained influx of players, then we could say that everyone's playing through DR material. In each case, you have to use whatever information you have to help determine what might be happening. Relying solely on stats because they're 'metrics' and dismissing anything else as 'unsubstantiated' doesn't help you reach better conclusions. Even worse, it opens you up to being misled (<- a bit of "Yes Prime Minister" levity).
Or to put it the TL : DR way, if you arbitrarily limit your info sources, you'll have even less information to draw from, and increase the possibility of getting your conclusions wrong.
Like I said, the OP's thing about 'metrics' wasn't the right word, and we have to be careful about 'what' conclusions we can draw. But a conclusion like "there's more people then ever, everyone's happy, the place is rocking, and there's only teething troubles" just doesn't seem to be supported by the evidence.
Here's a metric you can check. Go count the numberof ships by the gate in Tau Dewa. If there are less than the 40 there used to be daily, then there are fewer people around.
People that used to play multiple toons (vast majority of playerbase) are now only buying stuff for that 1 toon that they are going to be leveling for months instead of 3 or 4 or 10 of their toons.
Congratulations, we are now leveling at a snail's pace on a single toon and you are losing a ton of money because nobody is going to buy stuff for additional toons that will take months to level and upgrade, which will be months from now after they level their main toon (if they stick around that long).
Because of Delta Rising and Cryptic's decision making, PvE is dying more and more every day, and PvP is all but dead. Even the roleplayers are leaving.
Great fiscal strategy.
.. ???
theres a lot of nobody in the mirror event. Theres a lot of other nobodys in the ground stuff looking for purple upgrade items. And even the old junk like CC & IC are being played. I see hordes of people everywhere.
And they are playing multiple toons. An obvious issue is affording upgrades on a larger # of characters but people are working the problem -- partly by playing all their toons in the mirror to get a few hundred k dil for upgrades...
snails pace? Well, if you expect to level in one day, I suppose. I went from 55 to 58 yesterday and that was off and on playing not a marathon. Ill get 59 playing a bit this week (weekdays I have far less time). But without exploiting or grinding I will hit 60 in less than 40 hours of working on leveling, is that so bad? Months? Only if you play an hour a day and spend half of that talking instead of playing.
cant speak for pvp but I suspect many pvp players are busy upgrading and leveling still.
I don't see it. I do see some people rage quitting, as always happens in every game when something changes. I also see returning players and new players. I don't see the gloom and doom dead game. I see people buying new lifetime subs. I see a lot of people aggravated at the buggy, low content, grindy expansion, but they still play.
I don't see it. I do see some people rage quitting, as always happens in every game when something changes. I also see returning players and new players. I don't see the gloom and doom dead game. I see people buying new lifetime subs. I see a lot of people aggravated at the buggy, low content, grindy expansion, but they still play.
You and me both. It is hard to take anyone around here seriously when they say one thing, then continue to do the opposite.
I m part of a fairly large fleet. Before the DR launch we would have at minimum around 30 players online at any given time. that number spiked for a couple of days after DR launched but since then I rarely see more than 3 fleet members online at once.
I think they lost a lot of money and losing a lot of players. A lot!! Look at the queues and zone chat, they are almost dead even midday or night. A few people are picking advance and elite queues.
The rewards suck to the extreme. Playing on elite is almost not worth it. Advance was the old elite on steroids.
Increasing HP on NPC's only encourages more DPS not various styles of gameplay or tactics.
I think they lost a lot of money and losing a lot of players. A lot!! Look at the queues and zone chat, they are almost dead even midday or night. A few people are picking advance and elite queues.
The rewards suck to the extreme. Playing on elite is almost not worth it. Advance was the old elite on steroids.
Increasing HP on NPC's only encourages more DPS not various styles of gameplay or tactics.
Unfixable or ego ran amok...I'm sure they can still fix it if they rectify the biggest nerf ever!
Almost since the introduction of DR , it has been "raining gifts" .
Dil weekend .
Free Lobi & Keys .
Marks weekend .
Shotgun grind .
All of the above within 6 weeks of the introduction DR .
I'm not saying that's suspicious ... , but that's suspicious . :cool:
... ppl only treat you this good if they want something ...
The Mirror Event is indicative of a problem. That was not on the calendar at all until the update. Surprising? Maybe but it still leans toward another carrot because people didn't believe the hype and only got even more pissed off after Tau Dewa Gate and the further nerfing of already abysmal XP. People maybe playing other things in game, there could even be more people playing, but if they aren't buying sh** it doesn't matter.
However, the metrics for what people are spending on is spot on for altoholics like me. I used to play 6 toons. Now I'm down to two. I'm doing every bit of dilithium things I can just to keep up with upgrades but I've decided after this that's it. No more buying Zen when this is over because it's just not worthit anymore.
Basically Cryptic pulled an Arenanet. Design your game to be relatively easy for alts in the beginning then TRIBBLE over the veterans so that they no longer play other factions.
Too bad too because someone actually helped me buy the package for the ships for DR and I now have no desire to play my Klingon. smh
Comments
I don't understand all this need for crafting, I have tons of gear that is mk12 rare & very rare that I have picked up just from in game drops since I started playing, not just ship gear but ground gear also.
its no sweat to upgrade some of it to mk14, sure it would be good to get it epic but that's not worth the risk or the expense.
I aim to get two ships fully kitted out with mk14 rare/v.rare and one ground set also and I will do that on all 3 of my characters.
the rest of my ships will be fine with standard gear that is mostly mk10>mk12 rare, especially ships that are T4 and below for sure.
sure it will take me some time to achieve my goal but that's no problem, people seem to forget the idea of sto is to play the game, not to have all the biggest and best of everything so theres nothing to play for anymore.
I dare say there are some out there who might not be happy unless they can boast about how they are always coming in first place in every team game they play but I am happy just to play and have fun.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Agree with your general sentiments, and as I said the use of Steam stats and anecdotal evidence isn't great for these sorts of reasons. However, it's really all we've got to go on, because Cryptic hasn't exactly been rushing in with further statements about how much extra activity has been generated as a result of the DR launch. I was around for LoR and remember the login disaster well, but information was flowing and patience paid off.
Yet, even if we had access to financial information, that though doesn't change the quality of information into a 'complete picture' - as someone said on another post, rather than buying a bunch of things happily, DR has pushed that person into making a series of 'grudge purchases' to keep their toon at all relevant for their playstyle. If what we generally saw was grudge purchasing, Cryptic could even find itself with a huge influx of money right now, only to see its usual figures dry up as people punish them later with withholding making pleasure purchases. If 'pack' purchases was made on the back of LoR's success (in terms of post-problem enjoyment) then future packs may not sell well as a result of the launch of DR and failure to communicate. Again, we don't know how much money is going to Cryptic, let alone how much is pleasure purchasing and how much is grudge purchasing. We're all operating with sketchy information, including Cryptic. And these sorts of reasons is why I think we won't really see the end result until January at least. Simply, at this early stage, with early information, I wouldn't be buying the "most successful launch ever" PR spin.
That isn't really a good indicator unfortunately, level 50 to 53 is pretty fast, I hit level 51 with 2x 10min logins to fill my doffing slots. After you hit level 53 there is a massive xp hike to 54 even bigger for 55 and then you are on the steep side of a bell curve in terms of xp per level there after.
I'm sure the cost of upgrading your whip to Mk XIII VR would have been 4 superior tokens @ 1075 dilithium per application. Even using 2 of the 2x boosters that would still be 2150 dilithium total, more if you paid past the time gate. With the new system it is pretty easy to miss the true cost of upgrading items, so best to exercise a modicum of caution.
@Mighty_BOB done a ton of data gathering on the crafting system, during beta, I produced a condensed version of his sheet. Please make sure you are fully aware of what it costs you.
[url]Http://bit.ly/1x3BGMT[/url]
Anyway, it doesn't show the drop in player after DR launch, only the hype with the release. We will have that next month.
If you check the graph, as of today 11/03, we had 3544 peak players, which is very close to what we had before DR, when there was not much to do in STO and many people are waiting for the expansion/season and not playing.
And this is with all the events and free stuff giveaway.
I'll just list them here, so you see there is definitely something wrong.
-Free lobis.
-Free lobis, delta shuttle and keys for France/Germany/Austria/Switzerland
-Double dil event, probably the most popular of all.
-Mirror Universe event, with a unique weapon, 50K dil and a lot of marks. An event which is also liked by players.
That's probably more events in the past weeks than in the past months. And they are very busy working on the bugs introduced by the expansion.
Anyway, here is the chart. And this is not a decline in player, it's a drop. If it was a mountain, I wouldn't ski on it, it would be too dangerous.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
I haven't seen any figures to help provide an answer to that - even "Player statistics" from Cryptic tend to focus on things like number of toons, number of ships etc. without going into things like "number of inactives".
Thus the Steam stats are useful as indicators, but not as counts. Having said that, it does represent a sample of players.
Basically: Steam stats are useful to see comparative movements or differences in one period to another, but to some extent you have to ignore the 'raw' numbers because that's the sample size, not the population.
Is it useful within this context? I see no reason why not. Few datasets are ever released for anything (including Government stats) that are not a sample from a population except the Government Census... and even that tends to only presume that people are telling the truth. At least Steam's stats are a basic "This many people logged in at this time stamp".
This. While incomplete, the Steam Data is the only easy-to-understand, publicly available measure of player activity. It is perfectly reasonable to use the trends in the data to draw conclusions about overall trends in the playerbase; anything else is conjecture without the ARC/classic launcher stats (technically just the classic launcher - ARC is basically an overcomplicated bloatware wrapper for the old launcher anyway) to compare to.
Indeed, I also feel Steam's simplistic sample is likely more trustworthy as a relative marker, compared to any figures Cryptic would be inclined to publish. Not that you could fault Cryptic for producing figures with a specific bias, they are a business after all.
And unfortunately, from my observation, all those upgrades all those Intel powers and all those tier 6 ships: They do not kick in for 9 out of 10 players and hardly correspond with the advance mode being released and old elite being replaced. Its as if one event gets the wrong tools for the task at hand. One needs a good set for ground and a 15k build for space. Rest is a waist of recourses for most players. But where to get them? Empty queue lists?
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
looks like the start of a great thread.
I consider "peak" players not very relevant. Peaks represent outliers. Why would they be more important than the average player count?
And even if the peak is more or similar relevant- the peak players have also risen in October, it was at the highest level since June 2013.
Both are incomplete, and both are useful.
Within the context and with the limitations mentioned in my earlier comments, "Peak" is representative of "the most number of players on at any one time" and can show if there were "most on at X period" was comparatively more or less than "most on at Y period".
Average is useful in terms of being a stand-in for "hours played", and again as comparison "there are fewer hours being played at X time period than at Y time period".
It should be noted that neither "peak" nor "average" tells you anything at all about the type of player on.
Let's say that hypothetically, we were to consider a game's player base (not STO, but let's call this hypothetical game "Tiny Game") to consist of regular players who come in regularly and play substantial hours every week or daily; casual players who come in sometimes if there's something on (including 'migrating birds' who go from one game to another, play whatever's new and move on); and New players who have never played that game before. Let's say that an average day has 100 players consisting 50% regulars, 40% casuals, and 10% new players. The 50 regulars are a pool of 50, the 40 casuals are from a pool of 120, and the 10 new players are replacing regulars and casuals creating a status quo in numbers.
Then there's a big launch which after a full day, fails. The first day pulls in the 50 regulars, the full pool of 120 casuals, and the 10 new players as per usual. The failure means the day after you've got an "average players" for the day of +80%. Looks great... but it didn't actually pull in anyone new. If the casuals only played half the time, you've got 50+60+10=120 showing a +20% average players.
The next day, let's say the casuals are all ecstatic. Rather than the 40 as usual, it grows to 80 despite the problems. But the regulars drop by half to 25 and the new players can't even get on at all. So you've lost half your regulars and you've damaged your replacement stream. Yet, your figures show a +5% average on the day before release suggesting a sinking.
The problem only becomes obvious when the New players don't eventuate, further eroding the numbers by 10 per day. But you don't see this till further down the track: trying to assess this on day 1, 2, or even 3 might be a problem. Any which way, it's limited information because you've got Peak numbers and Average numbers only, not player groups.
I could keep going but I think the point is clear: it's vital to look at the whole set of figures and analyze them to understand what they do, and importantly do not show you. Just going for the one with a "%" at the end won't remove that risk, and the +X% tells us nothing of player intention or future intentions. At some point, you have to look at other information.
At the end however, the only reason why the Steam stats were even brought up was to counter the argument being made that people should not express dissatisfaction with Delta Rising because it was so terribly successful. This argument doesn't hold based on the problems expressed by players, by queues, and the Steam stats show it doesn't hold based on player login statistical comparisons either.
The reason I brought it up was because the OP of this thread claimed that people played less because of a general dissatisfaction of the game.
But there are no metrics to support his. It was just an attempt to make his opinion seem more relevant. But it's a very questionable argumentation technique if it is not based on actual metrics. It's just a kind of "scare" tactic. "Oh woe, the game is dying if you don't do something that is more to my liking".
It doesn't change his opinion, however, and he can voice that opinion. But avoid making unsubstantiated claims. His opinion is his opinion, unless he for some reason lies about how he feels about the game, it can be assumed true. And it can be grounds for a worthy discussion IMO.
There wouldn't be metrics either, unless someone worked out a way to create a numerical measure of player motivations and behaviours and then undertook a measurement of that. Cryptic could do that using market research such as surveys and polls, and could also easily use metrics in-house with the figures they have (although this wouldn't give them satisfaction metrics either, just spending and logging/play behaviours).
I think I mentioned much earlier in this thread that 'metrics' is the wrong word for information like the PvE queues, fleet info, instance numbers, and forum sentiment. However, these still remain anecdotal evidence and is part of what builds up the full picture. Using the information we've got, if the Steam stats showed say, an increase in player numbers that made LoR seem like a blip, and the PvE queues rocking, then complaints in Forum would suggest that a small group of players are disgruntled but pulled back to this location. If the PvE queues were still dead and a huge and maintained influx of players, then we could say that everyone's playing through DR material. In each case, you have to use whatever information you have to help determine what might be happening. Relying solely on stats because they're 'metrics' and dismissing anything else as 'unsubstantiated' doesn't help you reach better conclusions. Even worse, it opens you up to being misled (<- a bit of "Yes Prime Minister" levity).
Or to put it the TL : DR way, if you arbitrarily limit your info sources, you'll have even less information to draw from, and increase the possibility of getting your conclusions wrong.
Like I said, the OP's thing about 'metrics' wasn't the right word, and we have to be careful about 'what' conclusions we can draw. But a conclusion like "there's more people then ever, everyone's happy, the place is rocking, and there's only teething troubles" just doesn't seem to be supported by the evidence.
Why would I look at my friend's list? His list is his own business and none of mine.
Oh--you mean "friends list." Those darn apostrophes! How do they work?
Anyway, all those are anecdotal evidence--and anecdotal evidence isn't evidence.
.. ???
theres a lot of nobody in the mirror event. Theres a lot of other nobodys in the ground stuff looking for purple upgrade items. And even the old junk like CC & IC are being played. I see hordes of people everywhere.
And they are playing multiple toons. An obvious issue is affording upgrades on a larger # of characters but people are working the problem -- partly by playing all their toons in the mirror to get a few hundred k dil for upgrades...
snails pace? Well, if you expect to level in one day, I suppose. I went from 55 to 58 yesterday and that was off and on playing not a marathon. Ill get 59 playing a bit this week (weekdays I have far less time). But without exploiting or grinding I will hit 60 in less than 40 hours of working on leveling, is that so bad? Months? Only if you play an hour a day and spend half of that talking instead of playing.
cant speak for pvp but I suspect many pvp players are busy upgrading and leveling still.
I don't see it. I do see some people rage quitting, as always happens in every game when something changes. I also see returning players and new players. I don't see the gloom and doom dead game. I see people buying new lifetime subs. I see a lot of people aggravated at the buggy, low content, grindy expansion, but they still play.
You and me both. It is hard to take anyone around here seriously when they say one thing, then continue to do the opposite.
Dil weekend .
Free Lobi & Keys .
Marks weekend .
Shotgun grind .
All of the above within 6 weeks of the introduction DR .
I'm not saying that's suspicious ... , but that's suspicious . :cool:
... ppl only treat you this good if they want something ...
LOL....Best expansion ever!
The rewards suck to the extreme. Playing on elite is almost not worth it. Advance was the old elite on steroids.
Increasing HP on NPC's only encourages more DPS not various styles of gameplay or tactics.
Unfixable or ego ran amok...I'm sure they can still fix it if they rectify the biggest nerf ever!
The Mirror Event is indicative of a problem. That was not on the calendar at all until the update. Surprising? Maybe but it still leans toward another carrot because people didn't believe the hype and only got even more pissed off after Tau Dewa Gate and the further nerfing of already abysmal XP. People maybe playing other things in game, there could even be more people playing, but if they aren't buying sh** it doesn't matter.
However, the metrics for what people are spending on is spot on for altoholics like me. I used to play 6 toons. Now I'm down to two. I'm doing every bit of dilithium things I can just to keep up with upgrades but I've decided after this that's it. No more buying Zen when this is over because it's just not worthit anymore.
Basically Cryptic pulled an Arenanet. Design your game to be relatively easy for alts in the beginning then TRIBBLE over the veterans so that they no longer play other factions.
Too bad too because someone actually helped me buy the package for the ships for DR and I now have no desire to play my Klingon. smh