Difficulty was increased and loot reduced in season 8, with the objective of preventing players from completing the season in a couple of days and leaving the game.
Did it work? I would say probably yes.
At Blizzard, they have the exact metrics and are certainly looking into them in detail to decide how to tune the next season. Steam data is available to everyone. It only concerns a limited number of players but when it comes to looking at the general trend, the sample is large enough and the conclusion can reliably be extrapolated to the total D4 community. No reason for Steam players to play more or less than BattleNet players.
The peak number of players is the same in S7 and S8. The newcomers have compensated the departures. The game was on sale shortly before the start of the season but that’s the usual practice.
The number of players during the first 2 weeks of season 8 is significantly higher than in S7. My estimate is around 15% more players in week 2.
However, from week 3, season 8 seems to start falling below season 7.
What to conclude? This part is a bit subjective, just my interpretation of the data.
Most players are still coming back at the start of a new season. I guess we know that when we read the forum. The number of players stayed high during the first 2 weeks of season 8, probably the time required to finish it for many. Lower drop rates of quality items don’t incentive to keep playing. S7 seems to have done a better job in that aspect.
They need to keep the game a bit fresh every season. It’s going to get staler and staler over time if every season feels relatively the same. New powers every season won’t be enough. The powers also need to feel like “hell ya! Look what I can do with these powers! This is awesome!” They need to be able to market the powers and whatever else is coming in the next season as a reason for us to look forward to something.
They are making the game even more difficult in s9. So it seems they liked the changes in s8. It was probably also very profitable to have 2 months of season and many wings sold.
As I said, it is just a comparison of player retention in S7 and S8. Steam and BattleNet players are not different. As long as you have data from a large enough sample of players, you can draw conclusions. The total number of players in S7 or S8 is unknown. Maybe it is still very high, maybe not but that is not the point of my post.
My hours went way up. This was the first season that I started from right from the beginning. My usual MO is to joing the season about halfway through, let my friend powerlevel me and gear me from their stashes, then I play for 2-3 weeks, complete the season journey, push pit as far as I can go, and then quit well before the season is done.
This season I level up up and geard my Spiritborn, my Rogue, then leveled all 5 main classes to level 60 in Hardcore to get the Horadric Tack in honor of season nine, leveled up and geared a Sorc, and all the while I was helping gear my sister’s Death Trap Rogue so she would would stop dying all the time because her Dance of Knives build sucked.
I am even more excited about season nine. My only issue this season is that I am having a bear of time completeing my two goals for the season. I am on the cusp of being able to complete a level 100 pit, but I am really trying and last night I was less than a minute off. The other goal, well, I’m probably not going to hit level 300 paragon level. I am 267 right now, and the grind is too much.
Been about the same for any other season honestly. Typically a handful of people on this forum, maybe 10 to 20 at best. Then those same people repeating themselves.
I didn’t see any of my extended D4 player group. Of the core three players I gave up after 3 days. The second about the same, though slightly longer. Only the 3rd played deeper into the season. Maybe 2 weeks.
The two of them bought the “battle pass” out of habit. I skipped it entirely even though I’m sitting on platinum. I stuck around long enough to clear season journey 5 and quit.
I have one friend who is still playing…but it is after PTR so understandable. I made a rogue just for fun, to try out a build wihtout DT. But it just hit 59 so today may be the last day I mess around on it.
I have 4, 2 in HC T4, 1 in T3 SC and 1 in sc hard.
But a very bias viewpoint. I do not doubt everyone was done with S7 at this point because of how ultra casual the season was. For me it was the shortest season clocking 50 hours.
I think the higest played season for me was back in season two. I think I clocked 500-600 hours.
Well I got bored way faster than normal due to the boring loot. Might just been extra unlucky but normally I do find some a 2 GA which I care to temper and master gamble but got just trash from all the lower bosses. Clan was empty way sooner than in s7, but they all come back when s9 starts.
That was an interesting anecdote, to be sure, but how many extra cosmetics did you purchase from the store or new reliquary or Berserk-D4 IP collab?
Blizzard doesn’t have a stock price anymore so wall street analysts don’t care about DAUs/MAUs and retention rates, except for the fact that players not in game are probably not microtransacting.
But neither your nor the OP or other posts mention anything about spending more money in the excess time you may have stayed around.
I checked out a lot faster than I did for S7. Because in S7 I was having blast, and incentivized enough to make multiple characters and knowing that I can gear them up to my standard of liking. And then have fun …
This season, and possibly the next , has killed most of that for me. Crafting mythic became a impossible unfun chore and, bosses immunity phases suucks so bad that I simply avoid doing harbinger, andariel … I was some what able to put up with duriel but that got old really fast too.
I rather chain spamming bosses when I need to and the game would just let me do that.
My character power also plays a huge role if I want to keep playing or not. If I feel weak all the time adding to the slower gameplay like boss immunity, that will be hard pass for me.
Doubtful, this has been one of the most gatekept, grindy POS seasons to date. The crossover, absolute trash, locking torments behind requirements, trash, over tuning the pits, trash, cosmetics for cash trash, removing xp ashes trash. Literallly everyone else i have played with has notlogged in in ocer two seasons. Blizzard might as well make this a mobile gatcha game since they have basically turned it into a cash grab.
I bought season passes in seasons, 4, 6, and 7. I skipped season 5. I did not purchase the season eight battle passes or reliquary or whatever it’s called. There was nothing I found interesting in it. It’s watered-down garbage. I hope next season is better, especially being themed around the Horadrim. I won’t hesitate to skip next season’s reliquary BS if it’s not up to snuff.
I also did not purchase anything to do with the Berserk collab. I was planning on getting something for a friend, but then the cosmetics were removed a day early. One of the rogue ones looked okay, but I don’t main rogue, and I like the pirate stuff better, so I didn’t get it.
I did purchase one item from the shop this season, a rogue accessory bundle that looks like golden pots hanging off the back and it came with an emote where you flip a gold coin. It’s cool and fits my pirate theme I’ve got going on most characters.