Eh, no it doesn’t illustrate that at all. Can’t conclude how many are choosing not to play from a steam chart.
Some people, no matter if I think they are right or wrong, think they prefer the end result part of the gameplay.
Also why we keep seeing the demands (and sadly the devs giving into them) of faster lvling, faster gearing etc. (comically enough making seasons more like eternal, a classic example of giving nobody what they want, neither the eternal or the season players, when one mode attempts to encompass both)
Now, I am generally not one to argue that developers should give players what they think they want, but in this particular case it just seems weird and contrarian for them not to do it.
You’re all concerning yourselves with metrics you shouldn’t concern yourselves with. Acting like games like Diablo or PoE need to optimize how many people are playing at any given time is exactly why we get half-baked games like Diablo IV, where more people are left unsatisfied than not.
There will always be more people who could potentially be playing a game, and while player numbers are certainly important to a game’s growth and sustainability, achieving that isn’t done through arbitrarily forcing in designs that you think will appeal to the widest number of individuals. My favorite example of this is Monster Hunter, a franchise that historically performed so poorly in the West that Capcom considered not bringing it over here for a time. That franchise did not become popular because of an appeal to Western expectations, but rather through iterative updates within each entry that people eventually learned to appreciate. Now the game is Capcom’s second bestselling franchise.
Maybe Path of Exile could have more players if it didn’t do seasonal resets. We don’t know and we likely will never know. Despite this, the game continues to grow with it surpassing its peak player counts on Steam year after year. It has grown through its own merits, so maybe we shouldn’t sit here and wonder how GGG, or even Blizzard for that matter, should min/max the highest number of players possible. That’s a goose chase that will never end.
Oh, I strongly agree with that. You were the one who brought up these charts though.
They should have content parity between Eternal and Season even if it did not bring a single additional player in.
Not having content parity is exactly that haf baked game pleasing nobody, since all the positive that seasons could bring for those who like fresh starts, are being destroyed by having to be acceptable for the people who dont want that fresh start.
He also brought them up, but I wasn’t arguing with him now
In any case, my point is, this singular focus on seasons, is a part of how more people are left unsatisfied. Both among people who like seasons (since they are getting a half baked version of seasons, in the attempt to cater to everyone) and those who do not like seasons.
A game can’t, and shouldn’t try to cater to everyone, as it just leads to blandness. But in this case, it would be free to offer all game content to everyone, since the content is already made. Just add it to Eternal too. There would be no downsides.
Sure, and your answer was “look at the steam charts”?
Heck, you also seem to argue that these things lead to less people playing, I dont think we are even disagreeing:
seasons in Arpg kinda make sense , u start fresh again , with a new season mechanic , new content and u are again at lvl 1 , 0 gear
if arpgs removed the seasons , then they will be forced to add more lvls or ilvls , torment II , III …every patch , and new players will end like in Lost ark playing weeks only to find that they are always “behind” , and never catch up with players that started on day 1.
Lost ark give boosts , and u end 1 “expansion” behind , with this characters u get all “aspects” for free ,a full set of gear , and all “glyps” (gems) are level 7 for free too. But after 3 months u lost all that free stuff… so u better get geared in those months otherwise GL.
I dont think that would be some guaranteed consequence.
That said, they definitely should not remove seasons. Just not making it the only real way to play. Season and Eternal could exist just fine side by side, with the same content in them. Hell, Eternal could even have the silly season passes for those who care.
But yeah, stay the heck away from endless power progression. That is much worse.
I’m genuinely curious what other answer you think could I have given to someone implying less people are playing ARPGs, all because of a particular thing about the genre. It feels pretty apt to bring up.
That is not what I stated in the slightest. In fact, this is what I stated about two paragraphs down from what you quoted:
You’re skewing what I said to prove a point. My point was that there will always be a higher number to chase after, and if we are to even assume seasonal resets are in part why more people are not playing ARPGs, attempting to cast a wider net is not guaranteed to secure that number. If anything, it may only create more issues.
There are several reasons why ARPGs may not be more popular than they currently are and I don’t think seasonal resets fall within even the top 3. There’s the issue of accessibility. Most ARPGs exist as PC exclusives, which in turn cuts an entire market off from accessing them.
There’s also the issue of complexity. Many games, like PoE, are not beginner friendly. They throw their players into the deep end without any cohesive tutorial to assist them. Many people probably log off of PoE at the sight of the skill tree alone, if not its immensely confusing gem skill system.
Finally, there’s also the fact that many ARPGs with the exception of LE, PoE, and Diablo are simply not designed as live-services where they are constantly updated, thus resulting in a lower player count because people eventually move on and never revisit except on occasion.
Of course, this is all working from the perspective that ARPGs are not popular. I disagree with that. I think Path of Exile is insanely popular and not the niche indie project people still think it is. I also think Diablo IV is popular despite its flaws because it’s the most accessible ARPG and comes from a highly distinguished franchise. Last Epoch broke 250k concurrent players last month in spite of its many launch woes, showing that the demand for ARPGs is higher than its ever been.
People want a good game in the genre. For many, the last one was Diablo 2. That is a long time to be waiting for something that improves upon the genre within the franchise they like. If Diablo IV can’t right their ship, I doubt that a Diablo V will correct this as players will have moved on to other franchises looking for whatever they are wanting. It is why every time one gets released, it gets a huge influx of players, followed by a large drop off. Last Epoch did this, POE 2 will get this. Titan Quest 2 will get this. Any other one in the genre will receive the same treatment until a game comes along that actually satisfies them.
I will say this, the Live Services, as they are, are not the answer. Thus players play a season, leave, and maybe come back when a new season launches, even if they like a game. The design of the games aren’t enough to keep the players engaged beyond seasons. The first game that creates an actual engaging game, that can also keep a player’s attention past completion will “win”. Until then, we as players will all just continue to bounce around, looking for something that just isn’t happening.
Yes, it is. They are seasonal games, based around seasonal play. When you have built your character and “finished” it, you stop playing for the league.
Warframe is not an analogue to PoE, or another ARPG. Their loot model is not the same. They have significantly more lateral progression structure, rather than building to a finish and then restarting. And furthermore, even with all that said, Warframe absolutely does have a cyclic player count.
https://steamcharts.com/app/230410#6m
It is not the same as an ARPG, it has a substantially higher stable base, but the game still gains and loses players in a cycle.
The reality is, what you are saying is basically “how can we make ARPGs into a different type of game so they retain more players”, without realising that you’re asking for a different game.
Last Epoch didn’t “lose 200,000 players in a month”; their model of game is designed around players playing for a period of time and then reacquiring them again in the next cycle. In doing so, they monetise a renewed player base with renewed microtransactions, rather than a consistently held player base with a higher proportion of nonplussed players. You can make an argument that they could change the game to make that model work for them too, but most importantly, that would be done by making a different type of game, with different models of play and different endgames. What you want is simply not an arpg in the current paradigm of the genre.
Helldivers and Palworld and Left for Dead 2 are intrinsically more popular games than ARPGs are. That is just a flat reality. People calling any game a D4 killer are nonsensical. D4 is a AAA title with massively more money in its advertising and a significantly more effective IP behind it. No ARPG will compete with D4 from a pure numbers perspective the same way that no ARPG competed with D3 in its lifetime, despite both being objectively not the top offering of the genres in their time.
Last Epoch is a resounding success from the perspective of the developers and will continue to be so into the future. They already know the relative popularity of the genre, and developed the game with that knowledge in mind. They weren’t expecting to outsell D4 or retain 50% of their players through a season - that is simply not the game they developed. The expectations of some people in threads like these are simply woefully unaligned with any form of reality.
PoE is massively successful and profitable. Last Epoch is now massively successful and profitable. PoE2 will almost certainly be massively successful and profitable. Grim Dawn is massively successful and profitable, and is going to be releasing another expansion this year. D4, D3 and clearly D2 were all massively profitable and successful. Putting Wolcen in the discussion is kind of disingenuous; what killed Wolcen was Wolcen being a turd of a game - it would be like saying Survival shooters are dead because they ostensibly shares a genre with The Day Before.
Let’s put it this way: Let’s say the average curling competion garners a crowd of 5000 people. All of a sudden, a new curling competition comes out with a crowd of 20,000 people. Some dude goes to the curling forums and says “how come curling can only get 20,000 people? What should we change about curling so it can get crowds like NFL - they get like 100,000 people and 2 billion watching… surely curling should be more like NFL!”
No; curling is curling, NFL is NFL. Curling shouldn’t be like NFL so that more people will watch it. If you want to play a game that has the player count of an FPS or a survival horror game or a pokemon survival game, the solution is to go and play those games. They are intrinsically more popular than ARPGs are, because of what they are and what ARPGs are.
In steam chart a game call Crab Game has 50% more players than LE now. The game has no advertisement budget which the developer has to advertise the game himself in the Steam Intro video with his low end web cam while eating chips. Watching the epic intro video is really worth every of your minute even you not decide to play. The steam review is full with thumbs up. Holy crab
Wow, dumb meme game for children and streamers has more players. Who would have guessed?
It’s worth noting, by the way, that L4D2 is only relevant because of its huge modding community. If it didn’t have that, chances are the game would have substantially lower player activity.
And while Palworld is still certainly popular, if people are going to hold LE’s “player loss” against it, then we need to broaden the picture a little bit and look at Palworld as well.
Because that game currently has 60k players, which is literally a fraction of its 2.1 million peak concurrent players from January.
The very nature of ARPG is that they aren’t sustainable for long periods of play like MMORPG.
The advent of seasons ruined that. Nothing to blame but seasons. That being said, I like seasons. They have made ARPG genre perfect for casual andy and regular rachael players.
You can play a few hours a day for a 4-5 days per week for about 4 weeks - be in good enough gear to clear all the content and then move on to something else while waiting on the next season.
Seasonal play killed the drive to collect loot like D2 had. Just not worth the effort to pick something up when in 40 days you get to start over.
It’s not because of seasons. ARPGs from the beginning (which are dungeon crawlers, Rogue, roguelikes, Zelda, etc.) is about replayability. Originally the replayability comes from randomized loot and dungeon layout. Seasons is a recent invention and simply added on top of this to entice people to come back to play the game as part of the live service model.
That said, someone could very well make an aRPG which isn’t based on replayability. Most likely it will no longer be Diablo-like but something else like Lost Ark.
