The first link is search results – updated
The second link is an actual active player count – doesn’t look updated
I’m not lying in anyway by saying such sources are something else than what they’re. I’m literally repeating that it IS search results and then I looked for an actual stat count link. Steam stats are not good enough, barely anyone ports the game onto that platform anyway. Its a crossplay game so you have console gamers to that probably never touch these forums or engage with them.
Basically we lack the available information to see all concurrent players on all platforms. I don’t think its fair to say the data shared is “false” – its not like it has been fabricated or misrepresented as something else. The data is fine but we can make false interpretations from it.
I guess if we want to be strictly technical and scientific about it – then you can’t conclude if the season was positively or negatively received, that is subjective. So we need some metric to use, something that can quantify subjective interest. Please share better data if you have it – again, the core point of the OP is about collaboration and execution of updates.
The recent patch notes (Edit - added link and comment)https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/hotfix-3-july-21-110/96024 is a slight improvement on this – they were pre-released this time with opportunity for feedback. Thats what we need more of, and perhaps a doorway to invite suggestions for change ect. (*) Not sure if this change will address the ‘one-shot’ problems, but it is more inline with what people have been asking for.
I think the solution is to try something like a live campfire chat with community for collaborative brain storming – with proposal points by the community to cover as well as the devs intent.