U19: The update that killed the game

[BPNPC]

Increasing and decreasing cycles are common and to be expected in Warframe. With major updates, players are drawn to the game to try out new things before they inevitably stop playing again; I've marked out the major updates in the last year that coincide with large player base increases. Often the playerbase increase created by major updates persist for months or even forever (e.g. playerbase even months after U18 was significantly higher than before).

U19 is notable in the speed and severity at which players stopped playing. As you can see, within a week of SotR launching, the playerbase was back to its pre-SotR levels. This is unprecedented for a major release and by FAR the quickest drop-off after a major update in Warframe's 3-year long history. What does it mean? It means that players hated U19, that they got sick of playing it after just a week, that player retention at this point is the worst it's ever been.

All this is in the context of a steady decline in players post-U18. In fact, in the weeks leading up to SotR, playerbase was as small as it was pre-U18. U19 was supposed to be the update that revitalized the game.

(Let's not even get into Lunaro, which had a laughable impact).

Possible reasons for U19's failure:

1) Massive amount of bugs at launch

2) Repetitiveness of new Void system

3) Failure to create meaningful endgame content for veterans

4) REMOVAL of endgame content by effectively destroying long endless runs

5) Removal of Draco

6) Wasted devtime on Lunaro, a gamemode 75% of players no longer play and which 50% never even bothered with (http://www.strawpoll.me/10647777/r)

I understand that U19 isn't over yet and The War Within has still to release, but TWW needs to be phenomenal and contain more than just a 1-hour quest if it wants to reverse the damage caused by Lunaro and SotR. At this point the future is looking grim.

Edited July 17, 2016 by BPNPC

[DiosGX]

So, the baddie players are leaving. Good riddance.

I've been running into more and more actual players that do this thing called actually play the game instead of sit in a sewer for fifty thousand hours straight with a liquid dorito-IV hooked up to their blood. I love this update.

[Kaiser_Suoh]

Possible reasons for U19's failure:

• 1) Massive amount of bugs at launch
• 2) Repetitiveness of new Void system
• 3) Failure to create meaningful endgame content for veterans
• 4) REMOVAL of endgame content by effectively destroying long endless runs
• 5) Removal of Draco
• 6) Wasted devtime on Lunaro, a gamemode 75% of players no longer play and which 50% never even bothered with (http://www.strawpoll.me/10647777/r)

 

This is normal on each update.

1. Normal

2. Needs some fixes.

3. Endless Missions was the answer.

4. I miss endless missions. Needs more incentives.

5. We will find another loot cave.

6. Lunaro... RIP in lag.

 

[BPNPC]

4 minutes ago, DiosGX said:

So, the baddie players are leaving. Good riddance.

I've been running into more and more actual players that do this thing called actually play the game instead of sit in a sewer for fifty thousand hours straight with a liquid dorito-IV hooked up to their blood. I love this update.

I'm sure you'll love this update when it's you and five other "actual players" left in the game.

[AurumandArgentum]

Another reason there isnt alot of players is that for me and my mates, we are waiting for TWW so we have a bit of content to go through, I also know a few clanmates are doing the same, and screw draco, and you can still do long endless runs for endgame, thats a BS reason, try not to use it.

[Shiichibukai]

Steam doesnt count the actual ppl playing it off steam most likely and please for the love of god stop with those doom threads already. Hella annoying.

[DLVargas]

EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT

REPENT WARFRAME SINNERS THE END IS EXTREMELY F*CKING NIGH

Things have been dramatically changed. There's always people who are going to feel differently about updates like these. Change breeds upheaval; upheaval breeds backlash. People will either change with it or they won't. There will always be constant tweaks to this game also.

The game is not going to die in three weeks.

Edited July 17, 2016 by DLVargas

[BPNPC]

4 minutes ago, Shichibukai88 said:

Steam doesnt count the actual ppl playing it off steam most likely and please for the love of god stop with those doom threads already. Hella annoying.

There's no reason to believe non-Steam players are behaving differently from Steam players.

[TARINunit9]

12 minutes ago, BPNPC said:

U19 was supposed to be the update that revitalized the game.

Well it's a good thing this isn't u19 yet. SotR is u18.75. If we get the same pattern after War Within, THEN we'll have a dilemma on our hands

[Fionntan]

4 minutes ago, Shichibukai88 said:

Steam doesnt count the actual ppl playing it off steam most likely and please for the love of god stop with those doom threads already. Hella annoying.

This ^

1 minute ago, BPNPC said:

There's no reason to believe non-Steam players are behaving differently from Steam players.

Steam is only slice of info vs entire player base... which isn't entire accurate tbh & serves only mere speculation.

That's like basing on one town's needs equals entire city's needs is the same; nope.png

[EvilKam]

1. Bugs:  Yes, I concede that there were bugs.
2. The new void is NOT as repetitive as the "I'm going to run a survival mission for an hour non-stop without moving my body, to be handed crap I don't want.
3. Veterans want endgame content, but not all of us want the same kind of content.  
4. Hour long survivals were crushing my will to live and I despise them.  Now I get to choose rewards.
5. Draco was incredibly useful, but bad for gameplay.  Admittedly, the root problem is that so few things are end-game-viable.  How do we kill level 80 nullifiers?  Answer:  Not a Braton, Cronus, Seer, Strun, Nami Solo, Karak, Sobek, Acrid, etc... etc... repeat for 150 more weapons.
6. PvP is a game type feverishly beloved by some.  It's better than making a miniature clone of Overwatch... or wait, maybe they should have.  Regardless, at least they TRIED to make something new.  They created a sport beyond "shoot each other in the face".  It's Football (real football, lol) for Warframe.  Well, maybe it's Lacrosse.  I hate PvP things, so I never bothered.  I only care about things in warframe at this point if they will help me one-shot nullifiers.

This update was about revamping void and the star map.  Star Map 3 is okay, I still prefer star map 1.0, but we're doing way better than star map 2.0.  Lunaro was supposed to be a concept of a sport.  I get it, they are trying to create something unique, something that might have interested the ancient Orokin as a spectator sport.  Creative PvP is something that I'll commend, even though I stated I also cant' stand PvP.  I respect the difficult task of trying to make something innovative.

When I heard the void was getting blown up, I was very happy.  For me, if I can't solo it, I don't want to do it.  I don't want anyone to "depend on me to be awesome".  Not unless I'm helping new players.  Void farming had reached a point where you needed to co-ordinate a full squad of people who wanted to run the same type of missions, I was never able to kill on T3/T4 effectively with my Soma Prime or Boltor Prime after 25 minutes or so, I can't aim Tonkor or Sancti Tigris to save my life...  Good riddance.

I can't wait to see what it will be like when they remove Serration.  Now all I need to be happy again is to hear that Bursas and Nullifiers are getting nerfed, and I can use Cyphers in Sortie missions.

[Kaotyke]

Edited July 17, 2016 by Venom-Snake

[taiiat]

FYI, Steamcharts is very vague at that wide a timeframe.

the concurrent players is almost the same before and after Specters of the Rail, and it's not surprising, it didn't add that much for content, that is still yet to come.

[BPNPC]

3 minutes ago, Fionntan said:

This ^

Steam is only slice of info vs entire player base... which isn't entire accurate tbh & serves only mere speculation.

That's like basing on one town's needs equals entire city's needs is the same; nope.png

I see you've never taken a stats course. In reality, you only need a small representative sample size to draw accurate conclusions for an entire population. Steam's Warframe playerbase MORE than meets this requirement and is enough to represent the entire Warframe population to a very high confidence interval. In fact, I'm almost certain more players play Warframe through Steam than don't.

[Tveoh]

steam charts only reflect steam usesrs, not those that play the game from teh website download.   Also.  seems like the normal flow that comes from updates

 

[Askell91]

Yes they need to fix a lot of things and i did not mean bugs.... they did some unnececary change what will obviously make playerbase to play something else :D. They had to rush the update true... but its like they did not even test it. Lets hope for the bust.

[Vali]

25 minutes ago, BPNPC said:

1) Massive amount of bugs at launch

2) Repetitiveness of new Void system

3) Failure to create meaningful endgame content for veterans

4) REMOVAL of endgame content by effectively destroying long endless runs

5) Removal of Draco

6) Wasted devtime on Lunaro, a gamemode 75% of players no longer play and which 50% never even bothered with.

1) Normal with any big update, anyone remember the horrors of U16 and Law of Retribution? Good times eh?

2) The old system was just as repetitive, but honestly this one has less RNG to it, though I agree we need more variety in it. 

3) Endgame is pretty a pretty subjective topic, not everyone prefers the hour long survivals or escalation missions, some do. 

4) See 3

5) I don't really care for the removal of Draco, however my issue lies with how they added nothing to replace it. If anything, more skill based enemies/missions should've been added to compensate. 

6) This isn't exactly wasted time, they introduced a game mode which is pretty smoothed out and works well. Again, this strawpoll gathers data from the forums only, which I doubt a majority of players use. 

Edited July 17, 2016 by Agentawesome

[AuroraSonicBoom]

That chart can be completely discounted because summer holidays, school or otherwise, always skew overall player activity.

 

And the removal of Draco(and hopefully any future loot caves) is beneficial to the game, not detrimental.

[DeathMavrik]

20 minutes ago, DiosGX said:

So, the baddie players are leaving. Good riddance.

I've been running into more and more actual players that do this thing called actually play the game instead of sit in a sewer for fifty thousand hours straight with a liquid dorito-IV hooked up to their blood. I love this update.

Dear God i busted a @(*()$ gut, but yeah i am totally in agreement with you, this game is all about learning how to do new things, it is constantly under development and if that means having a few bugs that are quickly @(*()$ patched then i am all for it.

I mean look at Pokemon Go, i love it to death but if that @(*()$ company does not answer our concerns and lets us know there is a major patch along the way i might have to abandon it

[Cleesus]

I didnt realize the game died

[DiosGX]

17 minutes ago, BPNPC said:

I'm sure you'll love this update when it's you and five other "actual players" left in the game.

y u meds broo

[Fionntan]

10 minutes ago, BPNPC said:

I see you've never taken a stats course. In reality, you only need a small representative sample size to draw accurate conclusions for an entire population. Steam's Warframe playerbase MORE than meets this requirement and is enough to represent the entire Warframe population to a very high confidence interval. In fact, I'm almost certain more players play Warframe through Steam than don't.

What I meant is I feel it is too soon since its release to start basing this very slim sample data and equate to "game is doooomed"

Also 

9 minutes ago, AuroraSonicBoom said:

That chart can be completely discounted because summer holidays, school or otherwise, always skew overall player activity.

And the removal of Draco(and hopefully any future loot caves) is beneficial to the game, not detrimental.

So to actually have idea of game state, or gist of it, I'd suggest wait out more to have better amount of data to accurately speculate into.

Yet it is merely just that, a theory. If anything DE are the only ones with static charts (unless someone has website up to record data non steam/steam users) that can tell with sample how game fairs. Even then is mere theory as well.

That's my 2 cents.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Fionntan

[SirGhosty]

I love the new void system I hated running T3S for an hour and getting NOTHING it was mind numbingly boring so boring in fact I actually dozed off at times.

[Letter13]

Breaking news: Game is not kill, but clickbait titles still claim victims.

 

Still though, having ~30,000 active players on Steam alone is pretty impressive. Don't don't forget that a lot of people play the game using the standalone client (non-Steam version). And a game is never going to maintain the "Peak" surge of players experienced when an update is just released. That just doesn't happen. 

Was Specters of the Rail not the greatest rollout of an update? Certainly. But saying the game is kill when there's likely 45~50,000 (assuming active Steam players make up ~60% of active PC players) active players at any given time is pretty far from being "kill".

If the game were kill, that number would have dropped into the 10~20k range or even below that; basically a drop below the previous numbers leading up to the update.

[Kaotyke]

18 minutes ago, Shichibukai88 said:

Steam doesnt count the actual ppl playing it off steam most likely and please for the love of god stop with those doom threads already. Hella annoying.

Exactly, its like people doing strawpools and forgetting there are a LOT players that do not frequent the Forums, just look at the pool Rebecca made of the "Vandal Return" Thread, less than 3.200 people! Warframe doesnt have only those numbers! Not even close.