Declining population

[Omgthisnamesux 10]

1 hour ago, Scorpionshawn said:

Anyone who thinks this game can last with it being unfriendly to new players is sadly mistaking the drop in numbers will grow the moment the new hype survival game comes out. That would be tomorrow!

What's coming out tomorrow?

[Sulfurblade 194]

6 minutes ago, Omgthisnamesux said:

What's coming out tomorrow?

Panda Hero, any more questions?

[wildbill 142]

2 hours ago, Sulfurblade said:

Panda Hero, any more questions?

So now we all just answer questions with questions?

[Hodo 147]

On 1/13/2019 at 1:42 AM, Muffinman said:

I have to correct, or rather add, to your statement. Gotta remember that while being cold or frozen the hunger ticks down faster. On top of being active with the cold, the hunger ticks down much faster. So we eat more. However the Vitamins don't tick down as fast as the hunger. So ever so slowly the vitamins keep hiking up. Until it overdoses and we die. It's just a weird mechanic to the game. Vitamin management has become more of choir than a challenge.

Yeah we still get SotD spawns between 12-18 at a time. It makes sailing through the E2 zone rather difficult. As well as the storms that come through forcing the two parties together. Really just feels like the game is rigged against the players at this point. Nearly lost another ship to those damn over spawning SotD. Wish they had to follow the same wind, storm and other sailing rules we players have to. That or lower the damage. Two schooners lost to them is too many.

I am sorry you are having a hard  time.  I have actually the opposite problem now that I am living in a temperate zone.  I have low vitamins because I am never hungry, and I have to constantly overeat to get my vitamins above 40.  

As for the SotD, in our tile we rarely see them due to regular patrols to grind levels in ships.  

[Muffinman 13]

9 hours ago, Hodo said:

I am sorry you are having a hard  time.  I have actually the opposite problem now that I am living in a temperate zone.  I have low vitamins because I am never hungry, and I have to constantly overeat to get my vitamins above 40.  

As for the SotD, in our tile we rarely see them due to regular patrols to grind levels in ships.  

We were trying to grind them out, and level our Schooner. Which was doing well for sometime. Then out of nowhere three level 20's showed up and we couldn't out flank them. It would be nice if the SotD operated at the same sailing rules the playable ships do. Follow wind directions would be a great start.

[Realist 504]

To be honest even I am getting a little worried. I thought there would be a slow decline and even though it is slow it is faster than I expected.

a couple of days ago I had said it would get to a 10% decrease. Even with the weekend it still got to 10%. To make things worse it went to 11% the next day and then 12% the day after. Getting close to 13% which is way further along than I thought.

never would have expected it go drop by .1% every few hours. No trolling because as I said even I am a little worried now.

i mean it has to stop pretty soon and level out because I know there are the hardcore players that will stay no matter what but I just can’t believe it is actually dropping that fast.

[techniq 2]

On 1/10/2019 at 12:29 PM, KingLlama said:

Population will decline while we are in Early access due to the game changing and people not wanting to endure bugs. People will start to realize this. 

 

It'll get bigger once we hit the full release. I'm happy to see the game succeed and see the company flourish.

I remember that's what people where saying about Dark and Light. That game now has 400 avg players and is essentially dead. Not saying that will happen again here and I do hope not. Fingers crossed 

[Lynx 92]

Other than weekends, the trend looks very linear after the hype was over. This is the graph on Steam charts top 20 list.

[techniq 2]

On 1/13/2019 at 10:59 PM, wildbill said:

So now we all just answer questions with questions?

Should we not answer questions with questions ? 

[Sketch 15]

it gets worse once you realise all there is to do is build and kill some mobs even if you have land, as there is no exploration in the game (pve), evey bit of land is occupied, so theres almost always a boat dock visible on an island/lawless, so even if you got a base whats there too see when evey part of atlas is occupied. pvp is fine as you can just go raid or fight players.

[Case of the Scurvy 72]

The truth is, since people seem to ignore it. Declining pop or not there really isnt much to do in this game at this time.

 

Not alot of stuff to build other than walls and crafting stations. 

 

Not much in the water other than SoTd

 

We have power stones, whales, and sotd. 

 

Not much to spend gold on realistically a decline in the games current state would be warranted.

 

I just can't wait for more stuff to be added to keep my interest.

[Hodo 147]

1 hour ago, Sketch said:

it gets worse once you realise all there is to do is build and kill some mobs even if you have land, as there is no exploration in the game (pve), evey bit of land is occupied, so theres almost always a boat dock visible on an island/lawless, so even if you got a base whats there too see when evey part of atlas is occupied. pvp is fine as you can just go raid or fight players.

Really what do you expect out of a game like this?  Even in EVE there isn't anything new to discover, no new regions to explore.  

 

As for the population dropping this happens in EVERY new game.. Name one that the population didnt drop after the launch hype?  

[Realist 504]

29 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Really what do you expect out of a game like this?  Even in EVE there isn't anything new to discover, no new regions to explore.  

 

As for the population dropping this happens in EVERY new game.. Name one that the population didnt drop after the launch hype?  

Ark. It has maintained almost the same numbers throughout the 3 years. 

[Lynx 92]

12 minutes ago, Realist said:

Ark. It has maintained almost the same numbers throughout the 3 years. 

And Ark really hasn't lost numbers to Atlas.

[Hodo 147]

21 minutes ago, Realist said:

Ark. It has maintained almost the same numbers throughout the 3 years. 

Look at Arks launch numbers, then look at the numbers 1 month later.  There was a decline in players.  

[Lynx 92]

25 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Look at Arks launch numbers, then look at the numbers 1 month later.  There was a decline in players.  

By what %? If you look at a daily time scale you can clearly see weekends.

 

Atlas is down to about 50%. I guess that's what happens with no single player mode and the huge number of refunds.

[Hodo 147]

20 minutes ago, Lynx said:

By what %? If you look at a daily time scale you can clearly see weekends.

 

Atlas is down to about 50%. I guess that's what happens with no single player mode and the huge number of refunds.

Honestly do you really believe that is the reason?  Not the bugs, unplayable nature at launch, lack of information, huge amount of assumptions by the buyers, the shear amount of negative streamers out there?  Or possibly the massive Chinese zergling rush that destroyed so many early companies?   

Yeah I am going to go with no single player mode...lol seriously you have got to be joking.

I can pull up the Steam charts as well as the next person, I can spout a bunch of half informed crap just like the next person.   EVERY game that has launched has a MASSIVE spike on launch and a substantial drop off after launch.. usually a couple of weeks to a month, depending on the game.   Back in the day you used to get 30 days free with a new MMO, and after that 30 days you wouldn't see half of them ever again.   Now that cycle is MUCH shorter.  People often demand a refund, or do the illegal thing of refuting a charge, or chargeback their card.   

I expected this game to have a much more drastic drop, including myself... I wasn't sure if this was going to be what I wanted, but it actually turned out pretty decent.  Perfect, far from it... but decent.   Finally a game where I am not about the ships but about the player.  Where player skill can trump some level in that skill.  

[Percieval 1,067]

8 minutes ago, Hodo said:

Honestly do you really believe that is the reason?  Not the bugs, unplayable nature at launch, lack of information, huge amount of assumptions by the buyers, the shear amount of negative streamers out there?  Or possibly the massive Chinese zergling rush that destroyed so many early companies?   

Yeah I am going to go with no single player mode...lol seriously you have got to be joking.

I can pull up the Steam charts as well as the next person, I can spout a bunch of half informed crap just like the next person.   EVERY game that has launched has a MASSIVE spike on launch and a substantial drop off after launch.. usually a couple of weeks to a month, depending on the game.   Back in the day you used to get 30 days free with a new MMO, and after that 30 days you wouldn't see half of them ever again.   Now that cycle is MUCH shorter.  People often demand a refund, or do the illegal thing of refuting a charge, or chargeback their card.   

I expected this game to have a much more drastic drop, including myself... I wasn't sure if this was going to be what I wanted, but it actually turned out pretty decent.  Perfect, far from it... but decent.   Finally a game where I am not about the ships but about the player.  Where player skill can trump some level in that skill.  

Yes me too. I expected it to drop massively in the first week, but it stayed steady for the first 2 weeks. 

[Dragoon14th 12]

The problem with the game is that its so easy to invest early but without a middle ground to help support the end game....Its too difficult to play the grind game.  In other games you could at least get to middle and then to end game after a month or two... but as it stand there is no Middle ground grind.... you Die repeat grind die grind... its get boring and old and the Pvp action is So fucking boring as fuck the only thing that matter are ship battles and mortars.    animal are outa of whack... Farming for food... does not work very well.... And so much exploit going around its gave me a head-ache.    

Plus to play this game properly you need no sleep and no job no nothing and then you can play the game for hours and wear yourself out very easy.   Im just done with the game honestly its getting to the point where I feel they have forgotten how to play the game and realize that they screwed up and didnt think how player would react to various challenges and difficulty but at the same time artificially Made the game Way too hard for what its suppose to be.    

[Lynx 92]

2 hours ago, Hodo said:

Honestly do you really believe that is the reason?  Not the bugs, unplayable nature at launch, lack of information, huge amount of assumptions by the buyers, the shear amount of negative streamers out there?  Or possibly the massive Chinese zergling rush that destroyed so many early companies?   

Yeah I am going to go with no single player mode...lol seriously you have got to be joking.

Not joking. But when all those crappy things you mentioned happen, if SP mode existed people might play there until official servers get fixed. Then the population might not drop like it has.

[Lynx 92]

1 hour ago, Dragoon14th said:

you Die repeat grind die grind.

Thats the intended "content"

 

I personally hope the modding community for Atlas becomes as good as Ark.  The promised devKit is supposed to be more flexible than the one for Ark.

[Stimpack 4]

to be honest...... this is no pve game at all. its meant to be pvp. and if u are doing pvp, there is always something to do. u have to repair your ships, restock ammo, maintain your 40+ Crew members on the battle gali with Gold.

all those ppl who are crying about no Content.... i am sure u did not build any blueprints (for example a brig or a galli made out of journeyman / mc blueprints), or better armors/weapons and so on........

cant understand why there should be nothing to do.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Stimpack

[Shintai 117]

ARK survived by having lots of servers where everyone could find somewhere. It was just a numbers game.

The current fall in population is normal, however what happens is existing companies expand and keep. So the real issue is influx of players. Anyone coming to a mega lag lawless area only to see everything taken/foundation spammed and anything claimable is long gone wont last long in the game.

[Stonedlazy 3]

Dont know what the big deal is. We all have been playing games long enough to know this trend of a declining player base a few weeks or months after launch is nothing new.  Let's not forget the game is EARLY ACCESS. With that being said I've had no issues with resource spawns, or not finding trees in lawless, and the only time I've experienced game breaking issues was when 5 companies zerg'd the server and created an overpopulation issue and all the players who had claims were removed from the server. Which left no way to defend the claims. Besides that stop your whining, but on your big boy/girl pants, and get to doing pirate stuff. 

[NZScruffy 17]

On 1/11/2019 at 5:51 AM, Pappy Green said:

Perhaps Grabshot will start to figure it out. All time peak 58,788, last 24hours 37,734, 10 minutes ago 31,052...

https://steamcharts.com/app/834910

I do not dispute there is a decline, but the numbers you gave don't have any relevance to the statement....you gave numbers for different lengths of time what are you on about?

If you want to look at the decline in players playing the game, you need to look at a minimum time frame of 1 week period vs another 1 week period. People play at different times of the week for different reasons. Eg. Weekends, before/after work/school. If you were to compare 1 US Saturday to 1 US Monday, you are going to see more people on a Saturday, not because of a decline, but because many people work/school on Monday and not on Saturday. Some basic common sense in this one. 

Likewise, you are going to see a fairly consistent rise and fall in players online over every 24hr period. As large chunks of people play the same time each day. So you cannot compare players from between time period 20:00-21:00 with time period 01:00-02:00. You need to at the very least compare the same time period from different 24hr sections of time (eg. 20:00-21:00 today and yesterday). And even then, you cannot compare weekends to weekdays (keeping in mind time zones mean one person weekend can be other persons Monday etc).  So you'd probably want to try and compare Tuesday this week from Tuesday last week.

When making statistical comparisons, you need to make sure to address any factors of difference in gathering the data. Your claims become invalid when there are too many variables of difference in data collection.