strawman

26 minutes ago, Herkin said:

If this is only tracking official servers, which I believe it is. Like was said above, this can't accurately depict the game as a lot of people have moved on to private servers. 

My understanding is that Steamcharts is showing the total number of Steam users who have the game open at any given time, regardless of official or unofficial server, or if they're even connected to a server. If you compare it against Reznok's player tracker, it looks like 50-60% of the Steamcharts population is usually on official servers.

27 minutes ago, Herkin said:

The only point I'm seeing is that official server population is declining. Same thing happened on Rust, ARK, etc...

I played a lot of Rust. It didn't do well in legacy (it's first year or so) but since the game was re-released, it has grown consistently, almost always sitting in the top 10 now.

Saturday, December 29. Just after launch, Atlas achieves its all-time peak of 58,788 players.

Saturday, January 5. 50,877 players are online at the peak, a 13.5% decline from the prior week. Not bad - people are sticking with the game.

Saturday, January 12. Just under three weeks after launch, 44,130 players are online at the peak, a respectable 75% of the all-time peak population, and a similar 13.25% decline rate.

Saturday, January 19. Days after the introduction of the "Old Age" debuff and Fountain of Youth quest, Atlas peaks at 37,166 players, a 15.75% decline from the prior week. Not only is the population not stabilizing, it's bleeding at an increasing rate.

Saturday, January 26. Today, with the Fountain of Youth essentially unchanged and the stone building nerf in place, 30,067 people were online at the peak. This is a 19% decline from the previous Saturday - the worst bleed rate in the game's short history - and only 51% of the all-time peak.

This game has a problem, and I think I know what it is.

That's genuinely sad (but well-written). Grapeshot Games is a disaster. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes to change the breeding coefficients, but I guess their decision-making process is what's really broken.

People don't deserve a participation trophy because you assume they have good intentions.

4 minutes ago, Hambo said:

This game is not "Published" and won't be for at least 2 years.

If you want to avoid disappointment in the future, avoid games labelled EA or Early Access.

Besides the server problems, the game was more fun at launch than it is after a month of patches. Can't blame EA for that...

22 minutes ago, JC67 said:

Sometimes when i try to dig up the chest it says there is guardians left that i have to kill but i cant see any around. What i'am i doing wrong ?

you are not doing anything wrong, this is just another bug grapeshot isn't fixing

1 minute ago, Ellentro said:

20% population dip

If you go into the detailed chart it's a lot worse than the month-by-month summary makes it look. 50% would be more accurate

8 minutes ago, MaxPower said:

As with a lot of conspiracy theories, you're over thinking things wayyyyy too much. The idea that they've already pulled the plug is just tin foil hat nonsense. I don't have much nice to say about the devs but nothing you've put forward here is any sort of evidence that they're packing it in or that "major" layoffs have occurred (its a tiny team to begin with, can't really have major layoffs). 

The reality is, the devs just aren't that good at what they do. They don't test their releases properly, don't address game breaking issues in a timely manner unless its impacting streamers and don't properly consider the ramifications of changes they make on the entire player base. Its really that simple and we saw much the game thing with Ark. The reason it SEEMS like their work is worse lately is because they've shifted from putting out the fires at launch to actually working on the balance of the game and adding content... and they've made changes people really haven't liked and introduced a few pretty awful bugs. Again its not a sign that the team has been decimated or anything, just a reminder that these guys also made Ark. 
 

I don't know when speculation about things that happen behind closed doors became "conspiracy theories" and "tin foil hat nonsense". It's not just you, all over the society people are refusing to think critically about things that happen in secret and trying to discredit anyone who does.

You're right that the devs are pretty bad at their jobs, but at the same time, corporate layoffs after an astonishingly bad product launch aren't exactly aliens-on-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-tier. At a studio this small, three or four layoffs would absolutely count as "major" and have a substantial effect on the other employees and the company's output.

Couple additional observations on my original point about Grapeshot probably having done layoffs last week...

There are only ever 6 names in the Grapeshot category on Discord anymore: Amberenix, Baker, DebbySaurus, Dollie, Evza and Jat. There were at least 9 or 10 at launch.

And have a look at today's patch notes. That's a major version...? Compare to something like 10.43 from a couple weeks ago, there's a fraction as many fixes and changes.

2 minutes ago, LoneSilverWolf said:

Heard but not listened to. There is absolutely NO reason that a stone structure has a metal requirement. So they lower a stone wall from 30 to roughly 15 metal. NOT good enough. These devs are fucking idiots.

It's still 9 cannonballs to take one down. Literally five flint, 30 gunpowder and 25 metal, and you have a cannonball left over.

Classic "we know best, you stupid players" change. It's game over for Atlas soon. Population was peaking around 30k last week, this week it's 25k. Servers gonna shut down in February at this rate.

1 hour ago, JC67 said:

Well i like the game and i believe in it. It's EA and under development and personally i feel there is to much hate. I even go so far to say its the most interesting and comprehensive survival game i seen in a long time.

You're not wrong that it's interesting and comprehensive, but each patch makes it harder for me to believe in this game. I want to think there will be a miracle patch that fixes all the backward steps they've made since launch, but I don't see it coming.

56 minutes ago, Lb9591 said:

Ever crossed your minds that just because you’re loud doesn’t mean you make up the majority? Plenty of people like the recent changes, just because we don’t yell, scream, throw tantrums and insult the devs doesn’t mean we don’t have an opinion. Final note, calling names and acting like a child doesn’t go far in getting people to listen to you. You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar lol. 

Be careful about assuming the silent majority is on your side. This game called itself an MMO that supported 40,000 players, but fewer than 3,000 people are logged into NA PVP right now, with less than 13,000 playing the game at all. And before you say it's the middle of the night - it's 5 PM in Beijing.

Expanding on a theory that I came up with in another thread, I think something bad happened at Grapeshot about a week ago.

The quality of their work has never been good (remember the introduction of SOTD?) but everything fell off a cliff with v14. The impassable doors, the elephant nerf, the ongoing Fountain of Youth debacle, the stone nerf, and tonight the struggle to even deploy the right version - their work is significantly worse than it was during the first four weeks.

My theory is that the Grapeshot leadership has decided that Atlas is a failure and re-allocated resources accordingly. They're not wrong, if so; it has two-thirds negative reviews on Steam, nearly 15,000 thumbs-down, with no sign of the trend changing. Player counts are declining daily, subreddit growth is dead, everything in the press has been negative. Besides the occasional big name obviously being paid to play, it's dying on Twitch.

I think they did a major layoff last week, and the remaining employees are either rattled or bitter. It clearly shows in their work.

Obviously, this will only make things worse faster.

What's the solution? It's pretty simple. Just like every major videogame failure, the community has been telling the developer how to stop the bleeding every step of the way. I don't know if the creative direction is being done democratically or by one bad creative director, but in either case, Grapeshot needs to make a big, public change. Give all the decision-making power to one person with clear vision and enough humility to listen to the community, and maybe you can turn it around.

Do it fast, because this ride will be over in about a month if you don't.

23 minutes ago, CaptainOkami said:

Another +1 to a customer who will be uninstalling this game and never supporting anything Wildcard related, if the change isn't reverted by end of the weekend. A one week heads up would at least have helped people who had plans, or were in the middle of something, and while the change wouldn't have been ideal still, at least not screwed over all the people who are now sitting there with something half finished, that'll likely never be finished.
As a person that enjoys building, I have no desire to sail for hours on end to craft a few things. I don't want to build something ugly, or not fully utilizing the various textured pieces available. Unfortunately there is no single player mode either, and unofficials are dodgy, as you could be working on something, and suddenly they stop subscribing.

Without building, there is virtually nothing to do - sail endless water playing dodgeball with ships of the damned (can do this in Sea of Thieves, and at least that is more visually pleasing and more enjoyable), explore the few variations on islands (look at the map, most shapes are reused constantly, just at a different angle).

So yes, good job screwing over all those who enjoy these games strongly for the building aspect

Looks like you're not alone. Last Thursday at this time, 18,500 players online... today, 15,000.

5 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

I'm not even sure that I would call lootboxes evil, just problematic and concerning, and I clearly view them as more troublesome

lootboxes are just gambling, which has been recognized for many centuries by many cultures as evil

7 minutes ago, Jean Lafitte said:

"The one minute manager."

yea, i've read it, and here's the thing: positive reinforcement isn't working. sometimes people are too stupid or arrogant to respond to it, sometimes the people who matter (grapeshot execs) aren't paying attention. plenty of people have made posts here and on reddit applauding the few good decisions grapeshot has made - yet they still keep trashing the game and only responding to outrage (see the elephant nerf). nothing else to do now but quit logging in and start screaming on the forums

20 minutes ago, mndfreeze said:

This thread is dumb as fuck.

 

idk, making a "pvers suck amirite guys" thread was a pretty smart way to get replies

2 minutes ago, SockStink said:

Does Jeremy have a Twitter?

https://twitter.com/jeremystieglitz

oddly quiet since atlas released

12 minutes ago, Dorf said:

How would you like people to judge you so harshly for the work you do at your job.

You sound jaded.

if i were doing as bad a job as the people at grapeshot, then yes, i'd hope someone would tell me how bad i'm fucking up

Just now, Jean Lafitte said:

Right, because days before it was released they should have already know every possible exploit there was.  Why didn't I realize that.

People were reporting the hacks all over Reddit and the forums for the first couple weeks of release, when they still could have salvaged the game's reputation, and Grapeshot did nothing.

3 minutes ago, Dorf said:

Have a little empathy.  They have a million things to fix while running a company.  Things aren't gonna happen fast in an early access game.

Again, I'm not a blind fanboy.  I know they have screwed up a few things but they ARE trying.

 

It's silly to have empathy for a corporation, and the larger gaming community only cares about quality and results. Atlas' reputation is, excuse the pun, set in stone now. I want to keep playing, but like most other people who bought the game, it's left me a bad taste and I'm not coming back without a major change in trajectory.

Just now, Dorf said:

This is not an indy race... this is a marathon.  They are acting and that means something.  People are so unappreciative 

THEY ARE TRYING.  

I'm not a super fan (I hate the recent stone construction nerfs) but I'm still happy they are trying and progressing!

The time to ban hackers was four weeks ago, before they accumulated 12,000 negative reviews on Steam

16 minutes ago, Jean Lafitte said:

They get something right

A day late and a dollar short

13 minutes ago, xenobiaa said:

think you might be a bit paranoid lol 

nothing paranoid about noticing that something changed for the worse around the time of the fountain of youth patch. for all we know a bunch of employees might have gotten fired and the people left are bitter

The theory that Atlas is a failed project and they're trying to kill it is starting to make more sense to me. FoY seems purpose-built to make players quit. 

7 hours ago, Realist said:

Yeah this game isn’t about actual pvp. It’s pvb player vs base. About 99 out of every 100 raids will be offline raids. Not cool, but it is what it is

I have a lot of hours in Rust so I'm used to offline raids and player vs. base. Thing is, I've never felt like I was playing Player vs. Developer until last night.

3 hours ago, Sharana said:

Taming no. But if you are lucky your baby might be alpha.

Next patchnotes are guaranteed to have "babies can no longer be alpha"