I really enjoy the game, but now me and my friends are maxed out. Max samples, max medals, max upgrades. With nothing to progress to there is far less incentive to play.
The way my friend group works, and I imagine many others work, when I see one of my friends online playing a game, I join their game. And hell divers was great for that, they made joining games effortless. So it was very social.
But without any of my friends actually progressing towards something in the game, it’s far rarer for us to just join on each other cuz we’re not playing it alone. So now Helldivers is a an option, when we’re already together online, trying to figure out something to do, we will hell dive and have fun no problem. But it’s far less likely now
If they want to maintain a larger user base, they need to have something for people to constantly progress towards. It could just be donating samples to a new research project, that could be infinite grind
They should create a third enemy that they ask the community to keep mostly hidden, only accessible to the best (progressed above a certain point) Helldiver. This is a bad, if fun, idea though.
Its weird, but the game felt like it was going to be adding maps and combat zones with relative frequency. But I agree, the game got stale fairly quickly. It was fun, but not meaningfully more fun than Counterstrike or DOTA
I think they ended up slowing their release pace, which was sort of absurdly fast. Which I think is great? I’d rather see more meaningful, occasional updates. The kind that would bring folks back to play it until they complete said content.
It has gotten more fun grinding at extreme for samples, and helping out lower level players, since the buffing patch. The endgame is just kind of flat.
(edit): The article doesn’t go into how and why there was a decline, how Sony and Arrowhead kinda shot themselves in the foot with account linking. I think this would still be a fast moving train had they not tried to do that, and had the man power to focus on bugs, balance and battles at the same time.
how Sony and Arrowhead kinda shot themselves in the foot with account linking.
The graph from the article literally proves the opposite.
Account linking happened May 6th. It is on the graph as point “A.”
There is a small increase in the decline of the player count, but you had already lost almost 200,000 players since the last peak on April 1st!
So between April 1st and May 6th the game went from around 370,000 players to around 170,000 players, and the current player count literally can’t drop the same level because that would be less than zero.
So, the bigger drop came way before account linking, friend. The game was already dying, and the account linking just firmly put it out of its misery.
You make mostly good points but its stupid to call the game dead or dying. They don’t currently have a bunch of players they never expected to have in the first place. They still sold their product to those people which makes it a huge net win for them. It’s a wildly successful game by any reasonable metric you can choose to evaluate it against.
Yea this is pretty much it. I meet online weekly to play something with some friends, after the third or fourth session I was just completely done with the game. It doesn’t feel like there’s a whole lot to do after you’ve tried every mission type.
They don’t have any kind of single player option which turns off a lot of players. It looked really cool, but as soon as I found out to really experience the game you have to play with others, became immediately uninterested.
I gotta say. Props to Lemmy users here. This thread is just post after post of generally reasonable take on how enjoyment and entertainment work in reality.
And really just a perfect argument for why infinite growth live service games are a fucking cancer dreamed up by humans who are fucking parasites.
Helldivers is great and the devs should be proud of their success. A+ .
Never touched it again after the psn fiasco. I am not deluded enough to think the devs were on the players side. If you saw there early messages about it and still think they are with you, you are completely lost.
The point made in the article is that this isn’t supposed to some content that is released and over, like a TV episode. It’s a live service game that’s expected to be continuously played and generate income. This a huge drop is a mark against that model.
I do love helldivers, but I’m not exactly sad if live service games end up being not attractive to devs anymore.
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I really enjoy the game, but now me and my friends are maxed out. Max samples, max medals, max upgrades. With nothing to progress to there is far less incentive to play.
The way my friend group works, and I imagine many others work, when I see one of my friends online playing a game, I join their game. And hell divers was great for that, they made joining games effortless. So it was very social.
But without any of my friends actually progressing towards something in the game, it’s far rarer for us to just join on each other cuz we’re not playing it alone. So now Helldivers is a an option, when we’re already together online, trying to figure out something to do, we will hell dive and have fun no problem. But it’s far less likely now
If they want to maintain a larger user base, they need to have something for people to constantly progress towards. It could just be donating samples to a new research project, that could be infinite grind
They should create a third enemy that they ask the community to keep mostly hidden, only accessible to the best (progressed above a certain point) Helldiver. This is a bad, if fun, idea though.
So I guess what would everyone like to see?
Its weird, but the game felt like it was going to be adding maps and combat zones with relative frequency. But I agree, the game got stale fairly quickly. It was fun, but not meaningfully more fun than Counterstrike or DOTA
I think they ended up slowing their release pace, which was sort of absurdly fast. Which I think is great? I’d rather see more meaningful, occasional updates. The kind that would bring folks back to play it until they complete said content.
And yet they need to also be fixing bugs en masse since they create tons of them every update.
It has gotten more fun grinding at extreme for samples, and helping out lower level players, since the buffing patch. The endgame is just kind of flat.
(edit): The article doesn’t go into how and why there was a decline, how Sony and Arrowhead kinda shot themselves in the foot with account linking. I think this would still be a fast moving train had they not tried to do that, and had the man power to focus on bugs, balance and battles at the same time.
The graph from the article literally proves the opposite.
Account linking happened May 6th. It is on the graph as point “A.”
There is a small increase in the decline of the player count, but you had already lost almost 200,000 players since the last peak on April 1st!
So between April 1st and May 6th the game went from around 370,000 players to around 170,000 players, and the current player count literally can’t drop the same level because that would be less than zero.
So, the bigger drop came way before account linking, friend. The game was already dying, and the account linking just firmly put it out of its misery.
You make mostly good points but its stupid to call the game dead or dying. They don’t currently have a bunch of players they never expected to have in the first place. They still sold their product to those people which makes it a huge net win for them. It’s a wildly successful game by any reasonable metric you can choose to evaluate it against.
Yea this is pretty much it. I meet online weekly to play something with some friends, after the third or fourth session I was just completely done with the game. It doesn’t feel like there’s a whole lot to do after you’ve tried every mission type.
Looked like that kind of game. And with all the hype. Could never have lasted.
That is just the natural lifecycle of every multiplayer game
If they want new players they should put it on xbox.
Do you think those four people make a noticeable difference?
I’ll play again at some point but for now, Iceborne.
The Elden Lord needs to kill some more dragons.
How to be successful long term:
Make a good game
Don’t ship your game with a rootkit
Don’t ban entire regions from your game
If they drop they root kit I’ll play it
Me too
And other major expansions for elden ring and FFXIV released recently. There’s potential overlap in the player base. 90% is a big dip though.
Wait, was this heralded as some live service forever game?
Happens with all unestablished games
Why would it sustain those numbers? It’s fine to play a cool game, be satisfied with it, and then move on.
Yup I had fun with it, now it doesn’t sound as much fun anymore. I played it until it got boring due to repetitiveness.
They don’t have any kind of single player option which turns off a lot of players. It looked really cool, but as soon as I found out to really experience the game you have to play with others, became immediately uninterested.
Because in the minds of suits live service games are meant to be played forever.
I gotta say. Props to Lemmy users here. This thread is just post after post of generally reasonable take on how enjoyment and entertainment work in reality.
And really just a perfect argument for why infinite growth live service games are a fucking cancer dreamed up by humans who are fucking parasites.
Helldivers is great and the devs should be proud of their success. A+ .
Because it’s a live service game. The disconnect is that this doesn’t make players want to stay as much as the developer/publisher would like.
Never touched it again after the psn fiasco. I am not deluded enough to think the devs were on the players side. If you saw there early messages about it and still think they are with you, you are completely lost.
I’ve been waiting for a sale to buy it… hopefully there are still players but if not shrug
There’s still players, don’t worry.
Everyone seems to want to jump on the neg train but reality is that even games with tiny players numbers can still support multilayer matchmaking
It’s still the 35th most played game on steam.
The article says there’s 35k players - I’d get it if you like what you see
That’s like saying breaking bad has lost 99% of its viewers with no sign of recovery. L take
The point made in the article is that this isn’t supposed to some content that is released and over, like a TV episode. It’s a live service game that’s expected to be continuously played and generate income. This a huge drop is a mark against that model.
I do love helldivers, but I’m not exactly sad if live service games end up being not attractive to devs anymore.
Oh no, anyway.