Why Hasn't this been addressed yet?

I'm old enough to remember when the community was outraged by someone that ran around in the WT in full Traces gear, bc they were a GM or something, when the whole set wasn't dropping. It took 8-ish months for the Devs to confirm the full set wasn't in the loot table in error when it was finally added. People were enraged at all the replays they spent trying to complete the set. But anyone claiming they had the full set before that was either that GM or misremembering I guess.

This is really tricky to analyse, but I'm not sure we can say that. Steam charts won't give us the whole vision, but in many games (Among us and Rust for example), the average population change by steam charts is also seem in other platforms.

Let's check the data:
This is the average PC steam population from OC(May, 9) to SoT (August, 29), roughly a 18% decrease. Interesting to note that DCUO never got a steam population this high again, meaning that many of the PC steam players who quit because of OC never came back


This is the average PC steam population 4 months before OC, it was roughly balanced (considering January and February are usually more popular) before the launch of the DLC, so no down trend to justify losing so much in so little time, unless there is some external factor I don't know of (A very popular game launching on May for example).


This is the average PC steam population from AF1+GU36 (April 29, so, May) to Halls of Power I (August 6, so, July). Ignoring the 1 day in april GU36 was fully up, we roughly saw a 5% population loss, that quickly came back to play in July. We only saw the population this low again 1 year and 4 months later with monthly content+ Unholy Matrimony, meaning GU36, at least for PC steam players, meant nothing in the long term


This is the average PC steam population 4 months before AF1+GU36 and it was already decreasing, so no positive trend to justify it being worse than it looks, at least for, as I said, PC steam players.


Stats Revamp is a little tricky, because Riddle with Crime launched right after it and was just terrible. But this is the average PC steam population in a 4 month window. It launched on July 26 (So August) and Riddle with Crime launched September 20 (So kind of half September and October). There was no big change during the month after Stats Revamp launched (August) and it remained on average.
But indeed there was a long term decrease in players (Maybe caused by RwC, maybe by the revamp, maybe both) of about 15% (Not going to post more screenshots lol, I'm tired) that lasted until lockdowns April 2020 (When population surged by 40% to 4 years high).

So... My conclusion is: It doens't looks like GU36 pushed out more players than OC and the Stats Revamp+RwC pushed out about the same (but it probably did hurt the game more, because of the resources spent)

Steam has never been an accurate depiction of the population that plays DCUO. The majority of players plays directly through the client or on console.

I do 100% appreciate the work you put into the reply getting the data, and as you stated it doesn't show the full picture. I just wanted to mention as a PC player and playing with purely PC players for the majority of my DCUO career until I joined Success on USPS that I can only recall <5 players TOTAL that played dcuo through steam client. There was zero advantage to playing DCUO through steam unless you wanted the bane venom injector pre-order.

So what that means to your data is that the population of PC players I ran with, IE the endgame type players they aren't accounted for in your data. When GU36 happened entire PC leagues disappeared, if you are PC and recall the league Iconics with Exington leading them, the majority of them left and have never returned. ALL the top dps I ran with like Wonder Dianna, Surrealita, Pyro etc we are talking Top 10 dps on the entire USPC server, never came back after GU36. OAN SM didn't even see a PC league complete it.

obviously I don't have the physical data to provide but ive got the friends list to prove it.

I'm starting to see where there is a serious disconnect between what happened back then and the feelings that people had back then.

What content came after GU36 and how much was in it.

If I recall correctly, the update killed HL old school style of play, and macros on the PC side basically disabling the 1 button performing two functions on the PC which PS players could never do.

So by pure admission that would be like saying that the PC side cannot handle doing what the PS side had to do because we could not chain buttons together like they could on the PC.

I also remember a conversation on the PS with a league mate who complained about GU36.

This league mate actually had someone else taking the toon into missions and earning feats for them at the time but they complained as most do about the need to earn SP and how the update was changing everything in their world, how they were going to leave the game bla, bla, bla... because they just wanted to play, even though they held everyone else back because they were 1 of so many getting carried into content.

While it is always different for everyone, DC problem has always been that they listen to the wrong crowd and show no support to their veteran players.

When ever people hopped on the test server and gave them feedback it went largely ignored. Every action has catered to ease the content or level it out for the player base, which is not all bad, but it still doesn't make a person any better than they would be if they apply themselves.

Whenever a DLC comes out with limited content or when it has become to difficult or to easy or riddled with bugs, there will always be people who complain.

I seriously doubt now that most of the people who left after GU36, would have stuck around when oolong island was bugged for the longest time or any other time pre nerf of all the content, unless they had people carry them though content.

A lot of good people quit playing because of all kinds of reasons, GU36 saw mostly unskilled players leave but maybe they just got tired for the same reason that most do.

Doing the same thing over and over and over again.

I can vouch that what you're saying is true. Because I know that's when those players left as well.

Chances are though the trend and overall percentages was probably similar in the direct client players, but the overall number of players present on PC isn't as low as steam indicates.

Unfortunately, the reality is all of these things have contributed to players leaving in various percentages and capacities, none of which were ever good for the community.

Out of curiosity I looked up what also came out around that time in May 2013 and nothing amazing jumps out although in August 2013, Final Fantasy 14 did launch which although not necessarily provable could be a reason why some PC players never came back, this was around the time Sons of Trigon released and the launch of Final Fantasy may simply have been more appealing than a return to DCUO, entirely hypothesizing of course.

It was more than just HL that suffered at the hands of GU36, people also enjoyed playing a certain way and the game play offered by DCUO was unique to DCUO, which many found appealing on a system (PC) with countless other options of games to play in terms of MMO's but nothing quite like the type of game play DCUO offered pre GU36.

It had nothing to do with macro use. I know console players would like nothing more than to suggest the entire PC community all use speed hacks and macros but it really couldn't be further from the truth, most PC players don't and never have used macros to program entire loadouts so they can play on auto pilot, it didn't happen, that's not to say the odd person didn't, but those that did were very few and far between.

Some PC players still even play with controllers as opposed to keyboard and mouse.

Well I only like OC because it brought THE BEST power to the game. The visuals on it alone outclasses all of the others.

Dude what are you talking about missing gear, once they did that hotfix or whatever to nerf the mission that first week or whatever the mission was easy u just had to have 2 trolls 2 tanks 1 healer

3 pieces of traces in time did not drop in Paradox until the drop rates were altered by the developers, the chest, head and I think the shoulders I'm going off memory on that last one though.

They weren't in the loot table, they literally did not drop until the developers fixed it. It's probably one of the worst loot issues I've experienced in this game in the 10 years playing it.

It wasn't fixed until October 2013, Origin Crisis launched in May 2013, that's a long time to have drop rates at 0%

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/server-hotfix-traces-in-time-update.174838/

So it had nothing to do with the fact that the DLC released after GU36 only having a super soft alert 1 duo and the iconic missions caused people to leave?

The longer people stay away from the game the more likely they are not to return.

I already know not to use absolutes, because again I even gave an example as to someone who had a problem with the update.

However, a lot of veterans would not have that same problem though because they are quick to switch powers.

That possibly is another reason why players never returned, but what's that got to do with macro use?

BTW Mepps just addressed it in the announcement thread. (I think.)

I left in this time frame for gtav as did a ton of my friends. Kept me gone for about 5yrs. Was fall of 2013 iirc. I'm sure that hurt all these numbers quite a bit.

No, cause what we are talking about is the PC population rather than PS, GTAV didn't come out on PC until later April 2015.