We lost 20 plus % population in one month.

http://borderlinetactical.net/rsnc/...op=true&daterange=1408133715633,1411862700000

If you compare (end of) august with September we are down 20%, maybe more.
There is more bad news..
You can't see it because the chart only goes back one year but last year there was actually a population increase in September of 10-20% (I'm being conservative)

If we take that in account as well.. We lost over 1/3 of the population in ONE month.

What is interesting that last year (August 2013-August 2014) we lost 25% population in a whole YEAR.
Now we lost more then that in one month.

I don't know if it's the crappy server/game performance or the resource revamp but something is definitely up. (or down actually.)

People evidently heard of a Striker buff and decided to clear house early.

September = Start of school

When did cont locking start?

All it's done is remove the freedom to play only on continents you like. Which, yes, means more people playing on the ones most people don't like, but if overall it's a major pop loss that's not an improvement.

I'm also pretty sure hitreg issues are a big part of it. Without reasonably fluid/responsive shooting the game is going to lose a lot of infantry players which I'm sure make up a bigger percent of population than the vehicle ant farming people since that tends to boring unless you can fly.

Or it could be this simple answer.

Frankly it's probably because of the Resource revamp / Vehicle nerfs / Quickspawn.

The pace of the game has utterly collapsed now. Tank / Sunderer spam is endless and weak. With shorter respawn times major bases are nigh impossible to take and end up as massive grindfests unless you vastly outnumber the enemy.


The gameplay has actually gotten a lot less fun for a lot of people. It's become twice as spammy.

There was a slight uptick in population around this time last year, so it's likely not that. One could also argue summer=vacation time and summer jobs for students, so it's better to look at trends from previous years.

The hitching, bad hit reg, and bad performance have really hurt the game and sapped the desire of people to play. Additionally, the resource system is very frustrating, as others have mentioned. It makes taking bases feel worthless, since territory is not linked to resources. Alerts used to foster great fights--now they kill them as soon as the fight ends. With the server merges, lack of global alerts suck, because only a small portion of the playerbase can play the alert, and if a player from your outfit logs in in the middle of one, they probably won't get to play with the main group.

Probably this, September is when School be it elementary or college starts so people don't have time to play video games.

The Valkyrie update was on 8/29. The same update which worsened the performance even more than the previous ones.

Also the game Destiny came out 2 weeks ago.

Must be because world economies are recovering from the economic downturn, and thus more people are finding both part and fulltime employment, resulting in fewer players having time for online gaming.

And other such words.

I'm absolutely certain it was because everyone was hanging on for the release of the Valkyrie and now that it was a disappointment everyone is leaving in droves!

The updates this month haven't been all that interesting, plus school, plus other new games coming out.

I can't speak for everyone obviously but I've actually decided to take yet another PS2 break. WARNING! Incoming semi-long rant/vent post!

My decision is 100% due to the inconsistent hit detection, frame rate, and recently with the August update just the most wonderful input lag. Slow firing weapons are a massive liability for me at the moment. I've had to play Jackhammer/Cyclone HA just to compete with players I used to detonate in the first three to five shots.

This is the kind of ******** that convinces me not to spend money on SC. I put about $50 down after OMFG and the big balance passes when the game was finally working at an acceptable level. Then we had the wonderful invincibility bugs and other issues that caused me to take another break. I was slowly building up my confidence in you guys and on the edge of dropping another $50 to $100 then boom, everything is broken again.

I don't spend money on SC for weapons or cosmetics on the merits of those things alone, I treat them as a bonus for supporting the game. You can't expect players to hang around and spend money with the promise of the big future updates when the game is constantly developing cracks in it's foundation.

It also doesn't help that my big Auraxium push when the game was running decently this June was rewarded with the GODSAW which is a contender for the worst light machine gun in the game. So thanks for getting right on buffing the Butcher and Betelgeuse but leaving the NC with that pile of **** for a month now. Not like even the normal useful Gauss SAW has been under performing since forever or anything, better make a worse one... sigh

The only time I'll be playing for now is to derp around with my friend in a Valkyrie.

^ this, im one the edge of uninstalling again after a month

the game has gotten super zergy since may, the unlimited sunderers the chain pulling max's and MBT suck. its made everything you do feel pointless, you end up stuck on one base for as much as an hour and it gets painfully repetitive. add in having two continents nearly always locked (usually the good ones) and its just not enjoyable.

they need to finish the resource revamp damn soon or no one will be around to see it, ive been waiting since launch for some of the features we still havent gotten an update on. SOE has a habit of promising way way more than it can possibly deliver and then at the last minute delaying the little bit they have done for longer than is reasonable.

after 2 years it should not feel like im playing a beta waiting for major systems to be finished. i have seen early access games launch AFTER

When opponents can run straight at you for 10+meters...while you shoot them...and knife you...and the "You are Dead" screen shows you didn't even dent their shield...this would cause quite a few people to go find something else to do.

Or AI mines that magically "appear" in front of you (I watched that happen last night)...no infiltrator visible...just the mine popping into existence at my feet while I was repairing a Sunder...

Or FPS dropping from a rock-solid 60FPS...to a PowerPoint Slide Show...randomly...

Smaller population---> Server merges

Continent locks/lattice---> force smaller population into a limited area for larger battles

Larger battles---> expose poor server performance/hit detection/random FPS drops

Poor server performance/hit detection/random FPS drops---> smaller population

It sort of all makes sense...

lol!

I have one word for you, and it will explain why the population has dropped.

Archeage.

It's a FTP MMO. Planetside population dropped because Archeage went public Sept16...2 weeks ago. So, umm, ya thats where are the players are. And it will be interesting if this post is deleted.

I highly doubt it's any one single issue. If fact it's probably a combination of things

1. School started, I know I haven't had nearly as much time to play since school started, I can't be the only one.
2. Valkyrie Update overhype - I think a lot of people were expecting a lot more out of the Valkyrie than what they got, either more power, faster, whatever. I've seen quite a few people that felt let down by it.
3. Hit detection issues
4. Game performance, especially hitching.
5. Other games coming out, such as Destiny

not really a buff AFAIK

Actually, it will likely need buffs.

They seem to launch everything new underpowered as all hell lately

You're joking right?

Been playing Destiny myself, though the pvp in that game is so bad I'll probably be back to Planetside 2 by Mid October.