Anyne else worried about player population?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Meowcenary, Apr 18, 2016.

  1. Meowcenary

    Planetside 2 only has about roughly 3,400 active people across the entire game during weekdays.

    Anyone else worried this game is on its last leg? I love the game but I'm concerned I'm going to see a "we're pulling the plug" sooner or later from the devs, plus the lack of any new content coming out for a loooooong time suggest to me they're probably starting to abandon any new content and they're just letting it slowly die out.
  2. DeadAlive99

    Yeah, it's always been a concern for me. Their continued failure to merge servers when needed has fueled the exodus, not to mention various other issues. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
  3. DooDooBreff



    pay attention please
  4. Endlave

    as long as I can still log in and find plenty of fights on Cobalt, I see no reason to start spreading prophecies of the end being near.

    Plus, I am sure the construction update will reel in quite a lot of people if Daybreak manages to spread the word a little so that F2P magazines will offer an article or two in response. Personally, I dread the day it will hit live servers, even though I am hungry for updates as well, but whatever. They have already spent an enormous amount of dev time on it so they might as well add it now.
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  5. Badname707

    I don't think this game will ever truly die until a better MMOFPS is released. So long as they keep up their content updates, even if infrequently, it will continue to limp along.
  6. Taemien

    The game isn't dying. The issue you all see is that Daybreak does NOT want millions of players. They want a small managable and somewhat profitable game. I don't know why they've chosen to do this, but it is and always has been how they've managed their games in the past.

    They keep advertising to a minimum. They cut their crews to skeleton ones, only increasing it when they feel the need to make something new (like the construction system). And this isn't the first game to see this. All the other games, Everquest, Everquest 2, Landmark, DC Universe Online, and H1Z1 are pushing to be small manageable pieces.

    They've done this for nearly 20 years. This is not a business design flaw, but something intentional.

    It seems weird to you all because you are used to big corporations like Wal-Mart, and others trying to get big and make big money. Think of Daybreak as that local shop down the street. Its successful enough to keep its doors open. But it will never be a billion dollar corporation, nor do the people running it want it to be.
    • Up x 3
  7. SW0V


    lol.... seriously? No.

    It's not that the devs don't want more money or a larger game community. That makes no sense. It's far more likely that their games just aren't appealing to the majority of people and once the honeymoon period of 'a new game came out, let's try it' wares off the community shrinks rapidly and only the minority of hardcore fans remain. This isn't by choice, this is a product of generally unappealing game design. Unfortunate, but true.
  8. oTec


    Imagine being a new player. Get shrekt by AI Air, AI vehicles, getting shot by snipers who can be anywhere (or just next to you ;)), light assaults on roofs, maxes, heavy shield etc. Many of the current fps players are used to only infantry in a 2D-ish batlefield and that the only difference in classes is weaponwise. Oh and also, claymores!
  9. Ryme_Intrinseca

    Umm no. They launched on PS4 with 8 servers (three EU, five US) and it was so busy you'd be queuing to get in. But the playerbase collapsed and we're now down to 2 (one EU, one US) with queues a rarity (in the EU anyway).

    The most plausible explanation of this behaviour is that they wanted a big hit, built the infrastructure for it, but players simply didn't stick with the game so they had to cut their coat according to their cloth. Or to use a different idiom, they are making the best of a bad job - the game isn't as popular as they hoped but they can still run it profitably if they keep down costs (especially staff and servers).

    I expect the same is true with PC and other games. If they could be as big as Wal-Mart (or CoD, Battlefield, etc) they would be, but they can't.
  10. Ryme_Intrinseca

    As for the OP, there is some way to go until the game dies. On PC you still have two EU and two US servers I think so they could merge servers very easily if necessary. And even after they did that they could merge down to one combined EU/US server. I think the pop would have to be a quarter of current size before they thought about shutting the game down.
  11. Liewec123

    cobalt is still fine, there are plenty of big fights going on most nights :)
  12. _itg


    You see this all the time in other industries, actually. It takes a massive investment to take any product the the "AAA" scale, potentially millions of dollars in R&D, tooling, and marketing, and in the case of physical products, giant production orders that are necessary to get costs down to Walmart levels, which have to be made before you have any guarantee that anyone will buy the product. Smaller companies can often make a good product at a price which is kind of high but okay for a certain market, and then they find themselves in a position where they make enough money to support themselves and keep the doors open, but not enough that they can afford the huge financial risk of trying to go bigger.

    I certainly don't know that DBG is quite in that position, given that they presumably did spend millions developing PS2 and other games, but the basic issue here is that if Planetside is ever to become a household name, DBG needs to invest heavily in it and run at a loss for a long time, and when the game is good enough, hopefully the much larger playerbase will start paying dividends. The alternative strategy, which DBG has chosen, is to invest as little as possible in the game, making profits off their small playerbase by virtue of their small upkeep costs. That's a low-risk strategy, but it doesn't end with PS2 supplanting Battlefield or WoW.
  13. Hoothers

    the game lacks balance, as someone else mentioned it earlier, and drives new players away immediately.
    these are consequences of a poorly designed road map from before.
    what is the percentage of the players that first install Planetside 2 remain to play it a second, third time ? I guess is really low.Most new comers uninstall after first session , due to game imbalances and steep learning curve
    Koltyr is a wasted land, no one is there either, there are very few fights going on. And there are grievers there also.
    I don/t know tho what Daybreak can do to counter this, sadly...
  14. TeknoBug

    Connery is quieter than usual ever since I started playing again but it's actuallys till pretty healthy on weekends. I remember when Waterson and Helios were struggling then merged with Connery and Mattherson then there were ~300+ player biolab fights...
  15. Taemien


    Big hit?

    The servers can hold 800 per continent, 1100-1200 before it really breaks down. 8 servers times 3 continents times 800 is less than 20,000 players online at a single moment. I don't think that classifies as a BIG HIT. I mean Everquest pulls that kind of number currently during primtime.
  16. Reclaimer77

    No this community and Daybreak honestly doesn't care. I've personally canceled my sub and plan on playing this garbage a LOT less. Like it's namesake before it, the game had SO much potential but they keep making the same mistakes.

    The construction system was another golden BLOWN opportunity. Instead of changing the meta, they assured it's just another side-game of little consequence to the Lattice Zerg. /facepalm!
  17. Ryme_Intrinseca

    If they could've maintained 15-20,000 that would put them in the ballpark of the latest Cod or Battlefield/Battlefront so yeah I'd call that a big hit.

    http://www.callofdutyview.net/content/call-of-duty-peak-player-count-statistics/

    https://m.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBatt...lefront_player_count_falls_below_battlefield/

    The fact that ps2 (PC) had these kind of numbers for quite a while and Everquest does as well rather disproves the idea that SOE/DBG don't make big games. It's more that they tend to support their games for longer so inevitably end up with lower numbers, though still good for their age. Compare ps2's current pop with ghosts or AW and you'll see what I mean.
  18. Taemien


    Did you seriously compare a long cycle MMO to a hit and run made for console FPS? Those games had tens to hundreds of thousands of players during their initial releases. With the current one having over 60,000.

    There's no way PS2 would have maintained numbers. I called this back in 2014 when I said that it was time for an expansion. Every MMO needs a major content expansion around its 2nd anniversary. SOE decided NOT to go that route.

    Look at World of Warcraft. 2 million subs before Burning Crusade, 5 million after. Or Final Fantasy XIV with 2.5 million before Heavensward, 5.5 million after (possible WoW killer currently, vying for the number 1 spot in MMORPGs). Even Everquest jumped up during Ruins of Kunark by almost triple the subs.
    • Up x 1
  19. Reclaimer77

    It's true. MMOs live and die by content. And a few guns and a new continent are pretty much all we've gotten.
    • Up x 1
  20. Taemien


    Not sure what else they could do to be honest.

    Its a double edge sword. People want more stuff, but then when they add something like the Harasser or Valkyrie, complaints about 'issues' with older vehicles come up. I do know that other MMOs will just release content and let older content fade into obsolescence. At least until it gets too obnoxious.

    For example, it wasn't until relatively recently that the Hide skill in EQ could be used while auto attack was on. For over a decade, you had to turn off auto attack on a rogue to use hide to drop agro then turn it back on. For all that time we used a social (in game macro), to do it with one keypress.

    That is just one example of things that get overlooked when pressing forward with content.

    And well Daybreak is currently doing that with the construction system. Like, hate it, or don't care.. it is a major undertaking and its been at the detriment to other 'issues'.

    But let me ask this. What sort of content would be worth an expansion? And I do mean you buy a 30 or 40 dollar thing to access content. Its kinda funny.. that almost sounds Pay to Win. But I've NEVER in my 16 years of MMO gaming ever seen an expansion called P2W. That might be the way around that issue.