I suspect current drama has severely impacted player counts and we're been getting a series of MO's that are meant for the previous, higher amount of players.
Yeah, last night during US prime time, it was barely 100k. Huuuuge fall-off from peak numbers, but those are pretty low given the general commercial success of the game.
Sony may single handedly kill this game off.
I certainly haven't been playing as much since the debacle.
I suspect the PSN requirement was just put off temporarily and they'll ramp up efforts soon since Sony recently touted their earnings to investors for the quarter, now they're free to make mistakes and problems.
I think their design philosophy is also probably playing a part in dropping player counts. The progression treadmill is severely hindered by their wish that weapons be weak to encourage players to depend on stratagems. Their passes are filled with lackluster guns and armor that isn't really all that different from what players already have. They add a few new stratagems here and there, but not nearly enough to keep people grinding for new ones.
I would argue that a sizeable number of players can only grind out the same missions over and over with little tangible progression to show for it for so long.
That plus their ever growing pile of technical debt.
I just find the war bond system insulting. Want these new cool guns? Better grind out 1000 super credits running around boring low level missions. And even once you’ve got them, we’re gonna force you to unlock a trove of shit you don’t care about. We also put a max on every currency but super credits, so you can’t just mindlessly play and have fun and stack bills.
It would be 1000x better if you got a small super credit payout for 5 staring helldive or something. Instead it just leaves players with FOMO feeling like you have to dump tons of time into the game or buy their bullshit currency in an already pod game.
It seems too easy.
I suspect there will be a big offensive push on those planets that will challenge our liberation of them.
I would expect to see more failed MO due to what everyone said here plus the natural player count decay. A weekend high of 40k concurrents should be when it stabilizes.
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