Playerbase Dying Down?

Is it me or does it seem like there are only about 1-2 games on the games list at a time? That doesn't make too much sense. Is there a lot less players playing or something? I am convinced that there are thousands of players playing at any given time. Any thoughts about this?

There are very, very few normal and nightmare games, especially nightmare, but there are plenty of hell games almost every time I go to the lobby. A few dozen at least.
The vast majority of people grind solo.

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

The vast majority of people grind solo.

the downside of free for all loot.

Games seem to be based off the region or IP you're in so you aren't seeing all the games being made in normal, nightmare or hell. Which is pretty stupid. If it was like it was before and it showed everyone making games on US west or US east then there would be infinitely more.

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

iamergo wrote: 2 years ago

The vast majority of people grind solo.

the downside of free for all loot.

I still prefer free-for-all loot. Personal loot would be way too abusable in D2.

Yeah, it is a factor of a few things:
1. People waiting for ladder
2. Game not showing all games
3. Payers grinding solo
4. Shown games are region locked

Still... With 2.4 not only there would be a lot more active players but also iirc they did some lobby changes so the whole pre game experience should feel better

Things have definitely died down. Even the hell game lists are often times not full anymore.

But even if the active player base didn't dwindle down massively (which I'm sure it has), it'd make sense. After all, what's the point of playing in public/multiplayer games, apart from trading?

- More loot
- Social interaction
- More XP

More loot tends to be a moot point because there isn't enough MF areas and games don't reliably fill fast enough in a public approach to not end up overlapping and fighting for the same drops in a clicking war (which isn't as well received these days as folks are now used to personal loot from other games).

Social interaction used to be a driving force in the original D2 days but since the chat in D2:R has been beyond broken since release, that one is just artificially limited to the point of non-existence.

More XP is really the only reason to still be in public games which is why that 1 active baalrun tends to be the only thing left next to the trade games. But even that doesn't work as well with "the modern player" as it did back in the olden days. Given, there was always a leecher or two who just stood there,

Ormus in hand, expecting you to clear everything for them as they slowly lvl up while afk. But today? More often than not, I end up with 6-7 leechers in public

Baal runs and if it is someone else's run the host not even teleporting, to the point where the quicker of my builds actually level faster solo than they do trying to find viable public runs. This is the one that really took me by surprise...it just got sad.

it's not not necessarily more loot and xp. lots of players who solo farm got more then one account. they can multibox. and lots of people on jsp trade d2 accounts for in game items.

I'm guessing from the time of most of these posts you guys are EU based. EU servers have gotten really quiet.

I've been playing US servers unless it's peak time EU. It can be a bit laggy, but there's waaaaaay more people online at any given time. Even when it's like 4am or the middle of a weekday in NA there seem to be more players about.

It's much easier to find

Baal runs or normal/nm/rush games.

Well, it has been about 6 months since release, so one would expect the game to quiet down. All games have a life expectancy, and unless there are fresh bursts of content, the player base dwindles and moves on. There's probably some interesting stats and graphs about it, my hunch is that it is all very predictable and follows a statistical Pattern.

I've seen all of the above, but to correct Schnork, which doesn't happen much, the player is likely leeching with an

Ondal's Wisdom. Nothing personal Schnork.

I only hop into lobby to offload gems and then move on. Yes, I still Hustle gems. They have gone up in price, and are reliable for a decent rune to go in my rune factory. I've got a

Baal GC that I reroll every now and then, and I get 1-2 str and 4 Dex and stuff. Much rather just do the gem swap. I can grind WSK myself, and the downsides of pub games just aren't worth it.

When 2.4 drops there will be a boost in ladder and non-ladder, but I think it will be a short boost. Once everyone tries the new builds and kills dClone a few times (or tries to), they will move on and it will just be the die hards and hopeless addicts playing away. Again, following some sort of statistical trend.

Oops, my region was set to europe

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

More loot tends to be a moot point because there isn't enough MF areas and games don't reliably fill fast enough in a public approach to not end up overlapping and fighting for the same drops in a clicking war (which isn't as well received these days as folks are now used to personal loot from other games).

I don't know about you but I never played in group games because I never liked clicking wars against people with faster ping, faster reflexes, and/or autoclicker bots. Not now, not 20 years ago.

Agreed with Beardozer! The only reason for me to join is to farm at higher player level but then I have to either fight for farming areas or for loot which I do not enjoy personally.

I'm in the same boat. If loot wasn't free-for-all, then I would play MP. I play exclusively SP because of this.

i prefer to play d2 with others. playing d2 solo over time is to me a pretty miserable experience. especially if you also skip things like the trading aspect of d2. i think there should at least be options to change loot rules for group play. and maybe even have things like ubers take group effort to complete. only for battle net. obviously not for single player offline.

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

More loot tends to be a moot point because there isn't enough MF areas and games don't reliably fill fast enough in a public approach to not end up overlapping and fighting for the same drops in a clicking war (which isn't as well received these days as folks are now used to personal loot from other games).

I don't know about you but I never played in group games because I never liked clicking wars against people with faster ping, faster reflexes, and/or autoclicker bots. Not now, not 20 years ago.

I just hate the fact that today, you basically have to have a controller (or bot) to compete..that design is just idiotic.
If everyone were on even footing, I wouldn't mind. But if you basically automatically win all loot just by using a bot or by having a controller..f that.

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

i prefer to play d2 with others. playing d2 solo over time is to me a pretty miserable experience. especially if you also skip things like the trading aspect of d2. i think there should at least be options to change loot rules for group play. and maybe even have things like ubers take group effort to complete. only for battle net. obviously not for single player offline.

It's fun to play with friends. I've never played in a public game that had much talking though. Only thing I've ever really had in public games was up to 7 other NPCs with faster reflexes who take all the loot that drops around me, lmao. No talking, no chatting, just a bunch of other player models running around sometimes stealing things. "Stealing things". That's not a great way to look at it, but at least in single player I got a shot at everything that drops around me and it's just about as social an experience as the standard public group game.

I'm not sure private loot would change anything either, because then I'd just be playing public group games with up to 7 other NPCs that don't talk, lol. This game has always been a glorified single player game for me that I sometimes play with groups of friends to mix things up.

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

I just hate the fact that today, you basically have to have a controller (or bot) to compete..that design is just idiotic.
If everyone were on even footing, I wouldn't mind. But if you basically automatically win all loot just by using a bot or by having a controller..f that.

I remember autoclickers always being a thing, even when the game launched 20 years ago. The controller design is new, but it's always been a crap shoot.

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

It's fun to play with friends. I've never played in a public game that had much talking though. Only thing I've ever really had in public games was up to 7 other NPCs with faster reflexes who take all the loot that drops around me, lmao. No talking, no chatting, just a bunch of other player models running around sometimes stealing things. "Stealing things". That's not a great way to look at it, but at least in single player I got a shot at everything that drops around me and it's just about as social an experience as the standard public group game.

I'm not sure private loot would change anything either, because then I'd just be playing public group games with up to 7 other NPCs that don't talk, lol. This game has always been a glorified single player game for me that I sometimes play with groups of friends to mix things up.

Great point here. I should say that, playing LAN in D2 (this was before D2R) with my brother, on separate computers in the same room, was a lot of fun. The "free for all" loot didn't really matter, obviously, because we weren't jerks about it (we played different classes so often we valued different things). Was just great and easily the most fun I've ever had playing this game.

That said, this is the first time I've gotten into the "trading" aspect of the game, and it's pretty neat. It's fun having this feeling of "earning" all my loot through trading.

Beardozer wrote: 2 years ago

It's fun to play with friends. I've never played in a public game that had much talking though. Only thing I've ever really had in public games was up to 7 other NPCs with faster reflexes who take all the loot that drops around me, lmao. No talking, no chatting, just a bunch of other player models running around sometimes stealing things. "Stealing things". That's not a great way to look at it, but at least in single player I got a shot at everything that drops around me and it's just about as social an experience as the standard public group game.

In my opinion, that's still the single biggest problem and the single most critical bug (or..collection of bugs) in all of D2:R. The chat is so freakishly broken that everyone has simply given up on social interaction in what is supposed to be a multiplayer experience.

In the days following release, people still used chat. Or tried to rather. But once everyone realized that when you say something in a baalrun, only 1-2 random people out of 7 others there can see you, and even when you do get a reply, the same people probably can't see each other and keep talking for the next 2-20 games of the run, the attempt of actually establishing some sort of social interaction is so aggravatingly painful that noone still bothers with it. Including myself by now, sadly.

Hell, the only chat I ever see is the same two annoying people spamming all of their low-end worthless drops in trade over and over. Ironically that's the only one I shouldn't see, seeing how I tried to leave trade about a million times and don't typically have the chat selection set to show trade at all. But nooo...that one goes through no matter what.

Ugh...

But hey, at least the 10 pages of change notes for 2.4 include exactly nothing to address this...

3 main reasons why players prefer solo:
1. no fking farmer will join you and spoil all your quests
2. no competing for loot with random players
3. normal+hardcore can be rushed in 20 minutes or so.

Borderlands 2 solved problem by generating separate loot for each player.

First problem can be solved by giving host a kick functionality.

Third problem is solved in PTR, as i've heard.