Player Retention in D3

[Frolk]

It doesnt suprise me.
I mean, they took out the essence of Diablo 2! Trading and PVP.

I mean, wth would they do that? So yeah, no surpise people are getting burned out fast

when was PVP part of essence of diablo 2, i think i missed that in my years, by pvp u mean who can 1 shot the other one first?

[Tucci]

Space is and always will be the biggest issue for me. The only reason I haven't sunk another huge chunk of time into a season is because I simply don't want to start the 30 day mail timer for all of last season's shit and have to sort it all again, not to mention having to log alts just to search for gear (RIP old character viewer in AH). Managing mules and transferring gear is tedious, boring and shouldn't even be an issue. Blizz should've 100% corrected it the moment people started using mules. 1 extra tab as a reward isn't an answer.

I've also been saying for a long time now that we've needed (and probably will eventually get) a gear/paragon/build switcher. It's a no-brainer and I'm really glad that guy's "armor rack" idea was noticed. It's so sorely needed, especially when playing in groups.

[Thelxi]

Once I finished the journey my interest in the game dropped like a rock. I also got sick of the pet ai with gargantuans. Never again WD.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

I didn't even get a week out of this season. Blizzard has somehow managed to turn the old 'I just hit cap, where my epix' joke in to reality and within an hour of hitting 70 you're basically propelled for GR40 and a day or two later you're pushing 50 - 60 without breaking a sweat.

There's no reward to anything in the game. Legendaries are given to you hand over fist through several different methods and the Cube only gives the illusion of choice since it ultimately boils down to requiring default items.

It's in dire need of an expansion.

when was PVP part of essence of diablo 2, i think i missed that in my years, by pvp u mean who can 1 shot the other one first?

PVP was a lot of fun! It offered a ton of entertainment and you never forget the sound the game makes when someone expresses hostility towards you. I played US East non-ladder even when LoD came out and it was easily one of the most played aspects of the game. There was a deceivingly large amount of diversity too as each build had counter-buils and you were always on your toes to make sure you were aware of your limitations. A Barb specialized for Sorcs got absolutely mangled by a Barb specialized in Barbs if caught and the amount of salt you got from a FotH Paladin when countered with a white three-socket topaz shield was hilarious.

Most games usually devolved in to shit talking and 'brb with my 99' or being lagged out due to Necromancer Bone Wall or Prison though. I was quite the asshole back then and talked a mean game but usually had the ability and clan to back it up even with dial-up.

I remember a fella by the name of Suweetpae and his tactic was to skirt the line between camp and blood moor to NK and collect gold. Others would dump their gold on the Cold Plains TP before fighting and boy did they get pissed when you found it.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Well yeah, but GR40-60 is nothing.

It certainly isn't anymore but I really couldn't be bothered to stay longer than I did. By that time, my interest fell quicker than a Rift guardian's health to my Thorns Crusader.

[Caladia]

I just started playing D3 on the PS4 by myself, with my gf next to me, or with my buddy online. My Barbarian is over Paragon 400, has full sets for Furios Charge, Whirlwind, and Leap/Quake builds. I have cleared GRift 67 and have all but The Furnace that I need in the cube.

That's all in 3 weeks of playing occasionally late at night after raid for a few hours before going to bed. I dunno how much further I can go GRift levels, as some aspects are nice on the PS4, the targeting is not. I could always come back to the PC with a few friends and have the finesse of the mouse cursor back and more control. But meh.

So yeah, 3-4 weeks and a player can be Paragon 400+ and all the gear they need to reach pretty decent GRifts.

[Steve French]

Diablo 3 had trading via the auction house; it was an unmitigated disaster.

Yeah but the AH was basically a money grab failure. The d2 game menu was almost 50%+ trading games..remember all the "T R A D E P O S T" "GODLY TRADES" type games people made? It was a huge part of the game and if they left it simple could still be a huge part of the game, pretty much anything that increases the amount you interact with other players in a game is a win in my book.

[Bodom]

Asmongold is right, for the first 2-3 weeks of a new season my friend list will have like 10-15 people online in D3, and once the first month is over there's 1-3 people left online. This also counts for myself, but this season I'm more bored of WoW than ever so I'm actually still playing D3 S5 a lot.

[Steve French]

when was PVP part of essence of diablo 2, i think i missed that in my years, by pvp u mean who can 1 shot the other one first?

PvP has always been a huge part of d2. If all you did was get one shot you're doing it wrong. It required allot of strategy and a large pool of gear and chars to choose from to excel, but people still spent hours doing nothing but pvping/talking in a1.

[Jokerfiend]

I try to max each character to max difficulty and call it a day. It takes a couple of weeks, but it's fun game play. Certainly gives me something to do.

I just finished all my builds and I was over 500 Paragon this season.

Now, there needs to be a lot more characters for continued gameplay. Right now, there isn't a point in grinding in the slightest. Paragon are a side effect of playing the game. It isn't fun or engaging, it's a stupid goal.

I think an expansion is in due order, perhaps add 2 more characters. At this point there isn't anything Seasons are going to do to keep retention.

[Televators]

It doesn't matter. If you want to play public games you will always find fulls ones. If you want to play solo then other players don't matter.

For some reason a lot of seasonal people like to go balls to the wall for the first 2 weeks, play 24/7, and get as high as they humanly can and then quit until next season. Frankly I don't understand it, I think it really fucking stupid actually, but w/e. There are plenty of people playing all through the season to fill in games of w/e difficulty you want to make. Just be sure to make the game, then open it to public.

If you want to talk about non seasonal, again, you will always fill in your games so player retention doesn't matter. And it's not like you can trade or anything so other players don't really matter.

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Really? How so? How did the auction house effect you in a negative way? I'd love to hear it.

Diablo is a game replay and grinding. The AH removed the need for this. Log on, hit 70, buy the best gear available, melt highest available difficulty, get bored.

[Kazgrel]

D3 is a game with no monthly sub and a patch every 5-6 months(ish) with a new season reset and some new features/boards/QoL changes. It doesn't really have to worry much with player retention. The fact it even has players to retain or return to it is damn near a modern miracle, given the state of vanilla D3 when it launched.

Like others have stated, I pop on, play for a few weeks with friends, then generally I get bored once I have a build/character or two fully kitted out and the only upgrades I can get are simply better versions of what I already have. It makes for a fun time for a few weeks every so often, though.

[WskyDK]

Kinda happy the seasons are dropping to three months at this point. Now I won't feel bad about dropping an old char for a new one (my issue this season, I bounced too much)

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Really? How so? How did the auction house effect you in a negative way? I'd love to hear it.

You weren't playing to loot items to equip. You were playing to find items that you could sell on the AH, and then buy your equipped gear from that income. When I found a really good item (I found some perfectly rolled Nats' boots) my primary thought wasn't "awesome, I have the best boots you can get", it was "think of all the gear I can buy with the gold from those boots". Now if I find an awesome item, I'm happy because of the power gain, not because of the amount of gold it'll net me.

[Bigbazz]

It does happen this way, people play at start of Season for a few weeks and then it dies down.. You can get most of what you want done in a few weeks and have a play through the new sets and changes, new zones etc and you can beat the seasonal journey challenges in that time. After that it's only the guys who want to push leaderboards who stick around, and pushing leaderboards requires you to grind paragon levels to the extreme.

It was the same in D2 though, people always came back for the new ladder reset and they'd only stick around for a couple weeks for the most part. D3 is an awesome game right now, it's not a game where you need to constantly play it all the time but rather it's much more fun to play in 2-3 week windows with some buddies, which is how I've done it since the start, even before seasons.

[melodramocracy]

Diablo 3 had trading via the auction house; it was an unmitigated disaster.

I actually enjoyed the AH.

Having said that, I'm not sure what people expect out of this game, it's terribly repetitive, and that aspect is really only going to appeal to a small number of players. I pick it up for a blast once or twice a year, but that's about the extent of it.

[Steve French]

I actually enjoyed the AH.

Having said that, I'm not sure what people expect out of this game, it's terribly repetitive, and that aspect is really only going to appeal to a small number of players. I pick it up for a blast once or twice a year, but that's about the extent of it.

Would have been nice if they kept the current D2 model, there would be a bigger community and more to do than gear a char or two per season then quit.

[Hyrican]

Is it not player retention if players come back for almost every patch? If it is for 2-4 Weeks, that's also alot. People will play for a couple hours and people doing season stuff probably around 50-100 hours. Most people buying any game play 0-10 hours (so many steam sales with 0 hours played - i also have such a huge game library like that). Of course if they are a fan of a game and have/take the time the sky is the limit for hours played... whatever the genre.

Retention does not have to mean a player wants to play every evening. There are many players who are quite willing to take time off playing a game and have as much or probably more joy coming back playing it again. For me this happens to be true for WoW and D3. I know i will have a couple months or a couple hundred hours of playtime to go through until i get bored and start complaining about a lack of content for one game.

For a pay-once model this is actually pretty good. Right now they support D3 players with these small content patches mostly because to improve their reputation that each game franchise they start will be improved upon and supported for a couple years. Their reputation to only release "winners" in comparison to other companies took a dive on the original d3 release. Not completely because many of the buyers did not expect to stick to the game for years to come, but in the vocal relatively minor community that can and will play every day.


I just learned to not expect to find one game which i can play for many years without pause... and that is ok. I even stop playing at all sometimes... I do not say this game sucks and has a problem

[Elggur]

So what? How did that negatively effect you? If that is what others chose to do then so be it. That doesn't effect you, at all.

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how did the AH negatively impacted me? quite easily, the drop system was based solely around the AH, you had close to no chance of gearing yourself decently withouth the use of the AH, add to the fact that only 2 classe we're able to get past act 2 prior to inferno nerf and you'll have enough reason to say AH was a terrible idea :\

[Djriff]

I mainly play for seasons and that's it really.