Since the forums seem more active lately, I figured I'd see if this activity was being reflected in an increased user base.

Results here: http://www.appmtr.com/facebook/app/1273 ... xy-legion/

TL;DR - No. The game's lost about 10% of its users since Q2 2014, and about 33% since a year ago.

6,683 Daily Average users, 18,062 Monthly Average users, both about 10% drops from Q2.
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Some of my own analysis, with the strong caveat that this is just my own interpretations below:

The one shining beacon for the game (DAU as % of MAU) has dropped slightly from 37.7% to 37%. For a long time, this number had been steadily increasing, which suggested that the losses in the userbase were coming primarily from infrequent players. While this percentage rose as the user base fell, it was not the most discouraging news - fewer people were playing, but the regulars were still regular. As everyone in every business in the universe except Dan knows, regulars are the majority of your revenue - in restaurants, they can bring in 70-80% of the profits.

The fact that this number has leveled out (and worse, may be dropping) is bad news for Dan, because it suggests that regulars are quitting faster than they're being made. Also, the fact that this figure is staying constant means regulars ARE quitting.

Example:

10,000 players
3,000 regulars
Regulars = 30% of the player base

9000 players
3,000 regulars
Regulars = 33% of the player base (this mirrors what the numbers have shown for months, with total players dropping, but % of regulars rising)

But:
9,000 players
2,700 regulars
Regulars = 30% of player base.
This is now what's happening. 10% of the player base gone, same % of regulars as before. This means *everyone* is leaving, and is more damaging than simply losing 1,000 transients.

What will be done in response to this? Who knows? But this is the current state of things.

I do believe this was exactly what he was hoping to address with the update to the tutorial and training legion idea.

IE: If the problem is old regulars quitting faster than we get new ones, what we need is to increase retention of new players to fill the gap of those who leave.

Definitely agreed. Seeing as that update is coming out soon, it will be interesting to look back on this post around Christmastime and see if anything's changed.

I honestly hope the update brings up both of those numbers. I don't want to see this galaxy die a heat death.

Maybe if Dan stopped adding elites that are essentially wrist destroyers (to find and/or kill) and added something new and fresh to the game that we have never seen before he might hold the retention rates of said players a little longer.

CRAZY TALK

But yeah, that's something that's consistently baffled me about the game - getting to higher levels rewards you with harder hunts, more clicking, and just raw tedium. I don't know why on Earth he thinks someone would want to sit and click an enemy 250 times and would somehow find that enjoyable. Every new mechanic that appears is obviously made as just that, *a mechanic.* 'Something to slow down your NPC runs.' 'Something that's a big energy sink.' That's great n' all, but people play games to HAVE FUN. No fun, no game, no players. People don't care if something matches your intended level progression system if it isn't any damn fun.

Just my 2 cents as a "regular" whose activity has dropped way down in recent weeks: I almost quit once because of lag, but what ultimately made me loss interest was a general lack of creativity and strategy.

When I started playing, it seemed complicated with all the different minerals and artifacts, different missions and NPCs, etc. As I progressed in the game, it all became a matter of artifact per hour to get prisoners, all ship mods are viewed aa their stats, and artifacts by their planetary production rate. PVP and NPC are just a matter of clicking. The game no longer seemed complicated and interesting. At this point, I'm clicking and watching progress bars. I don't remember who, but someone posted to the forum a while back about how the only 2 things that matter are attack and APH; in a lot of ways, that's true. All the diverse content, whether it's new missions, new modules, etc, is simply a means to generate more APH so I can accumulate more APH, and I just got bored with it.

its because Dan does not montise the game enough. Alot of people who are credit card captains will not play GL because the moeny doesn't give you enough of an advantage. this is a very rare thing in a FBG and should be encuraged, However the truth of the matter is CCC (credit card captains) are what ulitmately fules the game to make more stuff. less new stuff means less new and interesting things for players to want to have. Dan also doesn't advertise the game the same as most FBG's do. which once again is a rare and wonderful thing HOWEVER not good for the games growth.

I don't even mind wrist destroyers, but last time the boss elios luminary LOCKED you out of NPCing... and PVPing and Basing.... I hope we don't see anything like that again.
I hope any debuffs will only apply to the boss , or NPCs, that way people have the option to do something else in game.
Nothing more annoying than having 1 hour to play the game and then being debuffed to 1k attack for half an hour.


That said, I am excited for the training legion and new event!

Agreed on both counts oddly enough. However if training legions and more events are all he puts forth towards player retention and acquisition the game is going to have problems. He needs to do more to get the game's name out there.

I am not sure how much if any he spends on an advertising budget for the game, but I am in no way hesitant to say that it is likely not large enough.

Holy crap, we lost a lot of people. What can save this game?

Two solutions:

1. Better advertising/Persistent Ads
2. Simplified UI/Better Tutorial

Yeah Advertisements would easily be the best thing to do for this game.

Those of us reading this thread want the game to grow - not shrink or worst die off ---- IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
1) Reward the long term players with the ability to stop clicking repeatedly - use Quantity in Artifact - one (if not all) NPC's have a method to auto attack till the NPC is disabled or your own ship is
2) Shake things up - an NPC that exactly matches your ship (ie small ship builds might have a very hard time disabling it).
3) Better Tutorial probably would be helpful but only if it also directs people to this forums guides and is clear about joining the appropriate legion for your ship.
4) Dan should really get new players excited with a higher drop rate of goodies (appropriate for low ranks) for starters. example formula - Drop rate is 5% at a low rank for a great planet/artifact/npc. And say the drop rate is 50% for a common P/A/Npc. Then when a common one is about to be dropped the dice is re-rolled based upon (100-rank)/100. So for rank one through 10 it's pretty much a given that for a common drop their will be a re-roll of the dice and the player has a better chance of getting something good. By rank 50 then it's a 50/50 chance of re-roll. By rank 90 then it's a 10% chance of re-roll.
5) encourage new players - I would have stopped below rank 30 when a player ranked 95 stole what I thought was a good planet. He said sorry but here is some Kurenite which should provide you with enough credits so you don't have to worry about mining.
6) Currently we have A/R/M which reduces down to AP/hr and Credits as you get to the higher ranks. How about a brand new branch? At least at the high ranks get it back to three or better yet five and cause the game to become really complicated. At the moment I'm only concerned about AP/hr and if I empty my ship twice a day I get ahead with credits (more often and even faster build up of credits)
7.) Dan I need to see some real Touch screen game play improvement before spending another $50 on 550 Galaxy Points. Seriously using a touch pad I cannot see what pops up (as in the ? or little brown basket). When I move the mouse pointer over a item the popup comes up. Personally I wonder how many brand new players start on an iPad (or other touch pad) and don't get the full game play. Does this cause new players to move on?
8) how many of us regulars have tried to get more players (ie friends/family who we think would enjoy the game)
Thanks for reading my RANT.

A couple years ago I tried to get my cousin to join this game. That backfired horribly. I mean he liked it at first then it got BS and boring on his end. Good rant BTW

Same with me. I a very close friend who loved the game for a few days - then he realized this was going to take more time than he had and stopped before he got hooked. Honestly with his responsibilities (not to mention kids) I should have been smart and not introduced him to the game.

Let be wise before introducing real people we know to this game.

I think Dan's also taken the wrong approach with the more recent NPC hunts. The spawn rates are god-awful, and again, reek of mechanics rather than fun. 'I need people to play more, so I'll drag out the hunt.' It takes hours to do the Darmos drones, and the Chuhn spawn rate is outside a lot of casual players' scope. If you don't NPC for hours, you're not going to see many of them. Rewarding dedicated players with more loot is great, but shutting out people who don't play for hours a day is foolish. I'm starting a new semester at a new job, and while I'm still going to play, I've basically written off this event as hopeless with my time schedule. Maybe I do some good NPC runs, maybe I don't. But the spawn rate is so low that I don't see it worth even trying to get all the items.

This is bad for Dan! You don't want people giving up on your big events, or the game in general. If people look at what the game asks and just say 'forget this,' they're going to leave. And like Hallucinations said in another thread, if it's more fun to play some other game, they'll go play it. We're not in some bubble where GL is the only game.

just because there is a medal for getting all the drops does not mean that Dan intends for everyone to get it within the timeframe of the seasonal. just like with legion missions, some folks are just not ready and will have to wait for the next go.round. delayed gratification is an important skill to have when playing GL.

This.

I enjoy these NPCs, and would like to score both of the scan modules (have 1 currently), but if not, there's always next year. It's not like missing out on the medal or drops is going to set anybody behind other players.

The closest thing to a "gotta have it!" for this event is the Chuhn Trading Post, and it is easily within the scope of most player's abilities to obtain at least a few. With the Chuhn Merchants, unless you are a big-time completist, the structures/modules/buff/medal points are just nice to have, but not must have.

IMO, while the uptick in NPC'ing has been awesome, this is the most laid-back, pleasant seasonal yet. No people freaking out about being debuffed and effectively put into "time out" for 30 minutes, nobody bummed as the event winds down after killing 27 Zebereens and somehow only getting 1 cannon, etc.