Duelyst Forums

So, the population

#21

Just curious, am I the only selfish bastard that don’t care about the population or to an extent, sale strategy ?

Am I the only egocentric consumer that doesn’t have advice to give to CPG ? … because … hey, that’s their job, not mine. Nobody gives a shit about how I think they should float their boat, I’m not even a game Producer or Director neither a Marketing Professional.

Tell me I’m not the only self-centered moron that is only here to play, just play, and don’t have an opinion on how to run a gaming company :pray:

10 Likes
#22

I’m with you on that, as long as the queue times are short enough and the meta is good (which it is atm) I am happy

#23

Well, I guess the point is that a healthy gaming environment requires more people joining rather than leaving, or at the very least an equilibrium between the two. A consistent drop of the player base will hurt the game on the long run, I think most people don’t like to play against the same decks and opponents all the time.

1 Like
#24

Just a little opinion that people may or may not get mad at…

I like having a relatively small community.

It’s nice to be able to have people you know be against you in ladder sometimes, and it’s nice to have something like a family, which is how I feel about this game.

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#25

The issue Duelyst has has less to do with the game they’re selling and more to do with the game it’s playerbase think they’re buying.

You are right that Duelyst IS small, it IS niche and it likely won’t ever compete with the likes of SV or HS and I ask…why is that a problem?

Duelyst has many issues it should deal with, not being the A list juggernaut it was never going to be isn’t one of them.

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#26

Wouldn’t a selfish consumer be concerned about one of the pastimes they enjoy declining or going away? About whether or not they should continue to invest time and/or money into it?

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#27

I think one of the main issues as to why Duelyst appears to be declining is its lack of advertisement. Of course, it is a small company, but being able to consistently get out advertisements for their company will help spread the word and attract new players at the least. This doesn’t mean that all players will stick with the game, but there will certainly be player who will become a part of the Duelyst community.

1 Like
#28

I’ve generally been quite relaxed about player figures, until recently. Losing 5% of your players in a month is not an issue, but in the last couple months, it’s 20%. Steam does not represent the entire playerbase, but you can assume it can be used as a canary. Queues have gotten longer, this makes the game objectively worse.

#29

This. Duelyst will never steal that many players from HS and Shadowverse. Though not exactly rocket science, the game is still significantly more complex than a standard CCG and it appeals a different taste.

Duelyst will never be the #1 CCG on the market, but it can be one of the biggest tactical CCGs around. Shifting it to a more traditional CCG will mostly harm the current player base, rather than making more players enter the game.

I think all the issues can be solved with a very good expansion and some careful reworking of the game, most notably to recover faction identity. Also, mobile release may help pushing the game again.

2 Likes
#30

I guess that’s what any standard player would do, but when it comes to Duelyst Community, I’m always surprised how some of us think their advice and opinion may influence the game development strategy.

I totally agree, but so far, I don’t have any issue with that … on the other hand, I am maybe a below average player that only plays a dozen match everyday for half a year :confused:
At least at that rate, there is no problem with population and renewal, that’s probably why I don’t really care.

Mh … it seems I don’t take it as seriously as most of people here. To me it’s just “a game” (and a good one !), and the investment is just a couple of bucks for an immediate ROI which is … pleasure to play when I start the game. There is no real “investment” to me, that’s just a hobby, some digital entertainment that will surely be replaced in a couple of years. It’s not like putting all your salary in real estate, drone or VR industry … or starting to learn an instrument in order to play in a band on stage, that’s investment to me* :slight_smile:

* or become a pro-player and earn your leaving from playing Duelyst, but I don’t think there are any right now, just dedicated player doing streams, videos and tournaments.

2 Likes
#31

My main concern about Duelyst and the main reason why I froze the game was a continious balance mess. Like seriously, wasnt it rather obvious that Lavalasher, a Brightmoss golem with Rush, was overpowerd? It was an extremly obvious powercreep. Also this card has little to none synergy (none outside of golem decks).Cards like these were treated by me as disrespect to player base.
Also Faction arctypes are hardly evolving. Take magmar for example. They have been playing their rush midrange approach for the whole eternity. And they are constantly becoming stronger. The stronger top tier decks become, the worse meme deck playing experience becomes. And I dont even touch upon the topic of 5+ mana minions which are in Duelyst just for collection purposes.

Duelyst as a game has enormous potential. It has it all: cool aethtetics, amazing music and unique mechanics. But apart from curve minions, this game insanely favours agressive decks (low health pool and very cheap face damage, like thumping 5 dam for 3, and makantor giving you 4 easy damage; mana tiles;overdone removal).

There is a reason why I still lurk around the forums, even though i hate what games i play present me: I really want this game to become less of a “let me play a better card” and “get a removal for every single one of my minions or they will just blow you out”.
But the thing is that at this stage it would take too much changes. And majority of players left in the game are actually the ones who enjoy this type of games.

#32

Hi guys, so as already mentioned I have spoken about this before.
Our Reddit and Steam traffic is not great for sure, and like any game that has been out for awhile we lose some of our older players to burnout, or just moving on from the game. There are also definitely areas we want to improve in, and it’s always a growing process for us.

With all that said, our player numbers are healthy and it is something we are not concerned by. We definitely want to improve our numbers, retention, advertising etc, and we do have plans that we cannot speak about publicly yet that are pretty exciting.

As the last point, I just want to say thank you all for being as enthusiastic and supportive as you are, it is extremely cool having a community that cares this much, and it’s extremely motivating for myself and everyone on the team to continue working hard and improving Duelyst as a whole. Duelyst is going to be around for a long long time :smiley:

24 Likes
#33

To be honest i stopped playing right at the end of Q1 of 2017 when i got disappointed with lack of mobile release which was the thing i was looking at from the start of duelyst. When android version will be playable i will be back for sure :smiley:

#34

I want to contribute the discussion from a new player perspective (and with consideration of mobile in the future).

CPG released Ancient Bonds prior to whenever mobile will come out from beta. This being the third expansion to come out, the power of expansion cards needs to be watched (this does not mean addressed).

I’m trying to play budget decks, and it’s tough. I often feel disadvantaged and discouraged. My motivation and enthusiasm drops as the number of legendary and expansion cards I come across increases.

The addition of another means of playing (mobile) will naturally allow a potential increase in player base (population), but (as @Ryvirath touched on) retention is a topic that isn’t answered by mobile; but is a separate, and important, topic.

Now CPG obviously needs to juggle multiple opposing things like profit (charging for orbs/etc. and/or the difficulty of achieving them) verse player population.

The player population WILL be impacted when mobile and new players come around, but the retention of said new players will ALSO be affected by how they feel walking into matches against players with 1 or multiple expansions.

What’s this balance of allowing and providing an environment that encourages new players I don’t know. If the power levels increase as expansions continue, does it increase or decrease the likelihood of overall profit and player population?

I’m struggling to say what I mean. :frowning: To provide an example, I played Vet vs Vet, I was budget, they had Ancient Bonds. The fight was overall a stomp against me. I used 2 entropic decays, but EMP and Blood of Air were played and closed the game of any hope. Blood of Air is an almost strictly better card that was available to my opponent and not me.

I present this because the question has to be brought up, “How is this going to be for players when we release mobile?” This is a serious question, because this WILL be an EXTREMELY common occurrence for those new players when they try out the game. Some will react by paying, some by leaving, some by effort/diligence. But to return to some original point(s), if the amount of money and expansions required to feel like a fair-ish fight.

The later mobile is released prior to expansions, the more it is going to feel like an uphill battle for potential new players, and thus, increase the likelihood of them leaving, leaving only a similar population trend that was had on Ancient Bonds release.

3 Likes
#35

The whole “my opponent has cards that I don’t” excuse is always going to exist, and yes, it feels bad when your opponent drops legendaries that you wont have for ages, but that happens with all cards games, it helps that duelyst is extremely F2P friendly so this is not the case for long. Duelyst is also a game that rewards good play, so getting into diamond or S is very acheivable with a new F2P account if you are good enough.

If you only focus on your opponent having an unbeatable deck with lots of high rarity cards then you will not improve your own play, which is something pretty much everyone can do. I agree that mobile coming out sooner will be better overall though, as any card game gets harder to get into the later it is in it’s life.

#36

Being honest i reach Diamond on a few months when i started to play, but that was before AB exp release. Now i have the feeling that whitout some key cards hide on AB and RoB its almost imposible to hit diamond (maybe on a last week climb, but looks hard anyways).

Im not saying this is bad anyways, obviously players whit more comp decks will have more facilities to climb than new players. Im just saying its risky having a silver clownfiesta meta where some players whit all the expansions will be paired whit totally newbie players.

#37

@improbableblob

That’s not much of an issue, Blizz introduced standards (so new players can gather the most important cards quicker) and some welcome pack bundles for new players, their numbers are still soaring high (70 mil).

#38

To be honest too, I reached Diamond “almost” (*) every season and I consider myself as a poor player, with a global W/R below 50%, you maybe have to either adapt to the meta and play “out of the box” or … just merge with the meta, be the meta, and play the most disgusting efficient mainstream cancerous deck of the month, no half ass :wink:

When it comes to grinding the ladder, it’s very hard to play what you like, and you may have to play “what works”.

(*) almost = silver when I started but I was playing maybe 20ish match every season, and S-Rank on last, because I was … lucky/good/playing-something-unusual/I-don’t-know.

#39

@Ryvirath

I HIGHLY recommend CPG consider players be able to purchase faction decks that consist of core cards across ALL core/expansions in the future.

Providing this in the future would provide new players an immediate way for them to feel competitive with at least one faction. (Personally, I’d set the bar at $30, maybe $20. Getting solid/core cards and decks for $40-60 is an overall great into price for new players.)

Please consider this, again, for the future. Considering there are more factions than expansions, this might actually provide a more profitable deal too.

1 Like
#40

Good idea but I already see all “old players” coming here and whine about it, on how CPG is disrespecting them, that they’ve been deceived after being so faithfull, that they all gonna leave and playerbase will crumble etc etc.

But good idea :wink: