Where Is Every one??

[faxx2]

Having played the game a lot around the release of the game, and have had to take a break from the game for a while--I want to get back into the game but every time I log in there seems literally no-one online in the multiplayer. . . Has the multiplayer just died or do I keep missing the times when people are on??

If the Multiplayer has died what steps are being taken to reinvigorate players--I do know that a DLC has been released but IDK if that helped (maybe the price tag of DLC so soon after release moved people away--not sure).

 

[DarkCruor]

If you're in EST then a lot of people like 500-600 people (100-130 games on server) are usually on around 11:00am-4:00pm, I notice the game becomes 'dead' (around 200 players 70 games on server)) after around 7pm est.

This game is prolly more popular in Europe.

 

[I WUB PUGS]

DLC boosted player numbers over 1000 during Sunday peak time.

Numbers have been crashing back to reality since.

Its a 3-400 population during the peak hours game. Basically unplayable in my time zone when there's like 120 people online.

 

[kilen2015]

If you're in EST then a lot of people like 500-600 people (100-130 games on server) are usually on around 11:00am-4:00pm, I notice the game becomes 'dead' (around 200 players 70 games on server)) after around 7pm est.

This game is prolly more popular in Europe.

not such unfortunatly,
each time i was connected last week, it was between 150, 200 & 250players online in tchat (europe), wich isnt such a lot...
but its true it was late in night, between 1am & 6am.
i assume its similar u say around 8 to 10pm at night: 500 to 750 maybe...? (without speaking of the week-end evenings here)

but what u say is a complain i heard quite a lot of time, in different months, since i follow news & forums of SD (planning to buy it since earlier anouncement), early this year,
seems its hard to grow for SD...

but, if we take exemple of Stellaris Synthetic Dawn new release, i noted a new "wave" of begining players since there (on facebook groups particulary), even already ~16months after first release !
...i assume a major DLC release and old community of gamers excited by could give same kind of increasement in the futur for SD... (lets hope so !)

beside that,
i am still totally stunt to learn the results of Civilization game's (IV, V or VI) sells, on long term, compared with main Paradox games !
i felt that a bit unlogical & unfair for Pdx... (but it still mostly a matter of publicity & popularity, i think, not a matter of quality and satisfaction of players having already quoted and tried SD or Pdx games)
i am not sure SD have been such popularized and shown to create more intrest, or not enough so...
for now, each time (or much often) i hear about someone mentioning SD, its already a gamer having quite long habit of grand strategy or RTS games (or old fan of Pdx, just simply, as i am too).
may SD needs a bit more of presence on the market to really see a strong community rise...(?)
idk, perso, i hope so for later...
and hope a major new DLC --about eastern-front battlegrounds for exemple !--
could become famous somewhere during next 2years !
(still a chance there, to SD, to become a true reference and attract a bigger community, etc)

we will see... ^^

 

[dmdelor]

Ah, you missed the memo. We moved from "Axis are OP!" to "The game is dying!" to "Allies are OP!" "The game is dying" is SO two months ago.

Seriously, though, the player count is pretty awful and has been for a while. That said, I'm not having any problems finding matches. I generally play from 8-10 Eastern and can throw up a 2v2 Conquest lobby and get a game in maybe 10 minutes, which isn't fast but by Wargame standards is pretty snappy.

If your time zone is less compatible when people are around, though, YMMV.

 

[Admiral_Awesome]

The unit and nation varity of MOW:AS2 combined with the deck system and amount of units from W:RD and the mechanics from SD (frontline, pathfinding, etc.) would make up a much better game. So far SD gets boring and stale pretty fast, no one from my steams friend list is playing steel division anymore, some moved on for TW:Warhammer 2, some others went back for W:RD, heck I even see people still playing R.U.S.E these days, but none seems to favour SD anymore.

 

[iamthatiam]

Don't forget to start a game lobby yourself. Start a lobby and people will join.

 

[Herr_Robert]

Don't forget to start a game lobby yourself. Start a lobby and people will join.

So true. I find that it's quite easy to get games started despite the game's low player count. But then I'm used to AoE2 where it can take up to 2h to get a decent 8p game started because of being forced to rehost 10+ times, mainly because of players having connection issues with each other and either dropping or causing unbearable lagg.

 

[Alex646]

Don't forget to start a game lobby yourself. Start a lobby and people will join.

+100. Create a game and you have full 4x4 after 10 mins maximum.

 

[lI.]

Seriously, the main issue about this game is that it lacked a decent tutorial or like a training course for new players.
Current tutorial is not helping it, its like an introduction ppl still don't know how to play this game properly, so they ALWAYS performe bad in multiplayer which is devastating for both the player himself as well as the whole team which result in that player being pushed around, later abandoned the game.
Its not like any other RTS games out there, the players need to have a developed understanding about military tactics.
I dare to say ALL veteran players of the SD44 grew through bloodbaths which means constant deafeat, humiliation and upset for a very long time. This basically means casual gamers are not welcome to this game. However, the whole process is like a trial which anyone made through it has a huge advantage against the ones who did not.
I guess there are lots of ppl out there who are either just hardcore or don't have the time for it, so they quit for some other casual games.

 

[Claremont Waltz]

I mean Tunisia 43 just went on sale for 75% off. If you're an old grognard that's pretty big news and totally going to interrupt Steel Division time.

I mean shit, I'm trying to figure out how to pull of a night attack with a poor quality British company backed by 5 Churchill IVs and a handful of UCs with even numbers up a hill so steep it looks like a boner defended by a dug in German company with serious AT and artillery support.

And then I have to hold it against a couple of companies of cranky Germans backed by tigers until reinforcements show up.

I'd have won my attempt last night except that my soldiers kept pissing themselves and running away every time they got shot at by Nazis in the dark. Oh and it turns out that the Churchill 4 tends to run into shit and throw a track when offroading up a steep hill under fire with its headlights off. I think one of them slid downhill and fucking crushed half a platoon, but I can't prove it.

Anyway like everyone else I'll be back when something new turns up or when I get bored of what I'm doing.

 

[Warzkinsoto]

Most of my friends quit and wait for balanced patch because those 88 are just irritating and noone want to play against it.

 

[Hidden Gunman]

Most of my friends quit and wait for balanced patch because those 88 are just irritating and noone want to play against it.

'Peak Unit Atrophy'...been around since day 1, sadly.

Part of the problem is that introducing new divisions introduces new peak units. Personally, I think the solution is to focus the DLC on introducing new mechanics into the game, with any new unit types or division availabilities as secondary. It's not any revolutionary dev tool, in fact it's been around since board wargaming, dating back to Avalon Hill's Squad Leader, where each add-on for the base game brought in new factions and new units, but predominantly focussed on expanding the rule set/game mechanics. Granted, the rules were largely optional and players could choose which were in and out, which would be impossible to do with SD, but the 'introducing new mechanics' thing is very much a possible.

 

[xXSunSlayerXx]

'Peak Unit Atrophy'...been around since day 1, sadly.

Part of the problem is that introducing new divisions introduces new peak units. Personally, I think the solution is to focus the DLC on introducing new mechanics into the game, with any new unit types or division availabilities as secondary. It's not any revolutionary dev tool, in fact it's been around since board wargaming, dating back to Avalon Hill's Squad Leader, where each add-on for the base game brought in new factions and new units, but predominantly focussed on expanding the rule set/game mechanics. Granted, the rules were largely optional and players could choose which were in and out, which would be impossible to do with SD, but the 'introducing new mechanics' thing is very much a possible.

You cannot make paid DLC that introduces new game mechanics. You would split the already tiny community of this game because the game would be incompatible between haves and have-nots.

 

[Hidden Gunman]

You cannot make paid DLC that introduces new game mechanics. You would split the already tiny community of this game because the game would be incompatible between haves and have-nots.

You don't alter the mechanics already in place, you introduce additions. Essentially it's a pay to win situation, to a lesser degree...it's up to the devs to think outside the square though.

The small community goes back to initial release, and there's a number of factors relating to that, rather than being one dimensional as some think...certainly a large part was that it wasn't a scaled down Wargame, but that was largely a 'community mis-expectation' rather than a fault of the devs.

 

[morpher]

Low online players count is a problem for you but I don't think it is a problem for the devs.
I used to think like you but various people convinced me otherwise.

IMO:

Look at how it is marketed on steam: "historical accurate", "real tactics", "real world setting". It doesn't want to be a competitive esport-ish strategy game ala starcraft. Anything but roleplaying is a secondary concern. It is more like the electronic version of tin soldier armies that you paint and use to recreate historical battles with your friends.

Do you see how the devs interact mostly for historical accuracy and such?

That's explain why matchmaking and balanced were half-assed at launch. It is not the primary focus of the game. Even in the previous titles balance was never a primary concern, left (as I have been told) mostly to the personal initiative of single devs.

Many were puzzled when it was state that steel division was meant for wargame fans. But a dude explained this to me: "This is for Wargame players who are bad at Wargame and liked the Hitler Channel before it switched to Storage Wars 24/7"

Did you see the roadmap? New aces, new units and coop missions. Stuff that help you roleplay better (even with friends). Even the new game mode is just for that: "it aims to make the beginning of the battle more authentic".

So if you expect anything but roleplaying for the game, you are not the main target audience.

 

[roirraw]

One of the devs in another thread answered a question about why they were not openly planning any other factions or areas at this moment, at least publicly. The answer was something along the lines of, "We don't have the team to model all the equipment, let alone another theater at the same time as SD 44." After reading these forums all the time, and steam discussions, I honestly believe the company is doing their best to make the game as historically accurate with the information they are pulling from. Slight adjustments to things like Stug 4 from 1000m to 1200m are game side balances, might not have been real world statistics.

Either way, this game will take some time to get at peak balance. Every time they release new content, you can expect that people will rush to play the new battlegroups and their strengths will be overly-amplified or weaknesses will be really obvious. Mix that with people who feel so strongly about something they've experienced after only one game, and come to the forums to write about it. Compared to people who will play 50 games with the changes and make their mind up about what is common and uncommon, then write about it. The emotion of the player/writer is real, but the actual game situation they might write about isn't as serious as their experience leads them to believe most of the time. I've made this mistake before and try to recreate the situation a few times before coming to ask for changes or slam game progression as being too "off-balance, off-topic or filled with inaccuracies", which seems to happen quite a bit from a lot of people.

There are many layers to the game, between the phase systems, income distribution, your teammates, different battlegroups and most of all - BATTLEGROUP BUILDING. The latter seems to be the biggest deal for many people. Getting caught in fantasy units, ex - Tiger Tanks, can make people rage when they die to 1000m AT guns on the first shot. Or individuals who still can't figure out how to place a Sherman in the right position to get that critical first shot, and back out of fire while reloading, complaining about the ranges as a way to balance. This game has many intricacies or ways to overcome things like heavy tanks and long range artillery, but you have to think about this in advance and build your army to defeat these obstacles ( I've captured a few King Tigers with M3 halftracks ).

Mixing all of these things written about are really big factors for people quitting the game, as people who played Wargame titles had experience building decks and learning to min-max their units in most situations. I still see people placing units on open ground when the game starts and traveling across country, 90%+ of the time this is the wrong thing to do, as speed to the front line is key. With 1100 hours in this game and another 3000+ in the Wargame titles, I've seen numerous people quit our dedicated Teamspeak over the years because of these situations; one can only imagine how many have quit on their own without friends or a community directly assisting them.

 

[Hidden Gunman]

The real 'hidden' problem of the game is that it is far more subtle in it's learning curve than the Wargame series. My comments re the 'peak units' issues relate to new or not so experienced players, while those that stick around and work out the subtleties overcome the initial problems. I think it's fair to say that SD is a lot harder than any of the Wargame series to really get on top of, and for a lot of casual players that's a big ask...

 

[Nerdfish]

WG series has been for most part, 1 v 1s are very rare.

Conquest just do not work well with random teams. Individual player contribution is completely unknown in conquest and thus impossible to improve.
If you are holding some part of map 50 / 50, but you have a noob on your team and losing some part of the map, you have no idea why your team lost.
Should have helped the teammate, kill some enemy and take some pressure off them ? push your part of your map and maybe take pointless to entrenched defenses ? You just have no idea. Conversely if your team won there is no indication why you won, did you coordinate well ? did one player kill off all the enemies ? Did your team used cheap infantry to win by dying ?
Again there is nothing that says if you contributed anything personally.
At least in destruction there are situations where your team lost but you haven't, but in conq there is no such thing.
To make it worse it's completely impossible to know if your opponent is a pre-made team because the player stats tool is not available.
So unless there are enough friends on to form a team the only real choice is to play 10 v 10, where allies never win, due to "Asymmetric Balance"

Eugen isn't stupid, they will make it better, but it will take a couple of iterations.
The lesson here is realizing why we play games in the first place. Feeding the egos of male donkeys isn't it.

 

[Thonar]

Low online players count is a problem for you but I don't think it is a problem for the devs.
I used to think like you but various people convinced me otherwise.

IMO:

Look at how it is marketed on steam: "historical accurate", "real tactics", "real world setting". It doesn't want to be a competitive esport-ish strategy game ala starcraft. Anything but roleplaying is a secondary concern. It is more like the electronic version of tin soldier armies that you paint and use to recreate historical battles with your friends.

Do you see how the devs interact mostly for historical accuracy and such?

That's explain why matchmaking and balanced were half-assed at launch. It is not the primary focus of the game. Even in the previous titles balance was never a primary concern, left (as I have been told) mostly to the personal initiative of single devs.

Many were puzzled when it was state that steel division was meant for wargame fans. But a dude explained this to me: "This is for Wargame players who are bad at Wargame and liked the Hitler Channel before it switched to Storage Wars 24/7"

Did you see the roadmap? New aces, new units and coop missions. Stuff that help you roleplay better (even with friends). Even the new game mode is just for that: "it aims to make the beginning of the battle more authentic".

So if you expect anything but roleplaying for the game, you are not the main target audience.

Except it has some major realism flaws that destroys roleplaying.