is the game dead?

So simple, what is your opinion about the game? Do you think it has a chance to continue being fun or is the fun over? I can see that almost nobody plays for infamy, I do not think that almost nobody currently spends money on improving their equipment, and other games are much more active ... so I'm curious to know what you think. Thanks.

I still think it was a great idea but always poorly executed...

 

I don't have any data to conclude if it's dying or not, can only share my personal opinion from my perspective.
For me it is dying. I've been in NML since February/March, and as a F2P, there's nothing more you can really achieve. It just gets very stereotypical, and after some time, the excitement of pressing Battle button every time slowly dies off.
New events brought little bit of fun again, but poor matchmaking and poor and random rewards killed it off quickly again.
Next thing that kept bothering me is balancing. There are tons of threads about the issue, but the last balancing update was when? 4 months ago? This flare + dual shield Enforcer meta is becoming ridiculous and boring (words coming from dual rare Tesla Shields user).

On the other side, I would still suggest the game to everybody because it is a fun and challenging one. Great job devs, and I'll be definitely looking forward to your other games you'll be working on.

 

Well, as a f2p player, i'm about to reach mk6 in like a month or so. Events are nice but i have the feeling that guilds are inactive and as it goes on, it will kill the game.
There's still people playing for infamy (i'm ace 2) but the amount of newbies even in these high league is tiring... Nowadays, being under mk6 is a terrible experience.

 

I would never play another game made by these guys, lesson learned.

 

Just had a quick look at the numbers. Battle Bay had nearly 12,000 DAU (Daily active users) just in the USA via googleplay in May 2018. Thats not taking to account the rest of the world and IOS, North America makes up about 25% of the global games market and Android makes up about 75% of all smart phone/tablet devices, so It's safe to assume the actual DAU across the whole world and all devices is far higher than 12,000, probably over 50,000.

So from a numbers point of view, I would say its very healthy if my info is correct. The only concerning thing i found was that the DAU was 18,000 players for USA via googleplay in Feb. So the game has lost 6,000 DAU in a few months. I do not know if that trend is true for IOS and other regions though.

 

I wish there was more options in the poll. The game is definitely still alive but it's not necessarily going better or worse. Can we just vote the game is still alive

 

For a game that 2+ years old, 100k DAU is a very low number. The other game where I used to play, Asphalt 8, has over a million users doing daily event on iOS alone. For a game that’s fairly new, the amount of people leaving compare to new players is insane. Due to the imbalance in the very lower end, the new players often losing interest very quickly. The devs have the numbers for this and they only care about maximizing profits now.

 

Your goal is just in NML? Do not want to be in the top 10? Do not want to be the number one in BB? As a F2P, I set my goal to be the number one in BB despite my limited resource. For me, it is quite challenging and fun to think about dynamic strategy to win each game.

 

And how would you know this? Both of these things are gut feelings, really. I don't believe the first is true, and the 2nd is definitely not true. It's easy to say "new player matchmaking sucks, game is terrible for them", but that's not related to the numbers.

Let me put it this way: don't you agree that new player retention is of utmost importance to any game? Isn't it, therefore, safe to assume that the devs continuously monitor this and make sure it stays good?

 

There's enough players on it to where the game can be enjoyed. (Like you don't have to wait an uncomfortable amount of time to find 9 players).

But Battle Bay fails to expand the infamy range over 4000. Which is causing the entire range of infamy to be full of players with high level items. Which is bad for new players. New players can't get over 600 infamy before facing max epics. Which is why there are not many new players sticking around. I have seen new players become literally addicted on their first week. Then a week or 2 later, after being on HOURS a day. Actively battling and chatting in global, say they are being mowed down by mk5 and 6 players.

I see this as a good game but there is too much needed to be fixed to where, after almost 2 years, it still feels like a beta. So when you ask me if the game is alive or dead, I'll say it's surviving.

 

There is well known cognitive bias called the False Consesus Effect, which is basically where people (mistakenly) believe that whatever the consensus is within their own group/bubble, reflects the opinions of the wider population. But of course it often doesn’t, and then people are surprised when (for example) Trump got elected, even though ‘no one’ they know would ever vote for him. That’s why we see all this talk about echo chambers.

Just because you are getting bored of the game, and some of your friends have started leaving, it might be tempting to think that the game is ‘dying’ for everyone, but I don’t think there is any evidence for that. There are still a lot of people playing and spending, Nightmare keeps growing, and I still see a lot of fresh faced mk1s, asking questions in global chat.

The game looks as healthy as ever to me.

 

I made a very similar thread recently with the same observations. I'm rarely wrong. Only hope is for the fev team to be completely scrubbed. There is absolutely no excuse for this incompetence. So much good work into the graphics and physics, so much failure at basically everything past that. Sad.

Of course this is a company whose one hit was basically the ancient castle catapult game dressed up with graphics and physics, so maybe this is the best they can do... in which case they should have realized their own shortcomings and hired some competent outsiders.

 

Not to nitpick, but I doubt any of the current Battle Bay team had much to do with Angry Birds. They most likely were outsiders who were hired for this project.

I know Grim isn’t a Dev as such, but she has told us that she worked in the gaming industry for 10 or so years before joining Rovio. That’s probably somewhat true for everyone on the team.

 

So how do you know what I said was definitely not true? I don’t have the number to support what I said but it was based on what I’ve seen and reasonable assumption. I knew quite a few leaving for various reasons.

Leading to your retention rate, it’s not just keeping new players but the veterans too. It takes 2 years to fully develop max epic items for 1 ship at the moment without spending. So when a long time player leaves, BB loses more than most other games.

 

Battle Bay is not dead for me.

We all just have to be a little more patient. We can’t compare other game companies to the little Battle Bay studio. Besides, Devs have lives too.
#devlivesmatter

 

Based on their annual reports (fun read, lovely downward-trending unique user trendline) they seem to have imagined for themselves some sort of "affirmative action for Finns" mandate so I don't find your speculation to be credible.

They had a London studio for a minute but it quickly failed and folded. That perhaps would have employed 'outsiders' while it lasted.

 

Agree with most of the opinions here, but its gonna be different for everyone, and not based on solely one's perspective.
While old players and ones playing from the beta might feel tired of the same old routine, fresh players will have the urge to get up the ladder exploring the game along the way, just as you do for a new game.
If they find it interesting they will stay, though matchmaking is not fit, but then every game has some or the other issue, and all mobas so far have matchmaking issues.
When i first started this game, i kept dreaming of the higher tier ships, epics and even legendaries tho they did not seem acquirable anytime soon, and got driven by those fast mk6 speeders in y-tube videos and the gameplay of players with higher tier ships up the infamy ladder, which i kept in view to climb as i progressed.
Wanted to have a setup consisting completely or more of railguns.
Also meant to create a guild, have a good family and try to be one of the top most guilds.

The day i got my wished stuff, climbed the infamy ladder to nm, got a t5 epic and a leg rail by piece collection, even another one from achievements, got a good guild like a family up in the top 50, and felt like almost everything's done, thats the time i slowly started leaving the old routine and became less active on the bay.
Went playing only for the timely quests, and then slowly even left those, with the crew now not on a ever training stance, also dropped out on g-quest grinding and shifted leadership to a trusted member, since i knew i wont play much, not befitting an example as a leader to be active.
Still play a few battles now and then, but the craving to play is no more since i've achieved my goals here.
Crazy as it may seem, even one of my guildmates by the name of fishman went upto all the way to reach his desired mk6 fixer setup of all t5s, and earned his mark to reach nm, and left the game thanking us soon after that.
Its like you hang on with active participation till you achieve the things you want, then after your done, slowly interest fades away as goals are accomplished.
The new events got me cracked up at the first insight, to get that leggy perk thinking it may be a once-in-a-long-time event and as everybody would want it as an unique asset, went for it. I could see the same spirit in some other players as i browsed through the friendlist. Bittersteel was online throughout the day, for the same interest, and i know from general observation he doesnt play that much usually. After the event subsided i again stopped playing as frequently as i did before or while the event was on, and coming to know similar events rooted up pretty soon with same rewards had me a bit lethargic rather than excited to go for them again. The second event had a 'shock' railgun perk (many players got it by now) which was perfect for my rail setup. But still i didnt want to go for the grinding which kind of felt useless all for a perk, and that too you had the unpredictable luck of getting good teammates, wherein i had to carry most games, and i knew it wouldnt be as simple to get to the leggy perk as the event was a win-match event unlike the previous star-hoarder event (the very first), and you get stars for even losing playing decent, but wont progress in the win-event by losing.
Then i saw you can even buy battlecoins, the recent currency they introduced to get those perks, which kind of made the uniqueness of those perks useless, whereby one can spend to get those perks anyday of an event, of which i thought they wont be available for a long time let alone be purchasable, so that you could atleast have something unique in your grabs.
That and some other factors slowly degraded my interest from this game, although its always worth a shot in boredom, considering i've reached quite far its difficult to completely leave the game, but as i said before, the achieved goals no longer set a good enough reason to spend as much time as i did before.
But i guess you cant consider that as dying, since i (and many previous players) still play sometimes when i can and miss the bay along with my guildies, also the fresh new ones still have the excitement we used to when we were mk1s.

 

You've been in me league?

 

DIDN'T READ LOL
I agree with Bismarck though.

 

Very well said @Blood Raven. However, BB now is much more different than it was a year ago. Like I said in my first post here, lower end players are losing interest in this game more than when we started. When I worked my way up the ranking, MK5 was pretty rare at 1500 infamy. 1200-1300 were only MK3s and MK4s. I believe at 2300 was when I get to see MK6 occasionally. I made it all the way to 3900 in MK5s while playing with all ships. Not an easy task and I loved the challenge. From what I heard about the lower end now, it can't be that pleasant to have MK1 to 6 all can play at 500 infamy.