CrazyCT Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 There's a counter in the upper left corner of the UI Ian...it tells me EXACTLY how many people are in my particular instance. I've been on Harb for nearly a year now...it hasn't changed during that time. The population on the fleet hasn't changed on Harbinger for nearly a year? Despite the launch of KotFE, the interest generated from the new movies, and a new hub opening up on Odessan? Weird Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jadescythe Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 The population on the fleet hasn't changed on Harbinger for nearly a year? Despite the launch of KotFE, the interest generated from the new movies, and a new hub opening up on Odessan? Weird they aren't talking about total population, only max capacity per instance... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 they aren't talking about total population, only max capacity per instance... Which would imply that the other servers' pop per instance limits were raised to match Harb's, since we have observer reports that Ebon Hawk and Jedi Covenant both have had the pop per instance limit raised from ~100 to ~200 per instance at some point after 4.0. I wish I'd have checked JC's fleet pops last weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jadescythe Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Which would imply that the other servers' pop per instance limits were raised to match Harb's, since we have observer reports that Ebon Hawk and Jedi Covenant both have had the pop per instance limit raised from ~100 to ~200 per instance at some point after 4.0. I wish I'd have checked JC's fleet pops last weekend. When Pot5 was actually active, 150-175 in an instance of fleet was not uncommon prior to KotFE. I'm not sure why you think the caps were ~100 before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 When Pot5 was actually active, 150-175 in an instance of fleet was not uncommon prior to KotFE. I'm not sure why you think the caps were ~100 before. Personal observation of JC, and Max's observation of EH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 When Pot5 was actually active, 150-175 in an instance of fleet was not uncommon prior to KotFE. I'm not sure why you think the caps were ~100 before. You're correct. Ian doesn't know what he's talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 You're correct. Ian doesn't know what he's talking about. The apparent maximum size of a Fleet instance went up on EH at same time as the changes to Yavin 4 and other locations on that server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 You're correct. Ian doesn't know what he's talking about. Quite possibly true - which is why I corrected myself to note that I've personally observed it only on JC, and that MAx has observed the change on EH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toraak Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Even so...that doesn't change the fact that a year ago, Harb had 4 Pub Fleets (2 full, 2 filling) active and now we're lucky to get 2...the second one usually being <40 players. The population per instance hasn't changed since that time. You do realize most people these days aren't on fleet more then picking up Operation quests/PvP quests. the rest of the time they are in there SH's parked doing things or on planets. Fleet has become useless to hang out in. Most servers have some form of an End game PvE content channel (name varies depending on the server/faction) for pugging Ops, and everything else is just a queu. So just looking at the people on Fleet as a population check is completely inaccurate now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Quite possibly true - which is why I corrected myself to note that I've personally observed it only on JC, and that MAx has observed the change on EH. Perhaps you are correct too - I just realized EH is an RP server. I know the RP servers used a different threshold than PvE/PvP servers did for light, standard, full...so maybe this change was directed at RP servers...which explains why you saw a change I didn't. Jade was correct in the Fleet capacity of POT5 and Harb remaining the same though. From the best I can tell, around the 140-150 mark, a second instance opens up and caps at 175 naturally, 180's is the very highest I've ever seen it, and I imagine that is from groups of players zoning in at one time, "breaking" the cap that seems to be set at 175. It's been this way as long as I can recall on both servers. Back when Ilum was a PvP zone, we would often break the "cap" (which I think was 50 players) by getting one player into the instance we wanted and then joining that players group...when it was 45 Imps and 5 pubs, you knew you'd have no chance, so we often swapped instances to find a more 'balanced' one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 You do realize most people these days aren't on fleet more then picking up Operation quests/PvP quests. the rest of the time they are in there SH's parked doing things or on planets. Fleet has become useless to hang out in. Most servers have some form of an End game PvE content channel (name varies depending on the server/faction) for pugging Ops, and everything else is just a queu. So just looking at the people on Fleet as a population check is completely inaccurate now. Fleet is still a good measure. That end game content is the SAME end game content we've had for like the past 18 months. SH's have been out since August 2014...the people avoiding group content have usually avoided it, so they were never factored in anyway. Harb has gone from 4 Pub Fleet instances nearly every night, less than a year ago, down to 2 tops these days, with only one being full and one being around 20-40 players. Make any excuse you'd like...I'm not stupid and I know what I'm observing...I wish it were the other way around...it just isn't. I'm stating a fact. You can pretend it isn't true, but it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Even so...that doesn't change the fact that a year ago, Harb had 4 Pub Fleets (2 full, 2 filling) active and now we're lucky to get 2...the second one usually being <40 players. The population per instance hasn't changed since that time.the fanboys and white knights will continue to deny this simple fact. population is plummeting even on harbinger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) the fanboys and white knights will continue to deny this simple fact. population is plummeting even on harbinger. But WHY? It's not as if I want it to drop...I'd love 20 Pub instances of Fleet...why are they denying fact? Does burying their heads in the sand really make them feel better? Is the truth that hard to accept? Contrary to what some people think, I want this game to live on for at least a decade longer...I still enjoy it. I still love the players I meet. I still enjoy my game time more than any other leisure activity I have, even when I'm bored silly I have a ton left to do...I LIKE video games and this is the only one I play. I'm not "negative"...I'm honest. The current population of this game, seems to be half what it was a year ago. Do you (not YOU Pagy) think that makes me happy? HELL NO! I HATE IT! I want it to DOUBLE...TRIPLE even...but it's not. I try to point out why I think it's dropped - lack of balance and attention to PvP and lack of NEW end game content are HUGE reasons imo...it can still be fixed. Edited April 25, 2016 by TUXs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 What if other servers aren't seeing the decline in pop that Harb and the PvP servers are? I wish I could say I'd been keeping an eye on the JC population trends (I haven't, until recently, and even then only causally), but the times I've been interested in getting into group content since 4.0 dropped, I've had the same experience in queue times; around 5 minutes or less for a PvP queue, and around 5-15 for a Flashpoint queue. Ops queues I don't have enough data on; since it's always been near impossible to get into a SM op as a DPS pug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 So looking at EH and finding no sign of a "plummeting" population, and reporting based on those observations... is "sticking my head in the sand"? If you're going to accuse me of being either delusional or a liar... what's to stop someone from telling you the same thing about your claim that population "plummeting" on Harbinger? I'm not sitting here telling you that your observations about Harbinger are wrong -- why do you keep telling me that my observations about EH are wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 What if other servers aren't seeing the decline in pop that Harb and the PvP servers are? I wish I could say I'd been keeping an eye on the JC population trends (I haven't, until recently, and even then only causally), but the times I've been interested in getting into group content since 4.0 dropped, I've had the same experience in queue times; around 5 minutes or less for a PvP queue, and around 5-15 for a Flashpoint queue. Ops queues I don't have enough data on; since it's always been near impossible to get into a SM op as a DPS pug. I sincerely hope that's the case Ian. On Harb, I do one SM PuG night a run usually...as DPS (since that's all I have). I can only think of a few times I wanted to do one but couldn't over the time I've been there, but that's mostly because our normal raid time is 8-10pm and I was running out of time to do anything too long (like S&V). I don't have an issue with queue times...I'm only pointing out the fact that the population is seemingly halved from less than a year ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) So looking at EH and finding no sign of a "plummeting" population, and reporting based on those observations... is "sticking my head in the sand"? If you're going to accuse me of being either delusional or a liar... what's to stop someone from telling you the same thing about your claim that population "plummeting" on Harbinger? I'm not sitting here telling you that your observations about Harbinger are wrong -- why do you keep telling me that my observations about EH are wrong? Because I've watched Harb since I moved there Max. I know what the population was because it was the #1 factor in our move to Harb. Since you seem to have missed my earlier post while writing this, maybe you're right...maybe EH is growing. I don't know. I was taking about Harbinger (which was the server mentioned in the OP). Edited April 25, 2016 by TUXs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 But WHY? It's not as if I want it to drop...I'd love 20 Pub instances of Fleet...why are they denying fact? Does burying their heads in the sand really make them feel better? Is the truth that hard to accept? Contrary to what some people think, I want this game to live on for at least a decade longer...I still enjoy it. I still love the players I meet. I still enjoy my game time more than any other leisure activity I have, even when I'm bored silly I have a ton left to do...I LIKE video games and this is the only one I play. I'm not "negative"...I'm honest. The current population of this game, seems to be half what it was a year ago. Do you (not YOU Pagy) think that makes me happy? HELL NO! I HATE IT! I want it to DOUBLE...TRIPLE even...but it's not. I try to point out why I think it's dropped - lack of balance and attention to PvP and lack of NEW end game content are HUGE reasons imo...it can still be fixed.we can only guess why people leave. i would think most of it is natural attrition; game is very old. given that we all play it for different reasons, we'll all leave for different reasons as well. i used to do flashpoints and ops but since they decided not to add new ones, i'm done there. endgame pvp isnt balanced so i'm done there too. last thing i can enjoy now is lowbie pvp and the 30min quest update every month...assuming there are no bugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 (edited) What if other servers aren't seeing the decline in pop that Harb and the PvP servers are? I wish I could say I'd been keeping an eye on the JC population trends (I haven't, until recently, and even then only causally), but the times I've been interested in getting into group content since 4.0 dropped, I've had the same experience in queue times; around 5 minutes or less for a PvP queue, and around 5-15 for a Flashpoint queue. Ops queues I don't have enough data on; since it's always been near impossible to get into a SM op as a DPS pug. Macro observations on torstatus over the last two years show that all the traditionally PvE servers do in fact ebb and flow around expac releases. It's pretty consistent from expac to expac as well. Of course when 4.0 dropped, they also boosted the limits on a number of the servers so they had higher capacity for each increment of measure.. which masks some of the increases around 4.0. 4.0 represented a bigger expac surge then prior expacs, and it is therefore reasonable to see more of an ebb until the next expac as well. Net, net.... for this number of months after an expac released... the PvE servers are pretty close to where they always are at expac+7months. So, the ebb leading to the next expac is in play... and this too shall pass unless there is a complete catastrophe (which is highly unlikely, no matter what the negative nellies wish us to believe). As for the traditionally PvP servers... no question.. they are dead and have been for some time now. Players took advantage of the 90cc transfers to move to PvE servers where they have higher populations and more frequent queue pops. That event pretty well finished them off, from all appearances. What we do not know, and none of us have reasonable data (including observations) to know is the following: does the KoTFE monthly chapter format retain more subscriptions then past expacs. See.. player activity on the servers cannot tell us this because people quite possibly remain subbed, but do not play for the full month between chapters. What will tell us the bottom line on this part (subscriptions and the revenue they generate) will be if we see Bioware continue that format, or abandon it in the next expac. Time will tell, and we may get some general indicators at the investors meeting (though as usual, we won't get hard numerical data). Is the game dead on the traditionally PvP servers? Appears so. Is it dead on the traditionally PvE server.. nope, not at all. Even on the smallest of the NA servers (Begeren, which has been the smallest for at least two years now), there is plenty of activity, plenty of players anywhere you travel, and the player economy is healthy. Edited April 25, 2016 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikinai Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Because I've watched Harb since I moved there Max. I know what the population was because it was the #1 factor in our move to Harb. Since you seem to have missed my earlier post while writing this, maybe you're right...maybe EH is growing. I don't know. I was taking about Harbinger. EH has stayed fairly consistent population wise. I've been there since the start. Some have left, others have come, but the population seems to remain the same. It was never a big place, which is why I liked it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 What if other servers aren't seeing the decline in pop that Harb and the PvP servers are? I wish I could say I'd been keeping an eye on the JC population trends (I haven't, until recently, and even then only causally), but the times I've been interested in getting into group content since 4.0 dropped, I've had the same experience in queue times; around 5 minutes or less for a PvP queue, and around 5-15 for a Flashpoint queue. Ops queues I don't have enough data on; since it's always been near impossible to get into a SM op as a DPS pug.queue time isnt an indicator at all. it would me more valuable to chart the number of open instances. fleet pop is relatively static unless there is a major levelling xp bonus or event. and even then it's not perfect. but going from 4 instances in fleet to 2 is certainly indicative Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TUXs Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 EH has stayed fairly consistent population wise. I've been there since the start. Some have left, others have come, but the population seems to remain the same. It was never a big place, which is why I liked it. Thank you ikinai! I appreciate (and trust) your observation on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanArgent Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 I sincerely hope that's the case Ian. On Harb, I do one SM PuG night a run usually...as DPS (since that's all I have). I can only think of a few times I wanted to do one but couldn't over the time I've been there, but that's mostly because our normal raid time is 8-10pm and I was running out of time to do anything too long (like S&V). I don't have an issue with queue times...I'm only pointing out the fact that the population is seemingly halved from less than a year ago. Op cared about PvP queue times exclusively, and claiming that the lengthening of such on Harb presaged the collapse of civilization in the game as a whole. Queue time is a meaningful metric, in that for group content you need short queue times, but focusing specifically on PvP queue times as a metric of health of the game overall is counting the leaves on one specific tree in the forest. The game will survive as long as enough people are subscribing/buying cartel coins; whether those players are participating in PvP or not. Now, it could be that if the minority/plurality of players who exclusively do PvP or exclusively do Ops or exclusively do FPs no longer sub, their subs could be the margin, or the lack of same will cause less-focused players to leave; both without replacement in the form of more casual players. We don't know that, but BW/EA either does, or is a lot less competent that even their detractors ought to give them credit for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikinai Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Thank you ikinai! I appreciate (and trust) your observation on this. honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing more people on the server, it would mean the other servers are at capacity, and we were getting overflow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted April 25, 2016 Share Posted April 25, 2016 Because I've watched Harb since I moved there Max. I know what the population was because it was the #1 factor in our move to Harb. Since you seem to have missed my earlier post while writing this, maybe you're right...maybe EH is growing. I don't know. I was taking about Harbinger (which was the server mentioned in the OP). You're also not the one who said that anyone who won't "admit" to the "plummeting" population of SWTOR has "their head in the sand". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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