Analysis of Steam activity for BT4

[eisberg]

He included them together, because you have been referring to people as "trumpians" in what is clearly meant to be an insulting fashion, and then you ask "why you need to get personal is beyond me" when someone else referred to you as having low esteem.

The suggestion of course being that people are getting personal with you, because you are getting personal with them first. Which is against the rules of the forum. Drool is a mod.

What a surprise, as expected, you have reversed the actual situation, I and others (who have supported what we believe to be a great game) have been attacked personally from the moment the beta came out, as opposed to a general observation by me to a group of people, so please forgive me if I take your special pleading about 'personal attacks' for the hypocritical nonsense it obviously is. However, having said that, I am happy to leave things as they stand on the understanding I receive no more personal attacks.

yet you couldn't resist replying in the thread solely about personal issues while mounting a veiled jab yourself at one of the people you replied to...



So what's your opinion on the steam activity of the game?

Looking at global achievements, I find it interesting that 61% 'prayed to an altar' (highest rated achievement) yet only 31% reached level 10 with a character. That's about half the player base that started playing and thus got the 'altar achievement' that never played enough to get level 10.

Bard's Tale Trilogy, 29% gets to level 10, 38% enter the sewer (the first dungeon), and there are people completing that game in under 15 hours, and it takes longer to get to level 10 in BTIV than it does to get to level 10 in BTT.

So you might want to rethink the idea of using achievements.

[ZiN]

Cool, I just noticed BTT got the achievements for Destiny Knight now. Looking forward to how many people will boast the "Liberators of Caith" achievement. I think it will be under 1%: BT2 is really hardcore, even with automap and the other convenience features included. Also looking forward to BTT having more players in-game, than Barrows Deep!

[Gizmo]

A report by itself shouldn't matter, or mean anything. Reports go to moderators to examine what's been reported; if there is nothing there, then nothing comes of it—you wouldn't even know of it. On the flip-side, if there is never anything there, across many repeated reports, then the user(s) begin to damage their own credibility.

So in theory... One has nothing to fear unless they know they are at fault.

*But in practice following up on constant reports can become a tedium for the moderators.

Also looking forward to BTT having more players in-game, than Barrows Deep!

Predictable—perhaps, but looking forward to it? That's just being mean isn't it? If this happens, it won't be perceived as the lesson one might have hoped; it won't be seen as proof that they were wrong. I expect that it would only be seen as proof of a fickle audience, and that had they gone even further towards mainstream [ie. Food Court Fare], then they might have picked up a larger interest from the majority market.

A lesson learned, and likely applied to all future projects.

[Spectralshade]

What a surprise, as expected, you have reversed the actual situation, I and others (who have supported what we believe to be a great game) have been attacked personally from the moment the beta came out, as opposed to a general observation by me to a group of people, so please forgive me if I take your special pleading about 'personal attacks' for the hypocritical nonsense it obviously is. However, having said that, I am happy to leave things as they stand on the understanding I receive no more personal attacks.

yet you couldn't resist replying in the thread solely about personal issues while mounting a veiled jab yourself at one of the people you replied to...



So what's your opinion on the steam activity of the game?

Looking at global achievements, I find it interesting that 61% 'prayed to an altar' (highest rated achievement) yet only 31% reached level 10 with a character. That's about half the player base that started playing and thus got the 'altar achievement' that never played enough to get level 10.

Bard's Tale Trilogy, 29% gets to level 10, 38% enter the sewer (the first dungeon), and there are people completing that game in under 15 hours, and it takes longer to get to level 10 in BTIV than it does to get to level 10 in BTT.

So you might want to rethink the idea of using achievements.

not at all. but you might want to reconsider that everything about barrows deep shouldn't be about trying to find excuses to attack the trilogy as you seem to do.

The reason I specifically took up different achievements in barrows deep was to filter out the players that has the game but didn't evne bother firing it up and look at an attempted "keep 'em hooked" effect any new game should attempt to have to keep people playing.

If you really want to look at the trilogy, you need to consider the big amount of people that fired it up just see it for old times sake before putting it away again because they already played it back in the days. in This case the "keep 'em hooked" effect is actually possible to explain as the difference between the 2 percentages you listed: those that enter the sewer (first dungeon) and those that reach level 10, where the difference is only from 38 to 29 percent. compare that to the retention effect in barrows deep where the difference between people that play a bit to get a feel of it (start using saving stones, or even start crafting items) and to people that reach level 10 is a difference of 61/55 down to 31 percent. A drop off that is quite bigger, in a game that is new and that people presumably didn't already 'know it all and how it will play out'.

So no, I don't think I need to rethink anything. I'm merely pointing out the stats and asking what people think of them. It's obvious from your comment that you feel you need to slam the trilogy again for some reason (inspite of you still claiming to be a fan of the series you never miss a chance to take a slam at), but the question was never a comparison in the first place, but simply about barrows deep aloneand wether or not the retention effect seemed good enough compared to what would be ideal.

I'm pretty sure the overloading of puzzles throughout the game doesn't help in this regard when they game is being advertised as a rpg instead of being advertised as a puzzler because it means people have expectations regarding the game that it doesn't even aim to fulfill, which is causing alot of retention problems, imo.

[eisberg]

yet you couldn't resist replying in the thread solely about personal issues while mounting a veiled jab yourself at one of the people you replied to...



So what's your opinion on the steam activity of the game?

Looking at global achievements, I find it interesting that 61% 'prayed to an altar' (highest rated achievement) yet only 31% reached level 10 with a character. That's about half the player base that started playing and thus got the 'altar achievement' that never played enough to get level 10.

Bard's Tale Trilogy, 29% gets to level 10, 38% enter the sewer (the first dungeon), and there are people completing that game in under 15 hours, and it takes longer to get to level 10 in BTIV than it does to get to level 10 in BTT.

So you might want to rethink the idea of using achievements.

not at all. but you might want to reconsider that everything about barrows deep shouldn't be about trying to find excuses to attack the trilogy as you seem to do.

The reason I specifically took up different achievements in barrows deep was to filter out the players that has the game but didn't evne bother firing it up and look at an attempted "keep 'em hooked" effect any new game should attempt to have to keep people playing.

If you really want to look at the trilogy, you need to consider the big amount of people that fired it up just see it for old times sake before putting it away again because they already played it back in the days. in This case the "keep 'em hooked" effect is actually possible to explain as the difference between the 2 percentages you listed: those that enter the sewer (first dungeon) and those that reach level 10, where the difference is only from 38 to 29 percent. compare that to the retention effect in barrows deep where the difference between people that play a bit to get a feel of it (start using saving stones, or even start crafting items) and to people that reach level 10 is a difference of 61/55 down to 31 percent. A drop off that is quite bigger, in a game that is new and that people presumably didn't already 'know it all and how it will play out'.

So no, I don't think I need to rethink anything. I'm merely pointing out the stats and asking what people think of them. It's obvious from your comment that you feel you need to slam the trilogy again for some reason (inspite of you still claiming to be a fan of the series you never miss a chance to take a slam at), but the question was never a comparison in the first place, but simply about barrows deep aloneand wether or not the retention effect seemed good enough compared to what would be ideal.

I'm pretty sure the overloading of puzzles throughout the game doesn't help in this regard when they game is being advertised as a rpg instead of being advertised as a puzzler because it means people have expectations regarding the game that it doesn't even aim to fulfill, which is causing alot of retention problems, imo.

Nah, you completely missed the point. I showed you that drop offs happen, you go to any RPG and you see massive drop off after a certain amount of time in the games. Go to games like Pillars of Eternity, Divnitiy Original Sin, Legend of Grimrock, you see huge drop off. So, yes you very much need to reconsider your use of achievements, cause they are not good for any any RPG.

Also vast majority of the bad reviews for this game are actually about the technical issues, there really isn't that many in regards to gameplay mechanics. So yes, technical issues are going to get people to stop playing the game while they wait for the game to be fixed.

I don't slam the trilogy, rather I look at it with a critical eye, seeing it for what it really is, without the rose colored goggles that you and some others wear. If you find the truth to be harsh and as slamming it, then deep down inside you know I am right but don't want to admit it.

[_noblesse_oblige_]

We hope you will enjoy the changes and if you do, we would be very grateful for a user review if you haven't written one yet. Of course, the same applies if you were forced to write a negative review in the past, but would be so kind to reconsider now if the issues that prevented you to enjoy the game were addressed in the meantime.

Steam positive reviews now at 58%, so it looks like they got a 3% bump out of that patch, possibly coupled with begging people to reconsider their reviews. I guess either most people are no longer either paying attention to the game or the technical difficulties weren't their only issues with it.

[Spectralshade]

Bard's Tale Trilogy, 29% gets to level 10, 38% enter the sewer (the first dungeon), and there are people completing that game in under 15 hours, and it takes longer to get to level 10 in BTIV than it does to get to level 10 in BTT.

So you might want to rethink the idea of using achievements.

not at all. but you might want to reconsider that everything about barrows deep shouldn't be about trying to find excuses to attack the trilogy as you seem to do.

The reason I specifically took up different achievements in barrows deep was to filter out the players that has the game but didn't evne bother firing it up and look at an attempted "keep 'em hooked" effect any new game should attempt to have to keep people playing.

If you really want to look at the trilogy, you need to consider the big amount of people that fired it up just see it for old times sake before putting it away again because they already played it back in the days. in This case the "keep 'em hooked" effect is actually possible to explain as the difference between the 2 percentages you listed: those that enter the sewer (first dungeon) and those that reach level 10, where the difference is only from 38 to 29 percent. compare that to the retention effect in barrows deep where the difference between people that play a bit to get a feel of it (start using saving stones, or even start crafting items) and to people that reach level 10 is a difference of 61/55 down to 31 percent. A drop off that is quite bigger, in a game that is new and that people presumably didn't already 'know it all and how it will play out'.

So no, I don't think I need to rethink anything. I'm merely pointing out the stats and asking what people think of them. It's obvious from your comment that you feel you need to slam the trilogy again for some reason (inspite of you still claiming to be a fan of the series you never miss a chance to take a slam at), but the question was never a comparison in the first place, but simply about barrows deep aloneand wether or not the retention effect seemed good enough compared to what would be ideal.

I'm pretty sure the overloading of puzzles throughout the game doesn't help in this regard when they game is being advertised as a rpg instead of being advertised as a puzzler because it means people have expectations regarding the game that it doesn't even aim to fulfill, which is causing alot of retention problems, imo.

Nah, you completely missed the point. I showed you that drop offs happen, you go to any RPG and you see massive drop off after a certain amount of time in the games. Go to games like Pillars of Eternity, Divnitiy Original Sin, Legend of Grimrock, you see huge drop off. So, yes you very much need to reconsider your use of achievements, cause they are not good for any any RPG.

Also vast majority of the bad reviews for this game are actually about the technical issues, there really isn't that many in regards to gameplay mechanics. So yes, technical issues are going to get people to stop playing the game while they wait for the game to be fixed.

I don't slam the trilogy, rather I look at it with a critical eye, seeing it for what it really is, without the rose colored goggles that you and some others wear. If you find the truth to be harsh and as slamming it, then deep down inside you know I am right but don't want to admit it.

I "completely missed the point" of a post where you only refered to the trilogy and wher eyou now claim it was all about general things rather than the one specific game you only mentioned in a snarkish manner.

o-kay....

To me it seems your point got changed along the way between your posts, mate.

And yes, drop offs do occur, but that wasn't the initial gist of your post.

But I gather you think there is nothing wrong with the retention effect of barrows deep?

You don't think the game would have kept players better if it had been more honest about where its focus were, so prospective buyers knew what they were getting when purchasing the product?

Even some of the proffesional reviews are mentioning that the game feels repetitive and like a forced puzzlegame where the puzzles feels like 'padding out' to prolong the time it takes to complete the game.

People that had been sold the game as a primarily puzzle game would object less to this than people that had been sold the game as a rpg with 'some' puzzles.

[Dork Mage]

Just looked at GOG. Looks like 4/5 rating if loading time and frame-rate complaints are removed.

GOG has a 30-day money back offer... wonder what the refund percentage is?

InXile really hurt themselves by releasing a buggy and poorly optimized game.

OTOH:

People that had been sold the game as a primarily puzzle game would object less to this than people that had been sold the game as a rpg with 'some' puzzles.

Agreed, this was suppose to be an "old school" dungeon crawler but reviewers are referring to it more as a puzzle game with some combat?

Also vast majority of the bad reviews for this game are actually about the technical issues, there really isn't that many in regards to gameplay mechanics. So yes, technical issues are going to get people to stop playing the game while they wait for the game to be fixed.

Agreed, but the media focus (hype) is over and the loss of impulse buyers can't be made up.

I don't know that the game is interesting enough to regain lost sales due to playability issues.

disclaimer: Haven't played yet. I'll see what the response is to patch-3 before I download 26GB.

[Crosmando]

You can't sell a game without that game having a dedicated core audience, most every game has this - the hardcore audience - they hype the game (unintentionally or intentionally) through their own excitement, people look at these fans who are excited and themselves become excited, it's contagious. When a game has no core audience, then there's noone to pull the mainstream fans into buying it. You can keep using the excuse of performance issues, but the truth is that if someone wants to buy a game enough then they will buy it regardless of performance issues.

Who was BT4 even made for? Who was the audience of this game? InXile basically betrayed their core audience and are now paying the price.

But with that said, Bard's Tale IV is too simplistic. Characters come with just four core stats (strength, constitution, armor class, and intelligence) that can basically only be adjusted with equipment and skills earned when leveling up. If you want to raise your constitution (which functions here as hit points, unlike a more traditional D&D system), for example, you need to put on armor, wield a bonus-granting weapon, or take a skill that gives a corresponding buff.

Serious customization is hard to come by. There aren't a lot of character choices provided beyond standard fantasy races like humans, elves, dwarves, and the goblin-like trow, and classes like fighters, practitioners (mages), rogues, and bards. Bards do feel somewhat unique due to their ability to power skills and magic in battle by chugging booze. Leveling up provides some ability to tweak your heroes, but choice is limited because you're allocated just a single point with each advancement to distribute among the four skill trees.
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/the-ba ... 0-6417002/

You know something is wrong when the most mainstream gaming news site out there is calling your game too simplistic.

[Dork Mage]

You can't sell a game without that game having a dedicated core audience, ….

False: If this were true, then no new game would ever be released as it would have no pre-existing dedicated audience.

InXile did get good audience exposure with WL2 so some impulse buyers bought BT4 because it is InXile, not because it is Bard's Tale.

The problem for InXile is the negative reviews due primarily to performance issues, which were most reviews before patch-1 was released. This negative "cloud" killed possible initial impulse sells while media hype were still occuring. It is now likely that too few enthused players are out there promoting BT4 to their gaming friends for sales to pickup once the bugs/performance issue are fixed.

My point being: sales/user-reviews would have been better if BT4 had been released in a polished state. BT4 had a Beta audience to work all the bugs out, so InXile only has themselves to blame.

[Themadcow]

Steamdb showing just under 600 active peak users this weekend. It's also now showing as 100k-200k predicted sales units, up from <100k before this weekend - but any estimates of sales need to be taken with a huge pinch of salt due to this being a Kickstarter and the parallel GOG sales (although presumably just a small % of the total). I'd guess sales are waaaaay less than half of what inXile hoped for by this stage.

As for games needing a core audience - I think it certainly helps. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a new gaming IP but while riddled with bugs on release, it targeted a core audience of D&D fans, Pathfinder fans and Isometric/IE fans. Although the game had a lot of issues on release, it delivers what it promised to those core audiences and is reaping rewards... it had 16,000 peak players this week (minimal drop-off).

BT4 on the other hand, had two or three core audiences - BT fans (mostly BT1-3), Blobber/Dungeon Crawler fans (Wizardry, Etrian etc.). It's third audience of general RPG fans seems to have reacted the best to the game itself, but are least tolerant of the performance issues and some of the less casual-friendly design choices. For the first two audiences, it really didn't deliver either a honest BT sequel or a great game in the sub-genre.

[Spectralshade]

You can't sell a game without that game having a dedicated core audience, ….

False: If this were true, then no new game would ever be released as it would have no pre-existing dedicated audience.

InXile did get good audience exposure with WL2 so some impulse buyers bought BT4 because it is InXile, not because it is Bard's Tale.

The problem for InXile is the negative reviews due primarily to performance issues, which were most reviews before patch-1 was released. This negative "cloud" killed possible initial impulse sells while media hype were still occuring. It is now likely that too few enthused players are out there promoting BT4 to their gaming friends for sales to pickup once the bugs/performance issue are fixed.

My point being: sales/user-reviews would have been better if BT4 had been released in a polished state. BT4 had a Beta audience to work all the bugs out, so InXile only has themselves to blame.

audience is not necesarily existing users. it's the segment of consumers that you are targeting with your product.
Example: you release a rogue-type game, you make sure to tell about it in fora where people interested in that kind of product could be curious about trying it out. This can either be by commercials, dropping lines in message posts or whatever. Basicly, you advertize the game to the audience you want to target and hope enough bite the hook and gets converted into a core audience to help spread the word...

Look at how barrows deep was advertised. Look at the actual direction of style of gameplay within the game.
There's a huge difference between the 2, and thus those that turn into core will be because that people aren't singleminded with only one type of interest, but have multiple interests, and the game happened to touch on one of the other interests rather than the one it was advertised as.

The easy one to point at is the heavy heavy heavy usage of puzzles. Barrows deep is much more a puzzle game than it is a RPG. Had they targeted the "Myst" type of players with their advertising material for the game, the feedback would have been alot different than it is now. Instead they targeted an audience where the gamestyle only has the audience as a secondary addition to the game. Worse, they used an existing brand with an established style to target that brands people with a game that should never have been targeting the audience the brand targeted. So not only did they target the wrong audience with their advertisements, but they struck the nerve of those they DID target by swapping out a whole brands style of play with something completely different, which promptly resulted in the feeling of betrayal from alot of the audience they DID target with their misplaced targeting.

The game had been a bigger success if they hadn't named it "Bards tale IV" and had advertised it as a puzzlegame with some rpg elements. Simply because the targeted audience at its base would have been closer to what the game actually has of style and the chance of audience becomming core audience would be higher then.

As a puzzle game with some rpg elements, barrows deep is not that bad. As a rpg with some puzzle elements it's a disaster. inXile's problem is that they sold the game as the latter instead of as the former.

[Themadcow]

Yeah, absolutely. I've been banging on about BT4 ever since it was Kickstarted on various RPG, PC and even football forums, until it became evident to me that the game I thought I was promoting wasn't the game being made. On the other hand, Phoenix Point is looking bloody excellent and I'll promote the hell out of that one even if there are bugs on release - because I'm beta testing that one and it's EXACTLY what the core audience wanted... a modernised X-Com game without all of the simplification of the Firaxis reboot.

Note that modernising X-Com didn't mean turning it from one type of game into another. It meant adding shiny graphics, better faction mechanics and cool new features such as mutations and epic boss encounters. Right from the off, the team knew that they needed to deliver a 25 year old game experience for a 2018 player.

[PsychicMonk]

Steamdb showing just under 600 active peak users this weekend. It's also now showing as 100k-200k predicted sales units, up from <100k before this weekend

That's strange. When I go to the SteamDB site it still shows 20k-50k estimated owners for BT4 and 100k-200k for Kingmaker.https://steamdb.info/app/566090/graphs/

[Themadcow]

That's strange. When I go to the SteamDB site it still shows 20k-50k estimated owners for BT4 and 100k-200k for Kingmaker.https://steamdb.info/app/566090/graphs/

Bollocks, right you are - I must have tabbed to the wrong window. Good catch.

Not so good for BT4.

[Ricks]

That talk about the amount of puzzles is really turning me off launching BT4 again. I don't want to fucking solve a puzzle every 5 meters. Also read about that issue in the Steam forums. If it's that bad throughout the whole game (and meanwhile I don't doubt it), they better remove half of this shit in the next patch. And even though we have a puzzleguide included, using it every 5 meters by Alt-Tabbing completely destroys the gameflow.

[Spectralshade]

Yeah, absolutely. I've been banging on about BT4 ever since it was Kickstarted on various RPG, PC and even football forums, until it became evident to me that the game I thought I was promoting wasn't the game being made. On the other hand, Phoenix Point is looking bloody excellent and I'll promote the hell out of that one even if there are bugs on release - because I'm beta testing that one and it's EXACTLY what the core audience wanted... a modernised X-Com game without all of the simplification of the Firaxis reboot.

Note that modernising X-Com didn't mean turning it from one type of game into another. It meant adding shiny graphics, better faction mechanics and cool new features such as mutations and epic boss encounters. Right from the off, the team knew that they needed to deliver a 25 year old game experience for a 2018 player.

I'm really looking forward to phoenix point. I'm also looking forward to xenonauts2, although that is in the more 'classic' vein of xcom. I got xenonauts and from the sounds of it, the sequel will basicly be a reboot of the first with better graphics and some tweaks of some of the mechanics that didn't work out so well in the first.

[Crosmando]

You can't sell a game without that game having a dedicated core audience, ….

False: If this were true, then no new game would ever be released as it would have no pre-existing dedicated audience.

Even a new game has a core audience depending on it's genre, type of game, it's developers, or any number of factors.

It is now likely that too few enthused players are out there promoting BT4 to their gaming friends for sales to pickup once the bugs/performance issue are fixed.

Ha! Good one.

[Zadkiel]

I deleted my negative review, which had over 1200 'found this useful' marks on it.

I still don't think this is a 'good' game, and it's about as much 'Bards Tale' as my aunt Maureen, but now the performance issues are mostly resolved, the gameplay is mostly enjoyable for the first half of the game until you get bored of repetitive puzzles granting useless rewards (my personal favourite so far is a fairy puzzle that took about 10 minutes to figure out for a reward of 2 potatoes), boring unchallenging combat and pointless progression.

But, it's playable enough that my desire to have a few extra units sell to improve the chance they actually fix and finish the game won out. Maybe one day it'll be good enough to get a positive review. Maybe. I'll be over here not holding my breath.

[_noblesse_oblige_]

That's strange. When I go to the SteamDB site it still shows 20k-50k estimated owners for BT4 and 100k-200k for Kingmaker.https://steamdb.info/app/566090/graphs/

Bollocks, right you are - I must have tabbed to the wrong window. Good catch.

Not so good for BT4.

Hah - slight understatement there. They probably haven't even recovered $2 million of what they invested. Probably a good thing that Fargo plans on retiring in the next year or two, because otherwise he's going to have to dip into his retirement funds to pay his devs.

Also, those time-in-game figures are looking pretty dismal. That's not broad audience excitement right there.