In Path of Exile there were recently many changes with the update 3.15 “Expedition”. Especially the balancing has been adjusted and many builds lost damage. The players seem to be unhappy about it – but what is actually going on?
This is different with the new update than before: With new, major updates, the popular hack-and-slash Path of Exile usually attracts a lot of players, but this time it hasn’t worked out quite as well, as seen in the numbers.
- The current update 3.15 “Expedition” reached about 23% fewer players at launch than previous expansions.
- But not only did the launch go poorly, more and more players also left in the days after the update.
- Already a few days after the release, player numbers were measured that other expansions only reached after weeks.
- “Expedition” has already lost about 24% of its release-day players within just a few days. In comparison: The previous update “Ultimatum” only lost 3.4% of players in the same timeframe (via mmorpg.org.pl and steamcharts.com).
- The numbers only refer to the Steam version. Path of Exile also has a standalone launcher, which is not considered here. The update was released on July 23 (on consoles on July 28).
Why is Path of Exile losing players? Among other things, the numerous nerfs of the new update are likely to be responsible. A nerf is when an item, character, or similar is weakened in an update. Furthermore, the game is said to have become much harder with the update.
The developers talk about going “back to the roots” and making the game harder again. This was already a polarizing topic in the announcement. When the controversial update was released, the players appeared disappointed.
Does this affect the ratings? Especially many long-term players are not thrilled with the update. The Steam ratings of Path of Exile are currently still good, having dropped from “very positive” to “mostly positive” – however, there have never been so many negative ratings for the game as at the moment.
It is particularly noticeable that it is precisely the long-term players who are writing the bad ratings. On the first page of reviews, only two are from players with less than 1,000 hours played.
How bad is that? When looking at the overall player numbers of Path of Exile over the last year, the number of active players is still higher than it was before the update. On average, over the last 30 days, there was even an improvement.
However, this is likely to look different in the 30 days after the update, but that remains to be seen. Many players are currently checking in to see how bad the nerfs really are. This is especially noticeable by the rapidly declining player numbers after the spike of the update.
The developers, however, are currently unimpressed by this. They write in a newsletter that they understand that many players are upset about the changes and that they expected not to attract as many players as they did with other major expansions.
The community is disappointed
This is what players say: There are countless comments on reddit, Steam and in the comment sections that disagree with the changes. Especially players who have spent a long time in the game are angry:
- The user Rei wrote on Steam after 1,765 hours: “The update is trash. The developers are going in the completely wrong direction. Don’t play this. I cannot recommend it at this time.”
- The user Kerillion has already played 7,021 hours and agrees: “The vision of the developers unfortunately diverges from my wishes at this point and the game is developing in an unwanted direction for me personally. Moreover, after several years, I now have the feeling that GGG [the developers] definitely do not know what they are doing.”
- The user Nice-_-Joke writes (via reddit): “It feels like you are playing with broken legs by default. I hope I can still find crutches somewhere.”
- The user MugzyWhompus takes it humorously: “They finally improved the server stability. It’s a buff!”
Even if we would like to show you a counterstatement, we are finding it extremely difficult to find positive comments about the update. Have you played it? What do you think of the changes? Feel free to leave us a comment!
Already before the update, Path of Exile caused outrage with an expensive mouse pointer pack.
