Player Number

[Cut-Me-Own-Throat-Dibbler]

I've just recently (couple months ago) returned after a four-year break, and I have to say I like most of the QOL improvements NI has gone through and I appreciate the work that was invested by the various devs. But what dampens the fun is the apparent lack of players for most of the day. It wasn't actually so bad up until the Halloween Events, but afterwards there seems to have been quite a drop off. Now, whether this is just seasonal fluctuation, the inevitable fate of older mods, or something else - I don't know. I did however notice a few things that seem to have adverse effects to player numbers, based on my own experience and what others told me in conversations.

1) People not starting runs or don't stay in servers.
It seems that quite a few people wait for servers to reach higher waves before they join the run, or immediately disappear after the end of a run in hopes to find another better server. While it's not very hard for a level 52 character to survive the first couple waves alone in the hopes that people eventually join in, it's for actual newbies pretty much impossible to do so. Not to mention that the view of an empty server list is demoralizing for anyone who wants to try out the mod. Solution? Dunno. Maybe give people an incentive to play a run from beginning to end?

2) Messed up economy.
With the exorbitant gold prices for Upgrades a lot of people only want to trade for gold, which in return means there's lower prices for selling stuff, which in return means that people have a harder time making gold, which results in people having a harder time to get something really nice. And, with less people playing, the total pool of available gold is also much smaller.

3) Legendaries.
A topic which has probably already been discussed to death, but it's still a source of frustration for many people. It seems that mostly the same players loot all the good stuff even though others (who don't loot at all) play as much or maybe even more. Whether this is is actually true or random just being random (and a bitch), I do not know, but it doesn't really matter either. What matters is the frustration it causes people and frustrated people eventually stop playing.

Anyhow, sorry if I rehash things that have been already discussed in the past. Just wanted to add my two cents to the topic.


TLDR: More players? Maybe we should do sumpin'.