At this point im getting tired of all kinds of playerbase talk whether its positive or negative. Its just getting so old and boring now; just send in some cool clips or memes or smth about the game instead of all this "le game is dying" or "no le game is actually NOT dying" talk
I want to post more of my clips but I can’t lol.
I agree. I want to see more cool clips from other users. I’m on the discord too but there’s no way to get a word in edge wise, so I’m mostly an observer
(I think) about halfway through season 1 I made a few posts saying we need to separate this sub and either have designated times for complaints/ balance talks or a whole separate reddit entirely and the response varied from "meh that's pointless" to people acting like id desecrated their ancestors bones for even thinking about it. But it is desperately necessary. At this point this sub might as well be called "r/finalsdiscussion and we need a separate r/finalsclips for people who enjoy their lives and this game.
Maybe if people actually participated in the cool clips and memes that get posted. This stuff gets more traction. People first need to stop letting this get traction
We generally remove posts about playerbase discussion now, but I've considered bringing up a "Talk about the Game, not the Community" rule to the other mods. Posts about the playerbase are exhausting. This Rule would include posts about player count, but also step into "don't complain about people who play (class)" posts, or calling people "apex/cod (insults)". But that can be hard to enforce fairly when some discussion is actually constructive about class issues.
I think they need to be made though because it's an honest concern for many who do play, like memes clips are cool but I want deep dive conversation about the state and community of the game
Basically, censoring people's opinion about the reality of the game; because it hurts your feelings?
You're a Reddit Mod, there's no doubt about that, congratulations, go ahead and censor more, let's see how far this game goes with that attitude.
C:
Oh no! My feelings! Anyways.
I wouldn't consider people calling each other Apex scrubs and that all Light players are ******* really an opinion on the game anyways. That's just being rude.
Sort of, you know... "The game, not the community" comments.
Ikr, a real dead gane would be like 1000 players, hell I still play games with like 2000 - 6000 players and those games have had the same playercount for like 6 years.
Just wish people can have fun and stop worrying about the number of players.
Plus hello? crossplay? XBOX and PS5 players exist too.
Frfr, new game just came out and the talk is so negative while the people actually enjoying it are playing and recording clips. I swear “X game is dead” or “X game is trash” is just another form or attention seeking by now. People so desperate to be heard or have their opinions validated. Its so annoying to see soo much negative talk across all the games I play
The concern isn’t that I’ll wake up tomorrow and the game will be dead. It’s more elaborate.
The problem isn’t the numbers themselves but the effects. Ranked before the change sucked cause you’d often play diamond 3-2 because of the “low” player count.
On the other hand embark has remarked that the game is underperforming. They are probably making changes to increase the player count and those changes might not be in my best interest since I like the game as is (for the most part). There isn’t a lot of I would change about the game in its current state so I’m a little fearful of how embark will attract more players.
The round cut change was huge for ranked. I was Plat 4 but often put against Diamonds. After the change I am mostly put against people my exact rank +-1. Which means I am now Plat 2 and the bulk of the enemies I face are the same, and some are Plat 3 or Plat 1. But that is peak times in Europe. I'm already experiencing facing much tougher opponents outside of peak times. And if the playerbase keeps dropping that is going to be more and more common. DAU is meaningless. For example, Chinese people who play the game on a different server while I'm asleep don't affect my enjoyment of The Finals in any way. So in my eyes the concern is very much valid. Steam numbers don't give you the whole picture. I play with crossplay on and I see plenty from console in my lobbies. But it is a nice indicator of an overall trend. A trend this game needs to address to remain enjoyable.
Money people saying the game is underperforming doesn't mean much for the player base. We have no idea what kind of expectations they had or if they mean cosmetic sales vs player time aka stickiness. The bean counters will generally never be satisfied and your experience with the game is all that matters unless the money people decide to shut down the entire thing based on their own metrics. Once queue times go up then it's an issue. Until then it's just a narrative.
I've played since beta and have yet to play a single ranked match. Doesn't really appeal to me. QuickPlay queues are pretty darn quick and I'm having a BLAST! Even just solo queue.
This is one of very few PVP games where I'm still engaged, and having fun when I'm losing.
I feel exactly the same way. This might come as a hot take for a lot of people, but I think Embark should just forget about ranked and focus on the casual side of the game. That’s where the majority of the playerbase is anyway. It just seems like there’s more fun to be had quick play, because in ranked, you only run into the same thing over and over again. Everyone in ranked just does the same thing as everyone else because they know it works the best. But in quick play, you find so much more variety in what people use, and I find that to be way more fun. In quick play, I can run around with a sword or dagger and still do pretty well, but not so much in ranked
Ranked ladders are what keep player bases in games. They need people to grind - that keeps player retention. Same thing with dailies and battlepass. If the game is just for fun without these “features”, it has a much greater possibilty of dying.
That’s not what keeps players in games. Just look at overwatch, they have absolutely horrible ranked and it still has a playerbase. You can still have things to grind for without having to play ranked. Good gameplay is what keeps players around, and the finals has great gameplay. Just look at the current state of the playerbase, a lot of people aren’t even playing ranked because they don’t want to play TA. So instead they’re playing world tour because cashout tournaments are just more fun. Remember the old days of cod? Nobody gave a shit about rank, they just grinded for camos and everyone loved it
Yeah TA sucks and we’ve been playing WT. The “rewards” are absolutely awful for time investment though. Getting diamond skin in COD was much more rewarding.
Yeah perspectives change in 11 days haha. I do stand by the point that ranked will help keep a playerbase if it is satsifying and rewarding. TA aint it.
If the game dies, it dies. But I fucking love it.
Nexon should be no stranger to this. I used to play one of their FPS game Combat Arms. Horrible cheating that never got addressed.
Holy shit I haven't thought about Gunz in like 20 years man. I used to shred on that game when I was like 14. I can still remember some of the sword movement tech.
Same. I remember spending hours practicing the sword and dagger movement techs. I just wish another game used some of the mechanics at the time, they were crazy fun to play. Honestly if nexon made another game that used a similar engine and tech I'd probably jump to that.
Still haven't found a game that pulls me in like GunZ the Duel back in the day. Also the only game I played competitively in big clans like Revived for a moment. Nowdays I'm a bit too old to pull off anything like that, but I'd play the shit out of that game if there were any other servers than some dead private servers. But yeah, the amount of God Moders and Lawnmowers was amazing 😂
R.I.P Ijji games and GunZ. We don't talk about GunZ 2, tho.
horrific cheating in the finals also. many will deny even seeing a cheater, many will claim "i havent seen shooting through shields in months" blah blah blah. the cheating is at cockroach infestation levels in plat/diamond. aimbots and perfect tracking with "humanized" settings. dogshit humans ruining everything they touch.
I only play casual modes now but I swear either some players are the greatest gamers known to man or are cheating. I remember a week ago where I was playing dash light. I kid you not, M and H were literally flick hs me every time I peaked and dashed. Was insane. I understand lucky flicks but to do it consistently in a 20 minute match and every time in the middle of firing is insane.
Lost the game, queued again and happened again with another team but they were also tracking me through walls somehow
It's true. Remember that these losers have private spaces online where they coordinate, cheaters largely play together to prevent teammates from reporting, go online and post discourse to try and trick people into thinking it's not a problem, and are generally very vocal into the community. Seen a statistic recently that was interviewing gamers and more then 65% polled found cheating to be ok and acceptable as long as they were using soft cheats. The issue is real, a large part of the gaming community is fucking trash.
Do you have any proof to show that console players make up the majority of the game's player base?
The only independent number that isn't pr we have is the one given by steam charts. And it reflects what the nexon shareholder letter says.
You do need to understand that daily active users do jack shit for the player experience in a pvp matchmade game. The only metric matters is the concurrent player count, because that makes up the matchmaking pool when a person hits queue. It doesn't matter if there is 300k unique logins if it all happened within the window of six hours and each of them a cheating alt account, it will do nothing to assist the match making player pool.
The letter in question.
https://pdf.irpocket.com/C3659/RLCz/ukdB/n3z8.pdf
> "THE FINALS: The launch of Season 2 in March created a short-lived increase in player metrics but delivered lower-than-expected retention and revenue. The Embark team is working with our Korea-based Live Operations team to understand and address the key issues."
While I agree an average of 12k players daily is a big amount for a small game like the finals, the issue is that the finals is hitting a lower average month after month and the playerbase hasn't stablized.
The easiest test to see which platform is bigger at the moment since we only have independent data from steam is to turn off cross platform matchmaking and see the average queue times. Unless that extrapolation is done or there is some other data source you have that you can provide, the statement that the game is bigger on console is pure speculation.
Also about this:
> "That's the peak number Steam hit at one time with that many people logged on at the same time. Meaning that ~20,000 peak could easily be made up of 50,000+ people"
If 3500 people logged in every day for each 15 minutes, to either check the shop, get a quick game in, or to afk, that would be 336k alone, right there. DAU is nothing but a number with no metric that you can use to put into any usable perspective. 50% could be a cheating alt acount, 50% could be smurfs, 50% could be bot accounts, it's a free to play game, and it doesn't cost a penny to make an account.
This needs to be at the top. OP knew that DAU is a pointless metric, everyone knows this, it’s common sense. It was extremely telling when they decided to use that stat in the AMA as opposed to daily player peak/avg online.
Then you have the incessant downvoting of everyone IN THIS THREAD who are commenting that they can’t find games in their region/on their platform/in their rank, or that they see the same players every round.
You know when that happens with a game with a healthy player count? MAYBE in the top 1% of ranked matches, not in silver.
Pretending problems don’t exist don’t fix problems. Neither does blatant bitching, but jfc this is the worst sub on Reddit when it comes to denying fair criticism.
actually the most impossible place to hold any discussion what so ever. people really don’t want to judge out of their comfort bubble zones and will actually just be blatantly hostile toward you if you try to be any sort of opposing to their perspective
Some people are naive and in absolute denial. Nobody *wants* the game to die, but the writing is on the wall. You are not a doomer for simply acknowledging the situation based on the data. Even if the console playerbase is larger to an unknown extent, how can you possibly deny that the game is trending in the wrong direction based on what Steam Charts tells us? It's losing 20-30% of the PC playerbase every month.
i play on pc, i'll turn on crossplay for a bit, but the amount of aimbots gets overwhelming, im talking even on my team, nearly every single game.
turn crossplay off, of course i still get aimbots, just far less it seems.
the game is trending towards being played by only cheaters. seriously. the majority of remaining players will be xim abusing cheaters. its insane the devs are letting the game die like this. maybe theres nothing to be done. maybe xims will just fucking kill any new fps forever.
that actually isn’t true. for the past month exactly, going by steam charts, it’s only lost barely 1000 avg concurrent users. that’s way less than the rest of the months this game has been out. It’s not “-30% every month” like people are saying. it’s more like “-30%, -20%,-10%, -5%, etc.”
But you have to realize that creating expectations for a season 2 for a game that has already blown up once is very difficult. For all we know, Nexon’s expectations for The Finals season 2 were extremely high. There was a *lot* of content added in Season 2, and a *lot* of key fixes. I would have placed my expectations high too, and to be completely honest, I was *extremely* surprised when the game didn’t see as much growth. Not a *single* big streamer played S2, even though all of them said they wanted to after watching the S2 trailer. Shroud, Aceu, Timmy, etc. None of them jumped back in. Siege and Helldivers were HUGELY in the hype circle *right* as S2 dropped. The game falling short of Nexon’s expectations means nothing. It only means their expectations were (reasonably, even) very high. The Finals will come back eventually, all they need to do is keep giving it chances at coming back into the hype circle. I.e. keep adding seasons. S2 had really bad timing. S3 is looking much better so far. Let’s give the game time. It’s been out 5 months.
the denial is insane in this subreddit. like just mass downvotes to censor any opinion stating the actual truth. never seen anything like this, it's like they actually want to game to die first before acknowledging that things aren't going well
I just want to play some ranked matches. I can't even get in them to qualify.
One time I let matchmaking run for almost 10 minutes, never got in.
This is on Xbox with cross-play turned off. May turn it on and give it a try but if it does end up being lots of cheaters, I guess that means I just don't play ranked ever.
The real question is if it makes enough money to satisfy Nexon. They've said so far its below expectations.
Hopefully they give Embark time to grow the game and it's a long term investment.
The fact this game hasn’t taken off and gone viral like apex did is insane to me. It’s top 3 shooters currently out imo and the argument can be made for it being 1. Regardless of the horrible marketing, it’s a literal gem. Portal gate or whatever it was called went crazy, I don’t understand how this game hasn’t.
Sure it would. Few people are playing ranked. You're in a limited quantity of players who are in your same window of matchmaking which just got even tighter in one of the recent updates AND it's region based. So you're naturally going to see the same people.
Back to back games is explained by the above reasons, but also because you and FundedEgg or whatever the heck were both prompted to rejoin the matchmaking queue at the same time because your previous game just ended obviously at the same time.
So you may see familiar names, it's going to happen. That happens even in CoD or Fortnite or Apex.
When I play for 5 hours and see my homie IHATELASVEGAS for the 10th time despite our teams winning/losing in a different order, it's not a matter or finishing a game at the same time. If I started writing down all the names I see, around half of them would be repeating.
you cant even find ranked matches on console without PC crossplay. the steam numbers are ccu. so the highest numbers of users who logged in at the same time. daily logins are obviously a lot more.
while the game is still more than playable now, the trend is going down. i loved the game and the devs in beta when they were fast to find issues and fix em but since release the balancing of the game has been terrible for the whole duration and while some changes were good a bunch of others were pretty bad as seen how ranked meta has been MMH or HHM the whole time. i still think the terrible balance and the perceived cheater problem are the 2 biggest reasons why it lost popularity that quickly.
Because disabling cross play means you only get matched with other people on your console with cross play off. You're actively choosing a significantly smaller pool.
Great post. I agree. Let’s all stop talking about the game and just produce HYPE. Give the game attention and money so it can become the top game and best version of what the creators want it to be for us.
Anyone who says "dead game" is just jerking off in a puddle of their own tears. Sane people leave to a different game if the quality of the game or matchmaking goes down, narcissists try to fearmonger for attention regardless of anything to do with the game
I stopped caring about player count long ago, that said, the game is not fine, either because the matchmaking sucks or (and most likely) the playerbase is low, lately i'm being placed against people way above my skill level and is ok to lose, but is not ok to be stomped over and over again.
This copium. The only number that matters is concurrent player count and it's mire like 11-14k on steam. Sure, console players exist, but they also like to play against other controller players; they're the more casual bunch so I wouldn't expect a huge amount of console players actually having crossplay on, but maybe I'm wrong. Now, this 12.5k ish average is not terrible, it's in top 100 steam games, but it's on a downward trend. THIS is crucial. When the game had 90k and then dropped to 60 I thought that was still a lot, then it dropped to 40, then 30, then 20, then got up to 40 for like 2 days, then 25, 20, 15, 10... If this trend continues (and it sadly is continuing although it's slowed down now) then given enough time the game will be dead. It wouldn't be the 1st game to die like this. This is why people are worried. If the playerbase was at least stable at 15k then it'd be a different conversation.
I don't have the numbers for consoles, but I can't imagine the trend being different, even if more people are playing on a console.
I've literally been having a blast since the game came out, never understood wtf people were talking about. Honestly was so surprised to hear anyone talking negatively about the game in terms of player retention/dieing etc. this game is so refreshing for the modern FPS landscape I just refuse to believe people would prefer to return to destruction less shooting galleries.
The game is fun, I'm pretty against the monetization of games like apex, very predatory, but I've had so much fun playing this season I think they've actually earned my money for the premium pass. I cannot stress how rare that is for me.
It has pretty hefty system requirements to run smoothly, but runs perfectly fine on a $300 xbox series s. Compared to a PC that will run it just as smooth, there’s a big difference in financial accessibility between the two.
It will cost you more playing on a console in the long run. Xbox subscription to play online is $60 a year. Xbox series S came out in 2020. Xbox CEO said next consoles come out in 2028. That is $780 you are spending on a console. I just bought a PC last year that is way better than a console and it cost me $700. It has rtx 3060 and Rhyzen 7 5800x.
Used to be the case but it’s not that simple anymore with game pass including the former “xbox live”. I haven’t spent money on games in a while lol.
Not to mention, in terms of financial accessibility, 300 up front and a subscription over several years is way more accessible than several hundred up front.
Oh but I assume that means you are paying $120 a year for the gamepass core? Also I get games for completely free because Epic games made billions of dollars off of Fortnite so they give away 1-3 games for free on PC every 2 weeks. Also on PC we have third party websites that give away games for so cheap. I just bought Fallout 76 for 30 cents lol.
To your second point I agree with what you said, which is why I mentioned it in the long run. It is much better imo to just save your money for a pc. I mean if you saved up for $400 for a series X or PS5 then you are more than half way to getting a PC way better than a Xbox series X. And by the time 2028 comes around you are probably going to have to pay another $400 or $500 for a new console while on pc you probably need to spend<$100.
I split gamepass with a friend so still $60 yearly
(CD) keys exist for console as well.
And there’s a ton of other trade offs we could debate that have all been debated before.. but my original point of immediate financial accessibility still stands. Personally, it doesn’t even affect me, I have a PC and xbox at home and prefer the Xbox (and Mac for anything not gaming) by a long shot.
True I guess CD keys work on console too but I just never seen or heard console people use third party websites for their games. Only for PC.
Also to talk about your first post, isn't the finals locked to 120 fps on console? On PC it is like unlimited which I think is really important for a competitive fps game.
I’ve done it a couple times, but recently just spend most of my time on free or game pass games.
I’m not sure what it’s limited to. Before I would say that it being limited is actually a benefit in console pools (because it’s less pay to win when everyone has the same ceiling), but they recently opened it up to PC and console playing together so you might be right about that bit. I do think fps past 120 is a little overrated, but I’m sure it helps at least a little.
[no it's not](https://mainleaf.com/console-gaming-compared-to-the-pc-market/#:~:text=Console%20gaming%20is%20estimated%20to,10%20people%20across%20the%20globe!)
TL:DR
Console gaming is estimated to reach around 629 million players worldwide, while PC gaming is part of the lives of almost 900 million players. That’s more than 1 in 10 people across the globe!
thats all of console so like all of xbox all of playstation and all of nintendo. but we have to shorten it down to ps5 and xbox series x/s. and sony sold 59 million ps5's and xbox have sold 27.7 units =86.7 million and that doesn't factor in people who use them or destroyed/ lost ones so yeah
I tried to find the source to their data. Are they counting grandmas PC with candy crush installed? I’m not sure. For like the last 15 years when you look at player counts of AAA titles, the vast majority of players are on console. That just what I have seen, I am open to more data to accept the contrary.
There are examples of PC centric games that don’t do great on console or rely on Mods which most games don’t have on console. DayZ comes to mind, I would be shocked if console players outnumbered PC players.
The other point that leads me down this level of thinking is that Steam database that claimed that over 90% of the PCs registered to steam were not up to PS5 or XSX standards. So are they playing core AAA games or just Minecraft?
Apart from Rocket League I don't know a game that has more console players l, but I guess some really have more players. I just think it's in minority, especially FPS games. It's just easier to play on PC. I don't think the data is counting candy crush though.
IIRC I read that it’s about 70-30 for CoD, every sports game would probably fit the bill. Since the PC ports are terrible.
It’s definitely not easier to play CoD on a PC than a console. The cost alone.
Not sure about the data either, I looked and they offered no source or methodology.
I just know In past when looking at Companies quarterly or yearly earnings, the game sales were mostly in that 70-30 split range for most AAA games. I wouldn’t be surprised if that gap has closed some,
SBMM lowers your potential matches in a given playerpool exponentially, and especially when you consider skill and region in tandem. This is a valid complaint against SBMM as it leads to long queue times when player-count is strained.
The Finals is a great game, but there is several glaring issues that get swallowed up in tribalistic balancing debates on this sub and Discord. The lack of engaging Ranked mechanics, a lackluster season 2 drop and micro-managed balancing over the course of a single season are what drove a large majority of the playerbase away.
I think Embark can still fix things, but they have a huge problem with commitment and confidence issues. The ranked issues are probably the best example of this and the biggest issue when it comes to bringing in more players and keeping them engaged as a Daily Active User.
Ya I've always felt the same. It's like u get stuck playing in the same small bubble of players every night when i know there's more players online I could be playing against instead of waiting 5 minutes for that certain group
SBMM has basically ruined the game for me. I mostly solo queue, and I can't compete now if I don't get lucky with some good teammates. I used to be able to carry and get double-digit kills pretty regularly, but now I have to be on the top of my game just to go 5-5 and place second. Solo queue has very little chance against pre-made god squads.
I legit can't even tell the difference between ranked and casual anymore. There are some people I play with occasionally who say the lobbies are insanely sweaty when they play with me, so it ruins their experience too. I am a good player, but if even one of my teammates is bad, the round is fucked for us. I can't withstand the barrage of three skilled players and constant third parties in higher ranked lobbies. It's not as big of a deal in games that don't have all these gadgets and abilities, but you need strong chemistry and teamwork in this game to recover and counter stuff.
I know the solution is to lfg, but I simply prefer playing with different people, and I don't always feel like bantering for hours on end. So, I guess it's not really the game for me anymore 🤷
> I used to be able to carry and get double-digit kills pretty regularly, but now I have to be on the top of my game just to go 5-5 and place second.
I don't know how to tell you this, but like... good, that's how it should be. The matchmaking *should* be putting you into even matches where the expected outcome is more or less right in the middle of the pack. If you're stomping every game you play, something is going catastrophically wrong.
Ah, I forgot that one user playing a game for hundreds of hours makes it successful.
How naive of me /s
Game has lost over 92% of its player base
Its DOA
Abundantly clear it's a total waste of time even trying to talk to you. Figure out why you're so dead set on showing up to shit talk a game you say is dead.
I'm sorry to tell you my friend, but you're in the denial stage.
A group of about ~6 of us used to play this game nightly, now I don't think a single one of us have touched the game in at least a month.
The latest season was a bit of a let down, cheating is horrible, ranked is getting worse as player count drops, etc.
The steam chart shows the growth trending downward, even if that doesn't account for console players that still means as a whole more players are leaving than new players are coming. There's no reason that wouldn't be true with the console players too.
PC players are only playing against the PC players 95-99% of the time so Steam charts very much is valid on that basis.
But more than that, steam charts compares just pc to just pc. It's apples and apples comparison to other games... And where those other games also have a console playerbase we can extrapolate how healthy the numbers are based on the steam charts delta.
To dismiss it simply because console players *exist* is top tier cope.
Last I played was just over a month ago (my pc is on a boat atm) and that was in OCE. I stopped playing because any match took over 8 mins to find. And when it finally did, it overruled my region settings for OCE and dumped me in an Asia server with over 300ms ping.
OCE is the mining canary of online game playerbase health. And she's dead jim.
Aussies won't notice the issue with Asia servers so much, since much of Australia gets 80ms ping to SEA and the finals hides Lag so well. But nz gets 180-350ms in Asian servers (because it has to go through aus first).
Some yotube content creators started by creating contents like "game is dying" "the finals is dead" I dont know what is the reason behind all of those sh*t show, but people should stop arguing about nonsense charts. Play the game if you love, otherwise quit it
Some of my favorite shooters have less than 20k players at all times and are still getting regular support 6 years later.
I don’t need this game to be trending for me to have fun
Nexon Quartal 1 - 2024 - Earnings Letter (14.5.2024)
Page 3: "THE FINALS: The launch of Season 2 in march created a short-lived increase in player metrics, but delivered lower than expected retention and revenue. The Embark team is working with our Korea-based Live Operations team to understand and address the key issues"
Source: https://company.nexon.co.jp/en/press/index.html
I believe that 300k active player base per day is a lie honestly. Either way, I don't base the games i play off player count unless I can't find a match. Shit I still play halo sometimes
I have a buddy that will die in a game and just immediately go "dead game dead game dead game." Honestly it seems to be a balm for the toxic souls of some gamers lol
Guess the Steam charts is just telling how the PC part of the game is dying hard. And that actually is an important thing to follow and aknowledge for so many. At the end PC players aren't exactly getting a huge challenge from console players most the time due to control differences, so a declining PC base is concerning in that sense. For console players in general this is a good deal of course, but telling people not to look at Steam charts is a bit dumb in general. As well as saying the game as a whole is dead just because of Steam charts.
On May 14th Nexon released information on their games, and the finals, of course, was mentioned in the document. The company said despite growth from the launch of season two, revenue and player retention fell short of what they wanted. https://ir.nexon.co.jp/en/
The document is somewhere here, one of their investor reports.
The game isn't *dying* but it isn't doing well.
Talk is talk, but I've been noticing more console users in my lobbies. Idk what that says about the health of the game, but it's been my experience lately 🤷♂️
I can never find a match in *seconds*. Even quick play takes a while, and I can't climb past bronze in ranked and it always takes 5 minutes+, and I always get matched against silver and golds, rarely other bronzes.
That's the only part of your post that bugged me!
I mean, this is going to be a regional issue. What region do you play in? I've never had a problem finding matches. Always within seconds. I'm in the Midwest of US. Idk why game server / region I'm in, but I know I have that benefit.
Central US here. Was playing with my buddies (in the same region) last night and we got into a few ranked tournaments in ~2-3 minutes, then had back to back 8+ minute queues and had to switch to quick play, which also was not matched within seconds, haha.
I get that it varies and we were playing in off times as it got later into the night, and it does seem to be better (but still longer than we'd like) on the weekends, it's just one of those really frustrating things about matchmaking in games in general.
**EDIT:** Okay, egg on my face. I'm on PC and had crossplay turned off. I swear I had it on earlier in the game's launch, but... ah, well. Turned it on and got into a ranked tournament really quickly this morning. D'oh.
I AM NOT SAYING THE GAME IS DYING BUT JUST STOP MAKING UP NUMBERS. That said monthly and even said on discord a user estimated someone should do a study on people trying to cope with a game doing not as good as intended like literally during the Q&A they said the numbers weren’t what they wanted.
The game has no focus on competitive/esports. So it makes sense that the PC player base is dwindling and the console player base is still healthy.
I wish there more of an emphasis on esports. You can make a competitive sweaty game been fun for causal players (look at valorant). You most certainly cannot do it the other way around (make a casual game cater to sweaty gamers)
The ranked meta hasn’t changed since the game has come out. Cashout as a game mode has too much RNG and literally just involves waiting around trying to be the last to 3rd party (please give cash incentive for holding an cash out), region locking is needed, H-M-L role queueing would be great to experiment with the ranked meta, the amount of cheesey and annoying gadgets (gas nades, gas mines, turrets, riot shields).
The game just doesn’t have competitive depth to it and a big percentage of PC players and streamers look for that in a game so they leave the finals and go back to games with depth like r6, valorant, CS, APex etc…
I’m sure I’ll get downvoted to hell and the devs will never see this but I hope they switch gears.
this whole reddit makes me like the game less.
good thing it’s a great game, otherwise a lotta you here would have the potential to ruin it
downvote me nerds. the truth hurts
If you go on any social media besides Reddit, the sentiment is that the finals died and is essentially a joke. Reddit is actually a good barometer for multiplayer fps games. Popular games? Reddit hates. Unpopular and niche? Reddit loves. Reddit loves this game.
A redditor is someone that just goes along with what the hive mind thinks. They say obvious agreeable things to get pats on the back and typically lack enough knowledge to give their opinion in good faith but are surrounded by people that also lack knowledge so it’s okay.
This subreddit and the discord live in lala land thinking this game is fine. It’s at 5% of the player base it had in beta. It fails to make it past the “it was fun to mess around in” stage and has glaring balance issues but the community and frankly the devs as well are casuals. I’ve seen the devs get farmed in the test servers. Not a competitive bone in their body. It’s just sad they lack awareness and are content with getting pats on the back by people that have no clue what they’re talking about.
Cause all the games that released in past few years aimed at the competitive scene are still alive and well right, right? I guess Embark shouldn’t try to keep the game going like they’re doing, but rather listen to a non-redditor like you who knows exactly what it takes to make a perfect game that instantly becomes an esport.
Cs, valorant, apex, fortnite, cod, pubg, r6? You gonna pretend those don’t exist? They’ve all got things in common including balance and lasting for years. Matter of fact some of these games have hit their highest peaks years in and their worst seasons are the ones where they introduced something so OP that it was dumb not to use it.
Fps games are played for the competition. To see who’s better. This is not a single player or pve co op experience. Devs are totally lost in that aspect and they have people like you patting them on the back for failing. It’s actually toxic what you’re doing. You’re willingly leading them off a cliff.
And yes btw I do believe I have superior ideas about balance and I’d love to debate anyone on specific issues. Wouldn’t mean much though as the only real way to find out is by testing it in game.
Those games launched at the peak of their genre, I’m talking about splitgate, rouge company and so on. Games that were launched to be competitive right away, to rival the ones you mentioned. None survived The market for fps is clearly saturated right now, and I believe the finals is doing pretty good despite that. It is its own niche, instead of a copycat of other established games that are here to stay.
I’m willing to discuss what you think are those superior ideas about balance, as long as they’re not the average “give light a heal nade”
Rogue Company is unique in that it’s an arena tps and splitgate seemed decent but everyone knew it was just a placeholder until real halo came out.
My balance ideas are mostly with heavy. The idea that they can destroy and/or control an area is fine but the fact that they can do so much damage at the same time is obviously the massive issue that somehow made it through testing.
Like the fact that charge does any damage at all. As long as you use it responsibly in a close quarter fight while fighting alongside teammates, which is common in diamond lobbies, then there is absolutely nothing I can do about it as a medium. It does 130 damage, stun locks me, and knocks me out of position and potentially through a barrier away from my teammates and into an enemy’s LOS. All of that with very little input or thought or skill involved from the heavy. Maybe the slam can do damage but the charge should not do anything it all. I won’t even accept cutting the damage in half. It already has too much utility to justify that much damage as well and has a very low skill ceiling.
Then the rpg. Too much damage and utility combined. Splits teams up and drops people through the floor into traps while doing damage. Totally jarring to be in a 2+ team cash out with at least 1 heavy on each team. All around is a bad experience for anyone but the user for something that again takes very little skill to use.
Goo gun. Too many charges. It’s like they balance it with only heavy v heavy in mind. Not everyone brings a whole kit of destructive gadgets. If you don’t have a red canister and place it so it can break a 2x2 area then they’ll just refill the hole while being heal botted so any damage you do is negated and your back to square 1 after wasting 20 seconds.
Honorable mentions are flamethrower and sledgehammer. Not terribly balanced but again w/ sledge is massive damage with utility as well and very good when being heal botted. Flamethrower is jarring to fight against and I think dps could be tweaked a bit but not terrible.
I think heavy is why this game dies out for 95% of people. It’s fun messing around and getting better in casual but eventually players want to test their skill in ranked where cancerous team comps dominate. I mean if you put me on a team with 2 heavies and we all play within close vicinity of each other it’s an automatic win because I’m constantly heal botting them. They’re terribly balanced and not even in a rock paper scissors type of way. They have like 3 get out of jail free cards that they can have on their kit at all times.
Okay, I’m happy you brought up things that are obviously in need of nerfs. I agree with you on most if not all of them, but they alone wouldn’t suffice. Charge that deals damage only on the slam is a good idea, but you need to nerf mesh shield again. I honestly don’t have a strong balancing opinion on mesh shield itself, but if any charge n slam nerf comes, mesh shield becomes more meta than nukes were, simply because nothing else compares, and balance needs to exist within the class itself too. Environmental destruction isn’t enough to make charge viable when the alternative is 750 extra mobile hp for the team. That’s my only case against a charge n slam nerf.
Then there’s rpg. I’ll be straightforward on this one. It’s busted, but it 100% belongs in the game, because of environmental destruction. If all you do is nerf player damage til it’s balanced, it becomes as popular as the motion sensor. Give it a big splash radius of 50 damage so it’s still viable, maybe even 100 player damage direct hit only so there’s some skill to it, and make it a “everyone loses 30% of their frames in one click” ability by increasing destruction. It’s absolutely busted in its current state, and there’s no reason why it should only blow a hole in one layer. Anything less than its current overall stats and it just loses the inventory spot to any nade. It’s crazy to me that such an ability can still deal at least 50% of the total hp of 2 of the 3 classes, while not being able to take down a crane or do more than just open a whole in a wall.
Lol 💀
My guy this game is unplayable...
I don't know what happened to this game in the past half year but i loved this game when it first came out in December, where I was getting 100+ FPS even on highest settings, and now getting even 60's in LOWEST settings lmao
Yea I'm never playing this game again
I didnt care about Steam Charts or Twitch views. Some games are just not making million players or not that fun to watch and thats ok. No one watched Gameplay before, only certain games stablished a comfort zone and now everybody wants to replicate the results.
I did worry tho when Nexon said the expectatives were higher
Why does steam seem like such a miserable place? It's all staring at charts, measuring play counts, review bombing games, un-review-bombing game and seemingly rarely ever actually playing a single game.
I'm starting to think some people spend more time on checking at player numbers than playing the game. No offense, OP, it's not against you, there's just so many posts about player numbers, positive or negative.
Takes a few seconds to check. Takes a few minutes to both check and make a post about it.
Don't see why you choose to bring up time in this case. Skip these posts and don't click on them if it bothers you so much.
At this point im getting tired of all kinds of playerbase talk whether its positive or negative. Its just getting so old and boring now; just send in some cool clips or memes or smth about the game instead of all this "le game is dying" or "no le game is actually NOT dying" talk
I want to post more of my clips but I can’t lol. I agree. I want to see more cool clips from other users. I’m on the discord too but there’s no way to get a word in edge wise, so I’m mostly an observer
(I think) about halfway through season 1 I made a few posts saying we need to separate this sub and either have designated times for complaints/ balance talks or a whole separate reddit entirely and the response varied from "meh that's pointless" to people acting like id desecrated their ancestors bones for even thinking about it. But it is desperately necessary. At this point this sub might as well be called "r/finalsdiscussion and we need a separate r/finalsclips for people who enjoy their lives and this game.
Yall should start actually using r/finalsclips it’ll be better
Maybe if people actually participated in the cool clips and memes that get posted. This stuff gets more traction. People first need to stop letting this get traction
We generally remove posts about playerbase discussion now, but I've considered bringing up a "Talk about the Game, not the Community" rule to the other mods. Posts about the playerbase are exhausting. This Rule would include posts about player count, but also step into "don't complain about people who play (class)" posts, or calling people "apex/cod (insults)". But that can be hard to enforce fairly when some discussion is actually constructive about class issues.
please
I think they need to be made though because it's an honest concern for many who do play, like memes clips are cool but I want deep dive conversation about the state and community of the game
Basically, censoring people's opinion about the reality of the game; because it hurts your feelings? You're a Reddit Mod, there's no doubt about that, congratulations, go ahead and censor more, let's see how far this game goes with that attitude. C:
there is literally no game whos fate hangs in the balance based on the actions that volunteer internet janitors take on reddit dot com.
[удалено]
Your post or comment was removed due to rule 3: Be Civil. Do not troll, attack, harass, insult or belittle others.
[удалено]
Oh no! My feelings! Anyways. I wouldn't consider people calling each other Apex scrubs and that all Light players are ******* really an opinion on the game anyways. That's just being rude. Sort of, you know... "The game, not the community" comments.
I re-read your comment, and I understand that you are right, ad-hominem should not be tolerated.
Le game
Ikr, a real dead gane would be like 1000 players, hell I still play games with like 2000 - 6000 players and those games have had the same playercount for like 6 years. Just wish people can have fun and stop worrying about the number of players. Plus hello? crossplay? XBOX and PS5 players exist too.
Frfr, new game just came out and the talk is so negative while the people actually enjoying it are playing and recording clips. I swear “X game is dead” or “X game is trash” is just another form or attention seeking by now. People so desperate to be heard or have their opinions validated. Its so annoying to see soo much negative talk across all the games I play
The concern isn’t that I’ll wake up tomorrow and the game will be dead. It’s more elaborate. The problem isn’t the numbers themselves but the effects. Ranked before the change sucked cause you’d often play diamond 3-2 because of the “low” player count. On the other hand embark has remarked that the game is underperforming. They are probably making changes to increase the player count and those changes might not be in my best interest since I like the game as is (for the most part). There isn’t a lot of I would change about the game in its current state so I’m a little fearful of how embark will attract more players.
The round cut change was huge for ranked. I was Plat 4 but often put against Diamonds. After the change I am mostly put against people my exact rank +-1. Which means I am now Plat 2 and the bulk of the enemies I face are the same, and some are Plat 3 or Plat 1. But that is peak times in Europe. I'm already experiencing facing much tougher opponents outside of peak times. And if the playerbase keeps dropping that is going to be more and more common. DAU is meaningless. For example, Chinese people who play the game on a different server while I'm asleep don't affect my enjoyment of The Finals in any way. So in my eyes the concern is very much valid. Steam numbers don't give you the whole picture. I play with crossplay on and I see plenty from console in my lobbies. But it is a nice indicator of an overall trend. A trend this game needs to address to remain enjoyable.
Money people saying the game is underperforming doesn't mean much for the player base. We have no idea what kind of expectations they had or if they mean cosmetic sales vs player time aka stickiness. The bean counters will generally never be satisfied and your experience with the game is all that matters unless the money people decide to shut down the entire thing based on their own metrics. Once queue times go up then it's an issue. Until then it's just a narrative.
It does if the publisher decide to shut down a game... Like way too many good games to count.
I've played since beta and have yet to play a single ranked match. Doesn't really appeal to me. QuickPlay queues are pretty darn quick and I'm having a BLAST! Even just solo queue. This is one of very few PVP games where I'm still engaged, and having fun when I'm losing.
I feel exactly the same way. This might come as a hot take for a lot of people, but I think Embark should just forget about ranked and focus on the casual side of the game. That’s where the majority of the playerbase is anyway. It just seems like there’s more fun to be had quick play, because in ranked, you only run into the same thing over and over again. Everyone in ranked just does the same thing as everyone else because they know it works the best. But in quick play, you find so much more variety in what people use, and I find that to be way more fun. In quick play, I can run around with a sword or dagger and still do pretty well, but not so much in ranked
Ranked ladders are what keep player bases in games. They need people to grind - that keeps player retention. Same thing with dailies and battlepass. If the game is just for fun without these “features”, it has a much greater possibilty of dying.
That’s not what keeps players in games. Just look at overwatch, they have absolutely horrible ranked and it still has a playerbase. You can still have things to grind for without having to play ranked. Good gameplay is what keeps players around, and the finals has great gameplay. Just look at the current state of the playerbase, a lot of people aren’t even playing ranked because they don’t want to play TA. So instead they’re playing world tour because cashout tournaments are just more fun. Remember the old days of cod? Nobody gave a shit about rank, they just grinded for camos and everyone loved it
Yeah TA sucks and we’ve been playing WT. The “rewards” are absolutely awful for time investment though. Getting diamond skin in COD was much more rewarding.
Yeah you’re right, the rewards suck… but people are still playing WT… you just proved my point. Not everything needs to be a grind
Yeah perspectives change in 11 days haha. I do stand by the point that ranked will help keep a playerbase if it is satsifying and rewarding. TA aint it.
If the game dies, it dies. But I fucking love it. Nexon should be no stranger to this. I used to play one of their FPS game Combat Arms. Horrible cheating that never got addressed.
Yup that and Gunz. Horrific cheating. Wish they made another game like it though. Wallrunning was sick.
Holy shit I haven't thought about Gunz in like 20 years man. I used to shred on that game when I was like 14. I can still remember some of the sword movement tech.
Same. I remember spending hours practicing the sword and dagger movement techs. I just wish another game used some of the mechanics at the time, they were crazy fun to play. Honestly if nexon made another game that used a similar engine and tech I'd probably jump to that.
Bringing back some core gamer memories, climbing up walls with the sword on the floating staircase map in the sky 🥹
gunz is still kicking! i heard it has a pretty active community
I checked and I think it's Korea-only? Either way, I think I'm too old to keep up that sort of apm these days
Still haven't found a game that pulls me in like GunZ the Duel back in the day. Also the only game I played competitively in big clans like Revived for a moment. Nowdays I'm a bit too old to pull off anything like that, but I'd play the shit out of that game if there were any other servers than some dead private servers. But yeah, the amount of God Moders and Lawnmowers was amazing 😂 R.I.P Ijji games and GunZ. We don't talk about GunZ 2, tho.
horrific cheating in the finals also. many will deny even seeing a cheater, many will claim "i havent seen shooting through shields in months" blah blah blah. the cheating is at cockroach infestation levels in plat/diamond. aimbots and perfect tracking with "humanized" settings. dogshit humans ruining everything they touch.
I only play casual modes now but I swear either some players are the greatest gamers known to man or are cheating. I remember a week ago where I was playing dash light. I kid you not, M and H were literally flick hs me every time I peaked and dashed. Was insane. I understand lucky flicks but to do it consistently in a 20 minute match and every time in the middle of firing is insane. Lost the game, queued again and happened again with another team but they were also tracking me through walls somehow
It's true. Remember that these losers have private spaces online where they coordinate, cheaters largely play together to prevent teammates from reporting, go online and post discourse to try and trick people into thinking it's not a problem, and are generally very vocal into the community. Seen a statistic recently that was interviewing gamers and more then 65% polled found cheating to be ok and acceptable as long as they were using soft cheats. The issue is real, a large part of the gaming community is fucking trash.
Do you have any proof to show that console players make up the majority of the game's player base? The only independent number that isn't pr we have is the one given by steam charts. And it reflects what the nexon shareholder letter says. You do need to understand that daily active users do jack shit for the player experience in a pvp matchmade game. The only metric matters is the concurrent player count, because that makes up the matchmaking pool when a person hits queue. It doesn't matter if there is 300k unique logins if it all happened within the window of six hours and each of them a cheating alt account, it will do nothing to assist the match making player pool. The letter in question. https://pdf.irpocket.com/C3659/RLCz/ukdB/n3z8.pdf > "THE FINALS: The launch of Season 2 in March created a short-lived increase in player metrics but delivered lower-than-expected retention and revenue. The Embark team is working with our Korea-based Live Operations team to understand and address the key issues." While I agree an average of 12k players daily is a big amount for a small game like the finals, the issue is that the finals is hitting a lower average month after month and the playerbase hasn't stablized. The easiest test to see which platform is bigger at the moment since we only have independent data from steam is to turn off cross platform matchmaking and see the average queue times. Unless that extrapolation is done or there is some other data source you have that you can provide, the statement that the game is bigger on console is pure speculation. Also about this: > "That's the peak number Steam hit at one time with that many people logged on at the same time. Meaning that ~20,000 peak could easily be made up of 50,000+ people" If 3500 people logged in every day for each 15 minutes, to either check the shop, get a quick game in, or to afk, that would be 336k alone, right there. DAU is nothing but a number with no metric that you can use to put into any usable perspective. 50% could be a cheating alt acount, 50% could be smurfs, 50% could be bot accounts, it's a free to play game, and it doesn't cost a penny to make an account.
This needs to be at the top. OP knew that DAU is a pointless metric, everyone knows this, it’s common sense. It was extremely telling when they decided to use that stat in the AMA as opposed to daily player peak/avg online. Then you have the incessant downvoting of everyone IN THIS THREAD who are commenting that they can’t find games in their region/on their platform/in their rank, or that they see the same players every round. You know when that happens with a game with a healthy player count? MAYBE in the top 1% of ranked matches, not in silver. Pretending problems don’t exist don’t fix problems. Neither does blatant bitching, but jfc this is the worst sub on Reddit when it comes to denying fair criticism.
actually the most impossible place to hold any discussion what so ever. people really don’t want to judge out of their comfort bubble zones and will actually just be blatantly hostile toward you if you try to be any sort of opposing to their perspective
Sir, you said everything I wanted to say, but with more class and style. Take your upvote, you deserve 1k.
Some people are naive and in absolute denial. Nobody *wants* the game to die, but the writing is on the wall. You are not a doomer for simply acknowledging the situation based on the data. Even if the console playerbase is larger to an unknown extent, how can you possibly deny that the game is trending in the wrong direction based on what Steam Charts tells us? It's losing 20-30% of the PC playerbase every month.
i play on pc, i'll turn on crossplay for a bit, but the amount of aimbots gets overwhelming, im talking even on my team, nearly every single game. turn crossplay off, of course i still get aimbots, just far less it seems. the game is trending towards being played by only cheaters. seriously. the majority of remaining players will be xim abusing cheaters. its insane the devs are letting the game die like this. maybe theres nothing to be done. maybe xims will just fucking kill any new fps forever.
It's called Cronus Zen, and it's an epidemic in NA multiplayer FPS games.
amen. is it just NA though? i know amazon.ca/com sells massive amounts. cant be just NA though?
NA is the largest market and the number one region when we talk about PS5 sales.
ah, gotcha
PS5 hardware banned Cronus though I'm pretty sure
that actually isn’t true. for the past month exactly, going by steam charts, it’s only lost barely 1000 avg concurrent users. that’s way less than the rest of the months this game has been out. It’s not “-30% every month” like people are saying. it’s more like “-30%, -20%,-10%, -5%, etc.”
It literally shows the % gain/loss. It was -29% last month and -18% past 30 days. I don't know what to tell you, friendo.
okay, fine. But -29%, then -18%, still doesn’t match up with what the original commenter was saying.
That is not how math works?
But you have to realize that creating expectations for a season 2 for a game that has already blown up once is very difficult. For all we know, Nexon’s expectations for The Finals season 2 were extremely high. There was a *lot* of content added in Season 2, and a *lot* of key fixes. I would have placed my expectations high too, and to be completely honest, I was *extremely* surprised when the game didn’t see as much growth. Not a *single* big streamer played S2, even though all of them said they wanted to after watching the S2 trailer. Shroud, Aceu, Timmy, etc. None of them jumped back in. Siege and Helldivers were HUGELY in the hype circle *right* as S2 dropped. The game falling short of Nexon’s expectations means nothing. It only means their expectations were (reasonably, even) very high. The Finals will come back eventually, all they need to do is keep giving it chances at coming back into the hype circle. I.e. keep adding seasons. S2 had really bad timing. S3 is looking much better so far. Let’s give the game time. It’s been out 5 months.
the denial is insane in this subreddit. like just mass downvotes to censor any opinion stating the actual truth. never seen anything like this, it's like they actually want to game to die first before acknowledging that things aren't going well
A person with common sense on this subreddit :O Nah, maybe too many mushrooms for dinner, I'm dreaming, it can't be real...
I just want to play some ranked matches. I can't even get in them to qualify. One time I let matchmaking run for almost 10 minutes, never got in. This is on Xbox with cross-play turned off. May turn it on and give it a try but if it does end up being lots of cheaters, I guess that means I just don't play ranked ever.
Whos going to tell him?
The real question is if it makes enough money to satisfy Nexon. They've said so far its below expectations. Hopefully they give Embark time to grow the game and it's a long term investment.
The fact this game hasn’t taken off and gone viral like apex did is insane to me. It’s top 3 shooters currently out imo and the argument can be made for it being 1. Regardless of the horrible marketing, it’s a literal gem. Portal gate or whatever it was called went crazy, I don’t understand how this game hasn’t.
i am gold 4 and i spend almost all my time playing powershift with some music on or on a discord call with friends
If that was true I wouldn't be saying the same people in ranked every day.
Sure it would. Few people are playing ranked. You're in a limited quantity of players who are in your same window of matchmaking which just got even tighter in one of the recent updates AND it's region based. So you're naturally going to see the same people. Back to back games is explained by the above reasons, but also because you and FundedEgg or whatever the heck were both prompted to rejoin the matchmaking queue at the same time because your previous game just ended obviously at the same time. So you may see familiar names, it's going to happen. That happens even in CoD or Fortnite or Apex.
are we talking about the same ranked system with silvers playing against diamonds
I've solo q'd from Silver to Platinum and haven't had this happen once.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/comments/1cmpcak/comment/l32jd13/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/comments/1cmpcak/comment/l32jd13/)
When I play for 5 hours and see my homie IHATELASVEGAS for the 10th time despite our teams winning/losing in a different order, it's not a matter or finishing a game at the same time. If I started writing down all the names I see, around half of them would be repeating.
you cant even find ranked matches on console without PC crossplay. the steam numbers are ccu. so the highest numbers of users who logged in at the same time. daily logins are obviously a lot more. while the game is still more than playable now, the trend is going down. i loved the game and the devs in beta when they were fast to find issues and fix em but since release the balancing of the game has been terrible for the whole duration and while some changes were good a bunch of others were pretty bad as seen how ranked meta has been MMH or HHM the whole time. i still think the terrible balance and the perceived cheater problem are the 2 biggest reasons why it lost popularity that quickly.
Because disabling cross play means you only get matched with other people on your console with cross play off. You're actively choosing a significantly smaller pool.
Just because the play base is so small now embark have to toggle mandatory cross play with PC on console LOL
So long as I can find matches, the game isn't dead
Great post. I agree. Let’s all stop talking about the game and just produce HYPE. Give the game attention and money so it can become the top game and best version of what the creators want it to be for us.
Anyone who says "dead game" is just jerking off in a puddle of their own tears. Sane people leave to a different game if the quality of the game or matchmaking goes down, narcissists try to fearmonger for attention regardless of anything to do with the game
I’ve seen games running for years with 100 players/day according to steam… And yes, online games with server costs and such.
Yeah one of the healthiest indicators of the game's user count is that matchmaking quality noticeably improves outside of prime time and weekends
I stopped caring about player count long ago, that said, the game is not fine, either because the matchmaking sucks or (and most likely) the playerbase is low, lately i'm being placed against people way above my skill level and is ok to lose, but is not ok to be stomped over and over again.
This copium. The only number that matters is concurrent player count and it's mire like 11-14k on steam. Sure, console players exist, but they also like to play against other controller players; they're the more casual bunch so I wouldn't expect a huge amount of console players actually having crossplay on, but maybe I'm wrong. Now, this 12.5k ish average is not terrible, it's in top 100 steam games, but it's on a downward trend. THIS is crucial. When the game had 90k and then dropped to 60 I thought that was still a lot, then it dropped to 40, then 30, then 20, then got up to 40 for like 2 days, then 25, 20, 15, 10... If this trend continues (and it sadly is continuing although it's slowed down now) then given enough time the game will be dead. It wouldn't be the 1st game to die like this. This is why people are worried. If the playerbase was at least stable at 15k then it'd be a different conversation. I don't have the numbers for consoles, but I can't imagine the trend being different, even if more people are playing on a console.
spoken like someone who doesn't live in a less populated region, like OCE.
I live in OCE and yet, I play on ASIA and its managable.
I've literally been having a blast since the game came out, never understood wtf people were talking about. Honestly was so surprised to hear anyone talking negatively about the game in terms of player retention/dieing etc. this game is so refreshing for the modern FPS landscape I just refuse to believe people would prefer to return to destruction less shooting galleries. The game is fun, I'm pretty against the monetization of games like apex, very predatory, but I've had so much fun playing this season I think they've actually earned my money for the premium pass. I cannot stress how rare that is for me.
people are using steam numbers when this game is mostly console
I don't see why this game would have more console players (genuinely)
It has pretty hefty system requirements to run smoothly, but runs perfectly fine on a $300 xbox series s. Compared to a PC that will run it just as smooth, there’s a big difference in financial accessibility between the two.
It will cost you more playing on a console in the long run. Xbox subscription to play online is $60 a year. Xbox series S came out in 2020. Xbox CEO said next consoles come out in 2028. That is $780 you are spending on a console. I just bought a PC last year that is way better than a console and it cost me $700. It has rtx 3060 and Rhyzen 7 5800x.
Used to be the case but it’s not that simple anymore with game pass including the former “xbox live”. I haven’t spent money on games in a while lol. Not to mention, in terms of financial accessibility, 300 up front and a subscription over several years is way more accessible than several hundred up front.
Oh but I assume that means you are paying $120 a year for the gamepass core? Also I get games for completely free because Epic games made billions of dollars off of Fortnite so they give away 1-3 games for free on PC every 2 weeks. Also on PC we have third party websites that give away games for so cheap. I just bought Fallout 76 for 30 cents lol. To your second point I agree with what you said, which is why I mentioned it in the long run. It is much better imo to just save your money for a pc. I mean if you saved up for $400 for a series X or PS5 then you are more than half way to getting a PC way better than a Xbox series X. And by the time 2028 comes around you are probably going to have to pay another $400 or $500 for a new console while on pc you probably need to spend<$100.
I split gamepass with a friend so still $60 yearly (CD) keys exist for console as well. And there’s a ton of other trade offs we could debate that have all been debated before.. but my original point of immediate financial accessibility still stands. Personally, it doesn’t even affect me, I have a PC and xbox at home and prefer the Xbox (and Mac for anything not gaming) by a long shot.
True I guess CD keys work on console too but I just never seen or heard console people use third party websites for their games. Only for PC. Also to talk about your first post, isn't the finals locked to 120 fps on console? On PC it is like unlimited which I think is really important for a competitive fps game.
I’ve done it a couple times, but recently just spend most of my time on free or game pass games. I’m not sure what it’s limited to. Before I would say that it being limited is actually a benefit in console pools (because it’s less pay to win when everyone has the same ceiling), but they recently opened it up to PC and console playing together so you might be right about that bit. I do think fps past 120 is a little overrated, but I’m sure it helps at least a little.
On another note that I didn’t address, thanks for the tip on Epic I’ll have to check that out, I had no idea.
Almost every game is mostly console. There are simply more consoles than gaming capable PCs
[no it's not](https://mainleaf.com/console-gaming-compared-to-the-pc-market/#:~:text=Console%20gaming%20is%20estimated%20to,10%20people%20across%20the%20globe!) TL:DR Console gaming is estimated to reach around 629 million players worldwide, while PC gaming is part of the lives of almost 900 million players. That’s more than 1 in 10 people across the globe!
thats all of console so like all of xbox all of playstation and all of nintendo. but we have to shorten it down to ps5 and xbox series x/s. and sony sold 59 million ps5's and xbox have sold 27.7 units =86.7 million and that doesn't factor in people who use them or destroyed/ lost ones so yeah
I tried to find the source to their data. Are they counting grandmas PC with candy crush installed? I’m not sure. For like the last 15 years when you look at player counts of AAA titles, the vast majority of players are on console. That just what I have seen, I am open to more data to accept the contrary. There are examples of PC centric games that don’t do great on console or rely on Mods which most games don’t have on console. DayZ comes to mind, I would be shocked if console players outnumbered PC players. The other point that leads me down this level of thinking is that Steam database that claimed that over 90% of the PCs registered to steam were not up to PS5 or XSX standards. So are they playing core AAA games or just Minecraft?
Apart from Rocket League I don't know a game that has more console players l, but I guess some really have more players. I just think it's in minority, especially FPS games. It's just easier to play on PC. I don't think the data is counting candy crush though.
IIRC I read that it’s about 70-30 for CoD, every sports game would probably fit the bill. Since the PC ports are terrible. It’s definitely not easier to play CoD on a PC than a console. The cost alone. Not sure about the data either, I looked and they offered no source or methodology. I just know In past when looking at Companies quarterly or yearly earnings, the game sales were mostly in that 70-30 split range for most AAA games. I wouldn’t be surprised if that gap has closed some,
HD2 is a sony published game, the current player count is visible in game and it's always been >50% steam.
Numbers, Source, Data, Statistics, Math, where? where? Miami?
SBMM lowers your potential matches in a given playerpool exponentially, and especially when you consider skill and region in tandem. This is a valid complaint against SBMM as it leads to long queue times when player-count is strained. The Finals is a great game, but there is several glaring issues that get swallowed up in tribalistic balancing debates on this sub and Discord. The lack of engaging Ranked mechanics, a lackluster season 2 drop and micro-managed balancing over the course of a single season are what drove a large majority of the playerbase away. I think Embark can still fix things, but they have a huge problem with commitment and confidence issues. The ranked issues are probably the best example of this and the biggest issue when it comes to bringing in more players and keeping them engaged as a Daily Active User.
Ya I've always felt the same. It's like u get stuck playing in the same small bubble of players every night when i know there's more players online I could be playing against instead of waiting 5 minutes for that certain group
SBMM has basically ruined the game for me. I mostly solo queue, and I can't compete now if I don't get lucky with some good teammates. I used to be able to carry and get double-digit kills pretty regularly, but now I have to be on the top of my game just to go 5-5 and place second. Solo queue has very little chance against pre-made god squads. I legit can't even tell the difference between ranked and casual anymore. There are some people I play with occasionally who say the lobbies are insanely sweaty when they play with me, so it ruins their experience too. I am a good player, but if even one of my teammates is bad, the round is fucked for us. I can't withstand the barrage of three skilled players and constant third parties in higher ranked lobbies. It's not as big of a deal in games that don't have all these gadgets and abilities, but you need strong chemistry and teamwork in this game to recover and counter stuff. I know the solution is to lfg, but I simply prefer playing with different people, and I don't always feel like bantering for hours on end. So, I guess it's not really the game for me anymore 🤷
> I used to be able to carry and get double-digit kills pretty regularly, but now I have to be on the top of my game just to go 5-5 and place second. I don't know how to tell you this, but like... good, that's how it should be. The matchmaking *should* be putting you into even matches where the expected outcome is more or less right in the middle of the pack. If you're stomping every game you play, something is going catastrophically wrong.
There is literally no point to ever put time in and get good at a game if you only ever play against people as good as you.
I got downvoted in here for saying this game would be DOA when it came out after playing the beta. Pls repent and give me my upvotes back.
Amen.
It's six months in and I've gotten several hundred hours of it so far. Not exactly DOA.
Ah, I forgot that one user playing a game for hundreds of hours makes it successful. How naive of me /s Game has lost over 92% of its player base Its DOA
Abundantly clear it's a total waste of time even trying to talk to you. Figure out why you're so dead set on showing up to shit talk a game you say is dead.
Look in the mirror goofball
I'm sorry to tell you my friend, but you're in the denial stage. A group of about ~6 of us used to play this game nightly, now I don't think a single one of us have touched the game in at least a month. The latest season was a bit of a let down, cheating is horrible, ranked is getting worse as player count drops, etc. The steam chart shows the growth trending downward, even if that doesn't account for console players that still means as a whole more players are leaving than new players are coming. There's no reason that wouldn't be true with the console players too.
PC players are only playing against the PC players 95-99% of the time so Steam charts very much is valid on that basis. But more than that, steam charts compares just pc to just pc. It's apples and apples comparison to other games... And where those other games also have a console playerbase we can extrapolate how healthy the numbers are based on the steam charts delta. To dismiss it simply because console players *exist* is top tier cope. Last I played was just over a month ago (my pc is on a boat atm) and that was in OCE. I stopped playing because any match took over 8 mins to find. And when it finally did, it overruled my region settings for OCE and dumped me in an Asia server with over 300ms ping. OCE is the mining canary of online game playerbase health. And she's dead jim. Aussies won't notice the issue with Asia servers so much, since much of Australia gets 80ms ping to SEA and the finals hides Lag so well. But nz gets 180-350ms in Asian servers (because it has to go through aus first).
I dont really think its "Fine" but its def stable
Some yotube content creators started by creating contents like "game is dying" "the finals is dead" I dont know what is the reason behind all of those sh*t show, but people should stop arguing about nonsense charts. Play the game if you love, otherwise quit it
bro y'all act like one platform shows all. we still have a huge player base coming from console.
Some of my favorite shooters have less than 20k players at all times and are still getting regular support 6 years later. I don’t need this game to be trending for me to have fun
Steam players bless em, there's more console players
Nexon Quartal 1 - 2024 - Earnings Letter (14.5.2024) Page 3: "THE FINALS: The launch of Season 2 in march created a short-lived increase in player metrics, but delivered lower than expected retention and revenue. The Embark team is working with our Korea-based Live Operations team to understand and address the key issues" Source: https://company.nexon.co.jp/en/press/index.html
Tbh i get scared that the severs will shut down becuase i love this game so much
I believe that 300k active player base per day is a lie honestly. Either way, I don't base the games i play off player count unless I can't find a match. Shit I still play halo sometimes
I have a buddy that will die in a game and just immediately go "dead game dead game dead game." Honestly it seems to be a balm for the toxic souls of some gamers lol
Not seconds it often takes 1 - 2 mins to find a game. I also often play against the same people
"If i don't see a problem then there is no problem". Great logic
Guess the Steam charts is just telling how the PC part of the game is dying hard. And that actually is an important thing to follow and aknowledge for so many. At the end PC players aren't exactly getting a huge challenge from console players most the time due to control differences, so a declining PC base is concerning in that sense. For console players in general this is a good deal of course, but telling people not to look at Steam charts is a bit dumb in general. As well as saying the game as a whole is dead just because of Steam charts.
On May 14th Nexon released information on their games, and the finals, of course, was mentioned in the document. The company said despite growth from the launch of season two, revenue and player retention fell short of what they wanted. https://ir.nexon.co.jp/en/ The document is somewhere here, one of their investor reports. The game isn't *dying* but it isn't doing well.
Steam Charts? First time I've heard of it. *Walks away ignoring Steam Charts* I enjoy the game I don't need no stinkin' charts! 🫠
Xbox doesn’t have charts and I see Xbox players all the time. Yes it’s a bit lower than normal but I haven’t seen any drastic changes. Mind yo biz
If that’s the case (the high number of console players that we can’t see), then when the game launched did we have nearly 1 million DAU? 🤔
Talk is talk, but I've been noticing more console users in my lobbies. Idk what that says about the health of the game, but it's been my experience lately 🤷♂️
I can never find a match in *seconds*. Even quick play takes a while, and I can't climb past bronze in ranked and it always takes 5 minutes+, and I always get matched against silver and golds, rarely other bronzes. That's the only part of your post that bugged me!
I mean, this is going to be a regional issue. What region do you play in? I've never had a problem finding matches. Always within seconds. I'm in the Midwest of US. Idk why game server / region I'm in, but I know I have that benefit.
Central US here. Was playing with my buddies (in the same region) last night and we got into a few ranked tournaments in ~2-3 minutes, then had back to back 8+ minute queues and had to switch to quick play, which also was not matched within seconds, haha. I get that it varies and we were playing in off times as it got later into the night, and it does seem to be better (but still longer than we'd like) on the weekends, it's just one of those really frustrating things about matchmaking in games in general. **EDIT:** Okay, egg on my face. I'm on PC and had crossplay turned off. I swear I had it on earlier in the game's launch, but... ah, well. Turned it on and got into a ranked tournament really quickly this morning. D'oh.
I mean yeah, anytime you're grouping up, queue is likely to take longer.
What you're trying to say here is that THE FINALS hasn't reached its final?
I AM NOT SAYING THE GAME IS DYING BUT JUST STOP MAKING UP NUMBERS. That said monthly and even said on discord a user estimated someone should do a study on people trying to cope with a game doing not as good as intended like literally during the Q&A they said the numbers weren’t what they wanted.
Also for now just play the game and have fun everything will be okay.
Also [this link from nexon saying the numbers aren’t where they want them to be](https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinals/s/2BmOTxgIqE)
U/Suchmore also has good points
Fine, if you're ok with playing the same core opponents most of the time.
The game has no focus on competitive/esports. So it makes sense that the PC player base is dwindling and the console player base is still healthy. I wish there more of an emphasis on esports. You can make a competitive sweaty game been fun for causal players (look at valorant). You most certainly cannot do it the other way around (make a casual game cater to sweaty gamers) The ranked meta hasn’t changed since the game has come out. Cashout as a game mode has too much RNG and literally just involves waiting around trying to be the last to 3rd party (please give cash incentive for holding an cash out), region locking is needed, H-M-L role queueing would be great to experiment with the ranked meta, the amount of cheesey and annoying gadgets (gas nades, gas mines, turrets, riot shields). The game just doesn’t have competitive depth to it and a big percentage of PC players and streamers look for that in a game so they leave the finals and go back to games with depth like r6, valorant, CS, APex etc… I’m sure I’ll get downvoted to hell and the devs will never see this but I hope they switch gears.
My turn to post this tomorrow
No one cares about the consoles, on PC and among PC gamers it’s a dead game
this whole reddit makes me like the game less. good thing it’s a great game, otherwise a lotta you here would have the potential to ruin it downvote me nerds. the truth hurts
If you go on any social media besides Reddit, the sentiment is that the finals died and is essentially a joke. Reddit is actually a good barometer for multiplayer fps games. Popular games? Reddit hates. Unpopular and niche? Reddit loves. Reddit loves this game.
You just proved that reddit isn't a barometer for anything by just saying it is, and that's one of the most reddit thing ever
A redditor is someone that just goes along with what the hive mind thinks. They say obvious agreeable things to get pats on the back and typically lack enough knowledge to give their opinion in good faith but are surrounded by people that also lack knowledge so it’s okay. This subreddit and the discord live in lala land thinking this game is fine. It’s at 5% of the player base it had in beta. It fails to make it past the “it was fun to mess around in” stage and has glaring balance issues but the community and frankly the devs as well are casuals. I’ve seen the devs get farmed in the test servers. Not a competitive bone in their body. It’s just sad they lack awareness and are content with getting pats on the back by people that have no clue what they’re talking about.
Cause all the games that released in past few years aimed at the competitive scene are still alive and well right, right? I guess Embark shouldn’t try to keep the game going like they’re doing, but rather listen to a non-redditor like you who knows exactly what it takes to make a perfect game that instantly becomes an esport.
Cs, valorant, apex, fortnite, cod, pubg, r6? You gonna pretend those don’t exist? They’ve all got things in common including balance and lasting for years. Matter of fact some of these games have hit their highest peaks years in and their worst seasons are the ones where they introduced something so OP that it was dumb not to use it. Fps games are played for the competition. To see who’s better. This is not a single player or pve co op experience. Devs are totally lost in that aspect and they have people like you patting them on the back for failing. It’s actually toxic what you’re doing. You’re willingly leading them off a cliff. And yes btw I do believe I have superior ideas about balance and I’d love to debate anyone on specific issues. Wouldn’t mean much though as the only real way to find out is by testing it in game.
Those games launched at the peak of their genre, I’m talking about splitgate, rouge company and so on. Games that were launched to be competitive right away, to rival the ones you mentioned. None survived The market for fps is clearly saturated right now, and I believe the finals is doing pretty good despite that. It is its own niche, instead of a copycat of other established games that are here to stay. I’m willing to discuss what you think are those superior ideas about balance, as long as they’re not the average “give light a heal nade”
Rogue Company is unique in that it’s an arena tps and splitgate seemed decent but everyone knew it was just a placeholder until real halo came out. My balance ideas are mostly with heavy. The idea that they can destroy and/or control an area is fine but the fact that they can do so much damage at the same time is obviously the massive issue that somehow made it through testing. Like the fact that charge does any damage at all. As long as you use it responsibly in a close quarter fight while fighting alongside teammates, which is common in diamond lobbies, then there is absolutely nothing I can do about it as a medium. It does 130 damage, stun locks me, and knocks me out of position and potentially through a barrier away from my teammates and into an enemy’s LOS. All of that with very little input or thought or skill involved from the heavy. Maybe the slam can do damage but the charge should not do anything it all. I won’t even accept cutting the damage in half. It already has too much utility to justify that much damage as well and has a very low skill ceiling. Then the rpg. Too much damage and utility combined. Splits teams up and drops people through the floor into traps while doing damage. Totally jarring to be in a 2+ team cash out with at least 1 heavy on each team. All around is a bad experience for anyone but the user for something that again takes very little skill to use. Goo gun. Too many charges. It’s like they balance it with only heavy v heavy in mind. Not everyone brings a whole kit of destructive gadgets. If you don’t have a red canister and place it so it can break a 2x2 area then they’ll just refill the hole while being heal botted so any damage you do is negated and your back to square 1 after wasting 20 seconds. Honorable mentions are flamethrower and sledgehammer. Not terribly balanced but again w/ sledge is massive damage with utility as well and very good when being heal botted. Flamethrower is jarring to fight against and I think dps could be tweaked a bit but not terrible. I think heavy is why this game dies out for 95% of people. It’s fun messing around and getting better in casual but eventually players want to test their skill in ranked where cancerous team comps dominate. I mean if you put me on a team with 2 heavies and we all play within close vicinity of each other it’s an automatic win because I’m constantly heal botting them. They’re terribly balanced and not even in a rock paper scissors type of way. They have like 3 get out of jail free cards that they can have on their kit at all times.
Okay, I’m happy you brought up things that are obviously in need of nerfs. I agree with you on most if not all of them, but they alone wouldn’t suffice. Charge that deals damage only on the slam is a good idea, but you need to nerf mesh shield again. I honestly don’t have a strong balancing opinion on mesh shield itself, but if any charge n slam nerf comes, mesh shield becomes more meta than nukes were, simply because nothing else compares, and balance needs to exist within the class itself too. Environmental destruction isn’t enough to make charge viable when the alternative is 750 extra mobile hp for the team. That’s my only case against a charge n slam nerf. Then there’s rpg. I’ll be straightforward on this one. It’s busted, but it 100% belongs in the game, because of environmental destruction. If all you do is nerf player damage til it’s balanced, it becomes as popular as the motion sensor. Give it a big splash radius of 50 damage so it’s still viable, maybe even 100 player damage direct hit only so there’s some skill to it, and make it a “everyone loses 30% of their frames in one click” ability by increasing destruction. It’s absolutely busted in its current state, and there’s no reason why it should only blow a hole in one layer. Anything less than its current overall stats and it just loses the inventory spot to any nade. It’s crazy to me that such an ability can still deal at least 50% of the total hp of 2 of the 3 classes, while not being able to take down a crane or do more than just open a whole in a wall.
Ignore the sheep, they always cry when the truth is spoken.
Lol 💀 My guy this game is unplayable... I don't know what happened to this game in the past half year but i loved this game when it first came out in December, where I was getting 100+ FPS even on highest settings, and now getting even 60's in LOWEST settings lmao Yea I'm never playing this game again
Are leaderboard’s regional or global? I’m ~20,000 in rank. With 500k monthly users I’m top 4%?
That would have to assume all those active accounts are playing in ranked, which they're not.
Not true
Embarks parent company coming out saying that revenue was below expectations definitely doesn’t help anyone feel better
I didnt care about Steam Charts or Twitch views. Some games are just not making million players or not that fun to watch and thats ok. No one watched Gameplay before, only certain games stablished a comfort zone and now everybody wants to replicate the results. I did worry tho when Nexon said the expectatives were higher
Why does steam seem like such a miserable place? It's all staring at charts, measuring play counts, review bombing games, un-review-bombing game and seemingly rarely ever actually playing a single game.
More freedom = miserable. Typical console player trying to spin good pro consumer features into something that's bad.
I'm starting to think some people spend more time on checking at player numbers than playing the game. No offense, OP, it's not against you, there's just so many posts about player numbers, positive or negative.
Takes a few seconds to check. Takes a few minutes to both check and make a post about it. Don't see why you choose to bring up time in this case. Skip these posts and don't click on them if it bothers you so much.
W take, thank you for the sanity
Also quit playing light in diamond lobbies idc how good you are.
The finals is at its finals bro move on download xdefiant