How does Innogames analyse Player data?

[DeletedUser]

After last night’s Q&A session I’m started to see a gloomy picture for the far-advance players. The new chapter is actually already finished, and is currently being tested. But (according to @Marindor) it will still take more than a month before it will be launched on Beta, and will arrive at the earliest mid-Nov on Live. The reason for this postponement that Timon and Rieke gave was that only 2-3% of all players have finished the Halflings chapter. I have my doubts about this extremely low rate:

• Are all players included in this data? So, also the huge amount of players who stopped but will never be removed form the world map?
• Does it include a check if all the story quests are done? Which would mean that players who have not done all story quests, are not counted as "chapter complete".
• Does it include a check if all technologies are researched? Which would mean that players who consciously skipped facultative technologies (like units and city expansions), are not counted as "chapter complete".
• Are new worlds also included in this data? Because there it’s not possible for players to have finished already.

The above questions are all indicators that could skew the data and give an inaccurate picture. And this could be very detrimental for the far-advanced players.

Because such a low percentage is maintained, Innogames has decided to postpone the new chapter (and probably also further chapters), and instead offer more events, BS adventures, ect., because (as said) that would be beneficial for all players. The feedback given to several forums, that there are too many events, is apparently fallen on deaf ears. Even players who are not yet far-advanced are not all eagerly awaiting more events, as it often stagnates the growth of their city.

Therefore, my suggestion to InnoGames is to accurately re-check the players data. Because as it stands now, I get the feeling that I'm being punished as an end-tech player (on live) because so many other players have given up.

 

[Dony]

Does it include a check if all the story quests are done? Which would mean that players who have not done all story quests, are not counted as "chapter complete".

only relevant tech to check is ancient wonder to determine player progress, everything else is irrelevant

event tho i finished halfling more then 2 months ago on my server there are maybe max 5 other people who finished it from whole server if not less

and it makes much more sense for inno to release something where whole server can enjoy then only few people can, that was clear in yesterdays QnA, most likely they will release mobil app worldwide which everybody can enjoy

 

[palmira]

I finished halflings maybe 2 weeks ago but in my server only a handful did so I am with dony: the app will more useful for everybody - puffin really sucks for small buildings, almost messed up the tasks involving long productions on lvl1 marble factories.

 

[DeletedUser]

only relevant tech to check is ancient wonder to determine player progress, everything else is irrelevant

I know the rest is irrelevant, but that doesn't explain how InnoGames is counting
But what worries me most is if the inactive players (and push accounts) are also counted. Because that would severely skew the data

event tho i finished halfling more then 2 months ago on my server there are maybe max 5 other people who finished it from whole server if not less

Wow, on the Dutch Server there are probably around a 100 players who finished the halflings.
Can't tell you how much active players there are thou. A lot of advanced players have quit, we have an invasion of push/tournaments accounts and a lot of players who started and quit after 5 minutes or so.

and it makes much more sense for inno to release something where whole server can enjoy then only few people can, that was clear in yesterdays QnA, most likely they will release mobil app worldwide which everybody can enjoy

I for one am not interested in the mobile app, and I know from other players that they also don't care about it. So, sorry but not everybody is going to do a happy dance when it is released

 

[Dony]

I for one am not interested in the mobile app, and I know from other players that they also don't care about it. So, sorry but not everybody is going to do a happy dance when it is released

of course, its same for me, but this will catch a lot of new mobile only players

A lot of advanced players have quit, we have an invasion of push/tournaments accounts and a lot of players who started and quit after 5 minutes or so.

players who quit doesnt mean that they wont come back when there is a new interesting content (like new chapter), you can see this phenomena in any franchise nowadays, october is also gaming season with tons of new games coming and a lot of people want to enjoy something else for a bit

 

[DeletedUser]

players who quit doesnt mean that they wont come back when there is a new interesting content (like new chapter), you can see this phenomena in any franchise nowadays, october is also gaming season with tons of new games coming and a lot of people want to enjoy something else for a bit

Oke, but should that mean that we have to wait for them to return some day? And what about players who quit about 2 years ago, you still think they will ever return?
In the meantime more and more advanced players are quitting, so that would mean we're going to be stuck in a downward spiral

 

[Dony]

Oke, but should that mean that we have to wait for them to return some day? And what about players who quit about 2 years ago, you still think they will ever return?
In the meantime more and more advanced players are quitting, so that would mean we're going to be stuck in a downward spiral

if somebody decides to quit nobody in the world can change that, not you, not me, not INNO, you can exclude that people from equation, there is no point to even mention it, INNO wont release new chapter just because some people decided to quit

and no i dont think people who quit 2 years ago will return to the game, they just didnt liked the game from get go, i am more talking about people who finished chapter and waiting for new, and have nothing to do in game, this people can obviously come back, because they already invested into a game a lot of time

i never had a big deal in my fellowship if somebody decided to quit or didnt logged to the game for more then 1 month, i just replaced them straight away, good luck to them, life goes on

 

[DeletedUser1767]

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in my Arendyll FS who has finished Halflings, and we're a FS of advanced players. I'm definitely the only one with a Halfling AW.

It doesn't seem to me that we're being "punished" at all. I've said this before in another thread, but: if you poke around at the new chapter stuff on the game files, you get a pretty good indication of why they might want a certain number of people to be ready for the new chapter before they release it. Otherwise, a lot of people are going to get stuck, or have to do some unspeakable things to their cities, or both. While waiting for new content can be frustrating, I think being able to see where you're supposed to go and getting hopelessly tech-locked because not enough other people are around to help you get there would probably be more so. Certainly it would be for me; I'm happy taking some time to level a bunch of Wonders and catch up on scouting, and I'm kind of enjoying the novelty of having a giant amount of space to whiz quickly through a major event (never done it that way before!), but if I could see what I was supposed to do with no reasonable way to get there, I would not be happy. Too much like Tantalus, you know?

I do think they should probably post explanations and rough ETAs in the forums and possibly give us some sneak previews, if the whole thing is completely ready, but I don't think the decision to delay is necessarily a bad one under the circumstances.

 

[DeletedUser]

It doesn't seem to me that we're being "punished" at all. I've said this before in another thread, but: if you poke around at the new chapter stuff on the game files, you get a pretty good indication of why they might want a certain number of people to be ready for the new chapter before they release it. Otherwise, a lot of people are going to get stuck, or have to do some unspeakable things to their cities, or both. While waiting for new content can be frustrating, I think being able to see where you're supposed to go and getting hopelessly tech-locked because not enough other people are around to help you get there would probably be more so. Certainly it would be for me; I'm happy taking some time to level a bunch of Wonders and catch up on scouting, and I'm kind of enjoying the novelty of having a giant amount of space to whiz quickly through a major event (never done it that way before!), but if I could see what I was supposed to do with no reasonable way to get there, I would not be happy. Too much like Tantalus, you know?

@Midnightsidhe After reading your post I'm beginning to feel more and more like Tantalus I've wrote in another thread that I'm losing a lot of neighbours on live, and I'm still losing neighbours now. I'm very close to the centre of the map, so no chance of being moved to a better place, and the occasional empty slot on my map is immediately filled with beginning players who quit after 5 minutes or so.

Therefore, according to you, I'm going to get stuck in the new chapter because there will be no people around to help me. Not only because there are not enough players who finished the halfling chapter, but especially because there are no players around at all!

I do hope my fellows can help me with the new chapter, otherwise it will be the end for me

 

[ekarat]

Even if you exclude players who have been idle for a while, your statistics are going to include a lot of new players and players who are still progressing.

That said, 2-3% isn't particularly low. I think there is no excuse holding out for more than 5%.

 

[Dony]

Even if you exclude players who have been idle for a while, your statistics are going to include a lot of new players and players who are still progressing.

That said, 2-3% isn't particularly low. I think there is no excuse holding out for more than 5%.

they explained it pretty much why in yesterdays facebook QnA, they would rather release content for 100% people then for 5%

 

[DeletedUser1596]

18 people of my FS are in hobbit era, some of us have already finished, and we are not the most advanced FS on our server. It would seem, that there must be over 25% of people that have "nothing to do". But then I look at my dead neighbors and hundreds of "0-point" players and I can't shake the feeling that this number can NEVER exceed 3%, even when all active players will have their research finished.

 

[DeletedUser]

18 people of my FS are in hobbit era, some of us have already finished, and we are not the most advanced FS on our server. It would seem, that there must be over 25% of people that have "nothing to do". But then I look at my dead neighbors and hundreds of "0-point" players and I can't shake the feeling that this number can NEVER exceed 3%, even when all active players will have their research finished.

Yep, I had this discussion with a mod, who said that we had 24.156 players on the Dutch server. I checked this, and it turns out that 594 players have 0 points, 4.779 less than a 100 points. That's already 22%.

The rest is including players who have quit, but will never be removed, push accounts and tournament cities. On my world map with 457 provinces scouted, no more than 10% of my neighbours are sort of active. My estimate is that the Dutch server has about 25-40% truly active players (6.000 - 10.000). That's a huge difference.

I suspect InnoGames is using raw data (all players listed). But over time more and more players will continu to quit and will never be removed from the players list. So, if InnoGames doesn't do an acurate analysis of player data, we will be severely screwed.

 

[ekarat]

they explained it pretty much why in yesterdays facebook QnA, they would rather release content for 100% people then for 5%

In a game, you are considered doing well if you can get:

* 40% retention after one day
* 20% retention after one week
* 10% retention after one month

Long-term players are valuable, and 5% is not a bad metric.

 

[Heymrdiedier]

@Midnightsidhe After reading your post I'm beginning to feel more and more like Tantalus I've wrote in another thread that I'm losing a lot of neighbours on live, and I'm still losing neighbours now. I'm very close to the centre of the map, so no chance of being moved to a better place, and the occasional empty slot on my map is immediately filled with beginning players who quit after 5 minutes or so.

Therefore, according to you, I'm going to get stuck in the new chapter because there will be no people around to help me. Not only because there are not enough players who finished the halfling chapter, but especially because there are no players around at all!

I do hope my fellows can help me with the new chapter, otherwise it will be the end for me

i think launching the app everywhere, is going to bring in more players.
at least i hope so.
Ofcourse that would mean the 2-3% would only drop after mobile launch, since there are more new players

 

[Heymrdiedier]

Yep, I had this discussion with a mod, who said that we had 24.156 players on the Dutch server. I checked this, and it turns out that 594 players have 0 points, 4.779 less than a 100 points. That's already 22%.

The rest is including players who have quit, but will never be removed, push accounts and tournament cities. On my world map with 457 provinces scouted, no more than 10% of my neighbours are sort of active. My estimate is that the Dutch server has about 25-40% truly active players (6.000 - 10.000). That's a huge difference.

I suspect InnoGames is using raw data (all players listed). But over time more and more players will continu to quit and will never be removed from the players list. So, if InnoGames doesn't do an acurate analysis of player data, we will be severely screwed.

to get a good idea of how many active players you have, checking tournament would be a good idea. Especially if there is an event runnning that ask for relics, then even players who dont do tournament will probably do at least a tiny bit. On the dutch server thats 4150 atm.

 

[DeletedUser1777]

Well, at least Inno is able to track if a players has logged in within the last 30 days (for deleting routine). So i think they should be able to keep datas of those players aside.
On the other hand, every country with serverals game worlds brings in some sand into this calculation, because for every country there is just one (main)account (holding diamonds), and if you accidentially have logged in into a second, third or whatever world, there are existing more citys than players.
So if you are only playing in world 1, but you might have in 2 more worlds citys which are doing nothing, they still might be considered as "active" even nothing will ever happens there.

Hope you get the point, where those strange calculations of not visiting neighboures might come from.

I can't say how many players in germany are done with halflings.
I just have one account and there are existing 3 gameworlds, but in forum are quite a few players who say they have reached the end of the techtree. Is it maybe possible to get an idea of the amount of "halflings-done-players" by having a look at the rankingpoints?

 

[SoggyShorts]

, I'm going to get stuck in the new chapter because there will be no people around to help me.

That said, 2-3% isn't particularly low. I think there is no excuse holding out for more than 5%.

My understanding is that the new chapter will require goods that only players in the new chapter can make, and those are tradable-- If you were the only player in chapter 12 you would have no one to trade with and be totally screwed. If you thought building a couple level 1 non-boosted for events was bad, imagine having to build all 9 factory types to max level in order to progress.

 

[DeletedUser1767]

My understanding is that the new chapter will require goods that only players in the new chapter can make, and those are tradable-- If you were the only player in chapter 12 you would have no one to trade with and be totally screwed. If you thought building a couple level 1 non-boosted for events was bad, imagine having to build all 9 factory types to max level in order to progress.

Yep, that's exactly my understanding too. It will be fine for people who will be reaching chapter 12 in six months when there are already a lot of people there, but if you were the only one in your FS and neighbourhood... yikes.

 

[ekarat]

My understanding is that the new chapter will require goods that only players in the new chapter can make, and those are tradable-- If you were the only player in chapter 12 you would have no one to trade with and be totally screwed. If you thought building a couple level 1 non-boosted for events was bad, imagine having to build all 9 factory types to max level in order to progress.

Okay, I'm just finding that out now. That is, in fact, a good reason to want there to be enough people to trade with.

At the same time, I do think 5% is larger than it sounds because there are cities in their first month, people still developing, people's second or third cities (which may not be as advanced as their main city on a different world), etc.

I'm not clear if the range of trading for these new goods is larger than your normal trade range, and that range does determine what good numbers are.

Ideally, you want at least 2 people who are trading each of the 9 trade goods in your trade range. If each only produces one of 9 goods, that requires 18 trade partners in the chapter, or 360 total trade partners at 5%. If dead cities are not counted, that number goes up.

I admit that I don't know enough details to be able to calculate the exact numbers, but I'm starting to see why they are delaying this chapter.

Thank you for the additional information.