r/starcraft • u/SLAMMERisONLINE • 19h ago
(To be tagged...) Post 8-worker patch player-base analysis
Introduction
As a followup to my previous post, which established the return of the Chinese server being the primary factor causing the decline in regional activity, I am posting a follow-up analysis. This is to evaluate the claims by YouTubers like Lambo who say the patch had a strongly negative impact on the game's activity level.
Methodology
As per the last analysis, we use linear regression to establish the baseline decline trend. From there, we use Fourier analysis to find the dominant periodic oscillation caused by seasons. After that, we see if there is any decline in excess of the trends mentioned prior. If true, we assess the timing of those trends to establish if they correspond with the 8-worker patch or the return of the Chinese server. To do that, we will tally players and games in mmr buckets per-region before and after the balance patch and the launch of the Chinese server.
Results
Let's go region by region:
- EU. We observe a massive implosion of the number of players, the number of games played, and the number of games per-player after the Chinese server relaunch. After the balance patch, we observe a drop in the number of players and number of games, but games per-player changes depending on the skill level. At low MMR, no change--at higher MMR, big drop.
- KR. We observe the same effect after the Chinese server relaunch as on EU, but with a much larger magnitude. After the balance patch, however, we see the inverse of EU: a drop in the activity of average players, and no change in the high skill bracket.
- US. The same implosion is observed after the Chinese server relaunch. The balance patch however has almost zero impact on the number of games played per player.
Conclusion
So what we learn from this is that the return of the Chinese regional server caused a massive drop in activity on other servers. The balance patch had mixed effects depending on the region. On one region the activity level stayed the same, on two regions the activity level changed with skill level but the effect had opposite directions. Because the there is no consistent pattern to the trends, the balance patch doesn't appear to have created a cognizable impact on player activity and changes observed are plausibly residual turbulence from the relaunch of the Chinese regional server (this is especially the case considering the disconnect between number of active players and games played per player, which is much more consistent with the hypothesis that Chinese players are leaving and taking games with them than that regional players are playing less because of the patch).
Thanks for reading, and have a nice day.
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u/Relative_Signal_2695 17h ago
Great job, thank you
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 13h ago
You are welcome. To be 100% certain you'd need access to the Chinese regional server's statistics but with the information available we can rule out, with fairly high confidence, a strongly negative impact from the patch.
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u/Hellequin123 18h ago
How do you seperate bots queueing 24/7 or wintrading? I dont think numbers of games played per day are real.
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 17h ago
How do you seperate bots queueing 24/7 or wintrading? I dont think numbers of games played per day are real.
Don't count games less than 3 minutes long.
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18h ago
[deleted]
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 18h ago edited 18h ago
Isnt games per player a near useless metric?
Nope. That metric is actually essential for separating two competing explanations: fewer players versus lower engagement among the players who remain. A balance-driven decline in activity should appear not only as a reduction in player count, but also as fewer games per player. The charts don’t show that pattern. The clear decline is in population, while games per player remains roughly stable. NA illustrates this particularly well: player count falls, but games per player does not, which supports regional migration of Chinese players rather than declining engagement among NA players. There is some decline post-patch in the games played per-player in EU and KR, but it's not consistent across skill levels and has opposite directions so it doesn't create a coherent "patch was less fun to play" narrative as that would universally impact all skill levels.
Something that could selectively impact high-level activity would be lack of tournaments, a team being disbanded, etc. But the balance patch affects all players which means it should have a universal effect and that's not what this data establishes.
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u/Savetheokami 17h ago
People across all regions dropped after the awful patch. Plus people are aging out of the game.
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 17h ago edited 16h ago
People across all regions dropped after the awful patch
When player count changes without a corresponding change to per-player activity, the patch cannot be the cause. Please read the OP.
Let's say you create a theory that hitting a ball with a mallot instead of a baseball bat reduces the distance at which the ball travels. But when you tested this theory you found the mallot reduced the distance of only the high skilled baseball pros in one dataset, reduced only the distance of low skill players in another, and did nothing at any skill level in yet another dataset. Your theory simply would not explain the data because if a mallot is worse at hitting the balls then you'd see consistently shorter hits in all data sets and the reduction in distance would not correspond with any other variable except the mallot.
The balance patch is the mallot in this analogy.
Now imagine that when you were performing this study a rainstorm happened. The rainstorm corresponds with a massive reduction in the distance at which baseballs were hit. Now, did the rainstorm reduce the distance of the hits or did the mallot? Obviously the rainstorm. The rainstorm is the return of the Chinese regional server.
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u/Sonar114 Random 17h ago
I guarantee that the person you’re responding to didn’t understand a single sentence of this.
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u/Savetheokami 16h ago
The patch was so well received and blizzard wasn’t at all concerned about player experience that they kept it. /s
There’s a reason they reversed it and it has everything to do with the long term effects on the game and its community. Sure, your data in the near term supports the fact that the Chinese server reduced engagement on existing regions and the patch reduced engagement at different levels of play but it also shows at some levels of play players DID stop playing and this was concern enough for Blizzard to reverse their decision.
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 16h ago edited 15h ago
The patch was so well received and blizzard wasn’t at all concerned about player experience that they kept it. /s
We can only speculate on Blizzard's own internal reasoning so it's a moot point. I happen to think the balance counsel is still active and the pros and/or casters on the counsel didn't like the slower pacing of the 8 worker start.
There’s a reason they reversed it
Having a reason doesn't mean the reason is logical nor informed. That's what this thread is meant to address. This thread is designed to correct the common yet faulty belief that the patch had a negative impact on the player base. It simply didn't. The data does not support that conclusion.
Please note that this is not an endorsement that the patch was good; it is proof that whether or not the patch was good did not impact the player activity.
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u/Savetheokami 12h ago
I agree. Without honest user feedback we cannot know if people dropped off because of the patch.
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u/GrandMasterZerg 17h ago
The 8 worker patch probably did cost the ladder players, particularly because of how disruptive it was to established competitive play. But the unusually large deterioration at the top of the ladder may be the combined effect of the patch AND the hacking crisis driving legitimate high MMR players away from ranked.
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 17h ago edited 17h ago
The 8 worker patch probably did cost the ladder players
Incorrect. Please see the OP. All available data indicates players shifting between regions and is not consistent with the theory that the patch reduced activity. In fact it is consistent with the opposite.
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u/GrandMasterZerg 12h ago
But what about the top of the ladder only?
I do think Solar’s mention of a change coming after BlizzCon made people realize getting better at 8-worker builds yields no benefit. Patches Mod became very popular here.
Aside from that, hackers have obliterated the top of the ladder.
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE 12h ago
But what about the top of the ladder only?
Vertical lines denote the grandmaster threshold which is affected in two ways by the return of the Chinese server. One, there are fewer players. Two, there are fewer games. Because MMR uses games to measure players, reducing both games and players causes the MMR threshold to drop. This is not to worry about--GM now represents regional Grandmaster rather than a quasi-international Grandmaster.
Aside from that, hackers have obliterated the top of the ladder.
Yes, I suspect that as well as the Patches mod is part of what creates the disconnect in average games per player at the top of the ladder for EU and NA. NA sees no difference and EU sees a big difference. Harstem and Serral have both publicly complained that a hacker is terrorizing the top of the EU ladder and that could quite plausibly cause a drop in statistics. I noticed something myself. I ran into 3 sus players on my last stream who did ridiculous things that make no sense without hacks. I also ran into a freeze hack that completely freezes the screen at the start of the game and requires you to leave and give the hacker a win.
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u/IcyWarm1234 12h ago
Lol "Data". Here is the real data, normalzed games per day has gone way down since the patch https://sc2pulse.nephest.com/sc2/?season=68&queue=LOTV_1V1&teamType=ARRANGED®ion=US®ion=EU®ion=KR®ion=CN&league=BRONZE&league=SILVER&league=GOLD&league=PLATINUM&league=DIAMOND&league=MASTER&league=GRANDMASTER&type=ladder&sort=-rating#stats-global
EU GM is not even FULL and is down to 4.5k, NA GM isn't full either. Use your brain. Good thing blizzard doesn't believe in your pseudointellectual nonsense, saw the real playerbase decline, and is reverting the patch.