Author Topic: The Constant Server Swapping Is Killing This Game, and Fast.  (Read 1780 times)

Offline L0rd77

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I have noticed that over the past few months this game's playerbase has declined in numbers. And yes, this game is quite old, but the playerbase has remained stable for some time.

Ever since the 762 servers shit the bed and they lost their monopoly over the FH2 playerbase, this game's community has began to decline in numbers rapidly and noticeably.

762 Era: Weekends the server would fill to 100/100 people and stay this way for much of the day, weekdays would usually max at 80/100

Post-762: Weekends usually average around 85-90 during peak hours (will hit 100 usually for a map or two), Weekdays max out around 60/100

This is no coincidence. You can have you opinions about the clan, but objectively having a consistent, stable server was good for this game. I play many old games still (10+ years), and a common theme that holds together these old and aging playerbases is consistent servers. You need to have the same place for people to be joining every day. Small playerbases NEED to aggregate.

There are currently far too many servers being run in this game. I'm talking about 762, PlayFH, and CMP. Now, passworded servers are fine, public, open servers are the issue. You do not need multiple servers (server #1 and server #2's hosted by same communities).

This game will NEVER have more than two servers populated at a time (and this is only when there are CMP events). There is absolutely 0 reason to have multiple PUBLIC servers hosted by the same clan/community, it creates confusion and times where people try to seed multiple servers at the same time. People need consistency if they are to create and keep a relationship with the game, servers, and admins.

It is no coincidence that the collapse of 762 has fragmented and scattered the remaining players. With a different server being THE populated server each day, people dont have the same incentive to players routinely by hopping on an unfamiliar server.

What am I ranting about? I want this game to have a healthy population for as long as possible, and seeing the server clusterfuck that is completely avoidable is something I think should be brought attention to. So please, admins, for the sake of thing game's population and health, shut down a couple servers, amalgamate, do whats better for the community, because lately its been suffering

« Last Edit: 22-05-2019, 20:05:40 by L0rd77 »

Offline Matthew_Baker

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I agree with a lot of your points, but I’m not sure what you’re suggesting. No one can just tell the server owners of playfh2 (I think they go by Russian Hope now) or CMP to simply shut off their server so that there’s only 1 available. The multiple CMP servers are there for the different regions in the world afaik (so there’s one for Asia, Europe, America etc...) and any others are running their tournaments. The Asian one actually gets many players quite often at peak Asian times.

I agree that a consistent server is better for maintaining a healthy player base as opposed to multiple competing servers, but hopefully one will come out on top eventually and things will go back to the way they were. There are lots of strategies going on behind the scenes with server owners on how to improve and draw players (which isn’t a bad thing imo) but I don’t see a good solution other than acting as a regular consumer and seeding the server you want to join or joining the populated server that you want to play on.

Also, feel free to hop on the FH2 discord if you haven’t already
« Last Edit: 22-05-2019, 20:05:50 by Matthew_Baker »

Offline LuckyOne

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I have no idea what happened with 762 but I don't see new servers popping up as a bad thing...

One thing the devs could do is to offer to bring back the old "official" ranking / stats system that was abandoned after 762 monopolized the playerbase, and offer the Russians / CMP / whoever there is to connect to it.

I'd imagine quite a few players are pissed that they lost their "ranks" on the new servers, which is why they don't play (for now - I'm sure they'll get over it eventually ?)

Also, bear in mind FH2 is now quite old, and there's a ton of WW2 / realism games coming out lately, and I'd imagine there's a bit of a playerbase overlap which is why FH2 is slowly losing numbers.

It will pick back up after the next release, or when the novelty of the new games wears off.
« Last Edit: 22-05-2019, 22:05:58 by LuckyOne »
This sentence is intentionally left unfinished...

Offline Slayer

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I agree scattering playerbase is not the best, but no other servers right now would mean no ability to play FH2. I'd love to have more servers so people have something to choose from. Not more than one server possible? Most players who see the server full wait or go play some other game. They will only join a different FH2 server if they have seen many players on it before. So hurray for more servers!

I hope 762 gets their stuff sorted, and I hope we have gained some server variety afterwards.

"Forgotten Hope 2, dying since 2008"

Offline VolkssturmGewehr

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« Last Edit: 05-06-2022, 04:06:17 by VolkssturmGewehr »

Offline jan_kurator

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Thus now when you open up the game even during the 'busy' time (IE: weekends), instead of 80 players in 1 server there's 21 players in one server, 15 in another, 11 in a third, 12 in a fourth, and so on.
^This literally NEVER happened, and prove for that is easily available in the #frontline channel of our Discord, where people do monitor sever population on regular basis (in case you wanna argue about it), and 99% of the peak times there is 80 and more people in one server on weekends. Sometimes people are divided between two servers, usually when one of them crash, and they hop on the other, but players are smart enough to join the more populated one rather quickly. Unless you mean people scattered between European and Asian servers, then think again.  ::)

« Last Edit: 11-06-2019, 22:06:50 by jan_kurator »

Offline VolkssturmGewehr

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« Last Edit: 05-06-2022, 04:06:43 by VolkssturmGewehr »

Offline Mr.ThunderMan

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Jan is right, that has literally never happened. Maybe it is you who should provide the proof.

Offline GeoPat

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Maybe that happened on a Thursday when CMP has Axis and Allied training on 2 servers.  It's usually about 20 players each.

Offline jan_kurator

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Maybe that happened on a Thursday when CMP has Axis and Allied training on 2 servers.  It's usually about 20 players each.
Possibly, but that contradicts the "every single day" part  ;)