I believe that this game would've benefited a lot more from being F2P with microtransactions.

[candid quartz]

Title says it all. Taking into account the franchise I found the number of active players very underwhelming at least on steam.
When I say microtransactions I mean skins and things that don't affect the game play and give no advantage.

[sacred narwhal]

At this point, I think it kind of needs to be.
-Obviously not enough money into the game for proper development with the sheer number of bugs (being matched to the wrong teams, snitch catch sometimes giving the wrong team points, having random 4v2 games, getting locked into a position and unable to switch back, settings resetting on restart, party groups bugging where you have to restart the whole client to fix it, etc etc...)
-Obviously not enough playerbase to actually run games (queue times at 10-20 minutes...)

This game needs F2P with cosmetic microtransactions because that will be the only reasonable way to continue funding all the fixes it needs. This is literally a year of development more to make things even playable and they don't currently have a sufficient playerbase to support that.

[candid quartz]

I know at least 6 people I played with during the beta that didn't buy the game because they where expecting it to be F2P

[sacred narwhal]

I would pay any price for a good quality game. October build QC I'd drop $500 in a heartbeat. As it stands I spent $120 on this one 😅 but the problem is this is not good quality at all and it's going to take a lot to reconcile with the community after giving us what amounts to an early-access title.

[candid quartz]

The main issue for me, it's that it's a payed game with a single-player campaign, but feels like it should be a multiplayer focused experiece. Then it's the online only even tho there is a single-player campaign... Also the EULA says the servers can be shutdown in the future at any time.

[sacred narwhal]

The SP campaign feels like a serious afterthought, given the difficulty levels all feel identical and winning 100-0 every match is so easy that you get bored playing it... It's not even a proper career mode, its just a serious of bot matches over and over with no meaningful progression. At least if they were going to pretend this was an NHL or Madden game, they could've made the career act more like it lol.

[valid yacht]

What I would have loved for this game was for it to be f2p with cosmetics, and pay for the campaign if you wanted it, with cosmetics to be unlocked through the campaign.

I really hope that they change the direction and realize that if they want to have a good game going for a long time, a one time purchase isn't going to fund it.

[jagged scarab]

Definitely would love to see a micro transaction, cosmetics shop.. People only say no to micro transactions because they assume it means P2W, there is nothing wrong with games offering skins for money I think it pays for alot of good updates (dev time) and benifits everyone

[raven elk]

For real, people clearly confused terms all the time, like when they claim to hate "live-service" games because "they can become a GTAO copy with everyone killing each other". Like, live-service isn't simply PvP and that's it, same for microtransactions, it doesn't mean P2W, some dev companies lack of doing a good game is not representative of all game companies.

[candid quartz]

Ok, I wanted to make an update.
Looking at steamdb, it's not looking good. I really thinking the devs need to do a 180 and go f2p with cosmetic microtransactions.
Even though I did buy the game I think refunds are not needed if we get compensated with something else like a special skin + a season pass.

[tall bobcat]

Its also free on PS+ (i think it was) so there are a good amount of other players from that and xbox, but im 100% in agreement. I definitely think it will happen sooner than we think though haha id be mindblown if the devs hadnt already made plans for this

[heavy fulcrum]

+1 to f2p and microtransactions for skins. Otherwise if it's possible to make the 6v6/ranked open to all (like cod) that'd be good too.

I have at least 12 mates that admitted they'd try if it was free! It's not that they can't afford it, it's just another game that we could add to the rotation so why try convince everyone to buy it when there's so many other options atm.

There's no ranked for ages too so tbh even I'm embarrassed to say it's worth the buy

The champion campaign is also afkable by scoring 2 goals then semi-afking on keeper until the snitch comes.

Honestly I think it's a great casual game so I hope they at least give a free weekend for people to try or make 6v6 f2p at the minimum

[tulip reef]

It's been out what two weeks?

Seems to be maintaining a player base based on those steam charts I would say give it time especially when 6v6 comes it might jump up in numbers maybe I'm just being hopefully optimistic though

[candid quartz]

It does seem to be starting to stabilize but I think these numbers are way to low for the franchise we're talking about here. I think a lot of people where thinking the game would be a multiplayer focused f2p from the get go and didn't buy the game at all when they saw the price tag.

[shrewd crest]

We have no clue how many players are on console especially with ps getting it for free dwvs have said multiple times don't go by steam numbers as they are a misnomer with console numbers not released

[tulip reef]

This

[sacred narwhal]

It is a decent indicator for future paid-for sales and how insufficient the marketing was though. Steam has a bigger total user base by far, so those are numbers we'd like to see climb 🙁

[tall bobcat]

I mean not even hitting 4k users on release is a critical failure on PC and very worrying

[shrewd crest]

Had console released numbers it would've been a good indicator since if xbox and steam had around the same numbers then we can say if it was a failure or not (excluding os becuase while some may have purchased the deluxe edition the game is still free for this month

[shrewd crest]

Not really when we have no idea how many got it on Xbox let alone how many on ps with it being a free game this month

[tall bobcat]

Even if xbox doubled steam and ps did the same, thats still a critical failure haha games only fall off from release day. Something massive would have to happen for it not to die/get shut down.

[tulip reef]

So look up the steam numbers for deceive inc 54 players rn on steam and it's been like that for a bit but it's cross platform and it's been out awhile that hasn't been shutdown yet

Ik it's not quite the same but maybe it means steam numbers aren't the be all know all

[tall bobcat]

I mean it depends on peak times for sure. But the longer queues get, the less people will play it, and more likely its going to be shut down once the money runs out or server costs are higher than the income the game makes. It also depends on who is funding the game, and bigger companies shut down games that have higher player bases just because they arent making the money they want. Its just being realistic

Im pretty sure the only reason they arent shutting it down is because of the already mentioned planned content and maybe the hype from the new Hogwarts Legacy game being announced. But if they dont find a way to bring in new players, its really hard to see it lasting for more than a year (at most)

[shrewd crest]

No queue has gone past 10 minutes since last weekend so there's that.

[shrewd crest]

Concord released a full year plan the day before announcing they were shutting servers down

The numbers are healthy yall just can't look at one account because it's moot when no other system the game is on.has released their numbers

[tall bobcat]

A 10 minute queue is long haha and they have already talked about a lack of keepers. And its only going to make queues worse when 6v6 is implimented because its going to split the player base and make it more difficult to find full games. Even now the back queuing happens a lot and even with my duo we have tons of games that start 2v2 as well. Thats not good for something that should be thriving

[tall bobcat]

All games and studios are different.

[shrewd crest]

Ifnyou can't wiat ten minutes play keeper queue is less than 3 seconds, or work on your patience.

[tall bobcat]

When the queue is longer than a single game, thats pretty messed up lol you’re just arguing to argue now.

[shrewd crest]

3 minutes longer ain't that bad

[shrewd crest]

Also it's expected when every complaint the past week has been "game dead no steam numbers" even after devs say it's healthy

[rough juniper]

If this game doesn't go F2P soon it's probably going to fail. I get why they don't want microtransactions. When Rocket League came out it was like 15 bucks I think?? Look at that game now. Free to play with microtransactions. The game is still poppin to this day and has LOTS of players STILL after over 10 years. As HP:QC is now, it's not even worth the 30 hense the low player counts. While I really do think the devs can get out of whatever mess of a game version this is and make it better, I'm still disappointed at the 30 dollar price. I can't even recommend friends to get this game at the moment. I only got it because I have faith in the developers. If the game is free then people won't be so reluctant to try the game. They'll likely go, "This game needs hella work but it's free so I can't complain."

What they really need to do is make the game F2P WITH MTX, and have a dedicated part of their team focus WAY more on marketing. I wanna see posters at GameStop and Best Buy. I wanna see this game on a cereal box or talked about all over gaming websites and forums. Can it even hit the front page on Steam or the Xbox store?? If they can draw in more players AND make it F2P, they'll be getting loads wanting to pay for content right off the bat. Brooms, Characters, Outfits you name it. This would draw more money in than just game sales alone for $30 and they'd have more funding to make this game great again!

[shrewd crest]

Yet the game is free if you got a ps I get your points but they are also subjective what you and others may have an issue with mechanic wise (outside of bugs and glitches of course because we all need patches) someone else you know may enjoy

[valid yacht]

I've had a queue over 2 hours since release day 😮 I even have a screenshot... obviously it was bugged, but I gotta say a 131:31 long queue is quite an accomplishment xD

[shrewd crest]

But was that since last weekend? That's my point there was a time where queue times were long but now they have pretty much evened out to 10 minutes max and that's rare typically it's 1 or 2 minutes