People who are taking a break/quit, why?

#1

I’ve noticed that I haven’t been seeing many people playing the game that much anymore. The realmeye forum now only sees one or two posts a day, the trades page on realmeye that used to see hundreds off offers on some items is now only seeing a few dozen, the discords I used to be getting spam pings from are barely pinging anymore and on twitch, last month saw the least average viewers since January of 2022.

As someone who has also quit the game for a bit, I’m not completely sure why I did. I came back for a bit, bought the pass, and then stopped playing after getting to about level 15 of it. I just can’t feel myself wanting to play the game anymore, I guess there’s just nothing to really do in the game anymore.

Other people who have also taken a break/quit, why?

#2

Discords and most of my friends have stopped playing

#3

I’ve taken a couple breaks for two weeks or even two months, but I’ve always come back to the game. My reasons for leaving was either that I got bored, found different games to play, or some combination of both. I usually come back to see what’s new and try it out or if I’ve nothing much else to do. I recently came back for seasonal characters and a chance to challenge myself with a new type of character.

#4

About the Realmeye forums slowing down, I think everything that people want to discuss about the game and its current state have been discussed many times over.

The belief that dungeon discords are bad, that RotMG is not new-player friendly and that DECA is greedy has become widely accepted in every corner of the RotMG community. It has gotten to the point that stating any of these things is equivalent to stating that Apple products are overpriced compared to competitors. It is a cliche observation that everyone is already fully aware of.

The game’s primary gameplay loop (for veterans) has barely evolved since O3 released in 2020, and two years is more than enough time to exhaust every bit of discussion possible and for everyone involved to crystalize their own thoughts and opinions. I think most of the old frequent users of this forum just feel done with it.

As for the actual game, I started taking extented brakes/quited because I disliked the direction DECA and the community have went in over the last four years. But also, because I was unhappy about myself and the role RotMG played in my life. In early 2021, I was left with a game I had given way to much of my teenage-life to compared to how much I had gained from it. At last I accepted the realization that RotMG would never be what I wanted it to be. Quitting RotMG and placing other videogames and hobbys in the timeslot previously dedicated to it just felt like the right thing to do.

Maybe one day, as DECA announces that the server will shut down on January 1, 2027, I will return to the game and enjoy everything I love about it for the last time. Concluding the fifteen year-long story with a happy ending.

#5

Personally I just don’t get a lot of enjoyment out of RotMG anymore. But besides that I don’t really play other videogames anymore either, I’m just busy doing other things in real life.

#6

The Game

I’d say lack of appealing goals/objectives is one reason why I’ve taken a break. Sure I could go for max exalts or grind for a 100/100/100 pet, but when I ask myself if that’s how I want to spend the next hundreds, or even thousands of hours being committed to, I find myself struggling to say yes to that. I’ve gotten to the point of the game where I’m satisfied and have experienced the main bulk of what this game has to offer, so there’s not much reason for me to really stick around.

Second reason might be kinda controversial, but I really dislike the nature of most Realm players (Mostly in-game and Discord, not so much on Reddit and extremely little to none on RE). I remember the days when people were not tryharding or insulting/putting others down every moment they get, for a game that has no PvP. Before I quit, I guess I didn’t really mind as much or look too much into it. After stepping away for a breath of fresh air and into other communities, then returning back to this one, I seriously wonder how I have not disabled the global chat yet.

edit: During my brief period of return though, I did notice a lot more blue stars in the game, no idea where they came from, but I did interact with some of them. It was actually really nice talking with them despite the massive difference in experience, guiding them through their journey and just casually chatting about miscellaneous things. I don’t think I could openly chat with any other endgame player without being either flat-out ignored or being treated like a joke… So I guess the global chat isn’t the worst place to be in all the time, because it’s little things like these new players that still make it worth to have it enabled anyway~

The Forums

Laurencher explained it perfectly, there isn’t really much else to really discuss about Realm because we have exhausted most of the content that are discussion worthy. With fewer discussions being raised, fewer players check up on these forums, hence the decline in how busy this place once was. This affects essentially the entire community, as I believe most players use the forums for discussion more than anything else. If someone wanted to look for fanart, they’d be on the Discord or Reddit. If they wanted to look for a guild, they’d be on Discord. Everything the RE forums can do, another medium already triumphs it.

That being said, I loved the forums, I think it had a significantly smaller population of toxic players than the other social media platforms and it was the 2nd sub-community I really genuinely enjoyed being in. Though it is practically dead at this point…

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” - Dr Seuss

#7

I basically quit like 4 years ago, don’t get me wrong I had great memories in the game and I do miss them especially playing with friends but its the same reason as everyone’s response, everyone I used to play with went off and did their thing and i didn’t really have much time either as I used to and I lost interest. Its not fun anymore if you’re playing alone while you’re in the habit of playing with friends. Along with all the changes that has happened over the past years, The new dungeons that’s cool and all but with this whole new fame set up and how they changed the ranking system, I went from being white star to being a red star. It just seems like the game is all about being who has the most fame now and constant fame farming to try and be the top player on realm eye. I always catch myself getting on the game every once in a while but just to see what’s new. I think 2016/2017 was one of the best years throughout all the years from when I started there was a lot of action during that time.

#8

I think it’s because people have kinda run out of things to flex. Divine pet? Probably paid your way there. 8/8? Everyone’s done that. Exalts? There are strangely tens of hundreds of people who do that, daily. The few impressive things left to do in this game are either getting lucky, endlessly grinding so you can say you have a higher number than others, or doing PPE’s and flexing loot instead of skills. 8/8 isn’t hard to get to anymore, exalts have basically become a job for people, loot is more RNG based (but to be fair it has to be that way), and fame is so mind numbing. It’s concerning that the biggest flex in the game is seeing a funny orange number go big and not being able to simply survive a hard dungeon or earn your way to 8/8 with hard work.

#9

I don’t really view the game as that. I don’t play realm to flex, but to get enjoyment from playing it. Personally, the thing that drives me to play video games are goals and gameplay. I go for top dmg occasionally and rush halls because to me it feels like engaging gameplay. In terms of pets, Deca added eggs and feed power to the login calendar to make it a bit easier(and also added eggs for fame in the shop), and personally I have a max divine based on the freebies Deca gives(though I have been playing for 8 years). However in terms of the endgame content though, it feels stale. Exaltations aren’t really fun to do and that’s really the only technical “goal” I have left.

In terms of why the game is dying however is because of the lack to attract newer players and retain veteran players. I’ve been playing other games lately, and whenever I come back to realm, it’s startling to see how toxic the community is, especially considering it’s a teamwork based, non-competitive game. The toxicity has gotten worse over the years, which I think is partially contributed to the growing influence of discords, and this is especially seen with the current public o3 event. I see people all the time mock newer players for dying when they are just trying to learn the game. Advertising is also a big issue. The steam trailer for the game is pretty bad and there is no way for a game to market itself when they have no publicity measures. In fact, I only found out about this game through word of mouth. It’s hard to retain veteran players when all there is in the endgame are fame and exaltations, which is boring and quite repetitive.

I’ve taken a lot of breaks, and pretty much mainly play during oryxmas and motmg. I don’t like deca’s predatory monetization systems and how they prey on FOMO(fear of missing out) on events. With the dwindling playerbase and stale endgame, I don’t really play much realm anymore outside of those two time frames and use my time on other video games and hobbies.

#10

I’ve been playing realm for a wee while and I always seem to take breaks when the game just lacks proper content (or enjoyability due to just too easy).

My biggest problem is when I have a character alive for long enough, why play it? Yes leaderboards, fame gain, and trying to be at the top is a good goal but realistically it’s like call of duty multiplayer very repetitive, lack of new content (yes there is updates and some content being released but nothing game changing), and dull play style.

But not only that, the people quitting and replaying the game are people that use to play, I hardly see any new players.

When you have a combination of lack of new player flow and lack of content updates boom you get break time. Then when you come back after a break and hope for changes you never seen and then your hit with the same old same old. (For instance when I took a break from wildshadow to kabam transfer, lack of content, that’s because kabam was horrible though)

Fortunately I took a break before realm went to exalt and deca took over so I came back to a lot of new stuff and still learning but I don’t rush the game I like to take my time.

Don’t get me wrong realm is a good enjoyable game but when it’s super repetitive and lack of surprises for me that’s what kills it.
(I also feel like the game would benefit from a total remake and pixel updates)

#11

Been playing for a really long time almost 11 years at this point, and I’ve only been able to get myself to play every few months lately, because it feels like I’ve done everything already. I know a lot of people still get enjoyment out of farming exalts all day on every character but I just don’t find the min-maxing of end game that fun.

#12

i suck at the game and have 0 friends

#13

I’m pretty sure the Exalt client was meant to be a sort of remake for the game. Plenty of the art has changed, but not all the animations are about the same quality. I agree there should be much more of an overhaul for art, especially in old dungeons like Tomb and OT, I just think that there have already been plenty of attempts with plenty of other dungeons.

#14

Agreed but the biggest updating remake they need is the realm its self. Yes they add things here and there but the realm its self could have more of a overhaul imo though will that happen who knows. Would be good though to see that happen because it’s your main play area.

#15

The first and most prominent reason I stopped playing: The Vault Bug — The Vault Bug started somewhere in July-ish if I’m not mistaken, and this entailed various/random items disappearing from one’s vault at seemingly random conditions with little to no reproduction steps. This has been patched more than 4 times, and as far as I, as well as friends know, is still not completely fixed.

This in addition to the Seasonal Vault bug having the possibility to override/replace your non-seasonal vault both have been absolutely major incentives not to play. I understand these instances are rare, but they are equally as detrimental and difficult to get resolved — as to get various items restored in smaller numbers (as a result of the vault bug, not sure about Seasonal Replacement), rumor has it you need some type of video evidence, and the expectation to be recording at all times is an unwelcome sentiment. Some may be fine with this, but I think it’s far too much inconvenience when I can play other games that require no effort than simply enjoying the experience.

Thirdly, the toxicity of individuals in the game is a bitter turn-off. I’ve been in the old MW2 chat rooms before and experienced the absolute worst of the worst gaming trash talk, racism, homophobia, antisemitism, you name it. Realm’s toxicity, while it does unfortunately include almost all of that, it’s to be expected from an online game with as few chat filters as days without events going on. The type of toxicity that turns me off from the game is the elitism, undeserved ego, and strict discord-fueled meta of the game. The entire community of SBC is probably the epitome of this in my eyes, those discords such as null, Woland, Endgame, and whatever other antithesis to SBC exists, are not far behind. The witch-hunting especially is a huge, HUGE turn off, and it happens on both sides (SBC vs Endgame) respectively. The amount of times I’ve been dm-ed to provide dirt and evidence on people is absolutely unreal; the lengths people to go to get others banned is ludicrous. Should hackers, exploiters, racists, etc etc be banned (with due warning and proportional response to the offense)? Yes of course, I don’t think anyone’s going to hard deny that. However it’s draining and annoying as fuck watch the back and forth between the SBC and Endgame elitists trying to get each other banned, and sometimes even doxxed IRL. I’m not at any risk of being targeted by either party, nor would I care if I was, even so that’s how little I want to be involved in the drama, so much so I don’t even want to know it exists.

Fourth and finally, the game lacks direction. The game desperately needs a fundamental gameplay loop-rework, starting with the realm rework, and correspondingly a stat rework. In no good RPG game can you enter final boss level content, survive, AND be rewarded for doing nothing but avoiding the fight, you can argue this is a skill diff, but that isn’t the point of an RPG, you’re supposed to get stronger as you go along and level up, not go from 0 to MAX in about 30 minutes. This is where a proper stat rework has the potential to rectify this issue. When’s the last time you saw someone doing Lost Halls in a PPE video when it wasn’t during an event? (Do people even make PPE videos anymore?)

Also, on the topic of events: They happen so frequently now that they’re not special; someone I know said questioned why the events need to happen, and the rhetorical question was that: is the current game’s content not able to stand up by itself? (Implying the need for an event for anyone (majority) to be incentivized to do the dungeon/thing there’s an event for).

I just learned of the O3 event going on, and my first thought was “Oh, I’ll catch the next one”. This should not be my reaction to free access and increased loot to the (second) most rewarding and difficult content in the game.

I know Deca’s trying, but my god I swear more effort is put in to the ST sets than actually good game development.

I love this game, and want to see it succeed, but it is a long ways away from being in a state where it’s longevity lasts for more than a good event. Ideally, as mentioned above, the content should be enjoyable and worth-while WITHOUT an event running.

(Most of these are my thoughts and as such are subjective and constitute as opinions; however, there is information here that may be incorrect due to a lack of affirmative knowledge, and if you do find I am incorrect in some of these ideas proposed as facts, please correct me).
I’m too lazy to proof read this

#16

Reason 1: I don’t really care anymore about reaching some goal like 100k fame/a divine pet/exalts in a game anymore

Reason 2: The actual gameplay is just not very fun. You do the same ~25 dungeons/bosses for hundreds of hours while also spending massive time on the content that you don’t care about because most dungeons are so rare. The bosses are just a procession where you do the same thing that you already did 600 times again. There is zero challenge in 95% of the game and permadeath coerces you to avoid the remaining 5% which are actually fun.

#17

Burned out. I want to get back into the game. DECA keeps on taking good ideas and just butchering them and rushing them out the door for money, resulting in a worse experience. I was excited for the battlepass. I was excited for the forge. I was excited for exaltations. I was excited for seasonal characters. Guess what? All ended in disappointment for me and some even make other parts of the game irrelevant (Forge, exaltations).

I’m just done. It is sad to see all the potential of the game get squandered.

#18

I’ve gotten to a point in the game where if I want to get any better, I need to just grind discords and dungeons, and then I ask myself if I am even having fun just rolling for items. I’ve come back to the game once or twice since 2019, and while it’s fun at first, it’s always hit that point of I’m just playing the game to play the game, I’m not having fun doing dungeons so I end up quitting.

Although I’m more busy now with college, I still play games like CSGO, where when I play, it’s more to improve my skills and have fun with friends rather than getting items and things like that. I find that sort of gameplay more rewarding and much more dynamic than RoTMG, where at this point a lot of it is the same old shit I was doing back in middle school. With this game, once you get to a certain point you have quite literally “seen it all”.

#19

Laptop spamming x and c randomly without warning. Have to use external USB keyboard. Even so, the random spamming can be risky during a boss fight.

I would like to get back to RotMG once I can play normally again.

#20

How does that even happen? I’ve been using Macs as my only computers and have never had problems with it while playing.