Fewer players now?

[Kong Ming]

Fewer.  It's fewer.

[Kung Fu Jesus]

Definitely fewer. The US can barely fill one server up, while the rest are at half or less. Used to be all full during evenings.

[AgentQ]

YES, less players now, coz your troll has nerfed CAV, 2hand,archer... every class in this game.
Mission accomplished!

[Centurion]

Y'all are idiots. Patch  fucked up game. All the euros are on eu while the NA people are on NA very simple. Feel free to lag up NA whenever. More easy kills for me.

[Vexus]

Definitely fewer.

When the patch was still new on europe servers there was 3 servers full now you barely get one full in the morning and late night it rapidly goes down fast.

[verinen]

GTX because of the new patch, like DaveUKR.

1. I saw DaveUKR yesterday on some EU server... He is liar and showman.
2. Less people, because 40% of population were archers. After patch bows get nerfed, so- GTX of most archers.

[Heroin]

There are some things I liked about the patch, but I do attribute our loss of playerbase to people not liking it so much. Since the patch basically makes it so that only a small, select group of people can ever use sets of top-end gear, a lot of other people probably feel bitter/disappointed, and so they don't play as often.

Furthermore, unnecessarily high cost of wpf over 100 has made hybrids the flavor of the day, so everyone in the game has a ranged weapon. I think this could be fixed easily, not by nerfing anyone, but by bringing back the old cost of wpf. This would make being a specialist worth it again.

WPF cost wasn't the problem before anyhow. The problem before was with people who were generation 15, with 250 wpf from wpf retirement exploit, and level 42. Bring back old wpf costs to add more variety to builds! Vote YES for CHOICE!

[bruce]

Many retards have GTX crpg because:
- archery got nerfed
- omg I cant upkeep plate snipercrossbow flamberge bwaaah

[verinen]

- archery got nerfed

Archery got fucked up.
I say this as 2h spammer. (really, I defend my old friend-chers).

[Gorath]

Playerbase seems fine to me.  Anyone that was turned off by the patch to the point that they quit the game is a case of good riddance imo.

As for:

Mate, you might want to check a search engine of your choice for the meaning of the word, protip, it's not based on the nick chadz or whatever gives you that paranoid impression.

It's from Tribes ffs. 

[Keshian]

Definitely less people on the servers, but that could be fewer people playing or just everyone plays less now or both.  I do know that half the fun for me now is just playing while on vent with my teammates with banner balance on (that change was main thing keeping me interested in game).  Kind of hoping the new strategus delivers and maybe we will see renewed participation, but right now its kind of a way to burn off steam for an hour if you are playing without clan members and then you get bored the repetitive nature of everyone being alike (thrower/2h, polearm spammer/thrower, 1h/xbowmen, all hybrids because wpf changes) and the same level and the decreased diversity makes it an entertaining arcade game but its lost a significant portion of its compelling nature, which is why people play less and the servers are emptier.  Just my 2 cents.

Oh yeah, wpf costs should be switched back, level cap and retirement wpf benefit removal is all you needed, as it is now hybrids are too heavily favored as only way you should go.

[EponiCo]

Gotta love strawmen.

Comparison:
In the old system the hybrid looses 35 wpf from his main and is at 82%, from his secondary he looses 80 wpf and is at 60% of max wpf.
In the new system he looses 28wpf from his main and is at 83%, from his secondary he looses 53 wpf and is at 69% of max wpf.
So, ok, that's the difference of 7, respectively 27 wpf, which according to your own statement is laughable.

But like bruce says, in the new system you also have to look at the price tag. In the old system the hybrid would just stack 2 snipers, steel bolts, tears and plate. (Eh, most people took sniper with them at 1 wpf...  )
In the new system the hybrid would just take one sniper and normal bolts, and will still have 18k less to spend on his melee gear.
This translates into weaker armor and/or heavier armor (armor wpf penalty...) and/or worse weapons (if you can find a weapon that is cheaper yet more effective, that's entire a problem of balance inside the category). Tradeoff is very much there (and I don't see anyone picking up a crossbow just for a few cheap shots).

[Oberyn]

You've said that before, and you're still wrong. What diversity was there before? Everyone grinded to get to use the exact same weapons, exact same builds, exact same armor. The diversity of all these things is much greater now.

[Babelfish]

You've said that before, and you're still wrong. What diversity was there before? Everyone grinded to get to use the exact same weapons, exact same builds, exact same armor. The diversity of all these things is much greater now.

+100

[BD_Guard_Bane]

Before the patch cRPG was getting really boring. The only reason to keep playing was for Strategus.

I haven't played with the new patch much because of other stuff taking time, but when I did it was fun again - like the period just after one of the  database resets where plate was rare and people had different gear cos they weren't min-maxing to get the best stuff and character, mainly because they hadn't worked out the best stats/gear yet.

Even if the player base had dropped, who cares? The game is good again. If people want to play a grind game, they can play something else, it's no big loss.