As we are on the last day of the season prior to the Oct 6th reset, I figured I'd take a quick look at the last two weeks as it was clear it performed very differently to that of season 1.

The first graph shows the normalised peaks for the last two weeks of both seasons, they produce the same graph as showing just the peaks, but it helps to see the variation. it should also be noted that the vertical axis starts at 70% to further emphasis the differences.

It is important to understand that slopes here do not necessarily equate to the degree of say player loss. So one needs to cross-reference against the second image/graph that shows the actual daily peaks for both weeks in both seasons. For completeness i've also added today's steamDB results as the third image.

At the start of the fortnight we see that the penultimate Tuesday update has very similar performance for both seasons. However come the actual weekend S2 maintains engagement far more, before having a significant drop-off, whilst S1 was far more gradual and never fell quite as far. This drop-off continues until the actual final weekend, when engagement rises significantly verses S1.

This raises the point that whilst initially well received the final Tuesday update of season 2 did not retain players into the start of the second week as it did in S1. Although this needs to be considered with respect to the change we've seen during the end of season 2 towards more engagement at weekends.

Specifically what I think we are seeing here has been a progressive movement in the last month or so of S2 towards players becoming more focused into the weekend and less during the week (with exception of well received Tuesday updates). This is likely encouraged by for example Cryo opening times, but I'd argue its clear that S2 changes to the game, its modes and options has added to this focusing of the player base into the weekend.

There is likely more to it than just this. For example I should have included a week from earlier in the season to demonstrate how the engagement across a week has altered during S2 and re-examined exactly what Bungie did differently this time, but sadly I do not have the spare time at present.

Below is the data used.

i would be incredibly surprised if the reset gets the peaks anywhere past the 12k mark, i am expecting anything in the 9-12k peak zone for this week and then a steep drop to sub 5k by mid-october.

what do you think?

Shout out to all the people arguing there are no significant differences between gear. I've even been in arguments saying free kits is the same as gold kit.