I voted no. I don’t think forum participation is down because the game is fading out and past its prime. I just don’t think the forum is as engaging as it used to be.
1 There is just less to discuss.
We’re long past the days of discovering new strategies for titans, challenge events, etc. Even new events with similar strategies are >90% with one thing to do differently. The top players in some events tend to be the top players in all events. There’s not much more to go into.
Even new beta things are obviously strong or sometimes a bit too complex to understand their workings on paper.
We still see some posts for new towers, mirages of omega, contest of elements. I try to keep up with those, but it doesn’t seem like many folks engage with it so I see less of a point of doing it.
2 Relitigating the same issue
Most threads I don’t see much of a point posting after it’s gotten to 100+ posts. I’m not saying anything new. I can like the posts that are similar. And many don’t even read all of the posts anyways.
About a year ago I tracked new posts on the forum. The plurality was a new thread that belonged in an existing thread, so nothing new there.
The second biggest category was roster advice. I used to post a lot more in these threads. I know less nowadays, but I rarely felt engagement from the question asker. I’m glad we’ve moved past the days of dumb question like “Aramis or Quintus no costume”. Most of the times folks asked a question, and you never heard from them again. We had a lot of obvious answers to the questions which gave less to discuss.
Then you get to the next categories which are buff/nerf threads which again are repetitive, things that aren’t bugs but people post a bug about, or asking for more free stuff. Even the “not a bug” things are tough because you can explain exactly why something is not a bug and get attacked.
Again I come back to a lack of engagement on my end to interact.
3 Trolls and negativity
This brings me to my next cateogry. There’s not much new to discuss. Most discussions lack engagement. So then you get the posts that are hate threads or rants. You see the same names pop up posting the same complaint in a different way. Again, most of them don’t actually engage in a real discussion so there’s nothing here.
4 Outside groups
I’ve found much more discussion happens off the forum on line/discord than it does on the forum. You still get into some of the patterns above, but these smaller groups tend to drive better discussion and engagement.
So what’s left? I find myself logging on less and less to the forum. I’m still playing the game at >95% of my peak capacity. The game is fun. That’s why I play. The forum has become less and less fun. I find helping others to be engaging, but when others don’t engage, it’s obviously less fun.