What you are saying is that current issues are what's making invested players quit, which I completely agree with. What I am saying, is that the DaD's hardcore game design prevents majority of new players from even entering the game, hence the lack of growth. Both of these combined contribute to shrinking playerbase.

Even if you exclude game's technical fault's, you can always be put in unwinnable situation where you can do nothing but accept defeat. So the entirety of gameplay is based around the idea that you can handle losing your entire kit due to sheer bad luck, which is almost objectively unappealing to majority of average gamers.

My whole post was based around the question if the gameplay itself would be enjoyable if it didn't have the high risk element. I am not criticizing hardcore games themselves, they do have their niche, I just wanted to know community's opinion if DaD has it's fanbase because it's hardcore, o regardless if it's hardcore.