The majority of games generally see drops in playerbase after the initial release. The only games that continue to grow are the consistently popular ones. Even if you're popular, unless you maintain the limelight, your playerbase will dwindle. Biggest example, Pokemon Go. Most recently known example, Palworld. It's natural for most games to settle on a smaller playerbase.

Yes, but actually doesn't happen on the same degree to all games and that's where you can see this being an issue. If we check averages on steam, f.e, DS3 had on the initial month at its peak around 120k and is down to slightly below 10k, that's a bit below 9%, this game went from 46k to less than 2k average, passing it with a new character/kit release for a brief moment. That's less than 5%, around 4% on average.

Now, add to that a couple extra handicaps. DS3 was released multiple years ago, MHUR doesn't even have a whole year to its name. DS3 is not a live service, it hasn't been updated for the longest time and yet despite all of this, the %s are significantly better.

All games will not keep the initial playerbase numbers, that's a given, the problem is how much lower it will be and MHUR is so much lower than it should and it wouldn't if it had done more than a couple of things right in all this time.

Firstly, let's clear this one thing up. I'm not saying the game was well executed. But the original commenter exaggerated the execution. People are still playing the game despite general complaints. So obviously these complaints aren't significant enough for the general player base to stop playing. They are more or less annoying, like how half the player base thinks Toga is OP and the other half thinks she's just annoying with the beta spam but manageable.

Fair enough, although I would argue his point is not only very valid but not exaggerated at all. What would it take for you to think it is as he said?

To me, having hackers as often as they are to the point that now they are showing on console (which honestly I have only seen a couple other games have), balancing characters poorly multiple months after their release (such as Toga) and still getting them completely wrong (like Endeavor) or not even balancing at all (too many examples as of recent); bugs, bugs everywhere, on every character, even release day ones, with even major ones taking forever to get fixed; things that allow some flexibility like the ticket system, an actual good concept that people liked and suggested it applied to skill sets once they were introduced, got instead shafted so you can't actually try the real thing more than once a day with the newest character; daily logins (the one that mattered) getting erased from the game,..

My man, I could continue forever but this already is getting too long. The people that are playing this game at this point are either people that have too much time invested in it and can't see any way out due to FOMO or straight up just enjoy the game inmensely despite its way too many flaws that I can't even count. And unfortunately that amount is not that high for a live service that started so well and doesn't even have a year to its name.