Thus, any assertion that the lack of fun things for normal knights to do is a major factor in the decline in the playerbase needs some kind of significant specific evidence to support it. I do not see that you have provided this.
Player testimony IS evidence, but if you want spreadsheets I'll gladly create those too. Just give me the data. I asked several months ago for player retention data based on things like time in the game, characters' ranks and positions, and probably other data points that I don't remember right now. With relevant data and some smart analysis, we can zero in on what causes players to drop out. I suspect the drop-outs would fall into a few main categories: newbies who sign up and drop-out shortly thereafter, old-timers who have enjoyed the game but feel they've gone as far as they can go with it, rage quitters, and players who drop-out for personal reasons not related to the game. The next step would be to come up with targeted strategies that address the different reasons people quit.
Suppose we were able to determine that newbies who spend 10 mins/day in the first week are 50% less likely to drop-out than those who spend only 5 mins/day. If that were so, then we could start brainstorming ways to keep the newbies engaged for just a few minutes longer.
I also proposed a way to collect data from players so they could give feedback about how much fun they're having at any given time so the devs could monitor the changes over time and correlate them with significant events, such as new features and in-game events. That was several months ago and I assume it's been consigned to the graveyard of dead feature requests.
