Every major patch (North Line, Cold Snap, Headwinds, Shrouded Sky) produced a measurable positive spike with suppressed neg ratios (10.3%, 10.9%, 11.2%, 19.6%). Shrouded Sky pulled neg ratio back to 19.6% from a late-Feb trend that peaked at ~24% (Feb 22). But patch-day positive reviews are declining: 2,275 → 2,405 → 1,366 → 1,541 (v1.11.0 through v1.17.0). The inverse also holds — the Feb 10–24 window between Shared Watch (v1.15.0) and Shrouded Sky (v1.17.0) saw the worst sustained negativity in the dataset, peaking at 26.6% on Feb 12, despite Shared Watch landing just two days prior. Event-type patches did not reset negativity the way named content drops did.

Cheating frustration is a single sustained thread running through 5 of 9 negative events, not five independent spikes. It begins with the streamer crisis (Jan 3–4), escalates through 30-day ban leniency backlash (Jan 11), continues as players demand faster permanent bans (Jan 17) and Family Sharing loophole closure, and resurfaces in pre-ban-wave anxiety (Feb 15). Dupe exploits compound the thread in NEG-6 (Feb 12). The common driver is perceived inadequacy of enforcement — players consistently wanted more action, not less. The remaining four events (neg-1, neg-2, neg-8, neg-9) are distinct: TGA discourse, economy design, content drought, and launch-day technical issues.

The Steam Awards campaign (Nov 24–30) produced the highest single review day in the entire LTD: 11,813 reviews on Nov 25 at 95.2% positive, while negative counts remained flat (~562/day vs ~567/day pre-campaign). No discount was active — the surge came from mobilized existing players rather than new buyers. This means the spike inflated positive counts without shifting the underlying sentiment baseline. As positive volume collapsed post-campaign (Dec 1: 3,564 → Dec 5: 1,540), neg ratios mechanically reverted — then overshot when the Expedition stash controversy (NEG-2, Dec 6–7) pushed neg counts to 495–509/day, above both the campaign and pre-campaign floors.

The worst sentiment day — Feb 12 at 26.6% neg ratio — came on just 755 total reviews vs Jan’s ~1,965/day baseline. On days below 1,000 reviews, avg neg ratio is 21.3% vs 15.3% on higher-volume days. But low volume is a symptom, not a cause: without a new content drop to pull in positive reviews, satisfied players simply don’t write them — while frustrated players (cheating, exploits) remain motivated to vent. Feb 12 fell in the window after Shared Watch (Feb 10), which did not generate the positive surge that named content updates reliably produce. The result is a mechanical ratio skew that no amount of hotfix speed can offset without fresh content to drive positive volume.

The organic honeymoon (Oct 30–Nov 23) neg ratio is 12.4% across 136,752 reviews. The Steam Awards campaign (Nov 24–30) pulled the combined Oct–Nov figure down to 10.7% by flooding 58,728 mobilized positive reviews at a 6.7% neg ratio — a distortion, not organic sentiment (see point 3). The LTD average through Feb 24 is 13.2%, anchored by this early high-volume period (195K of 347K total reviews, 56% of LTD). Dec 1–Feb 24 post-honeymoon baseline is 16.5% — 4.1 percentage points worse than the organic honeymoon. Feb 1–24 alone averages 20.2%. For competitive benchmarking, the post-honeymoon baseline is the accurate operating reality.