Yet another game reports that Raiders and PVP players are a vast minority.....

[thewitchdoctor]

Exactly.

 

As to the gear, the tokens have some pretty awful pieces as well, just not as many. I also feel that the comm gear being endurance heavy is, in a way, better optimized for solo players. As a solo player with your companions you are filling 2/3 of the trinity roles. The extra HP keeps you alive alive longer to accomplish those 2 roles.

 

I completely concur.

[Kalfear]

Exactly.

 

As to the gear, the tokens have some pretty awful pieces as well, just not as many. I also feel that the comm gear being endurance heavy is, in a way, better optimized for solo players. As a solo player with your companions you are filling 2/3 of the trinity roles. The extra HP keeps you alive alive longer to accomplish those 2 roles.

 

sorry but your completely wrong on endurance heavy being suited for solo players

 

I solo most of time and Im stacked Aim/power on my gear

Honestly when I see some DPS with 40k hit points in a tactical or hardmode, I KNOW his dps numbers will be lacking and fights will take longer then normal.

 

My trooper is in pretty much full 168 gear with top of line 55 augs on every peice of gear (Aim over End, Power over end, and defense over power augments) and I barely scratch the 33000 hp mark.

 

The ONLY Class that needs high endurance are tank classes.

 

And that doesnt matter if you solo or do ops or a little of everything

[Fantazm]

sorry but your completely wrong on endurance heavy being suited for solo players

 

I solo most of time and Im stacked Aim/power on my gear

Honestly when I see some DPS with 40k hit points in a tactical or hardmode, I KNOW his dps numbers will be lacking and fights will take longer then normal.

 

My trooper is in pretty much full 168 gear with top of line 55 augs on every peice of gear (Aim over End, Power over end, and defense over power augments) and I barely scratch the 33000 hp mark.

 

The ONLY Class that needs high endurance are tank classes.

 

And that doesnt matter if you solo or do ops or a little of everything

 

You seem to have missed his point.

[LordArtemis]

As someone stated previously, the contention that only a minority of players have ever touched end game or PvP content seems baseless and there have yet to be clear statistics presented here that I've seen. If I've missed them I'd be happy to retract that if I'm wrong, but it seems that in general most casuals still engaged in both on a somewhat regular basis. The assertion that Op/PvP-centric players are the most involved on the forums and care not about other things doesn't really pan out here per se, as in the poll for what players want to see next, class stories is cck of the walk.

 

Players who only focus on PvP or end game Ops may be a vast minority, further still if you push to those who participate in ranked/NiM equivalents in this and other games, but players who engage in them from time to time and take the opportunity to experience the content as is becomes available I believe encompasses a much, much larger percentage of the player base here.

 

Again, if some valid statistics here have been missed in my perusing then point me to them, but your recent threads, LA, have been based on less than valid numbers from what I've seen.

 

Fair enough, but I would point out a few things Prototypemind....

 

1) The source is posted. It's in the OP.

2) Sources have also been posted for other games AND studies that corroborate this contention.

3) The only hard numbers I have ever seen are in studies, and those numbers are usually total players.

4) I did not do the studies myself, nor did I report the initial information, only provided the link to it and the opportunity to discuss it.

 

Now, one can argue against or dismiss the findings....I'm the one that said that btw, you can check the thread to see it was me. But one can NOT argue that this is not what games are reporting or what studies are finding (at least the ones that are linked). Both are accurate. Whether or not you accept their conclusions is up to you.....the conclusions are often speculative IMO.

Edited July 16, 2014 by LordArtemis

[Uruare]

Like I said, you come off as you have a chip on your shoulder.

 

I don't know you from Adam or Eve, but, if this is any indication of what you are like outside these forums: I am not surprised you have had difficulties interacting socially in an MMO.

 

But, I think we can agree that *our* conversation has reached its end.

 

Perhaps in your imagination of whatever must be true to validate your believing so, sure.

 

My active friends list on here and in every other mmo I've ever played would provide some ground for challenging your assumption.

 

See. I don't like morons. I meet plenty of people that aren't my idea of moronic, and keep in touch with a fair few of them even after we've gone on to different games.

 

But you go right on believing that I must be a social leper, yes. When what you believe becomes relevant to anything, I'm sure I'll get the memo.

 

Cheerio.

[Prototypemind]

Perhaps in your imagination of whatever must be true to validate your believing so, sure.

 

My active friends list on here and in every other mmo I've ever played would provide some ground for challenging your assumption.

 

See. I don't like morons. I meet plenty of people that aren't my idea of moronic, and keep in touch with a fair few of them even after we've gone on to different games.

 

But you go right on believing that I must be a social leper, yes. When what you believe becomes relevant to anything, I'm sure I'll get the memo.

 

Cheerio.

 

I do find it interesting that you have a massive friends list yet no people to do Ops with regularly from what was stated earlier. How you are in game I do not know, but you do come off as a bit abrasive here at times just from casual observation. That is not an insult, just saying that your replies don't quite fall on the warm and welcoming side of things.

[Damask_Rose]

sorry but your completely wrong on endurance heavy being suited for solo players

 

I solo most of time and Im stacked Aim/power on my gear

Honestly when I see some DPS with 40k hit points in a tactical or hardmode, I KNOW his dps numbers will be lacking and fights will take longer then normal.

 

My trooper is in pretty much full 168 gear with top of line 55 augs on every peice of gear (Aim over End, Power over end, and defense over power augments) and I barely scratch the 33000 hp mark.

 

The ONLY Class that needs high endurance are tank classes.

 

And that doesnt matter if you solo or do ops or a little of everything

 

I thought the only endurance stacking tanks were pvp? I know I prefer mitigation over endurance as a solo player.

[thewitchdoctor]

sorry but your completely wrong on endurance heavy being suited for solo players

 

I solo most of time and Im stacked Aim/power on my gear

Honestly when I see some DPS with 40k hit points in a tactical or hardmode, I KNOW his dps numbers will be lacking and fights will take longer then normal.

 

My trooper is in pretty much full 168 gear with top of line 55 augs on every peice of gear (Aim over End, Power over end, and defense over power augments) and I barely scratch the 33000 hp mark.

 

The ONLY Class that needs high endurance are tank classes.

 

And that doesnt matter if you solo or do ops or a little of everything

 

Just as raiders using token-bought gear have optimisation they must do to be 100% BiS; those using comm-bought gear do as well.

 

It is fairly simple to do using gloves (always seems to be gloves!). For example, the 180 comm-bought Foestopper gloves (so, marauder-types) have a Strength/Power mod and a Power/Surge enhancement. Very good piece! So, you buy more than 1 set of gloves and spread that mod and enhancement around to reduce Accuracy/Alacrity, just as one example.

 

So, yes, a 100% BiS token-dropped vs 100% BiS comm-bought player will have some different stats, but, as he and I were saying, it isn't game-breaking by any stretch.

 

He further added that a non-raider may benefit from that extra Endurance too.

[Uruare]

I do find it interesting that you have a massive friends list yet no people to do Ops with regularly from what was stated earlier. How you are in game I do not know, but you do come off as a bit abrasive here at times just from casual observation. That is not an insult, just saying that your replies don't quite fall on the warm and welcoming side of things.

 

Sure, I can be abrasive. My friends list is commonly populated by a very diverse lot, and you gotta understands that it's a lot easier to chat with people regularly than coordinate activities with them.

 

I get invited to go fill on ops by some of them now and again. Sometimes I go. More often than not, if I'm around and they're inviting, I probably don't have to time to promise for it.

 

In that respect, I try to not be a jerk and be all 'yeah, I'll go' when I know darn well that I'll need to be able to commit 60-120 minutes of uninterrupted, non-afking time to their run.

 

When I get a work call, the is no 'screw it, they can call back later'. There is no, and shall be no, 'I just need five minutes guys', because such calls cam easily seem like they should take five minutes, then suddenly require me to go digging through two years worth of files to answer some specific question, then fax it anyway.

 

I'm not big on being unreliable. And I can't promise reliability like that anymore. My normal play times often find me jamming my character info some random corner with no forewarning 'cause I needed to take a call. I might be back in thirty seconds, or three hours, or not at all.

 

I'm fine with it, but really, would you want to raid with the guy that does alright except for often having to go after and, half the time, time or if the game before getting back at all?

 

It's been a long time since I had the luxury of things like weekends on the actual weekend, or at all when it's project time. And this isn't me sobbing about any of that - these are simply the facts of my situation, courtesy of the career I love most days, amongst other things along with it.

 

If I seem angry, it's cause I kinda am by default on such topics. Comes with the territory of often being called lazy or entitled or spoiled or 'wanting everything on a silver platter'.

 

Plenty of people in these games work hard irl and get treated like the laziest scum on earth in these games. People like me in respect to literally not having 12 hours a day to play and synch schedules with pretty much anybody with a pulse are often accused of destroying these games.

 

Kinda makes me, at least, default to a fairly hostile disposition.

[LordArtemis]

Feel free to make a consolidated thread with links to those 14 sourses as it would help stifen alot of the "PvP players are in the majority" type threads

 

I can do that OEE, I just have to run back over my old posts to find all of the links. Its a good idea.

[Jaxtes]

I'm not sure gear is the problem. I am not an ops player, but I've been in a few sm DF/DP guild runs(my gear's augmented 168 gear with 180 hilts, if it matters) with mandatory TeamSpeak, people explaining tactics and so on, minimum gear standards, 30k hp for everyone, etc, and we still never even tried the Council. The ops leader usually said - no, people, we won't even attempt it, I can see we'll wipe. And he probably was right.

 

Which server are you on 168 with 180 hilt for DF/DP SM??

We pug it in 162 on Red Eclipse regularly.

Almost never use TS unless its a guild run.

Different server different standards i guess.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Jaxtes

[Max_Killjoy]

Fair enough, but I would point out a few things Prototypemind....

 

1) The source is posted. It's in the OP.

2) Sources have also been posted for other games AND studies that corroborate this contention.

3) The only hard numbers I have ever seen are in studies, and those numbers are usually total players.

4) I did not do the studies myself, nor did I report the initial information, only provided the link to it and the opportunity to discuss it.

 

Now, one can argue against or dismiss the findings....I'm the one that said that btw, you can check the thread to see it was me. But one can NOT argue that this is not what games are reporting or what studies are finding (at least the ones that are linked). Both are accurate. Whether or not you accept their conclusions is up to you.....the conclusions are often speculative IMO.

 

The findings do run entirely counter to the notion that the hardcore raider and PvPers are the heart of the player base and should be catered to in all things.

Edited October 12, 2014 by Max_Killjoy

[Erasimus]

Strict divisions like in the OP no longer, in my opinion, make much sense. And I'd argue that each game has a different mix. There are many levels of raiders and PvP'ers from casual to hardcore. I feel that all are important to the overall health and general appeal of an MMORPG.

 

I played LOTRO for years and didn't raid or participate in what passed for PvP in that game. It was mostly just about exploring middle earth. It doesn't surprise me in the least that Turbine isn't bothering with new raids. What they had for raids and PvP was IMO sub-par.

 

In SWTOR I started in a PvP guild on the Imperial side and a PvE raiding guild on the Republic side. I don't know a single player from either guild that still plays. I hang around for something different to do and the leveling experience but really only play a few hours a month. I didn't find the OPs challenging or interesting and PvP was too constrained. I believe that, at the moment, SWTOR is following the LoTRO path where the majority of players are here to RP and just because it is Star Wars and not necessarily for a challenge. Some of the 3.0 changes look promising and with the new movies maybe there will be a surge in the player base.

 

I've played WoW since release, pretty casual now but I still do every new Raid in LFR and often at least in normal mode. I don't know anyone in WoW over the past ten years that doesn't raid at some level. For a good read on the evolution of raiding in WoW see Raiding Evolution Blog. Of course there are always new raids, world bosses, etc. and you can just tag a world boss if you don't want to actually join the raid. If you look at how many people raid or participate in PvP in WoW I'd have to guess it is way over 50% now.

[LordArtemis]

The findings do run entirely counter to the notion that the hardcore raider and PvPers are the heart of the player base and should be catered to in all things.

 

Well, there are things that studies have found about hardcore and casual gamers....but note that hardcore and casual is defined in many different ways by studies, depending on who is doing the study. These two points are generally accepted across most studies...

 

1) Hardcore players tend to be the minority, but they also tend to be the most loyal and consistent players of a game.

2) Casual players tend to be the majority, but they also tend to be least loyal and most transient players of a game.

 

Hardcore players seem to be most interested in reward based play, whereas casual players are more interested in the experience of gameplay.

 

The problem, like I mentioned earlier, is how they are defined. Some studies define a player by the amount of time they spend playing a game, others by the general driving force that pushes them to play. A few studies create their own definitions or terms that are outside widely accepted norms for both player types.

 

It is up to the individual, IMO, to define the meanings of casual and hardcore and place themselves where they feel they belong.

Edited October 12, 2014 by LordArtemis

[LordArtemis]

If you look at how many people raid or participate in PvP in WoW I'd have to guess it is way over 50% now.

 

I would have to find the exact quote, but Blizzard directly commented that only a small portion of the playerbase participates in raid content, and an even smaller percent actually completes the content (I think I remember it was 5 percent).

 

That might be different now, since that public statement was a while back, but I expect it is likely about the same.

[Gomla]

I thought it was common knowledge.

 

It's been said by devs for several years that PvP is only a tiny portion of the player base of any given game unless that game is specifically designed for PvP.

 

PvE games with PvP attached will always have a higher PvE player base.

 

Raiding was "the in thing" in MMO's back in the early days when people cared about gear and how they looked to their fellow gamers.

 

The days of people looking at other players and being amazed by the gear they wear are long since gone. The people that cared then have grown up and don't care anymore and newer players are only interested in what they can do not what other people do.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, there are things that studies have found about hardcore and casual gamers....but note that hardcore and casual is defined in many different ways by studies, depending on who is doing the study. These two points are generally accepted across most studies...

 

1) Hardcore players tend to be the minority, but they also tend to be the most loyal and consistent players of a game.

2) Casual players tend to be the majority, but they also tend to be least loyal and most transient players of a game.

 

Hardcore players seem to be most interested in reward based play, whereas casual players are more interested in the experience of gameplay.

 

The problem, like I mentioned earlier, is how they are defined. Some studies define a player by the amount of time they spend playing a game, others by the general driving force that pushes them to play. A few studies create their own definitions or terms that are outside widely accepted norms for both player types.

 

It is up to the individual, IMO, to define the meanings of casual and hardcore and place themselves where they feel they belong.

 

That's why I used the phrase "hardcore raiders and PvPers", not just hardcore.

 

But how do you define someone who plays for hours at least 4 days a week and logs on almost every day, but who is driven more by the story and attachment to characters, than they are by the endgame rewards cycle or "beating" other players?

[Erasimus]

I would have to find the exact quote, but Blizzard directly commented that only a small portion of the playerbase participates in raid content, and an even smaller percent actually completes the content (I think I remember it was 5 percent).

 

That might be different now, since that public statement was a while back, but I expect it is likely about the same.

 

That sounds like a quote from Vanilla when there were 40 person raids and only a small percentage of raiders were able to finish the current tier before the next tier was released. I was in a progression raiding guild at the time and we were only about 1/2 way through the final raid when the new content was released.

 

If you look at the current raiding scheme in WoW the percentages are much higher with the 10/25 and flex raiding schemes. Looking at a site like WoW Progress people have parsed the data and claim it is about 10% that are doing normal and heroic raids. However, with cross-realm LFR the total number of people doing all levels of raids seems quite high. Only Blizzard has stats on LFR but the the participation there is certainly much much higher.

 

The same holds for PvP. WoW Arena is still an eSport, regionals are currently being contested, but casual PvP is much higher. Looking at a site like WoW Realm PoP shows that about 40% of the WoW population is on PvP realms and of course people on PvE realms also PvP in the cross-realm BGs and in Arenas. An interesting fact is that most of the top PVE progression guilds are actually on PvP realms, go figure.

[Savej]

I thought it was common knowledge.

 

It's been said by devs for several years that PvP is only a tiny portion of the player base of any given game unless that game is specifically designed for PvP.

 

Harbringer (pve server) right now, just lookling at 55 sages rep side to get a quick sample: more people are pvping than raiding. Also, more people are pvping than doing non-raiding instances. Show me a quote from an EQ1, AC1, Wow, AoC, CoH, Wildstar, SWTOR or ESO dev saying that only a "tiny portion of the player base pvps".

[roggeb]

I think it is a big mistake to try to force people to raid in MMOs. It makes no difference how many difficulty levels there are or how easy it is to join a raid. Some players really dont like it. There must be other things to do at max level.

PvP is probably more popular in general. If we talk about world PvP. Not organized team PvP or PvP trying to be e-sport. Most players dont like it if it becomes that serious.

 

Being part of a team trying to progress and be the best and be first and so on is something only small minority will like. One reason for that is ofcourse that most players understand that they dont have the talent or skill to be elit. And others think raiding and serious PvP makes a game feel like a second job and not something that helps them to relax and have fun.

[Girdeux]

I thought that was pretty much a given...I've been subbed since launch and have actually never done a operation or endgame flashpoint....ever....havent done endgame pvp since before the level was raised to 55. I personally know quite a few people that are the same

[LordArtemis]

That sounds like a quote from Vanilla when there were 40 person raids and only a small percentage of raiders were able to finish the current tier before the next tier was released. I was in a progression raiding guild at the time and we were only about 1/2 way through the final raid when the new content was released.

 

If I am not mistaken the quote was relatively recent, speaking to Cataclysm or WotLK...more likely the latter.

 

If you look at the current raiding scheme in WoW the percentages are much higher with the 10/25 and flex raiding schemes. Looking at a site like WoW Progress people have parsed the data and claim it is about 10% that are doing normal and heroic raids. However, with cross-realm LFR the total number of people doing all levels of raids seems quite high. Only Blizzard has stats on LFR but the the participation there is certainly much much higher.

 

I've noticed, however, some counterarguments to this point from the WoW community. Unfortunately, until Blizzard releases another participation statement we may never be able to get any hard data in this respect.

 

The same holds for PvP. WoW Arena is still an eSport, regionals are currently being contested, but casual PvP is much higher. Looking at a site like WoW Realm PoP shows that about 40% of the WoW population is on PvP realms and of course people on PvE realms also PvP in the cross-realm BGs and in Arenas. An interesting fact is that most of the top PVE progression guilds are actually on PvP realms, go figure.

 

Fair enough, i would be very interested in finding out what the current numbers sit at...but would not be surprised if they had not changed since the last public statement.

[LordArtemis]

Harbringer (pve server) right now, just lookling at 55 sages rep side to get a quick sample: more people are pvping than raiding. Also, more people are pvping than doing non-raiding instances. Show me a quote from an EQ1, AC1, Wow, AoC, CoH, Wildstar, SWTOR or ESO dev saying that only a "tiny portion of the player base pvps".

 

Quotes have been posted on the forums from Sony, Blizzard, NCSoft, Perfect World and obviously Turbine. Note that, if I remember correctly, Blizzard and Sony had odd definitions of what they consider casual and hardcore players, so that should be noted.

[Erasimus]

If I am not mistaken the quote was relatively recent, speaking to Cataclysm or WotLK...more likely the latter....

 

I remember the stats and the quote but am pretty positive it was about how many raiders completed the content in Vanilla. (And these stats are what drove the changes to the raiding structure going forward from Vanilla.)

 

However, it is easy to see what percentage of people raid in WoW. The armory is publicly accessible and can be parsed to retrieve that information. This link is to an article that did just that, MMO Campion Raiding

As you can see from the data a very large percentage of WoW players complete at least one or more raids. In some cases it is north of 70%. Even for the most recent/difficult raids in MoP the wost completion rate for a raid is 11% of the WoW population. Now this is just the completion rate, people that have killed every boss in the instance. The participation rate is bound to be much higher. This includes all levels of raiding from LFR->Flex->10->25.

 

Raiding is, and always has been, a large part of WoW and by all indications it will continue to be so.

 

Raiding is not just a "hardcore" activity and I believe it is a mistake to make that association.

 

While I believe you try to be fair, hard numbers are much more convincing than poorly remembered quotes.

 

P.S. To see the type of information the armory contains here is a link to one of my alts Gnop. At the bottom is my raiding history. You can see that for this tier I've been raiding casually and have only completed the LFR raids.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Erasimus

[LordArtemis]

Well, it is perhaps a reasonable sample, but I think that a lack of solo players (non guild) would have a much larger effect on the statistics then they point out. In fact, I think it's likely this is only a good indicator of how many GUILDED players participate in raids.

 

After all, if they sample only a third of the players AND the vast majority of that sample is guild members, that is not, IMO, a viable slice of the populace.

 

I would still like to see participation rates from the entire playerbase. However, it does appear, even if you dismiss chart, that raid participation has likely increased.