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Number of people doing Living World Meta Achievements is Declining


Vayne.8563

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One of the things I used to typically do every time a new zone came out with the zone meta. It kept me in zones longer. I played them more.

According to GW2 Efficiency, the percentage of people who have completed zone meta achievements are trending down.

Ice Brood Saga

Blood by Blood 4.559%Whisper in the Dark 9.028%Shadow in the Ice 2.809%Steel and Fire 1.326%No Quarter 1.493%Jormag Rising 1.293%

I know for me, and I can really only speak for me, I stopped doing zone metas the moment strike missions were required for some of them, and I haven't really gotten back into that mindset. To me, Strike Missions are just content I don't find fun, and have the added stress of either having to find a group or having to endure really bad public groups. This problem doesn't exist as much with meta events, because you're not necessarily interacting with others personally. Most of my guild isn't interested in Strike Missions and I'm not either.

Obviously this is only one person's opinion, which is the only one I can speak too. I guess I"m curious why fewer people are doing meta achievements these days and what would it take to bring them back.

And yeah, I get 4 or 8% of Guild Wars 2 efficiency isn't necessariliy representive of the entire player base, but it is representative of those who have efficiency accounts, so it can show a trend.

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@"Vayne.8563" said:One of the things I used to typically do every time a new zone came out with the zone meta. It kept me in zones longer. I played them more.

According to GW2 Efficiency, the percentage of people who have completed zone meta achievements are trending down.

Ice Brood Saga

Blood by Blood 4.559%Whisper in the Dark 9.028%Shadow in the Ice 2.809%Steel and Fire 1.326%No Quarter 1.493%Jormag Rising 1.293%

I know for me, and I can really only speak for me, I stopped doing zone metas the moment strike missions were required for some of them, and I haven't really gotten back into that mindset. To me, Strike Missions are just content I don't find fun, and have the added stress of either having to find a group or having to endure really bad public groups. This problem doesn't exist as much with meta events, because you're not necessarily interacting with others personally. Most of my guild isn't interested in Strike Missions and I'm not either.

Obviously this is only one person's opinion, which is the only one I can speak too. I guess I"m curious why fewer people are doing meta achievements these days and what would it take to bring them back.

And yeah, I get 4 or 8% of Guild Wars 2 efficiency isn't necessariliy representive of the entire player base, but it is representative of those who have efficiency accounts, so it can show a trend.

I think it's also worth noting the number of players who finished the first instance of each episode too. This also shows a steep decline as the number of players that start an episode decreases, so will the number of players that will finish the meta achievement. Another equally interesting statistic is the one that tells us how many players finished the story of an episode, because a player that never finished the episode, won't finish the meta either. Let's take a look (Episode/first instance/last instance):

Bound by Blood: 41.550% / 34.276%Whisper in the Dark: 37.125% / 33.848%Shadow in the Ice: 37.561% / 29.832%Steel and Fire: 27.510% / 26.236%No Quarter: 27.911% / 20.824%Jormag Rising: 19.455% / 15.964%

Half the players who started Bound by Blood started Jormag Rising, half the players who finished Bound by Blood finished Jormag Rising.Aside from the declining start/end numbers, another factor is that in the last two episodes a lot of players have map achievements, but no story progress, while in almost every other episode most players have at least the first story instance achievement. This can easily be attributed to the lack of voice acting as quite a few players are waiting for voice acting to be added to experience the last two episodes.

Although it's evident that there is a decline in meta completions, there is also a decline in episode activity as a whole. Some of it can be attributed to the lack of voice acting now how much the addition of Strike Missions in the meta achievements is preventing players from playing the story of an episode is anyone's guess.

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I find it interesting it's trending down. I found it easier to complete the last two metas vs the earlier ones specifically because of metas (and sometimes story). I'd much rather see the metas be things that are "do a lot of moderately challenging things" or "do some things repeatedly over a long period of time". I'm not a fan of when the meta steps involve things like the strikes, overly complicated story steps (kill the crazy thing you can only kill by kiting for an hour in under 30 seconds standing on one leg while eating a hot pocket!). Rather, I should say I don't like it when the meta includes those things and does not include enough alternate steps to complete the meta in a different way.

I was able to do the last two, but I think Whisper in the Dark and Shadow in the Ice I couldn't complete? I didn't do Steel and Fire either (that was the one in EotN, right?) I think I eventually pulled off Bound by Blood, when I finally found that last balloon, I had a path to finish. I think SitI had all the strike stuff in it, so I didn't get close. I might have found a way to finish WitD, but I'd have to login to see.

Actually, just went to look at Efficiency to see if I could figure out how to look at it that way , and I did do WitD. I'm noticing I have to go 'fishing' to find the meta. Efficiency shows percentages complete based on 'everything'. I for sure don't do 'everything'. Are your percentages based on 'everything', or just 'completing the Meta' (which I see Efficiency calls the 'Mastery')?

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@notebene.3190 said:Actually, just went to look at Efficiency to see if I could figure out how to look at it that way , and I did do WitD. I'm noticing I have to go 'fishing' to find the meta. Efficiency shows percentages complete based on 'everything'. I for sure don't do 'everything'. Are your percentages based on 'everything', or just 'completing the Meta' (which I see Efficiency calls the 'Mastery')?

Efficiency shows completion of meta, not completion of everything.

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It’s because metas take longer because the achievements are longer.

I’ve cleared all the strikes and most of the achievements (Pass, Fraenir and Kodan are very easy to find a casual group for in EU), but the drizzlewood achieves and the weapon ones are very long term goals. All other ls metas I had done within 2 weeks, but I’ve completed no icebrood metas due to the size of them

They clearly changed the metas to be less quick to keep people in maps. I like them this way but to many they are too grindy to invest in

I also think a lot of players are still catching up and are well behind on what is now a huge amount of content for a new or retuning player.

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Taxi wars to get into an active map combined with “do the meta event 25 times” type achieves just led me to nope right on out. Especially with the seemingly ever increasing duration of the meta events. Drakkar was a long fight. Drizzle wood part 1 is long enough, but drizzle wood 2 and chest farm tacked on after? No way. I flat out don’t have the chunks of time to commit to that, so any of the recent achieves related to the drizzlewood part 2 are simply out. This has has a knock on effect as well - I used to 100% each story chapter, and have since ls2. But now I just don’t care because I know I’ll have chapters incomplete, so why bother.

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As far as story episodes go, I don't do them till all of them are available. So I've not been to any of the new areas so far.I'll also be waiting till all the voice acting is implemented.Consequently I've done exactly zero of any of the metas =)

In the meantime I have two characters progressing through earlier LW and expansion stuff. Plus Fractals, dailies, crafting, etc etc.

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@Megametzler.5729 said:I like the emotes, but I hate farming. 50 times that one strike mission? Nope, I am out. Collecting a gazillion of weapons? Not really exciting to me.

Some work is fine, some requiring to play the map is nice. But it has become too much for me and my few time I can spare for these things.

You don't need to complete every achievement so you can skip the strike mission entirely. There are 23 achievements that count for mastery, 5th tier -rewards mastery point- is 22 achievements (so can skip one), but the emote is for 4th tier, which is 19. 4 achievements of your choice are skippable (probably Strike grind, Stormcaller collection, tengu collection.. and another one of your choice). It really is pretty easy to get with a few replays of the meta.

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I very rarely complete the meta achievements, and when I do it's usually a few months after the episode comes out. It's not that I don't want to do them, it's just that I always have other things I'm doing as well, so they go into my mental list of priorities and get done when I want the skin/item/emote/whatever or when I feel like finishing it off and don't have anything I'd rather be doing.

I do the story on my main character as soon as I can (which might be the weekend after release, or later) and often complete the map not long after, but the meta event waits until I actually want something from it. I don't have a problem with any of the achievements involved, it's just there's too much other stuff.

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I really think about the metas that's it's an equation between time invested and rewards. Tarir gives ton of loot chests and rapidly compared to drizelewood north or south. 30 mins okay, 3h no ways. Even silverwastes doesn't feel heavy. But take kourna as example, too long build up to stay there compared to sandswept/istan where you can almost instantly start looting and having a fight.

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@Sobx.1758 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:I like the emotes, but I hate farming. 50 times that one strike mission? Nope, I am out. Collecting a gazillion of weapons? Not really exciting to me.

Some work is fine, some requiring to play the map is nice. But it has become too much for me and my few time I can spare for these things.

You don't need to complete every achievement so you can skip the strike mission entirely. There are 23 achievements that count for mastery, 5th tier -rewards mastery point- is 22 achievements (so can skip one), but the emote is for 4th tier, which is 19. 4 achievements of your choice are skippable (probably Strike grind, Stormcaller collection, tengu collection.. and another one of your choice). It really is pretty easy to get with a few replays of the meta.

I know, but then I have to craft/buy 32 weapons... some fewer due to achievements, but still. That's no fun to me. I'd rather gather more charr recommendations, because there I can actually play what I like and do events all over the map... or similar. I have everything except the weapons and the strike mission.^^

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tl;dr the data published in the Original Post does not (by itself) support the hypothesis that participation is declining. The number of participants in "this month's" content is always less, for predictable reasons.

The ideal comparison is to use "snapshots" for participation after 2 months. Since we don't have that, the next best is comparing relative participation and that shows a different picture: relative participation is similar.

(My personal belief is that the OP is likely correct that participation is dropping for metas. But I don't think we players have access to any data that can demonstrate that. Instead, I think the most effective way to convey "meta fatigue" is to post our opinion, rather than trying to teach ANet what their numbers mean.)


In More Detail

! The original data doesn't show that the participation numbers increase as time goes by. The numbers for the most recent content will always be less than for last year's content, even if the game's population has dropped. The current episode only has the early adopter participation; the oldest episodes have all the new, returning, and "didn't feel like it" participants.!! A true apples:apples comparison requires taking a snapshot of completion rates at various times, which GW2 Efficiency doesn't report on the main site. It's probably okay to compare 4-year old achievements with 3-year old ones; as time goes by, the cumulative differences will diminish. But it's definitely not reliable to compare 3-month old achievements with 6-month old ones.


Proxies for Comparison

! One proxy I've used in the past is to compare relative completion rates. How many started versus how many finished? Using the OP's numbers, those ratios look like this:! Bound by Blood 0.82! Whisper in the Dark 0.91! Shadow in the Ice 0.79! Steel and Fire 0.95! No Quarter 0.75! Jormag Rising 0.82!! Notice that Jormag Rising is the same as Bound by Blood, and No Quarter is close with Whisper in the Dark. These rates go up and down, partly because not everyone enjoys each episode as much as the next, partly because Real Life™ affects us different in each month, and, as some noted above, the ability to gain other rewards is sometimes gated by story completion, and sometimes not.

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@Megametzler.5729 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:I like the emotes, but I hate farming. 50 times that one strike mission? Nope, I am out. Collecting a gazillion of weapons? Not really exciting to me.

Some work is fine, some requiring to play the map is nice. But it has become too much for me and my few time I can spare for these things.

You don't need to complete every achievement so you can skip the strike mission entirely. There are 23 achievements that count for mastery, 5th tier -rewards mastery point- is 22 achievements (so can skip one), but the emote is for 4th tier, which is 19. 4 achievements of your choice are skippable (probably Strike grind, Stormcaller collection, tengu collection.. and another one of your choice). It really is pretty easy to get with a few replays of the meta.

I know, but then I have to craft/buy 32 weapons... some fewer due to achievements, but still. That's no fun to me. I'd rather gather more charr recommendations, because there I can actually play what I like and do events all over the map... or similar. I have everything except the weapons and the strike mission.^^

I thought you were complaining about not getting the emote, but to get the emote you can skip 4 achievements, because it's the 4th tier reward. 5th tier is just mastery point and there's enough around to skip this one too, no need for grinding the weapons or strike missions ;p

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@Sobx.1758 said:

@Megametzler.5729 said:I like the emotes, but I hate farming. 50 times that one strike mission? Nope, I am out. Collecting a gazillion of weapons? Not really exciting to me.

Some work is fine, some requiring to play the map is nice. But it has become too much for me and my few time I can spare for these things.

You don't need to complete every achievement so you can skip the strike mission entirely. There are 23 achievements that count for mastery, 5th tier -rewards mastery point- is 22 achievements (so can skip one), but the emote is for 4th tier, which is 19. 4 achievements of your choice are skippable (probably Strike grind, Stormcaller collection, tengu collection.. and another one of your choice). It really is pretty easy to get with a few replays of the meta.

I know, but then I have to craft/buy 32 weapons... some fewer due to achievements, but still. That's no fun to me. I'd rather gather more charr recommendations, because there I can actually play what I like and do events all over the map... or similar. I have everything except the weapons and the strike mission.^^

I thought you were complaining about not getting the emote, but to get the emote you can skip 4 achievements, because it's the 4th tier reward. 5th tier is just mastery point and there's enough around to skip this one too, no need for grinding the weapons or strike missions ;p

Ooohh, hold on, it's just 4th tier reward? Thank you, I will check that out! One of those should be doable even for me. Still not the full meta achievement, but everything I am looking for. :smile:

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I'm not playing much due to the lag issues, they've kinda killed my will to play over the last few months.

I expect i'll start playing more once the voice patch and new episode release since i'll have a lot of new content to experience for the first time.It's pretty common for people to come back around a new content release anyway, but not everyone sticks around and farms new maps.Personally I don't care for farming so if I stick around and farm new maps over and over I get so sick of them that I never want to play them again.

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Stating numbers from gw2efficiency amounts to nothing.It's no vertical slice throughout the player communities.If I had to guess, the majority, especially casual players, do not care to register there (if they even know that website exists).

And aside from that, it's no small number of players that shunned the last two episodes due to the absence of voice acting,causing a bigger dip in player participation than usual.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"notebene.3190" said:Actually, just went to look at Efficiency to see if I could figure out how to look at it that way , and I did do WitD. I'm noticing I have to go 'fishing' to find the meta. Efficiency shows percentages complete based on 'everything'. I for sure don't do 'everything'. Are your percentages based on 'everything', or just 'completing the Meta' (which I see Efficiency calls the 'Mastery')?

Efficiency shows completion of meta, not completion of everything.

I must be looking at the wrong thing then. https://gw2efficiency.com/account/achievements shows me I've completed what it calls "Jormag Rising" Mastery, which is what I would consider the 'meta' achievement, but it shows on the left outline bar, and at top, that I've only completed 82% (53/64) of 'everything' for Jormag Rising.

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At some point a trend appeared where more grind-type achievements started to get included into the meta, and the grind on those grindy achievements also started to increase. Additionally, the leeway for completing the meta seemed to get smaller and smaller (or perhaps the number of achievements i considered too annoying that were required to finish the meta increased). At some point (somewhere during early S4, i think?) i didn't manage to finish the meta before next chapter arrived. Due to this i didn't feel as pressured to do the meta for that next chapter, which means the situation repeated. This continued, until i realized i haven't finished the meta on any of the chapters since that, and my meta completion levels get lower and lower every chapter. As such, i wasn't as annoyed by strike requirements for the meta as Vayne was - by that point i have already practically gave up on completing it anyway.

I find it kind of funny that Anet, increasing the achievement grind in order to keep players longer in the game, in my case caused an exactly opposite effect - i'm now spending far less time on those achievements than before.

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