What is the average player?

[Hesione.9412]

I have seen a number of comments on various threads making various, in particular disparaging, comments about the "average" player.

 

I'm curious to know what people think the average player is/does. This may include the amount of time they can spend a week playing, as well as comments on their gear and playstyle.

 

I'm not talking WvW, PvP, or raid player. The average player who doesn't do those modes.

 

My thoughts on the average player:

• they play between 6 and 12 hours a week
• they have commitments outside of the game that mean they may need to take a break in the middle of doing something (let the dog out/in, sooth a child, answer a work email)
• they have the gear that the game has given them, along with all the runes and sigils contained in that gear
• they decided to play a character that looked fun

[mythical.6315]

45 minutes ago, Hesione.9412 said:

I have seen a number of comments on various threads making various, in particular disparaging, comments about the "average" player.

 

I'm curious to know what people think the average player is/does. This may include the amount of time they can spend a week playing, as well as comments on their gear and playstyle.

 

I'm not talking WvW, PvP, or raid player. The average player who doesn't do those modes.

 

My thoughts on the average player:

• they play between 6 and 12 hours a week
• they have commitments outside of the game that mean they may need to take a break in the middle of doing something (let the dog out/in, sooth a child, answer a work email)
• they have the gear that the game has given them, along with all the runes and sigils contained in that gear
• they decided to play a character that looked fun

 

Three out of four of those can apply to WvW, sPvP, and raid players.

[Orthonen.9470]

To me the average player is someone who is sitting on 500ish gold in their wallet all made from selling stuff on the TP that theyve farmed or acquired in game, and pays for gems to get skins/utilities.

[Dawdler.8521]

10 minutes ago, Aridon.8362 said:

To me the average player is someone who is sitting on 500ish gold in their wallet all made from selling stuff on the TP that theyve farmed or acquired in game, and pays for gems to get skins/utilities.

I think I had 470g last I checked and I bought that green pistol on the gemstore recently because its good to see stacking swap. I'm the perfect average with my 9k hours doing mostly WvW roaming on a core engineer!

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

By sheer statistical chance, I think the average player is someone who plays for a very short amount of time without ever getting into the end-game or hitting level 80.  MMOs are all like this, with most players abandoning the game after playing it for a bit and losing interest.  

[Vayne.8563]

3 hours ago, Aridon.8362 said:

To me the average player is someone who is sitting on 500ish gold in their wallet all made from selling stuff on the TP that theyve farmed or acquired in game, and pays for gems to get skins/utilities.

I know a bunch of players who never had more than 50 gold in their wallet ever and don't know how to get more. They just hang out in the open world repeating world complete on alts.

[Cuks.8241]

I think 6-12 hours is waaaay above average. Thats in my ballpark. 1 hour per day, usually not every work day and a few more for weekend. I think the average play time is more like under 4 hours per week. 

As for the population. The people I know best are from my WvW guild. Its a no pressure guild. We really have a mix of everything, mothers, fathers, teens... you name it. I think the general population in this game is quite old. Plenty players that used to be quite into mmo gaming and we moved into gw2 due to no gearing progression.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Cuks.8241

[Dante.1508]

Casual is the average player. avoids hard core content like HoT and Pof, cannot pass many of the living stories solo, doesn't have many achievements, hangs out in LA or DR and plays in Tyria only..

Does the odd meta event if forced.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Dante.1508

[yoni.7015]

7 minutes ago, Dante.1508 said:

Casual is the average player. avoids hard core content like HoT and Pof, cannot pass many of the living stories solo, doesn't have many achievements, hangs out in LA or DR and plays in Tyria only..

Does the odd meta event if forced.

What? HoT and PoF is hardcore content? I never heard of anyone who wasn’t able to solo story missions. They are designed to be played alone. 

[Dante.1508]

10 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

What? HoT and PoF is hardcore content? I never heard of anyone who wasn’t able to solo story missions. They are designed to be played alone. 

I know many in my guilds that actively avoid everything outside of base tyria because its too tough for them solo

[Labjax.2465]

20 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

What? HoT and PoF is hardcore content? I never heard of anyone who wasn’t able to solo story missions. They are designed to be played alone. 

HoT is brutal, though much more so at launch than now. I don't see how anyone can act otherwise. PoF is much more forgiving and the mobs are just less nasty in general. HoT has stuff like those snipers that will tank your HP because you didn't move out of their line on the ground fast enough, smokescales that will spaz out on you and tank your HP, stalkers that will spaz out on you and tank your HP, rolling devils that will damage you while making it hard to kill them, shadowleaper frogs that literally go invisible and require mastery to see, wyverns that go into the air and drop big swaths of fire that tank your HP and are hard to see the boundaries of because of how they are rendered, chak that will put stacks of goop on you that will tank your HP and the main way to remove them is through dodging which requires a mastery.

I could go on, there's more, but the general idea is HoT is incredibly unforgiving about the slightest mistakes and the mixture between mounts and celestial buff has probably made it a lot more manageable for a lot of people.

I mean, go ahead and do it in full zerker (common gear when it came out) with no mounts on a fresh account without any of the masteries and see if you are still surprised at the idea anyone would consider HoT hardcore content. You must be on a whole other level of skill if you would still think it's not.

[Raknar.4735]

The only statements we have about the average player is that he does 10x less damage and is here because of the story.

 

"We generally try and make the story content be approachable to the average player, because that’s why people are here and what they’re playing."

"The challenge is that the skill disparity between average players and hardcore players is extreme. We’re talking about ten times damage output. You can’t necessarily put a DPS check that the average player is going to be able to overcome without making the fight entirely trivialized for the hardcore." - https://www.pcgamesn.com/guild-wars-2/pvp-raids-world-restructuring

[Infinity.2876]

Uh how does all of these comments describe me?

[Fueki.4753]

Average usually describes players of average capabilities.

They are not as efficient as the top dogs, but not as bad as the bottom percentages.

I'd guess they make up about 80% to 90% of the player base.

However, this doesn't say anything about whether a player is casual or is heavily invested into the game.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

The average player according to the forums or the actual average player?

[Zera.9435]

Everyone thinks the average player is themselves. End of thread.

[Vayne.8563]

12 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

What? HoT and PoF is hardcore content? I never heard of anyone who wasn’t able to solo story missions. They are designed to be played alone. 

You must not read the forums often. Most story missions are soloable by pretty much everyone, but we've had people complain about Night of Fires, Hearts and Minds, Confessor's End (particularly), and a few others here and there.  Realistically the game does a lousy job of teaching itself and not everyone goes to external websites. The game really doesn't push you into getting better in core, so it's culture shock when you go to harder content.

[Vayne.8563]

4 hours ago, Zera Allimatti.2541 said:

Everyone thinks the average player is themselves. End of thread.

I absolutely don't think I'm the average player. lol

[Randulf.7614]

I am the average player if that helps. I am not currently available for autograph signings though.

[Linken.6345]

13 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

I am the average player if that helps. I am not currently available for autograph signings though.

No no Im the average.

[Randulf.7614]

4 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

No no Im the average.

Impossible. In every generation only one is born

[AliamRationem.5172]

14 hours ago, Dante.1508 said:

Casual is the average player. avoids hard core content like HoT and Pof, cannot pass many of the living stories solo, doesn't have many achievements, hangs out in LA or DR and plays in Tyria only..

Does the odd meta event if forced.

No.  That's the average 🥔.   The average player can handle the story and mostly enjoys the content the game has been putting out for more than half of its life cycle now.

[Tails.9372]

A player that fits the definition of the term "average" within the context of the subject matter in question.

[Hesione.9412]

10 hours ago, Raknar.4735 said:

The only statements we have about the average player is that he does 10x less damage and is here because of the story.

 

"We generally try and make the story content be approachable to the average player, because that’s why people are here and what they’re playing."

"The challenge is that the skill disparity between average players and hardcore players is extreme. We’re talking about ten times damage output. You can’t necessarily put a DPS check that the average player is going to be able to overcome without making the fight entirely trivialized for the hardcore." - https://www.pcgamesn.com/guild-wars-2/pvp-raids-world-restructuring

Thank you for the link. Part of the conversation is about strike missions forming an introduction to raid-like encounters for non-raiding people, but later he says they have some tricks up their sleeve. I am now deeply curious about what those tricks were. I'm also curious about how the strike missions affected DPS in the lower-DPS end of the player base.

 

I would love someone from Anet to give an update on the outcome of their nudge/push/shove approach.

[Rendalmj.3152]

i think this is me 100% . i play only to farm gold and buy cosmetic in gemstore to look pretty.  never done raids, pvp , and wvw i just farm gold to buy stuff in gemstore. might not be the funnest "endgame" but atleast i no use real money i just grind gold