Should GW2 efficiency should be used as an inticator for the status of the ingame population ?

[Ashen.2907]

Feel free to use it, just don't expect quoting it to be taken seriously by anyone who isn't already drinking your kool-aid.

[Manpag.6421]

I think how reliable it is as an indicator for the general population strongly depends on what you’re looking at. Some achievement-based figures, where you’d expect higher numbers from the kind of players who also use GW2 efficiency, it’s likely to over-represent. Things like the race/class/gender character splits, it’s the most accurate source we have, and is probably a good representation of the wider player population because they’re largely aesthetic and playstyle preferences that aren’t likely to differ wildly between player bases.

 It’s also probably pretty bang-on for the top end of the account value list, because the people who care about efficiently making tons of gold are virtually guaranteed to use it, but the bottom end of that is likely a lot bigger and lower in reality.

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

Gw2efficiency.com should be a single data point. You can cross check it with steam numbers. 

You have to remember people who use efficiency are more active and motivated those the normies you will run across in game. 

Now what it actually shows is the decline of highly motivated players. For example, efficacy says only 5.5k people have completed t4 silent surf, I would say that might be close to real number because the % of people doing t4s and uses efficacy is probably very high. 

Compare that to the forward story instance, only 30k account have done that, which is majorly under counting, because every did that instance, not just the top. 

Sorry, but you can't even assume that popularity of gw2efficiency remained constant among active playerbase. For all we know new players might be less interested in using that site, or something. And all other assumptions you have made here are just guesses. Which may be wildly inaccurate.

For example: while assumption that more active/more hardcore players are more likely to use efficiency is probably okay-ish, assuming that most active players (or most active players that happen to play a certain specific content type) use the site is completely unsubstantiated. It may be true, but it may also be completely false. If we start piling similar assumptions on each other, we might as well start throwing darts or use magic 8-balls for similar levels of accuracy.

[Astralporing.1957]

3 hours ago, Manpag.6421 said:

Things like the race/class/gender character splits, it’s the most accurate source we have, and is probably a good representation of the wider player population because they’re largely aesthetic and playstyle preferences that aren’t likely to differ wildly between player bases.

Race/gender, sure. Class splits however will differ for different subcommunities. For example for high end PvE and PvP players it will be impacted by changes to the meta (and not even uniformly, because it will differ for each type of content).

Edited July 31, 2023 by Astralporing.1957