What Is The % Breakdown Of Players Per Game Mode?

[Echostorm.9143]

I saw the other post talking about active population numbers which I could imagine Anet being uncomfortable giving out but it got me thinking about game modes and I'm curious about how the population splits on the different modes.  I understand that there are players who participate in more than one mode though I expect there is a high % that never leaves a single mode like WvW.  I'm sure this is something Anet tracks but I'm curious how they slice it up.  My instinct would be to say given x number of players logged in today or this month, what percent of x spent at least 10 or so minutes in WvW, PvP, Open World, Any Raid, Any Fractal and Any Strike Mission?  @Rubi Bayer.8493 can you provide any insight or numbers or spreadsheet ninjaing?

[Gop.8713]

I'd say there's zero chance they'd provide this information. I'd also be surprised if there were truly a large number of players who absolutely never pve, if only bc pve is where the rewards are, and you have to pve to unlock a lot of features . . .

[Randulf.7614]

I play only pve, so if we're making a tally, that's 1. 

(fyi, I can't see them ever sharing this kind of internal population data and def not via the forum)

[DeanBB.4268]

How does me going to Obsidian Sanctum for access to bank, etc on my alt accounts factor into it? Or Obsidian Sanctum > Lions Arch?  Or hopping into PvP lobby to break a defiance bar?

Otherwise, I haven't actually participated in WvW since the WV launched, and have never entered a PvP match.

Put me down for PvE: 2 (unless counting the alt accounts, then that gets inflated)

[Danikat.8537]

I don't think there's any way to know for sure, only Anet have access to that information and they don't share it.

You could use a site like GW2 Efficiency which uses the API to track various statistics, including things like WvW and PvP rank and various achievements which could give you an idea of if those accounts have ever played those modes. The problem is they can only give you info on accounts where the owner has chosen to share their API key with the site, which will be mainly hardcore farmers and longterm players who want to use it to track their own account or see how they compare to other players.

The other problem is you can only reliably count accounts who have never played WvW or PvP (it's impossible to have never played PvE because everyone starts there and has to at least complete the tutorial to enter the other modes). For example I have a PvP rank of 17 and a WvW rank of 504, but I've played 46 PvP games across 12 years, mostly in 3 short bursts and I haven't played WvW for a few months. Not because I've quit or I'm avoiding it or whatever, I just haven't gotten around to it. Even I don't know if I'd count myself as a WvW player right now and I certainly wouldn't count myself as a PvP player but I wouldn't show up as one of the people who have never played those modes.

To identify and correctly classify players like me you need to cross-reference a lot of different statistics (some of which aren't in the API), and even then you'd ideally need to control for factors that will influence player's choices like the fact an expansion came out less than a month ago which is almost entirely PvE focused so a lot of people will be doing that even if they normally split their time evenly between modes.

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Gop.8713 said:

I'd also be surprised if there were truly a large number of players who absolutely never pve, if only bc pve is where the rewards are, and you have to pve to unlock a lot of features . . .

It's actually the exact opposite it seems. Or at least it was. Long, long ago they let it slip that amount of players that ever played any of the PvP modes was below 10%. Although it's possible the situation has changed since (that was before the revamp of the reward systems in those modes), and the amount of players that dip into one of those modes for a specific reward increased, i honestly doubt the passage of time shifted the general habits and likes of GW2 playerbase more towards PvP. If anything, i'd expect the emphasis on PvE to become bigger since, not lower.

Still, there haven't been any detailed statistics about it like, ever, and i doubt there will be any such info released in the future, so we can only guess. And make our own spin on what we do not hear based on our preconceptions.

Yes, that does mean i might be wrong. I don't think i am, but there's no way to be sure.

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I was thinking about WvW player numbers the other day. There are currently 27 teams and I think on reset they probably each hit at least 150 players on average across the 4 maps (might be more like 200 but I didn't want to overestimate). That means there are probably at least 4000 WvW simultaneous players at reset which is peak. There are obviously more than that who play WvW (ie people who don't play at reset but play other times) but it gives a good starting point.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

you don't need those number and no, neither Rubi nor any dev is going to give you an answer.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

My guess:

90% PvE. 

9% Wvw. 

1% PvP. 

[Gop.8713]

My guess is spvp probably has the highest percentage of monogamous players. The rewards are good and you don't really need gold to spvp anyway, so *if* you like spvp and not the other two modes, there's not much reason for you to ever leave spvp. That's not true of either other mode . . .

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Can't give the exact numbers, but play the game for awhile and it becomes pretty obvious.

PVE: Most

WvW: Some

PVP: almost nobody.  

[Gotejjeken.1267]

More people play sPvP than dungeons.  

[Cyninja.2954]

7 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said:

I was thinking about WvW player numbers the other day. There are currently 27 teams and I think on reset they probably each hit at least 150 players on average across the 4 maps (might be more like 200 but I didn't want to overestimate). That means there are probably at least 4000 WvW simultaneous players at reset which is peak. There are obviously more than that who play WvW (ie people who don't play at reset but play other times) but it gives a good starting point.

Slightly more on reset if we assume queues on all 4 maps.

Map size in WvW is 75 players per side, so 300 players if we only count the 4 borders and not Obsi (or 900 players per match-up). That's a total of 4,500 players in EU and 3,600 plauers in NA, without counting queued players, on reset. If we assume 1/5th of players which regularly WvW play reset, that puts total active WvW population at around 40,500 players (8,100 x 5).

The total number with less active or just occasional dabbling in WvW players will likely be higher.

Looking at GW2efficiency we can also see that most players do not enter WvW until they have played for at least 500-1,000 hours which means this is content which in general is played by more veteran players to begin with. It also shows that the biggest bump starts with player between 2,000 - 4,000 hours, at which point most (75%) have played enough WvW to reach rank 50-200, most likely from grinding GoB. These players are disproportionately less likely to show up in the reset calculation I'd assume.

If we assume GW2 has an active player base of 250,000 players (active being 3-4 days per week login), 500,000 semi active players (1-2 days per week login) and around 1,000,000 very inactive (a couple of logins per month or long breaks in-between), a reasonable assumption is that WvW makes up around 10-20% of the active population.

Spvp, honestly I'd estimate the actually active Spvp community to be between 1,000-5,000 players based around the rank needed to reach top 250 and top 100. It's currently insignificant enough that it makes no difference to if the mode remained or not. I do hope the Spvp map being added will change this but my hopes are slim.

[Charall.4710]

46 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

GW2efficiency

Gw2 efficiency is also not a valid breakdown of the overall gw2 community as it requires an API key to access player account data, such means that the majority of players who don't know about the API key wont ever show up on it.

[Liewec.2896]

for a few years i was pretty much exclusively a PVP player, i'd do the living world and expansion stories once when they came out but other than that i was only playing to PVP a few nights a week.

now i've flipped entirely, i just can't be bothered with the fast pace of PVP anymore and only play for PVE.

[Dibit.6259]

Problem is that pve covers a lot of content, including fractals, raids, strikes etc and to enter this content you go through OW zones so it's hard to gauge a true number.

[Mungrul.9358]

5 hours ago, Charall.4710 said:

Gw2 efficiency is also not a valid breakdown of the overall gw2 community as it requires an API key to access player account data, such means that the majority of players who don't know about the API key wont ever show up on it.

In fact, it would probably be easier to get out of the GW2 Efficiency team how many players have registered unique API keys with them than it would be to get community breakdowns from ANet.

[Solvar.7953]

I used to dabble in PvP with the old daily system, where a daily showed up that was easier than the PvE options.  When the new system, I've not entered PvP at all.

I play/farm WvW to the extent to get rewards from it, but otherwise don't find it that interesting, except when the guild I'm in does wvw guild missions every couple weeks.

So at this point, I'd rate myself 90% PvE and 10% WvW in terms of the content that I play that I enjoy.

[Echostorm.9143]

16 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

you don't need those number and no, neither Rubi nor any dev is going to give you an answer.

I do need them, what if I offered them a delicious sandwich?