GW2: Efficiency Numbers, One Week Later

You know you’ve played too much GW2 when your right index finger starts hurting.

I have a keyboard key bound to left click, for mass bag opening sessions (my mouse scroll doesn’t scroll very well, I prefer the key) but evidently, those left clicks have been sneaking in outside of those sessions.

Part of it is playing a gunner-like class with piercing projectiles. You always want to target the back row so you conveniently also smash through all the front mobs with one burst. There’s a lot more camera swiveling and pivoting as compared to my older but now slightly boring dragonhunter main which can just target nearest and go.

The other has been those sneaky champion bags that drop in 2-3 at a time. It’s not exactly a mass bag opening session, and my bank is a little too full to transfer them and stock up for an opening session on a lowbie character. (It doesn’t really feel that profitable these days either, linen and the lower mats are quite cheap; and I’m suddenly in dire need of mithril and elder wood, having suddenly taken it into my head to keep my banked materials low by crafting legendary shards towards Claw of the Khan-Ur.)

So I just absent-mindedly pop them open, salvage stuff and deposit all materials, all left-clicking with the mouse because I’m not really thinking and “eh, it’s just a few bags.”

I could have sworn I cleared about 30 bag spaces on this character when I started End of Dragons. Halp!

No, no, it’s not. Over time, one champion after another, it’s really not.

So now my mouse profile has button 5 (operated with the thumb) bound to left click again, and I’m chilling out on intensive GW2 play, reminding myself to use the damn keyboard key, rather than absent-mindedly keep on clicking.

To divert myself, a blog post seemed appropriate.

It’s been a week since I was staring at GW2efficiency numbers… how have things changed, one week on?

As mentioned previously (all usual caveats apply), the percentage provided by GW2efficiency was a little useless, since it was comparing over 350k odd accounts, most of which probably didn’t have End of Dragons. So I got rid of that number and in the above table, I’ve re-calculated percentage based on the Old Friends chapter 1 completion number.

Frankly, everything’s going up.

I think there are just a lot of players who play like the siege turtle, slow and steady. 40% still haven’t completed the story yet.

The above are the absolute numbers, draw from them whatever conclusions you will. I don’t really care.

Below are some of my subjective calculations, based on a bit of back-of-the-napkin logic and generalization:

Here’s the reasoning for the first. I feel like most people will only attempt the Dragon’s End meta once they get to that point in the story. If they’re still messing around in chapters 1-3 and blissing out on the cherry blossoms in Seitung Province, it’s highly unlikely they’re going to charge all the way through several maps just to get to Dragon’s End to do the meta… when they’re probably going to need to do it anyway at the proper time for their True Ending achievement, or if they want to see the story in an order that makes sense.

So we want to see how many people have finished Chapter 12 – Weight of the World, who then would logically have a reason to be in the Dragon’s End map and looking for a meta. That’s about 63k last week and 68k this week.

Of those people, how many GW2eff accounts successfully cleared the meta once and got their Dragon Pacifier achievement? 35k and 40k respectively for last week and this week.

So percentage-wise, we’re looking at 55% successful completion last week and 59% successful completion this week, out of those who finished chapter 12. Just a little more than half. Good? Bad? Okay? Eh, I dunno. You can entertain your own opinions.

Me, I don’t think it’s that bad. If it can be better, I won’t argue against it, I’ll just chill out more and relax. I like chilling out and relaxing. But I don’t think it’s grounds for end of the world complaints. (Now, lagging for 3000ms as one drops packets all over the place, or getting black screens on character log-ins… that’s something else entirely.)

For the second, despite my automatic knee-jerk distaste for instanced group content on principle, I have to be fair. Logically, people will only start looking for and doing strikes when they’ve finished the story and are looking for *ahem* “endgame” things to do.

So instead of just comparing against the Old Friends number (40% of which are still trailing behind somewhere in early Cantha), the denominator is the total number of players who have finished the 15th story chapter.

Is there some potential error in this back of the napkin comparison? Sure. I’m sure there are players who cannot be bothered to finish the story but really like strikes and have gone ahead and done them. I’m also sure there are players who have finished the story and won’t touch a single strike. Both will offset the other to some degree. How many are in each category is unknown, but I suspect the more casual latter category to be more populous than the former.

If we just take it at face value though, the turtle effect is a strong motivator for just gritting one’s teeth and doing Kaineng Overlook once. Nearly 61% have participated at least once in Kaineng Overlook, whereas the more normal strike numbers seem to be in the 45-47% range, despite Aetherblade Hideout and Xunlai Junkyard being considered the easier strikes.

Out of the GW2efficiency accounts that have completed the Dragon End’s meta once and gotten their turtle egg, 94% did throw themselves into Kaineng Overlook. May as well, eh?

50-60% participation overall after story completion for the easier strikes seem rather respectable though.

I admit, I am now part of that number. The easy strikes are quick and easy enough that I can deal with PUGing them when greed for gold and green prophet crystals overtakes my reluctance to deal with strange, unknown, possibly annoying players. Not every day. Some days my hermit-like misanthropy takes over and I just want to be alone. But some days, especially on daily strike days when there are double chests, yea, I can be part of your group for 10 minutes so that you get the group content gameplay you so dearly crave, and I get to open a few more chests.

Of course there could be confounders. There could be some alt accounts who bought EoD that just got pulled up to do strikes with friends without finishing the story , and those would mask a few of those accounts who finished story and didn’t do any strikes.

Also, GW2efficiency as mentioned, by definition, is a place where the more dedicated players sign themselves up. One would expect the actual participation to be lower, once diluted by the hundreds and thousands of less intense players who wouldn’t want to sign up for GW2efficiency, or have never heard of it. But taken at face value, just looking at GW2eff accounts with Canthan access… imo, it’s not bad.

Harvest Temple, being on a more raid-like level with multiple phases, naturally and logically, is at a much lower completion percentage.

I’ve PUGed it twice now. It definitely takes a certain headspace to be in to deal with. Preferably very much when not lagging.

Anyhow, there’s a wide world of GW2 out there besides Cantha. I’ve found myself dipping back into HoT zones to refill currency, and the next long term goal is to revisit the Icebrood Saga zones to finish up the legendary amulet Return To… stuff I missed during last year’s GW2 break.

Super Adventure Box has popped back into town for three weeks, and there’s a dog park in Lion’s Arch for April Fools’. Plenty of stuff to do.

I’m going to be spending gems, aren’t I, once these doggos turn up in the gem store… This one in particular…