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BioWare Shares Interesting Mass Effect 2 Statistics

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
IGN put up an interview with Casey Hudson in which they showed off some of the statistics about Mass Effect 2 that their data mining system has been picking up. They also go over some of the stuff they try to learn from it.

crazy-mass-effect-2-stats-and-what-theyre-used-for-20100903105831289_640w.jpg



What They Get And Why:

IGN said:
"The only data that we get are in terms of events -- little things that happen in the game," explained Hudson. "Let's say if we want to know whether players skip lines of dialogue, we can have that become a little event that gets sent up. It's all completely anonymous, so all we get is raw numbers for how many times these kinds of events occur. Then we can start getting ratios and comparing proportions and things like that. It becomes this mass of numbers, and then we have to try to figure out how we would interpret that."

This is a process that is new for BioWare with Mass Effect 2, one that Hudson hopes will aid the team in designing future games. "When we were looking at the Achievements for Mass Effect 1, that's where we realized that there are some really interesting player behaviors there that it would be nice if we could answer more questions for ourselves. [Then] we could understand what's going on and how people play our game."

"Sometimes you'll design something and think that it's going to be used in a certain way and people will use it in a completely different way. And if you didn't know that, then you would just keep making that system the same as you did before. But once you know what players like and what they don't like, based on the way that they're playing it, then you can make more of the good stuff and less of the stuff they weren't interested in."

Example Discovery:

IGN said:
"Ultimately it doesn't always give you the answers, but it sometimes raises questions or gets you to ask the right questions…More people played the soldier class than all of the other classes combined. If you know that, then you can start thinking about future games. Is that good? Is that a problem? Should we look at the other classes and start thinking about ways to make them selected as often as soldier? As part of asking these questions, we can design games in the future a lot better."

Example Of Reaffirming Beliefs:

IGN said:
BioWare found that only 15% of conversations were skipped in Mass Effect 2, with the rate higher in non-critical moments like in the hub worlds and much lower later in the game at the climax. "If we found that 80% or 90% of the lines were being skipped, we would have to reevaluate the work that we were putting into the digital acting."

Other times, the data surprises. That happened with both how there were differences between the PC and Xbox 360 populations, as well as in regards to importing saves from Mass Effect 1. "We were surprised by how many people imported a game from Mass Effect 1…We put a lot into that feature and we could have gotten data back that said nobody was doing it. But actually more than half of players imported their save game from Mass Effect 1. That to me is quite high."

Platform Player Differences:

IGN said:
The average time to play through the game was 33 hours. PC gamers spent about an hour longer, while Xbox 360 players did 10% more loyalty missions on average. "In general, pretty much all of the data for the Xbox 360 version and the PC version are quite similar. One difference was the people who did certain loyalty missions on the Xbox versus the PC, which is kind of surprising. On the PC for example, people did Miranda's loyalty mission quite a bit, which is where she is trying to connect with her sister and it's more of a touchy-feely plot. Not a lot of Xbox 360 players did that one. But the Xbox 360 players did do Grunt's mission a lot more than PC players."

The PC players have the edge in dedication. Hudson claims that a lot of people played Mass Effect 2 more than once and about half of all players -- including those who rented or borrowed it -- who started played all of the way through to the end. Two players in particular on the PC played through 28 times. That's the current record. Four people on Xbox 360 played 23 times. If you're any of these people, please write in to us and tell us how you have so much spare time.

Some of these statistics are nothing more than that. As Hudson noted, there isn't any real takeaway in the differences between Xbox 360 and PC players. "Even if you know what some of these player behaviors are, is there anything you should do about it or is it just something interesting?"
Source: http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1118657p1.html

There's more through the link.
 
D

Deleted member 13876

Unconfirmed Member
Soldier being played more than any other class combined is kinda unfortunate.
 

Jex

Member
This functionality is awesome. Glad it's not just Valve and a few others using these tools.

Also, everyone playing soldier? People are boring.

80% playing male? That's 80% playing wrong.

Vigilant Walrus said:
Only 50% completed it...
damn...
And people wonder why games are getting shorter.
 

ToxicAdam

Member
Did they mention what percentage actually completed the game? I remember seeing HL2's stats and they were ridiculously low.
 

AniHawk

Member
Aeana said:
80% of players got a pretty raw deal.

I like Jeniffer Hale, but I don't think she was given the best direction here. It sounds like she's trying to be a tough guy instead of a person.

ToxicAdam said:
Did they mention what percentage actually completed the game? I remember seeing HL2's stats and they were ridiculously low.

It's in the OP's pic at the top of the page?
 

Seda

Member
ToxicAdam said:
Did they mention what percentage actually completed the game? I remember seeing HL2's stats and they were ridiculously low.

50%

I wonder what the second most used class was. I'm betting Vanguard (my favorite).
 

Aeana

Member
AniHawk said:
I like Jeniffer Hale, but I don't think she was given the best direction here. It sounds like she's trying to be a tough guy instead of a person.
Her performance in both games is a big reason why I like them. I reallllly do not like male Shepard at all.
 

bill0527

Member
I would have loved to import my save from ME1 but I lost that save when I traded in my launch unit after it's second repair and third near death experience. I played ME2 on a new 360.
 

Seda

Member
Aeana said:
Her performance in both games is a big reason why I like them. I reallllly do not like male Shepard at all.

Male Shepard sounds much better as a Renegade than a Paragon, imo.
 

Zenith

Banned
We were surprised by how many people imported a game from Mass Effect 1…We put a lot into that feature and we could have gotten data back that said nobody was doing it.

No you didn't.
 

Roarer

Member
And almost everyone payed as a male Sheperd? Jennifer Hale's female Shepred owns that game mutherfuckers.
 

Jex

Member
Actually, maybe information isn't always a good thing.

They could always say "screw femshep, only 20% of people are playing here anyway, let's invest resources in more soldier stuff".
 
I'm guessing the 50% of import saves was helped by there being a site where people uploaded their games
Aeana said:
Her performance in both games is a big reason why I like them. I reallllly do not like male Shepard at all.
I really dont see the big deal about Jennifer Hale, she's female nolan north for bioware games, and the male shepard upped his game in ME2
 
Jexhius said:
This functionality is awesome. Glad it's not just Valve and a few others using these tools.

Also, everyone playing soldier? People are boring.

80% playing male? That's 80% playing wrong.


And people wonder why games are getting shorter.
Biotics/techs powers are nerfed against shielded enemies and nearly all boss creatures. Mass Effect 2 is a shooter at its core after all.

Surprised that no one wanted to do Miranda's side mission. Yeah, it's one of the worst, but you couldn't have known that going in, and I spent half the game trying to get in her pants, so I probably did her mission first.
 

Jex

Member
Sho_Nuff82 said:
Biotics powers are nerfed against shielded enemies and nearly all boss creatures. Mass Effect 2 is a shooter at its core after all.
But there's noway the general public could have known that going into the game. That's why the information is interesting.
 

Ledsen

Member
Vigilant Walrus said:
Only 50% completed it...

damn...

Only? Dude, it's a 30-40 hour RPG. I would've expected something like 25%.

TheRagnCajun said:
I thought the female sheppard voice actor was supposed to be superior. Surpised most picked male.

Male Shepard is the "default" Shepard (he's on the box). Also, most guys want to play as guys.
 

Wallach

Member
KingJ2002 said:
Those general stats definitely look like typical predictable me.

Not really... the first set of numbers we got like this for, say, HL2: EP1 less than 25% of the people completed it (even though it was like a six hour game). That number has gone higher but it has taken years, and it's still under 40%.
 

Haunted

Member
Big brother style observation aside, I'd love to crunch some of these statistics. Fascinating stuff.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap
Nils said:
Soldier being played more than any other class combined is kinda unfortunate.
that's pretty impressive. The average rate according XBL is about 30%.
 

udivision

Member
TheRagnCajun said:
I thought the female sheppard voice actor was supposed to be superior. Surpised most picked male.
Most players are male and probably wouldn't think about "Which voice actor is better"? when choosing their character's gender?
 

SRG01

Member
Prime crotch said:
I really dont see the big deal about Jennifer Hale, she's female nolan north for bioware games, and the male shepard upped his game in ME2

She's also one of the best female VAs in the industry.
 
Sho_Nuff82 said:
Biotics powers are nerfed against shielded enemies and nearly all boss creatures. Mass Effect 2 is a shooter at its core after all.

I remember my Engineer used the Overload talen alot, you would zap them and bzzzt shields were down. That was not a biotic talent?
 

Glix

Member
Zenith said:
No you didn't.

Yes they did. There are a TON of things that are affected by the choices you made, not just the choices they give you options for choosing if you are starting from scratch.

From the character that tries to stay with you at the very beginning when everything is going to hell, all the way to small conversations during the game with random reappearing people, to emails that you get and news updates at the citadel.

ALL affected by choices you made in teh first game.
 

BobsRevenge

I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Wallach said:
Not really... the first set of numbers we got like this for, say, HL2: EP1 less than 25% of the people completed it (even though it was like a six hour game). That number has gone higher but it has taken years, and it's still under 40%.
I replayed HL2:Ep 1 yesterday.

It took about two and a half hours.
 

Dresden

Member
Anerythristic said:
I remember my Engineer used the Overload talen alot, you would zap them and bzzzt shields were down. That was not a biotic talent?
No.

But Adepts and biotics were fine. Singularity was still immensely powerful even against shield units in Insanity, since it locked them down. It made any Harbinger fight a joke, for example, since it wouldn't do anything once a Singularity was cast on it. >_> Wide Singularity--shoot off shield--Warp Explosion pretty much wiped out entire groups at a time. People just overreact because Adepts couldn't godmode like ME1.
 

Seda

Member
I think both Shepard voices are great.

I don't prefer either. When both are great there's no need to.
 
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