On the Current Popularity of Advanced Professions

 

2005/08/24

 

The new Astromech Stats feature on Profession Popularity that was recently released leads to some interesting conclusions about the shape of SWG these days.

 

So far, people have focused on where individual professions have appeared on this list. What I'd like to do is explore this list based on categorizing the various professions. How do the crafters compare to the medics? How do the entertainers compare to the fighters?

 

To see these relationships, I first defined profession types as follows:

 

CODE

TYPE

F

fighter

J

Jedi

R

rogue

C

crafter

H

healer

E

entertainer

X

explorer

P

Politician

 

Next, I grouped the types by category:

 

CATEGORY

TYPES

Combat

F, R & fighting J

Crafting

C & crafting J

Healing

H & healing J

Entertaining

E

Exploration

X

Political

P

 

So, with these definitions in mind, here's the categorized list:

 

(least played)

1 2 3 4 5 6

- - - - - -

F           Squad Leader

  C         Chef

  J         Force Sensitive - Crafting

  C         Droid Engineer

        X   Ranger

  C         Bio Engineer

      E     Musician

  C         Armorsmith

      E     Image Designer

  C         Shipwright

  C         Weaponsmith

  C         Architect

J           Force Wielder

F           Fencer

  C         Tailor

F           Pikeman

      E     Dancer

F           Commando

J           Force Defender

J           Force Enhancer

    J       Force Healer

J           Light Saber Mastery

F           Creature Handler

R           Smuggler

F           Swordsman

    H       Combat Medic

  C         Merchant

    H       Doctor

          P Politician

F           Carbineer

J           Force Sensitive - Senses

F           Teras Kasi

F           Pistoleer

F           Rifleman

J           Force Sensitive - Reflexes

R           Bounty Hunter

J           Force Sensitive - Combat

(most played)

 

(Note 1: the three Jump to Lightspeed pilot professions -- Imperial Pilot, Rebel Pilot, and Privateer Pilot -- are not represented in these stats.)

 

(Note 2: The two Rogue-type professions -- Smuggler and Bounty Hunter -- could have gotten their own category. However, I've categorized them as Combat professions because, other than the Smuggler slicing skills, most of the skills from these professions that people playing SWG actually seem to use are either directly or closely related to engaging in combat. But if anyone really objects to this, feel free to break these two professions out into their own category -- it won't affect any of the general conclusions below.)

 

Finally, here are some things that I conclude from this categorization:

 

1. The numbers of professions in each category, although not related to popularity, are interesting:

 

19 Combat (21 with Brawler and Marksman)

10 Crafting (11 with Artisan)

3 Healing (4 with Medic)

3 Entertaining (4 with Entertainer)

1 Exploration (2 with Scout)

1 Political

 

2. Based on the profession popularity rankings, I would rank the categories as follows:

 

Combat

Politics

Healing

Entertaining

Crafting

Exploration

 

3. SWG is massively dominated by combat gameplay. Other gameplay styles (social, crafting and exploration in particular) that aren't hyper-competitive are nowhere near as popular. Whether this is because most gamers today are only interested in combat and SWG merely caters to what players say they want, or because SWG's developers consciously prefer to implement combat features (which then, unsurprisingly, attract mostly combat-oriented players), is debatable.

 

4. The popularity and number of Force Sensitive and Jedi characters is too obvious to need much elaboration here, except to observe that even Force Sensitive Crafting is hugely unpopular relative to the more violent professions. This may also be due to SWG discouraging crafters from becoming Force Sensitive in the first place, since getting glowy has been designed to require surviving several combat-heavy theme parks.

 

5. The Political category (despite having just one profession) ranks surprisingly high in popularity. It might be interesting to see how many players are members of Player Associations, and how many are currently citizens of any player city.

 

6. The popularity of the professions in the Healing category is probably due to their importance to combat support. I wonder: How many players have Healing professions as their primary (or only) skills, compared to those who have some Doctor or Combat Medic skills as secondary combat abilities?

 

7. The Dancer and Merchant professions probably only rank as high as they do because of alts. That's just my opinion based on observation and listening to people, but I think hard data would confirm it.

 

8. With the exception of Exploration, the Crafting gameplay category has become the least popular in SWG. Only the Tailor profession is even middling popular. (It's even more popular than Armorsmith -- odd, no?) This decline in the popularity of crafting from the profession rankings of October 20, 2003, when at least Architects and Weaponsmiths enjoyed a middling measure of popularity, accurately reflects the emphasis since then on adding combat features to SWG (especially the FS/Jedi professions).

 

9. The Droid Engineer profession has not enjoyed long-term benefits from the developer attention it received in two major publishes (Publish 7, "The Droid Invasion", March 15, 2004, and Publish 8, "Droids Rebuilt", April 27, 2004). With the exception of the the unexciting Chef profession, Droid Engineering is now the least popular advanced Crafting profession... and that's saying something.

 

10. The Exploration gameplay style is barely represented in SWG, as indicated by the low level of interest in the Ranger advanced profession. Making this profession among the hardest to enter ought to be rewarded by making it among the most fun and most valuable, but this clearly isn't the case today. Even making POIs easily findable through the Datapad hasn't been enough to encourage people who enjoy exploring worlds to play SWG. Other than a crafting revamp and a serious expansion of active roleplaying abilities for Entertainers, Exploration gameplay is SWG's greatest need. Where are the Navigators? Where are the Scientists?

 

11. Without question, the one profession in most dire need of love -- as it has been since SWG launched -- is the Squad Leader. That a profession belonging to the Combat category ranks so low in popularity tells you something about how it's perceived. It makes no sense that this profession, which could be so valuable to SWG in bringing players together for more fun, has remained hard to master and of little benefit once you're there.

 

 

So there you are. The main takeaways are that SWG remains combat-heavy, and that there's an awfully high number of Jedi. Not really surprising, but interesting to see these beliefs confirmed.