BioWare Reveals Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Stats

[Mike Kayatta]

BioWare Reveals Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Stats

A new infographic on Mass Effect 3's online coop mode proves that most of us make boring choices and stink at the game.

A ton of people are filling their spare time with Mass Effect 3's fun coop multiplayer mode, but just how much time is being filled, and who's filling it? BioWare has revealed some preliminary data on the war thus far, proving that most players are soldiers who suck too hard to beat Gold.

The gaming collective has now reportedly hazarded the coop for a total of 1,800 Earth years, earning a total of 83,000,000,000 credits during that time, or about 1.5 credits/second. During those matches, only 2/3 of players made it through the extraction phase alive, and of those, less than 1% were on the Gold difficulty when they did. Regardless of the difficulty selected, a whopping 36% of all were played on Firebase White.

Most people entering the fray are human, with the most popular non-human race going to the somersault-abstaining Turian race at 6.43%. 18% of players tend to choose the ubiquitous Soldier class, while 17% go Vanguard, and 16% choose Infiltrator. 36% of those choose an assault rifle to bring into battle.

If you've spent much time with the multiplayer, these numbers shouldn't surprise you. Firebase White was not only around during the beta, but based on enemy entry points, is also somewhat universally considered the easiest. As for the lack of people able to take down Gold? What great news. I guess all of us unable to get through it aren't alone after all.

Permalink

 

[Terminate421]

I beat gold, but it's practically required for someone to have a falcon in order to be successful

 

[Starke]

I don't suppose there's a link to where we could get a full blow up of that image?

 

[Fappy]

Maybe people just really like the Noveria throwback?

 

[Eri]

I don't suppose there's a link to where we could get a full blow up of that image?

Enjoy.

 

[Jennacide]

So the moral of the story is that most players pick the worst weapons and the weakest classes. Heavy Pistol > Assault Rifle, Adept and Engineer are the top tier classes. (In particular Asari Adept and Salarian Engineer) Infiltrator is still good, though not enough people play it worth a damn.

Also, there is a very good reason less than 1% of the matches won are Gold, because the difficulty scaling is mental. Doing Gold without a very strict group setup is next to impossible. You basically are required to take:
Asari Adept, with Stasis Bubble and ideally carrying a Paladin
Krogan Soldier, specced for Carnage spam and using Falcon
Salarian Engineer, full skills with no fitness taken, also using Paladin
Quarian Infiltrator, using Javelin or Black Widow

Switching any of those four out greatly reduces chance of survival. THIS IS A PROBLEM. Pretty much to handle gold you need everyone packing the best N7 weapons and abusing the 3 most overpowered skills in the game, Stasis, Sabotage, and Energy Drain. The Krogan is just there to to be a meat shield through Fortification and stagger anything that moves with the Falcon, and when the big targets come, pop Carnage at them. The only other remotely viable option is Drell Vanguard played as an Adept using Pull for the Adept to Warp and tossing loads of Cluster Grenades at anything armored.

[edit] Also, Noveria is likely popular because it's the only map that fighting the Reapers on isn't a total clusterfuck. Reapers on Glacier or Reactor makes bad maps worse.

 

[Eri]

Vanguard is still good, though not enough people play it worth a damn.

I fixed that for you.

 

[Fappy]

-snip-

Only 2 million Phatoms so far? Pretty sure you kill that many in one Gold match.

 

[Starke]

I don't suppose there's a link to where we could get a full blow up of that image?

Enjoy.

Spoiler

Many thanks.

-snip-

Only 2 million Phatoms so far? Pretty sure you kill that many in one Gold match.

Pretty sure the Phantoms are still running a K ratio > 1, too.

 

[cynicalsaint1]

The "most people use Humans" stat is a little misleading since you actually have to unlock the other races through random upgrade packs.

I'm however not surprised about the low survival rate. Team play is essential to having successful runs (especially if you're playing on anything above the lowest difficulty), and most people simply just don't know how to work together well.

What I'd really be interested in knowing is the ratio of Banshees kill to Players Killed by Banshees. I hate those @#$!ing things.

Maybe people just really like the Noveria throwback?

No its just the easiest map to win on by far. It has a lot of really defensible areas set up relative to the enemies spawn points, there's only one really bad spot to be caught in, compared to the other maps.

 

[Fappy]

The "most people use Humans" stat is a little misleading since you actually have to unlock the other races through random upgrade packs.

I'm however not surprised about the low survival rate. Team play is essential to having successful runs (especially if you're playing on anything above the lowest difficulty), and most people simply just don't know how to work together well.

What I'd really be interested in knowing is the ratio of Banshees kill to Players Killed by Banshees. I hate those @#$!ing things.

Maybe people just really like the Noveria throwback?

No its just the easiest map to win on by far. It has a lot of really defensible areas set up relative to the enemies spawn points, there's only one really bad spot to be caught in, compared to the other maps.

To be fair most of the maps are adequate at best. The circular one with the three hallways and the Cerberus lab are fucking abysmal maps.

 

[Richardplex]

The "most people use Humans" stat is a little misleading since you actually have to unlock the other races through random upgrade packs.

I'm however not surprised about the low survival rate. Team play is essential to having successful runs (especially if you're playing on anything above the lowest difficulty), and most people simply just don't know how to work together well.

What I'd really be interested in knowing is the ratio of Banshees kill to Players Killed by Banshees. I hate those @#$!ing things.

Maybe people just really like the Noveria throwback?

No its just the easiest map to win on by far. It has a lot of really defensible areas set up relative to the enemies spawn points, there's only one really bad spot to be caught in, compared to the other maps.

And it has so many grab kill spots.

...What? I like pretending I'm an assassin :<

 

[Jennacide]

Vanguard is still good, though not enough people play it worth a damn.

I fixed that for you.

Vanguard is alright, but still not as good as the core 3. At least it's the one class that humans excel at over the aliens, as Asari is horrible and Drell is way too squishy to play it as an actual Vanguard. Drell Vanguard has like 300 barrier, that's just dumb.

And we can all agree that Sentinel is just plain awful. The only good Sentinel is Krogan melee build, and it's useless on anything but Bronze.

 

[eventhorizon525]

Vanguard is still good, though not enough people play it worth a damn.

I fixed that for you.

Vanguard is alright, but still not as good as the core 3. At least it's the one class that humans excel at over the aliens, as Asari is horrible and Drell is way too squishy to play it as an actual Vanguard. Drell Vanguard has like 300 barrier, that's just dumb.

And we can all agree that Sentinel is just plain awful. The only good Sentinel is Krogan melee build, and it's useless on anything but Bronze.

Clearly, you have only seen bad human sentinels (though to be fair, there aren't many out there in the first place, meaning a good one is pretty damn rare). A sentinel built as warp + throw is a powerhouse of biotic explosions, can carry heavier weapons than adepts (higher possible weight class) meaning better weapons they can use during the ~3 second warp CD (throw's cd is basically negligible). Tech armor is also ok to have on while moving between objective locations. If the human sentinel starts the match by turning on tech armor, yeah aren't going to be using the class that effectively relative to the "standard" group compositions.

 

[Blunderboy]

I really need to give the multi player a try. Still working my way thorough the single player.

 

[Erttheking]

Speaking of multiplayer I haven't been on xbox today, did we beat that kill 1 million brutes challenge.

 

[Abedeus]

Speaking of multiplayer I haven't been on xbox today, did we beat that kill 1 million brutes challenge.

They'll probably reveal it some time later today their time, or Tuesday European time.

 

[SpaceBat]

Vanguard is alright, but still not as good as the core 3.

Hmm, I can't say much about this statement, as I've not played Gold yet. I do know that Vanguards absolutely dominate in everything else, are the main source of power and revivals in the other difficulty levels.

Optimizing your character basically nullifies the cooldown (using a heavy pistol, which is ridiculously superior to a shotgun in terms of dps and power cooldown), your attacks stun all enemies and effectively using the two main skills, meaning that you actually exploit the invincibility frames of both skills, makes it hard to actually die. What makes Vanguards so inferior for gold runs? Their need to leave the group in order to use their skills more often?

The idea that Vanguard goes from the best class (by far) on Bronze and Silver, to one of the least effective on Gold is just disappointing, that's all.

 

[SlayerN]

I would really like to point out that this is not impressive in the slightest, with how big budget this game was, saying 1800 years of co-op have been played is absurdly small. if you take a fraction of the player-base, say 2.5 million (2,500,000) of the total 4 million retail copies worldwide. This ends up being only about six (6.307 )hours of play per person.