{"id":4234,"date":"2021-01-09T08:27:33","date_gmt":"2021-01-09T00:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/?p=4234"},"modified":"2021-01-19T10:04:25","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T02:04:25","slug":"cogmind-beta-9-player-stats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gridsagegames.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/cogmind-beta-9-player-stats\/","title":{"rendered":"Cogmind Beta 9 Player Stats"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years now, with each new major Cogmind release I’ve analyzed the player stats reported for runs in the prior release (I covered this process in the latter half of this article<\/a> before). Back when Cogmind came to Steam here on the blog I did take a close look at player metrics<\/a> with a particular eye towards comparing any differences between Steam and non-Steam players, but other than that time the analyses have generally been posted to the forums in this thread<\/a>, where they became increasingly detailed with each release, then later started looking more closely at the new features of each particular release. Previous stat analysis links are also archived at the bottom of the leaderboards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cogmind Beta 9<\/a> was special in that the scoresheet underwent a major rewrite<\/a> to include not just thousands of data points per run, but up to tens of thousands<\/em>, plus even more categories of run info. So with a variety of potential new topics to look at I decided to put this one on the blog since it’s longer than usual and relates back to some of the features I’ve covered here before. The fact that the architecture was changed did require rewriting all my supporting code for stat exporting, so this is somewhat late in coming, but it’s finally here :)<\/p>\n

One segment that I’ve always included in the past is “meta stats” surrounding player devices, input, and preferences, but I’m not going to be compiling these for now since there really hasn’t been much shifting in these numbers over the years since Cogmind was added to Steam. If you’re interested in user stats like this you can refer back to earlier reports<\/a> for an understanding of more or less where things stand (this might be even more interesting in the Steam vs. non-Steam<\/a> comparison, though there has also been some shifting since then as it was over three years ago :P).<\/p>\n

\"cogmind_stat_summary_beta8_meta\"<\/a>

Collection of typical meta stats from Beta 8 players.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"cogmind_player_movement_input_preferences_beta8\"

Graphing one of the more interesting general statistics, the number of players using each type of movement input. (hjkl has gradually shrunk over the years, I’m afraid, as more non-hardcore roguelikers discover Cogmind :P)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Stats are Back!<\/h1>\n

With the crazy level of detail offered by our new scoresheets they’ve become an even more comprehensive and interesting way to examine exactly how each run progressed, though in most cases here we’ll be focusing on more meaningful aggregate stats rather than per-map data from individual runs. Even without including per-map data (which would multiply this by a huge factor), the run data we’re looking at below consists of 9,781,477<\/span> data points!<\/p>\n

The full archived Beta 9 leaderboards can be found here<\/a>, with scoresheets for all runs accessible at the bottom.<\/em><\/p>\n

A total of 9,743<\/span> runs were submitted, though 375<\/span> have been excluded due to earning a score less than 500, and another 1,437<\/span> for being from special modes\/events, leaving us with 7,931<\/span> runs to analyze for aggregate stats. (Special events will be looked at in a separate section--there were many during the Beta 9 cycle!) There were far fewer runs not even making it out of the first area than in previous releases, likely due to Beta 9 putting the difficulty menu front and center to raise awareness about that option and getting more people who would prefer easier modes to play one of those.<\/p>\n

920<\/span> unique named players submitted at least one qualifying Beta 9 run, an average of 8.6<\/span> per player, lower than the last few betas, perhaps due to the fact that the Beta 9 series in particular was by far the longest ever with mostly special event releases rather than primary content updates (so people allocated more runs to those rather than the regular game). Beta 9 spanned a period of over eleven months and included a total of seven updates, half of which were special modes! Aside from those and the first flagship release, the others were mostly minor updates.<\/p>\n

Difficulty<\/h1>\n

Beta 9 was the first release to make the difficulty selection menu the first thing new players see, and also forced all existing players to explicitly set their difficulty level rather than simply defaulting to the intended most difficult “Rogue” setting. As such we ended up with a huge shift in the number of players using other modes. (It clearly makes a big difference to put important options up front rather than just in the options menu!)<\/p>\n

As you can see in the graph here, the number of players using a non-Rogue mode jumped from a mere one-tenth to over a third!<\/p>\n

\"cogmind_difficulty_distribution_beta9_vs_beta8\"<\/a>

Beta 8 defaulted to the hardest difficulty mode and only had a tutorial tip notifying players it could be changed in the options menu; Beta 9 forced players to choose a difficulty setting at the start. The effect is telling.<\/p><\/div>\n

The majority still go for the primary permadeath-enforced roguelike mode, but it’s good to see that many others are now more able to enjoy the game as they prefer. Anecdotally, some people also use lower difficulty modes to practice and learn, gradually moving up as their skill improves. The stats show that overall Rogue mode players have more hours of experience with the game, although not by a large margin! The average number of hours among Rogue players (63.7<\/span>) is double that of other difficulties, although this value is skewed upward by the core set of players who tend to have many hundreds of hours. By comparison the median<\/em> number of hours ranges from about 10~12<\/span> across all difficulties.<\/p>\n

Wins<\/h1>\n

The win rate among Beta 9 Rogue runs was 5.7%<\/span>, compared to 1.2%<\/span> in Adventurer and 3.5%<\/span> in Explorer. Note that many runs on Adventurer\/Explorer difficulties continued further than the submitted score, because permadeath is optional and players can load a previous game states, but data for runs loaded in such a way is not uploaded. Therefore more runs using those modes probably did go on to win, but it was after additional attempts. (It’s not unheard of for a player to load many hundreds of times during a single run! It’s really quick and there’s a hotkey, so… :P)<\/p>\n

Not everyone is attempting to win all of their runs, however, or at least add extra challenge by going for more difficult win types, or challenging themselves in other ways that might more likely result in a loss. So a more accurate win rate probably looks at the percentage of players who had at least one win during the Beta 9 cycle. Looking at those results we see that 86<\/span> players had at least one win (out of 920), or 9.3%<\/span>. The actual percentage would be higher for Adventurer\/Explorer runs since those could go on to load and improve their run, though we don’t know how much higher. We can, however, calculate the real percentage of Rogue players who won: 12.5%<\/span>. Not bad.<\/p>\n

396<\/span> wins were submitted by alice_fexa (55), Alexbot (39), GJ (26), 3.14 (24), cptwinky (23), int Ascended=0; (17), Joshua (12), lsend (11), Pimski (11), aoemica (9), sideriver8 (9), Stryker (9), Dhoby_Ghaut (8), TBExtent (7), Vectis (7), Michael (6), MTF (6), PlasticHeart (6), Ben’n’Dan (5), Adraius (4), Ape (4), Fleshy Vegetable Bird (4), muxecoid (4), Trione (4), UlyssesB (4), Finestep (3), Kyzrati (3), Terminus (3), Zailor (3), Zyalin (3), bugsniper (2), Cipherpunk (2), Ctrl_Alt_X (2), Dusanh (2), Gobbopathe (2), kerapace (2), Magellan (2), NoNeedToExplain (2), octapi (2), Solar Sloth (2), Torako (2), zzxc (2), Airus, ApolliniaD, BillyNate, BinarySpace, BlackCaro, Chad, Cracklepappy, Decinym, derk, Dullahan, Exp. Geonium Core, GridBugBear, Horse, IceBox, inSANE, Jolley, Kenzurith, Khal42, Kiks, LordVenom1, Michael, MitchellFJN, ModulinMyGlobulin, Nalzok, Nori, Omewes, Phillammon, Plexion, RNGesus, Rumbl3, Sandwich, toad3k, Tone, Tough2Name, TravelDemon, viper, VoodooWoodoo, Wayward Satellite, whitenitro0, Xax, Xeram, Xii, YppY.<\/p>\n

The average duration of a winning run was 4 hours and 44 minutes<\/span>. (This wasn’t significantly different from median of 3h 57m.) The fastest win goes to Zyalin<\/a>, for a 25m 55s<\/span> run, and the longest win goes to Trione<\/a>, clocking in at 23h 12m 33s<\/span>!<\/p>\n

Zyalin’s run was a 2,916-action pacifist speed run that took 1,179<\/span> turns, but turn-wise the fastest speed run win was by Alexbot<\/a> (681<\/span> turns!!!) followed by… me<\/a> :P (908 turns)<\/p>\n

Trione’s epic journey traveled through 44 maps (tying for the maximum with several other players), destroying a lot of bots but keeping alert low while doing a fair bit of RIF hacking and going on to get an extended ++ ending. The next-longest run behind that was Tone’s<\/a> 20-hour combat romp.<\/p>\n

(Remember that Cogmind-recorded play time is not equivalent to Steam’s, since the latter includes idling whereas Cogmind does not, so we actually have accurate numbers here.)<\/em><\/p>\n

By far the highest number of kills goes to Pimski’s<\/a> 300,886<\/span>-point Access farming run, destroying 2,212<\/span> bots (including 1,723<\/span> hostiles) in the top run of the cycle. Almost all of the kills were recorded in Access after triggering high security and eventually reaching a ridiculous peak influence of 44,607… As of Beta 10, farming 0b10 maps is no longer a thing due to new mechanics, but this was an impressive show of what was possible with the right build and tactics, using a fast but powerful build to kite everything at range and take minimal damage.<\/p>\n

Deaths<\/h1>\n

So all those runs that didn’t<\/em> win… that’s the 7,535<\/span> deaths :P. And for the first time we actually have detailed data on the cause!<\/p>\n

I should preface this by saying that it’s mostly for fun, however, and not nearly as meaningful as in other roguelikes, since due to attrition the cause of death in Cogmind is just the final nail in a very big coffin built over a long period, simply what happens to finish off the player at the end of what is probably multiple mistakes\/poor decisions or any number of things that could’ve caused the same result in the Very End as recorded. (With your average roguelike the underlying cause of death is most likely more immediately associated with whatever the player was doing at the time, since it’s not uncommon to be at or near full capabilities for many encounters.)<\/p>\n

Of course there are some more special causes of death, and we’ll take a look at those, too.<\/p>\n

2.2%<\/span> of deaths (163) were reported as simply “Core Destroyed,” a generic catch-all for when the actual cause was unable to be determined for some reason, or was a highly specific type of death that doesn’t fit into other categories but also lacks any corresponding unique text.<\/p>\n

Naturally the majority of deaths can be attributed to hostile bots, especially the common 0b10 Unaware. Some special cases include Crushers, accounting for 48 deaths (0.6%<\/span>), and Trackers with 12 kills (0.16%<\/span>).<\/p>\n

Assembled ended 314 runs (4.1%<\/span>), 27 of those being of the G variety. As one might expect, most such runs (75.5%<\/span>) ended in the Mines, with others generally deep in the caves, but still a decent amount (7.3%<\/span>) in Exiles due to evil players turning on the friendly folk there and suffering the consequences. Interestingly one run in each Factory and Research was lost to Assembled due to events that might occur there.<\/p>\n

While the majority of NPCs in Cogmind are friendly, a lot of players<\/em> are not so friendly when it comes to meeting NPCs, where you of course have two outcomes: player wins and gets sweet loot, or player suffers a horrible death… (the following section uses common abbreviations in most cases to openly discuss the data without as much worry about spoilers)<\/p>\n

23<\/span> Cogminds were killed by a Hero of Zion (NK-0LA’s the most deadly, followed by 99-TNT), 19<\/span> died to YI-UF0 (a tough early encounter since at the time you’re relatively weak and they’re both aggressive and nade-happy), and 8R-AWN trashed 50<\/span> Cogminds--not surprising since he’s quite an out-of-depth opponent when you meet, but some players just insist on trying to loot their gear :P (13<\/span> died to EX-BIN’s DAS Turret, and 4<\/span> to the Exiles themselves).<\/p>\n

No one has a recorded death from Zh\/S\/P, likely because they’re not all that powerful and tend to run away themselves once damaged.<\/p>\n

Also no deaths to GM, and somewhat surprisingly none to W, although in that case he almost always has a ton of escorts who could easily finish the job and steal the kill.<\/p>\n

One powerful NPC without<\/em> much in the way of escorts that tends to kill a lot of players is Z-Im, responsible for ending 32<\/span> runs.<\/p>\n

No one died to FFF (easy to run--or limp--<\/em>away from :P), and only 12<\/span> deaths to MC (also lots of allies to finish the job). Arch killed 5<\/span> players (not too hard to retreat from that fight if necessary, although few people visit or even know about that area to begin with).<\/p>\n

Of course lots of NPCs also died at the hands of players… Here’s the complete chart<\/a>, hidden behind a link because this includes all major NPCs<\/em> (plus a bunch but not all minor ones--very spoilery overall, so skip it if you like and I’ll just summarize here:<\/p>\n