Hi all. I wanted to see how rating is distributed across the playerbase. This includes accounts from NA and EU (where DFA can source from). Additionally, the data is collected from achievements earned from all sources of pvp including rbgs. Please feel free to comment any suggestions or point out any errors but also note that the figures are subject to change and were collected 24h before the time of writing. I wanted to share an image of a graph I generated in my spreadsheet however I dont have perms to do so. Regardless, I wanted to share my results for those interested.
The data:
Achievement | Criteria| % earned (2dp)
Combatant I: 1000cr| 9.52%
Combatant II: 1200cr|8.22%
Challenger I: 1400cr | 6.44%
Challenger II: 1600cr|4.34%
Rival I: 1800cr| 2.80%
Rival II: 1950cr|1.58%
Duelist: 2100cr|1.06%
Elite: 2400cr|0.47%
Legend: “” |0.18% (100 solo wins at Elite)
Gladiator: “” |0.02% (50 3v3 wins at Elite)
Source:
All data collected from Data for Azeroth.
https://www.dataforazeroth.com/leaderboards/completion-score
Comments:
It appears <10% of the general wow population participates in pvp above 1kcr 
I expected more people to be participating in pvp.
IMO glad will only be the top 0.5% (at best) of the 3s ladder (with inflation) much like pre-bfa.
Question: What do you think Blizzard can do to increase participation in rated pvp?
Have a nice day 
UPDATE:
The % or rarity data is taken at the account level NOT the character level. So the data should be viewed as “% of wow accounts have this achievement”.
“There is a background task that periodically takes a snapshot of the Data for Azeroth database, and uses that to calculate the rarity of each item. These stats are rolled up at the account level, not at the individual character level, and are shown as the percentage of accounts stored in the database.” - https://www.dataforazeroth.com/about
14 Likes
Maybe the glad drake should be a work-in-progress where you gradually gain the armor associated with it.
For example you get the drake at 1800 and it gets the full armor set at 50 wins above 2400 (Similar to the seasonal armor sets for players).
They obviously need to implement a drake in shuffle as well.
More cosmetics are always welcome.
6 Likes
Remove some rewards from shuffle (the imaginary enchant and the “elite” sets)
Triple conq earned from 2s and 3s
Force shuffle ladder to start way more deflated next season but have 3s start a little more inflated but cause them both to inflate over time starting week 2.
Make it so you get an account bound conq token for winning at least 3 rounds in a shuffle lobby as a healer
Stop making dumb unnecessary changes like buffing demo by 20%
13 Likes
They seriously need to think about changing how arena titles & glad are rewarded. Current reward template is only favoring short term participation once a season starts… They need to go back to end of season title rewards and make glad a % based title again in order to incentivize a much larger pool of participants during the entire length of a season IMO. I’m hoping this gets discussed/addressed shortly after 10.0.7.
1 Like
This begs the question why they design a mount for such a small amount of players
8 Likes
This is higher than I would have expected. Way more players do BGs then ranked play. Same for world PvP.
I think participation is fine, though they could offer some more unique pvp rewards. They need to fix ratings overall though in Arena outside of RSS.
increase participation by increasing fun and lowering the frustration aspect. Slow down the meta, make TTKs higher and dramatically reduce cooldown stacking and burst while upping consistent/steady damage. take the focus of the “goes” meta and make it more friendly to newer players and players of a lower skill so they too will want to continue playing. too many people dispise and cannot stand dying as fast as we currently can, specially when their is hardly time to react let alone counterplay. this is the problem. Once this is done, bring healers in line with the pacing and you will see a dramatic uptick in participation in rated pvp and non rated which is also suffering from this trash low brow meta we have had since SL.
1 Like
Don’t have shuffle be the most accessible, easiest to push AND give all the (non-glad) rewards.
That just immediately hoses the other brackets.
7 Likes
Wow pvp has seen a nice surge in participation due to shuffle, theres no way theyre going to tone down rewarding that bracket
They want people playing the game
2 Likes
I don’t think that they’re going to strip rewards but they’ll almost certainly adjust mmr to be more in line with the other brackets. It’s just weird to have one that’s an average of 600 points higher or something.
3 Likes
Are these level 70 characters only? Or all characters above level 9?
You say less than 10% play above 1kcr and want to know how to increase overall participation. So the question that needs to be asked is what is the overall participation to begin with, including those under 1kcr. My assumption that would need to be tested is that there is a fair number of playera participating but are either super casual or not skilled enough to make it over 1kcr.
This is similar to other pvp games like LoL. Getting to gold means you are better than like 60% of the player base and there is similarly less than 1% at the top with granmasters being top 100 players. This doesnt mean there isnt any particiation just that there is a massive diaparity in player skill at wach ranking.
Yeah the other thing i think that has made a difference to a much larger degree than people have given it credit for is SPEC based cr in shuffle. You can essentially be 3 seperate characters on the ladder injecting cr and mmr into the game
But yeah some normalization would be healthy, they admitted their mistake of mmr in the 3s bracket this season already
It’s not really about toning down rewards it’s about changing them so each bracket has its own unique rewards
Shuffle should have some really cool ground mounts only available in shuffle instead of elite set
3 Likes
Just start a season pass with noth paid and unpaid subs while removing the overall game sub. Allow this season pass to gain “exp” despite what type of content you do and fill it with cosmetics, pets, and mounts. Maybe some in game currencies, craft stuff, etc.
General in game rewards plus good cosmetics/toys that dont effect combat.
Good point. Let me get back to you on that when I find out.
Thanks for pointing that out. Please refer to the OP for an update.
Next question. 
Are these Dragonflight specific achievements? Or the achievements across all expansions?
Good point. I will try to find this data and get back to you.
1 Like
WOW ty I did not know it was that bad 10% of the wow pop play above 1k. Soo few players are into rated pvp… That explains everything especially why PvP does not get much resources.
No wander, PvP is a dead part of the game.
1 Like