Quote Originally Posted by Erzaa View Post
Precisely. You attempted to present Island Sanctuary participation rates, based on the playerbase owning the Island Mandragora mount, which can be bought for 12,000 cowries and is available as early as rank 1? (I believe?), as compared to the playerbase reaching Eureka Level 60 participation. That's a false equivalency. The statistics you posted later show the far more popular mount, the Garlond GL-II, which costs 24,000 cowries (double the mandragora mount) and is available at rank 10, as having a higher percentage of ownership. Ergo, more of the playerbase participated in Island Sanctuary than your numbers indicate.
You mean the "far more popular mount" that had, lemme check, a whooping 2.11% higher acquisition rate. Yes, very popular...

Considering the participation of all content in the game except the MSQ gets progressively lower, it stands to reason that max rank Island Sanctuary wouldn't have improved when nothing else does. You can see that in the drop from Pagos to Hydatos. The fact they're only 5% off when the stats are heavily weighted in Island's favour is more an indictment on how much a flop that content was. And why sacrificing exploratory content for it was a bad idea.

But we're not discussing players who didn't complete Eureka, or players who don't finish content. We're discussing the specific percentage of players who did complete the content, i.e. the ones who reached the Elemental level 60. The argument you're trying to make is that Eureka is more popular than Island Sanctuary with the majority of the playerbase, has a higher percentage of interaction, no?
I mentioned that more a rebuttal to you insinuating most people will finish the story of a given piece of content. They won't unless it's something they're already engaged with or it has a big enough incentive.

The amount of the playerbase interacting with a specific mount or not is very much relevant, considering the two items you're conflating, as I stated above. You compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges. If you're conflating player participation and popularity with Island Sanctuary, based on a mount they may or may not have bought, then you should include the playerbase willing to continue past Eureka's maximum level to get the Ozma mount. Both pieces of content don't allow you to receive all rewards by simply reaching the maximum possible rank.
You right here are making an apple to oranges comparison. Reaching rank 20 in Island Sanctuary is entirely passive and requires zero effect from the player beyond slotting random things in a spreadsheet. Meanwhile, obtaining the Ozma mount necessitates cooperative play at an EX level with 24 other players where perma-death is a thing. The latter has a vastly higher demand, thus trying to stack it against max Rank IS is ridiculous. Not to mention, like I already said, Baldesion Arsenal is a separate piece of content within Eureka but isn't necessarily the main objective for participation. Most players were relic hunting or simply liked exploratory zone content. Hence why the redditor used max elemental rank over the Ozma mount.

The only reason I brought up the Adenium mount, is because I wasn't sure, based on the stats you posted originally, which Mandragora mount you're referring to. Different Mandragora mounts unlock at different ranks, and I wouldn't be surprised if none of them are that popular.

In conclusion, just don't take the measure of a mount that can be bought with a currency, that players may or may not be interested in at all, as evidence of the popularity, or lack of, a piece of content, especially when players interact with said content for any number of reasons.

But... yes, Eureka is probably better content than Island Sanctuary, that doesn't mean it's good content, just better that Island Sanctuary.
No. you brought it up because it was more convenient for your argument. "Island Mandragora" is literally one of the first set of mounts available and the easiest to obtain. Furthermore, you can't keep insisting these mounts are widely unpopular. This is the third time you've attempted to argue that point. The Island Mandragora is 2.11% lower than the Garlond GL mount you kept prattling about as being so much more popular. Neither is because nobody cared enough to even do IS despite it being literally designed as chill content for the average player.

I never said Eureka was necessarily good. You're assuming my position. I'm simply refuting the notion exploratory content on the whole was widely disliked when what data we have available suggests otherwise. Eureka was divisive but far from unpopular. Pagos is what really hurt the overall opinion. Meanwhile, Bozja is largely seen as a considerable improvement even if I also think it had issues.