There was a stat cited a while back by someone I have faith in that 80% of a Free-to-Play's population rotates out over approximately 1.5 years. As such, any player which stays longer than that period will tend to outpace the average skill expectation of the current average player.
Earlier in the thread there was a discussion about playing for the "Win" vs playing for the "Sport".
It's worth keeping in mind that there are players that see this game as no more important then visiting a park and throwing a frisbee with a friend. It's a place to get away and enjoy the experience for those people. That will naturally translate to friction with players who are more engaged with the game.
The best choice you have to find the more "Win" focused play is going to be Gold League Ranked (You have twice separated out from the average audience) or Clan Battles.
It's certainly not an indication of Hurricane players only, but it's still Random Matchmaker that has a twice reduced section of the playerbase to be able to pull from. By the very nature of a player's journey through two sets of Qualifications you notice a generally higher level of foundation to their play.
Ultimately, Typhoon and Up really is about a lot of game and mechanical knowledge, along with execution capability. Talking about a single-digit percentage of the population just isn't something that can be reasonably expected from the majority... especially in a Free-to-Play game.
Free-to-Play games have "Churn" in the same way that real-world countries have Death Rates. It's an unavoidable thing, so the newer population has to maintain through the loss of the old. Everytime a new child is born, they have to learn EVERYTHING from scratch, which is no small feat.
While that certainly can be the case, I would assume on basic principle that more people stay in Silver that are Silver-level than leave it. Effort is still effort, and the amount of effort to overcome the skill disparity is not small as the average player skill increases.
This is part of the unavoidable truth that Churn forces a game into.
If a game generates new content, new and old players will explore the game.
If a game stops generating new content, new and old players will stop having things to explore.
So, years of additions are certainly a mountain to climb for a new player, but there's no requirement to learn everything at once. You can play one class of ship for years and still be learning, and that's before even going down the next Path to Mastery the game offers.
In the end, it's a complex problem and it's a grueling industry. We have a great game, though... and it continues to grow which is a beautiful thing.
This was a bit of a political talking point a decade or few ago, so I'm going to have to remind everyone to keep the discussion respectful and constructive.
This is not the place to have a culture war.
Let's keep it confined to the understanding that there are those that feel that "Win" and "Sport" are seperate reasons to play.
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Keep the discussion in the game, please.
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