Weapon Popularity by Platform, v1 (BF3)


#1

Original Title: Weapon Popularity by Platform
Author: J0hn-Stuart-Mill


Alright, so I’ve had this idea a while, but realized if I’m ever going to do it, I better hurry up before Close Quarters distorts the data heavily (both because of CQ weapon selection, AND because CQ = so much higher average kills/minute that I don’t want it to disrupt this data.

Methodology - What you’re looking at is total numbers of players who have carried guns past 600 kills. A shockingly high percentage of people stop using guns after they get the 500 kills dogtag, so I chose a 600 kill threshold to remove those players who only used the weapon to get the dogtag, and what remains are the guns that experienced and capable players are electing to use, presumably because they either feel the most effective with a given weapon, OR because they have some reason that a given weapon is their favorite. The more potent and experienced a player is, the more represented that player is here. If a player only played BF3 for 20 hours and doesn’t have any weapons beyond 600 kills, that player is not reflected in this data at all. With the data gathered, each graph is skewed so that the most popular weapon of each class becomes the “benchmark” and all the rest are relative to each other shown in percentages.

My second post in this thread will soon be meta-analysis of these numbers. (Kit vs Kit, and adoption rates, and such…)

*** All data scraped from bf3stats.com ***

Takeaways from Assault and Engineer -

  • The Famas is still heavily used on Console. I think on PC a the average gun fight is at greater distance than on console. This leaves the Famas out in the cold if you can’t be potent at 30+ meters.
  • Assault top 3 weapons account for 50-60% of kit usage
  • Engineer top 3 weapons account for a solit 70% of kit usage (even less balanced than assault!)

Takeaways from Support and Recon -

  • I personally find it interesting that the M249 is so popular. I suppose this is because it’s the most controllable huge capacity belt-fed
  • PS3 likes the RPK more than the rest of us?
  • Bushwookies LOVE the M98B
  • I do not understand the L96’s popularity. Perhaps it’s BF2 Nostalgia, but I HATE the scope sway between shots while ADS.
  • Everyone hates the SVD with a passion.

Takeaways from PDWs and Shotguns -

  • The We finally see our first disagreement between platforms. ASVAL on PC and P90 king on console. Obvious reasons here I believe
  • The 360 really loves the UMP? No idea why.
  • The PS3 hates the 870 for some reason? Strange…
  • The USAS was clearly king pre-patch, and the nerf was both necessary and appropriate

Takeaways from Pistols -

  • G18 in it’s two forms is the most popular across the board
  • 360 and especially PS3 really love the 93R
  • Revolvers are most popular on PC
  • No one, and I mean no one likes that M1911 Supp Tac (LOL)

Takeaways from Explosives -

  • Bizarre- Consistantly on all platforms, the RPG accounts for 40% more kills than the SMAW (the ONLY thing I can think is Metro’s shooting down the stairs advantage)
  • Super Bizarre- 2300 people have 100+ kills with the IGLA, but only 800 people in the world have 100+ kills with the Stinger. WUT?!?!?!
  • 360, but especially PS3 LOVES C4?? This makes no sense to me
  • PC users very effective with hand grenades
  • The 360 players really love AT Mines, again, this makes no sense to me

Weapon Popularity by Platform, v2 (BF3)
#2

The first half of this post is meta-analysis of these numbers. The second half is 1600 Kill charts, which I put at the bottom to lessen confusion. Kit vs Kit, Adoption rates (as in, the percent that abandons a gun after getting to 100 kills), and a few other ideas which may or may not be interesting once graphed. If you have any ideas for me to run the numbers on, speak up!

Kit VS Kit

VERY similar graphs

  • Assault is a bit more dominant on PC, likely because higher percentage of long range gun fights on PC
  • Don’t go whining about Assault being OP because:
    **** Engineers get 100% of the RPG slice
    **** Support gets nearly 100% of the explosives slice
    **** Recon likely gets the biggest portion of the All Kits and Shotguns slices (and assault gets almost none)

Addiction % Chart shows the percent of people who after getting to 100 kills with a weapon, carried it to 600+ kills. I just showed the most addictive weapons and least addictive weapons. The colored Addictive weapons do not show up as equally addictive in all platforms.

PKP is 65% more addictive on PC than on console
AS VAL is 107% more addictive on PC than on console
FAMAS is 154% more addictive on Console than on PC
L85 is 26% more addictive on 360 than elsewhere
MP7 is 85% more addictive on PS3 than elsewhere

The most abandoned pistol was the G17

Rarest Infantry Weapon Mastery Dogtag is WAY the Stinger/IGLA
Next Rarest Infantry Weapon Mastery Dogtag is: G17 Suppressed, and then G17

1600 Kill Charts

Alright, so in the chat, we were discussing how the graphs would change if we extended it just to the most passionate players for each gun, we considered various thresholds and chose 1600 kills. At first I was surprised that the charts didn’t seem to change that much, but then I realized that this is a shortcoming of the pie chart, and without another good idea for visualization, I went with a mathematical calculation for relative percent delta (change) I used the symbols % Δ on the charts themselves.

So while the pie charts are different and show new information, I think it is more important to look at the relative change in popularity of each gun. Now this will spark many questions, “Why do only one or two guns go up in popularity” Well, that’s because when the most popular gun increases in popularity by 50%, it is essentially dwarfing the rest of the pie, and forcing the rest to decrease in popularity. This also brings up the question "Why are the top guns still listed as 100.00, but shows as increasing in %? That’s again because whenever you use a single figure to skew data against, it’s just what happens. Notice that those while they are still listed at 100.00, the others are comparably smaller, meaning the 100 represents a bigger piece of the pie.

To state it as simply as possible. The % Δ represents the change in popularity from 600 kills to 1600 kills. So you should think of % Δ like this. "On PC, the M16 is 49.5 percent more popular among 1600+ kill users than among 600+ kill users.

In general, the rich get richer.
The KH2002 has a very passionate following on 360.

The M249 decreases in relative popularity. I think this makes sense.
The M98B is King of Kings