Aion live server numbers crunched
by Brooke Pilley 
Nov 13th 2009 at 4:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, New titles
Realm population balance (Elyos vs. Asmodian)Realm population balance is 50/50 on 3 of 14 servers. The remaining 11 servers have the Asmodians ahead of the Elyos by a 51:49 ratio. It appears as if NCsoft's forced realm population balance mechanic is keeping things under control, but one wonders how rampant these disparities would be if character creation was unrestricted. We've seen unbalanced two-faction MMOs before.
It should be stated that these numbers only represent a tally of Elyos and Asmodians across all servers and not how organized or active each realm is in PvPvE.
Level range breakdown (average across all servers)
Note: We are unsure if these numbers track all Aion characters ever made or only active Aion characters. You can read them a lot differently depending on what they track.
The declining curve is quite dramatic after Aion's first month and a half. Over 64% of the population is between levels 1 to 20. It quickly plummets to 23% between levels 21-30. Across all servers, the average of players between levels 31 to 35 is 6.3%, levels 36 to 40 is 3.9%, levels 41 to 45 is 1.7%, and levels 46 to 50 is 0.8%.
As the game ages, one would expect this curve to eventually bubble in the middle and finally become a mirror image of the current curve (if these number represent active characters only). Then again, the slope could always look this way (if these numbers represent all characters ever created).
Some servers appear to be further along than others. Azphel, Israphel, Lumiel, Triniel, and Zikel all have a quarter of their players in the 21-30 range. Azphel and Zikel in particular have 2% of their current population between levels 46 to 50, which is quite high comparatively. Other servers seem further behind (in the 1 to 20 range), and they include Fregion (74%), Meslamtaeda (74%), and Kaisinel (68%).
Class balance (average across all servers)
There are 8 classes in Aion and player interest seems well spread across them. A perfect spread would be 12.5% into each and there aren't any classes that seem too heavily favored. The top three most popular classes appear to be Gladiators (17.4%), Sorcerers (14%), and Assassins (13%). The least popular classes are Spiritmasters (10.3%) and Chanters (10.9%).
Top 10 AP earners by class
Here we looked at the top 10 Abyss Point earners on the top 5 most populated servers by legion (Ariel, Marchutan, Lumiel, Israphel, and Azphel) and counted them up by class. As you can see, aside from Assassins being on top for both Elyos and Asmodian, the spread seems fairly even with the remaining classes.
Elyos: Assassins (11), Clerics (8), and Sorcerers (7) came out on top. Chanters, Gladiators, Rangers, and Templars all tied at 5. Spiritmasters were at the bottom with 4.
Asmodian: Assassins (12), Rangers (8), and Gladiators (7) came out on top. Spiritmasters (6), Clerics (5), and Sorcerers (5) were in the middle of the pack. Templars (4) and Chanters (3) were at the bottom.
Top 5 legions by contribution points
Here we looked at the top 5 legions ranked by contribution points across the top 5 most populated servers by legions and counted up the total contribution points. While Asmodians may have a greater population as evidenced by the realm balance chart at the top of this page, it seems the top Elyos legions are holding their own.
Asmodians have a slight lead on Ariel, Marchutan, and Israphel but the Elyos legions are completely dominating them on Lumiel (unofficial roleplay server) by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. Elyos also hold a slight lead on Azphel. Overall, the Elyos hold a nearly 5,000,000 contribution point lead over the Asmodians across the servers polled in total.
We're curious, what sort of meaning do you derive from these numbers? Is there something you'd like us to look into specifically?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alluvian_Est-Endrati said on 4:19PM 11-13-2009
How I love seeing statistics like these. Likely the forced population balancing mechanisms were for the best, else I think we would see numbers here that were very disparate across the realms. No surprise that Assassins were the top AP earners in that little graph.
What I would really like to see is the class breakdown by realm. I think it is likely that each realm favors certain classes above the others and the breakdown (certainly at the higher levels) will eventually show this off quite well I think.
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Mr Angry said on 4:43PM 11-13-2009
If you check out the website, the class distribution is fairly stable between servers, maybe a few percent here and there.
Suspiro said on 7:04PM 11-13-2009
check My Aion here for all server stats
http://na.aiononline.com/myaion
Aaron said on 5:06PM 11-13-2009
I'd just like to point out that the reason there there seem to be so many more gladiators than all other classes is because virtually all bots and gold farmers play gladiators.
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The Claw said on 5:49PM 11-13-2009
51:49 faction ratio would be the envy of every other two-faction game, surely?
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Scarr said on 6:04PM 11-13-2009
The 50/50 asmo/elyos split suggests to me that the stats are for all characters ever created, and not just active players. Seems like it would be very hard to maintain those ratios as people come and go. They were very strict in the beginning as to where people created characters. With those million characters created evenly, the ratios are now easier to maintain. All just conjecture though...
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HolyLiaison said on 8:00PM 11-13-2009
I find is shocking that barely anyone is in the mid 20-30 range. I got up to mid twenties in a couple weeks right after launch then quit because the super long grind ahead.
What I take from these numbers is that a lot of people were like me, and quite in their mid-20's because it started becoming a drag. Cause honestly, there should be more 20-40's by now.
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Ganesh said on 10:17AM 11-14-2009
i quit when my two toons were in their upper 20s because i ran out of all of the quests and i hated doing the repeatable quests and TG. really, after hitting the upper 20s, i just got bored of the game. aion is a gorgeous game, but playing it can be dull.
to improve the game, ncsoft should:
1) allow instanced pvp before 25. as it is, you don't get to pvp at all before 25 (except rifting)
2) make the level grind less painful, and
3) make the crafting grind less boring. and it's incredibly boring.
most likely, given how slow they are to respond to anything, the servers will only have the annoying bots left by the time ncsoft addresses these concerns.
Atnor said on 1:10PM 11-14-2009
Aye, my wife and I played up until low 20s, and then ran out of quests to do, and had pretty much gotten over the "having to just straight up grind out mobs" to finish a 1/2 level or so. It got so every single level was like that. It got old quick.
I think the stats listed bear that out, and will continue like that.
It also sucked because I always got the feeling that we were making it "extra" hard on ourselves because we were trying to duo together.
We just stopped logging in and eventually cancelled. A grind is one thing, but the world itself, plus what we understood to be the higher level game, werent enticing and interesting enough to warrant grinding stuff out.
Agree with others, boring world, grind put me off. And even if they fix it, I dont care enough anymore to ever want to go back. They had their shot at my wallet, oh well :)
Wjowski said on 9:12PM 11-13-2009
I'll bet the bot->real player ratio is alot more skewed.
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Sorcefire said on 10:06PM 11-13-2009
In regards to SMs being the lowest AP earner on the Asmo side I would like to point out that this is, along with the unpopularity of the class, is due to the fact that pets do not fly in the Abyss.
Pets have to be re-summoned at each landing and when fighting in PVP you don't have the time to do so. This deprives SMs of a goodly portion of their DPS in some cases.
Another aspect that makes SMs so unpopular is that the pet AI is goofy and the threat mechanics not very clear. I don't understand why the tanking pet (Earth) has a lower taunt ability than the balanced DPS (Fire) pet? Just plain goofy and not very well explained.
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Thomas said on 2:39PM 11-14-2009
How is it to play Aion for an European, since all the servers are located in US?
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Darren Chan said on 12:18AM 11-15-2009
If you only played till the low 20s I think you're missing out. At 25 you get to enter the abyss and do pvp and also you get your first instance. 23-25 is a terrible, boring grind but I think it gets a bit better after that.
Also bots are usually gladiators. I don't know if that's enough to cause a 3% population shift but who knows.
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chriskovo said on 3:39PM 11-15-2009
Once you get to 25 its just a gankfest anyway. There is usually no assaults going on because everything is timed and then when u explore you are just ganked every where u go by 3 mobs or more. Sorry that is not fun pvp for me. I really wish warhammer didnt tank it had some interesting ideas.
lazymangaka said on 12:25AM 11-15-2009
It's amazing so many people would want to play characters with back hair mohawks.
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Crestfallen said on 4:09PM 11-17-2009
Lots of info, but does anyone care?
The vast majority of the population is being played by scripts anyway.
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jetah said on 7:33PM 11-17-2009
Don't forget that the Trade Broker has a limit of only 10 items PER character. Many people, myself included, have a few L10 alts just for posting items on the TB.
SM's do have a disadvantage in the Abyss. Patch 1.6 is suppose to introduce the ability for pets to fly (I assume if the SM glides the pet will also). This may turn the Abyss Points per class in favor of the SM.
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