I will just add, that the new patch set for July is shaping up to a game changer when it comes to getting gear. It is going to get DRASTICALLY easier.
To add on, @Ales_Hruby has added some awesome info here about the damage from weapons and armor with lower and higher gear score. The rift isnt as big as people make it out to be.
i think the game in on the cusp of being in a very good spot, personally.
Ales thats great but not reality I don’t think plus your infamy is not 625, I hit for about 1-1.5K vs being hit for 4k, its not the weapon dmg and yes you say the GS doesn’t matter or scale but there is hidden stuff that just isn’t showing in your test.
If there was just the weapon dmg difference then why is it that a fresh 60 in OPR/ Invasions etc etc is always bottom 10 unless that real lucky. I see it all the time, new ungeared 60’s hit like wet noodles until the GS on the weapon gets closer to 600…which to me is how the system is set up otherwise why grind to 600 or 625 when you would put out only 15% less damage according to your test, players wouldn’t need to grind at all. It shows in mutations right, same thing a fresh 60 cant do M10 coz of GS and Dmg …I’m not denying your numbers just saying there a lot more to it. As someone stated shooting a fully geared 625 player I dont think you get the same result and shouldn’t. Do I think you have a chance against them maybe if you get real lucky but unlikely in most cases.
I agree the expertise system is a bit ass
You can get through it pretty fast if you smash out all the chest runs and do some dungeons
In-game screens and testing in duels aren’t reality? Man honestly you are on denial.
In OPR there are milions of factors of why you are getting hit for 4k and doing 1,5k. You wear light, you have no fortify on yourself, you have no OPR buffs, your opponents can wear medium/heavy, have fortify stacked, have oils/dust on themselves etc. There are simply too many factors in OPR to test things.
You can’t test things in this environment.
Great testing. Thank you. 35% difference is still substantial. It’s probably even more for close combat classes as well aligned perks can really influence the outcome.
Fresh 60 are already penalized by skill level, financial abilities and gear selection. Adding 35% dmg boost behind weeks of grinding pve makes no sense if we want to attract more players. That’s why people here suggest for AGS to either make that grind fun or feasible time wise.
30% dmg diffence and negligible defensive difference between fresh players and 625 veteran players is pretty fine. Its an MMORPG after all, RPGs usually are about character progression. People should be rewarded for playing a game and getting stronger to a certain degree.
Purely skillbased PvP is not what MMORPGs offer and definitely isn’t what keeps people playing the game, look at Lost Arks normalised arenas, they are completely dead, why? Because people like character progression and they want their gear they earned matter.
You just need to find a compromise, 30% dmg difference is pretty ok.
More like 2 months.
Ye expertise is much easier to get nowadays. AGS introduces so many ways of how to efficiently get your Exp up and people still do these inefficient chest runs. I don’t get it.
What do you mean we have 10k players?
They see the peaks and think that is everyone that plays the game playing at once at the same time
The peak online is 12,000 - the data is publicly available. This is across all servers and regions. I think they should consolidate servers again.
Steam has peak at 17,808 right now? And it’s not even peak hour for the day. Weird. Not 10k. I guess people just make up numbers to make themselves feel better.
Don’t forget some of the difference in damage is coming from the difference of perks too. Which cost a hell of coin.
Look at last 7d and last 30d. I literally looked last night so either you are trolling or looking at a much longer timeframe to inflate the numbers 
My bad I didn’t include Europe. 16k with Europe.
I’m looking at the current players right this moment…
https://steamcharts.com/app/1063730
Are we living in different realities?
Strange.
I like your numbers better. Makes the game less dead 
Yea, it’s just higher than normal because of the weekend. The trends look bad, especially after the GC nerf (it looks like thousands of people quit right after the nerf).
The numbers are what they are. I just don’t understand why people claim 9000 players, 10,000 players, when it’s so easy to prove them wrong just by looking at current steam chart.
He said he was looking at US servers only, which has 6500 players online currently.
Additionally, I think most people are talking about averages over a timeframe. Not necessarily the number of players playing at that particular moment.