Guides

[center][img]https://78.media.tumblr.com/f553d0c000bceff462f507f5ddd7252e/tumblr_p6if8n32CM1tes27xo1_500.png[/img][/center] Ever wondered how your flight's population is changing? Is it increasing or decreasing? How has it changed over the years? Well, now you can know! I have been tracking flight populations on a weekly basis since Late Summer of 2014. I also have earlier population sizes (back to the launch of the site), which were found scattered throughout various forum posts and previous tracking attempts. [center][url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JpWSlIWE9TnQ0dCq5oe2xsJ7g2dy5PYFmvpT2o2rqGE/edit?usp=sharing][img]https://57.media.tumblr.com/d58ab3c6400848dab05ebe3cebdb237b/tumblr_oags7jwElH1tes27xo1_400.png[/img][/url] [/center] [center][b]Update Schedule[/b] Regular tracking began on Sunday 9/21/2014. Numbers are added to the sheet every Sunday! Maybe with new pinglist system I'll actually do the weekly Sunday pings lol [pinglist=2484][/center]

[center][img]https://66.media.tumblr.com/65114008a034fef5c17a6fa19fcfa2bc/tumblr_oags7jwElH1tes27xo2_500.png[/img][/center] Note: Updates post on Sundays at around 9AM FR Time. [columns][emoji=yellow gem size=1] [nextcol][color=transparent]<>[/color][nextcol] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [size=5][b]Latest Weekly Update[/b][/size][/columns] I'm not putting these on the front page anymore, please see the latest page of the thread! [columns][emoji=pink gem 2 size=1] [nextcol][color=transparent]<>[/color][nextcol] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [size=5][b]Average Weekly Growth[/b][/size][/columns] [img]https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/498845335439802368/1036305119525994596/Average_Weekly_Growth_by_Flight_and_Year1.png[/img] (open in new tab to view better) This is the average growth of each flight by year. Some interesting things of note: - The gaps between the mid-tier and small flights have been steadily closing. If you look at 2013-14, the clusters of flights were quite distinctly separated, but if you look at 2022-23 so far, the difference between the general flights and the small flights like Water/Fire/Earth are not actually that big. - Ice has gone from mid-tier to larger flight briefly in 2014-15 and it is now approaching small flight with regards to growth. - Plague has clearly gone from a mid-tier flight to one of the very large ones, while Wind went from one of the very large ones to a mid-tier flight. - Earth's growth has stayed fairly stable. [columns][emoji=purple gem size=1] [nextcol][color=transparent]<>[/color][nextcol] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [size=5][b]Growth Visualizer (2021)[/b][/size][/columns] I put the population data in a bar graph race / visualizer program, so now you can visually watch the flights increase in size and change and grow over time. It's much easier to see than a big unwieldy line graph and is quite fun to watch. I added some random historic events to keep it interesting. [url=https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/6793380/]Check it out here :3[/url] I highly recommend taking a peek at it, it's fun to see. I put the weekly change in as well. The app for some reason doesn't support negative numbers, so I did add a +100 to all of the change and put a line where it shifts to flights shrinking [url=https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/6794222/]You can also take a peek at that here :3[/url] This one doesn't start until I begin weekly tracking September 2014. You can clearly see: - cyclical nature of growth around flight fests and shrinking just after. - arcane & shadow grow during registration periods, ice & light grow outside registration periods, it's a whole roller coaster until open reg[/quote] [columns][emoji=green gem size=1] [nextcol][color=transparent]<>[/color][nextcol] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [size=5][b]Map Update: Glimpse into Lair Sizes[/b][/size][/columns] This is the spiciest glimpse of information we've ever gotten on flight populations. I managed to open the map as soon as the site came back, so my map showed the populations as they were when only a small number of users had moved. (I only counted THREE users outside of the starting locations, so I can confirm few had moved.) What this means, is that we now have data on how many users in each flight were in each lair size on March 1, 2021. First, some basic numbers: Total Populations - Largest to Smallest Shadow - 82363 Arcane - 75272 Plague - 59669 Wind - 54207 Lightning - 52445 Nature - 51037 Ice - 50688 Light - 47653 Water - 35275 Fire - 31780 Earth - 16979 Ancient Lairs - Largest to Smallest Light - 2702 Ice - 2271 Shadow - 2197 Arcane - 2166 Nature - 2131 Wind - 2125 Lightning - 1972 Plague - 1927 Water - 1441 Fire - 1190 Earth - 1093 Venerable Lairs - Largest to Smallest Shadow - 3938 Arcane - 3722 Light - 3664 Ice - 3489 Wind - 3343 Nature - 3089 Plague - 3021 Lightning - 2921 Water - 1935 Fire - 1635 Earth - 1097 Mighty Lairs - Largest to Smallest Shadow - 9102 Arcane - 8665 Ice - 7104 Wind - 6892 Plague - 6833 Light - 6784 Nature - 6601 Lightning - 5868 Water - 4202 Fire - 3430 Earth - 1921 Lesser Lairs - Largest to Smallest Shadow - 67126 Arcane - 60718 Plague - 47888 Wind - 41847 Lightning - 41684 Nature - 39216 Ice - 37824 Light - 34503 Water - 27697 Fire - 25525 Earth - 12868 I also grabbed a sum of all the non-lesser lairs because we know these people played a good bit. All Non-Lessser Lairs - Largest to Smallest Shadow - 15237 Arcane - 14553 Light - 13150 Ice - 12864 Wind - 12360 Nature - 11821 Plague - 11781 Lightning - 10761 Water - 7578 Fire - 6255 Earth - 4111 I then grabbed what percent of the flight's total population was at each lair size stage. % of Population in Ancient Lairs Earth - 6.44% Light - 5.67% Ice - 4.48% Nature - 4.18% Water - 4.09% Wind - 3.92% Lightning - 3.76% Fire - 3.74% Plague - 3.23% Arcane - 2.88% Shadow - 2.67% % of Population in Venerable Lairs Light - 7.69% Ice - 6.88% Earth - 6.46% Wind - 6.17% Nature - 6.05% Lightning - 5.57% Water - 5.49% Fire - 5.14% Plague - 5.06% Arcane - 4.94% Shadow - 4.78% % of Population in Mighty Lairs Light - 14.24% Ice - 14.02% Nature - 12.93% Wind - 12.71% Water - 11.91% Arcane - 11.51% Plague - 11.45% Earth - 11.31% Lightning - 11.19% Shadow - 11.05% Fire - 10.79% % of Population in Lesser Lairs Shadow - 81.5% Arcane - 80.67% Fire - 80.32% Plague - 80.26% Lightning - 79.48% Water - 78.52% Wind - 77.2% Nature - 76.84% Earth - 75.79% Ice - 74.62% Light - 72.4% We will never get this data again, because soon everyone will scatter about based on aesthetic, so this truly is an amazing opportunity. I haven't had time to really sit down and think about this, and what it implies, but it lines up very well with our pre-open-registration trend of ice & light gaining so many transfers. Super exciting, thanks for coming to my ted talk haha [columns][emoji=blue gem size=1] [nextcol][color=transparent]<>[/color][nextcol] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [size=5][b]Quarterly Site Growth[/b][/size][/columns] Here you can see the growth of each quarter since the site has opened. Years were split into Summer (June/July/August), Autumn (September/October/November), Winter (December/January/February), and Spring (March/April/May). [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/498845335439802368/797866311043907634/unknown.png[/img] The number of colors in each bar corresponds to the number of registration periods. Welcome Weeks started in Autumn 2016, so you can see that there was a very Slight increase in growth being open more often but not entirely substantial or long-lasting. You can also see Spring 2018's little open registration boost! [columns][emoji=purple gem size=1] [nextcol][color=transparent]<>[/color][nextcol] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [size=5][b]10k User Survey: 8/20/2017[/b][/size][/columns] Thank you so much to everyone who helped me with this project. As a re-cap, I took a random sample of 10000 user IDs and checked what flight they were in and whether or not that were active*. Do keep in mind that 10000 users is less than 3% of the flight rising population, so obviously the results are to be taken with a grain of salt. [size=2]*Activity was defined as to whether dragons were fed at all, because fed lairs were guaranteed active. All others were counted as inactive even if they might not be because there's no guaranteed way to tell except by checking forum activity - which is time consuming and most FR users don't use the forums anyway. For this reason, all activity numbers are likely slightly higher than indicated in this survey.[/size] [b]User Activity[/b] Of the 10000 users, 1632 of them were still active, for a total of about 16.32%. If we break this down by flight, it looks like this: Light: 182/853 (21.34% active) Earth: 50/267 (18.73% active) Ice: 175/969 (18.06% active) Nature: 155/885 (17.51% active) Plague: 181/1036 (17.47% active) Fire: 105/620 (16.94% active) Water: 99/590 (16.78% active) Wind: 167/1002 (16.67% active) Arcane: 194/1260 (15.40% active) Shadow: 206/1397 (14.75% active) Lightning: 118/942 (12.53% active) Of all the flights, Light and Ice have the highest percentages of their population indicated as active. This is no surprise, considering the transfer numbers. Shadow, Arcane, and Lightning have the lowest active percentages, with Lightning as the lowest by quite a bit. While I expected Shadow and Arcane, I did not see to expect Lightning among them - so that was definitely a surprise. [b]FR Active Populations[/b] If we were to assume that these active percentages were accurate, we could estimate the active users on site as follows: Shadow: 6692 (out of 45379) Arcane: 6527 (out of 42390) Light: 6203 (out of 29071) Wind: 5776 (out of 34655) Plague: 5752 (out of 32922) Ice: 5628 (out of 31162) Nature: 5210 (out of 29746) Lightning: 3971 (out of 31703) Water: 3446 (out of 20535) Fire: 3246 (out of 19164) Earth: 1687 (out of 9010) This is not far off of the actual order for the flights from largest to smallest - except that Light is actually much larger in active population than total. (I've speculated for a long time that Light may be one of the largest flights with regards to active users.) Additionally, Lightning may be much smaller than we would have thought. [b]FR Retention Rates[/b] I broke the numbers down further to try to figure out when active users joined. As you can see in this graph, activity drops off very quickly to to around 15% in the first 6 months, with less than 40% of users making it beyond the first month. After that, though, it remains relatively steady. It's safe to assume that most people who make it through the first 6 months are in it for the long haul. [img]https://68.media.tumblr.com/6a89f9d716cf1867d37ce61b7ad63fcb/tumblr_ouzuhxvhNa1tes27xo1_1280.png[/img] [b]Flight Newbness[/b] Since the retention rate is pretty much a big drop-off, I decided to define newbs as users who are 3 months old or less and split the users in half to see what percentage of a flight's population is made up of newbies. Arcane: 39/194 (20.10% newbs) Plague: 34/181 (18.78% newbs) Water: 16/99 (16.16% newbs) Light: 29/182 (15.93% newbs) Lightning: 18/118 (15.25% newbs) Nature: 23/155 (14.84% newbs) Wind: 24/167 (14.37% newbs) Shadow: 28/206 (13.59% newbs) Earth: 6/50 (12.00% newbs) Ice: 15/175 (8.57% newbs) Fire: 8/105 (7.62% newbs) There's... some parts of this that I would expect (for example Arcane having a lot of newbs and Ice having very few), but the rest is kind of unexpected. Light has quite a lot of newbs, while Shadow doesn't have so many. To me, this seems to mean that the transfers are happening faster than 3 months even. I almost set the border at 6 months, but I thought that that was a little too long to call someone a newb. I pulled the numbers for around 1 month old newbs out of curiosity, but these numbers are too small to really be even the slightest bit trustworthy and... were pretty much in line with the numbers for 3 month olds so the transfers might be happening even faster than that? A mystery for sure... Anyway... that's all I've got for now!

[center][img]https://56.media.tumblr.com/406712d63e5ffb1ac079186169d6ea43/tumblr_oags7jwElH1tes27xo3_500.png[/img][/center] [center][img]http://56.media.tumblr.com/aa5c0d11068f10de92c1e34daaefd766/tumblr_o1zrsv44JN1ufdm5xo1_400.png[/img][/center] [center][b]Flight Weekly Records[/b] (Pre-Open Registration)[/center] I have assembled the highest and lowest weekly change ever recorded for each flight. There are some flights that are often decreasing in size and some flights that are often increasing in size. The Record Low and Record High involve the greatest loss and gain that do NOT occur during a registration period or in the week following. The Record Registration involves the greatest gain during a registration period. Numbers used are all post-regular tracking, aka 09/21/2014 and later. [b]Earth Flight[/b] Record Low: -12 (12/7/2014) Record High: +19 (5/7/2017) Record Registration: +487 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Slightly Positive[/i] [b]Plague Flight[/b] Record Low: -17 (3/27/2016 and 11/5/2017) Record High: +79 (10/11/2015) Record Registration: +2089 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Cycles Up and Down[/i] [b]Wind Flight[/b] Record Low: -63 (4/17/2016) Record High: +38 (4/2/2017) Record Registration: +2401 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Moderately Negative[/i] [b]Water Flight[/b] Record Low: -21 (1/18/2015) Record High: +25 (5/1/2016) Record Registration: +1404 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Slightly Negative[/i] [b]Lightning Flight[/b] Record Low: -28 (10/11/2015) Record High: +24 (8/2/2015) Record Registration: +2015 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Mostly Neutral[/i] [b]Ice Flight[/b] Record Low: -9 (4/2/2017) Record High: +112 (1/4/2015) Record Registration: +1626 (4/9/2015) [i]Tendency: Extremely Positive[/i] [b]Shadow Flight[/b] Record Low: -41 (7/12/2015) Record High: +39 (1/11/2015) Record Registration: +2813 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Extremely Negative[/i] [b]Light Flight[/b] Record Low: -4 (11/8/2015) Record High: +69 (1/18/2015) Record Registration: +1445 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Extremely Positive[/i] [b]Arcane Flight[/b] Record Low: -83 (1/14/2015) Record High: +38 (9/27/2015) Record Registration: +3113 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Extremely Negative[/i] [b]Nature Flight[/b] Record Low: -32 (11/2/2014 and 1/14/2015) Record High: +31 (5/31/2015) Record Registration: +2203 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Moderately Negative[/i] [b]Fire Flight[/b] Record Low: -19 (9/23/2016 and 10/23/2016) Record High: +27 (8/30/2015) Record Registration: +1144 (10/14/2014) [i]Tendency: Mostly Neutral[/i] [center][img]http://56.media.tumblr.com/aa5c0d11068f10de92c1e34daaefd766/tumblr_o1zrsv44JN1ufdm5xo1_400.png[/img][/center] [center][b]Registration Periods[/b][/center] After registration periods, flights continue to grow for a couple of weeks as people sign up, but don't start playing. You can actually see people whose progens were born after registration if you look at high user IDs. One thing to notice is that the flights that are regularly increasing (such as Light & Ice) tend to have lower percent change during registration periods (their population comes from transfers vs new players) while other flights that often shrink over time (such as Shadow & Arcane) have a higher percent change (their population comes from new players vs transfers). [center][img]http://56.media.tumblr.com/aa5c0d11068f10de92c1e34daaefd766/tumblr_o1zrsv44JN1ufdm5xo1_400.png[/img][/center] [center][b]Drama[/b][/center] As far as I can tell, drama doesn't actually make that much of a difference. Even the biggest conflicts will only lose maybe 30-40 members more than usual over the course of a couple weeks (which is very typical for a larger flight on occasion anyway). You may be interested to learn that there isn't really any evidence of a mass exodus from flights after a "big scandal" as far as numbers are concerned. Chances are, the people leaving simply talk about it more (or are more active/high-profile users in the forums) so you were more aware of it than you normally would be. [center][img]http://56.media.tumblr.com/aa5c0d11068f10de92c1e34daaefd766/tumblr_o1zrsv44JN1ufdm5xo1_400.png[/img][/center] [center][b]Dominance: Winners, Losers, & Flight Sizes[/b][/center] [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/3091333/1]For 2021 data, see this post[/url] and also [url=https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/3091333/2#post_49982716]this follow-up[/url]!

Awesome! Thanks for the ping. Looking forward to the updates. =}

Migration Patterns, I love that.

Yay! Thanks for the ping :D

@Nimme Of course! I've added you!

@squidragon
May I use the numbers for my Infographics course? And the end product for my portfolio?