So, this a very hastily made chart, as anyone can see. It went through a couple of edits/minor revisions, and i'd say this is somewhat accurate to general player damage output, and the sources of the damage. To go over the points, i'll list them out below.

KEEP IN MIND, THE "100" ONLY INDICATES A MIDDLE-GROUND: THE POINT IN WHICH A PLAYER IN ANY CRITERIA IS PLAYING NOT AT THEIR BEST OR WORST. ANYTHING BEYOND 100 IS HOW MUCH EXTRA DAMAGE A CRITERIA INNATELY DOES AT ANY POINT.

Bad Players

• Typically rely on getting best-in-slot equipment, especially over-augmented equipment for the current content.
• Cannot clear Solo Profound Darkness or Phaleg(even with a C rank), with or without gear.
• Requires great gear to see any notable change in their "improvement"
• Even when taught or having seen tutorial/educational videos and streams, are unable to retain, or utilize the information.
• Typically don't care about getting better, or lack general gaming fundamentals. Usually falls under "casual" categories.
• As a result of not caring enough about getting better, will under-perform or even leech in any run they choose.

Average Players

• The general populace of PSO2, or any MMO. Not too concerned about whether they're amazing at the game or not. Comprised of both casuals and to-be skilled players. Drive to learn and improve varies, but knowledge will help their damage out quite a bit.
• Gear affects an average player's damage by a fair amount, but isn't gamebreaking. Will be able to clear content such as Solo Profound Darkness and Phaleg without best-in-slot gear. Perhaps not with an S rank, but is capable of clearing. Motivation dictates whether they want to clear harder content faster or not.
• Understands games as a whole well enough. Potentially capable of learning, understanding, and even creating good builds. Just needs proper direction/motivation to improve.
• May or may not put all their effort into runs. May sometimes leech, depending on how casual the person is.

Good Players

• Average players, or innately talented players, that broke out of the general mold. Capable of carrying runs on their own.
• Capable of clearing solo content such as Solo Profound Darkness, Phaleg, easily with an S rank and consistently. Capable of clearing said content with multiple classes, or just one class, but exceptionally fast.
• Gear only adds to their power; either poorly-augmented or god-tier augmented gear hardly makes or breaks their damage output: they will still outdamage anyone with great gear, while using stock/common gear.
• Knowledge still influences their play, and using knowledge, helps them optimize runs for even faster clear times until they hit the absolute peak speed they can go at.
• Limited only by their innate talent-- good player skill widely varies between people: both effort and raw ability can bring anyone up to this criteria.

Talented Players

• The 1% of the game/population. Whether they were taught or just learned on their own, they are beyond the reach of bad and average players. The mere presence of a talented player is equal to that of an entire party, or potentially more(4~6 people). Can easily carry the hardest content on their own.
• Sets ridiculously good records on any sort of challenge(speed kills on Profound Darkness, Phaleg, etc.)
• Can use any gear(within level of content), and will always deal the most damage.
• Whether it is through sheer motivation for any reason, or just genuine enjoyment of the game, greatly outperforms others. Prior experience, or months/years of playing does not factor into their skill.

Unlisted: MUTANTS/PRODIGIES

• The 0.1% of the game/population. These players are equal to 12 people in terms of raw damage output.
• Will outdamage anyone, including talented players.
• Will outdamage anyone with any kind of gear(within reason level of content).
• Experience/Total Playtime does not matter. They are just natural gods at the game.
• Sets impossible records on specific classes for speed kills: no one can break said records aside from other prodigies.
• Their bar on the chart will primarily be red and green: purple and blue will not be visible simply because there is no space to put those colors in.

Unlisted: Whales

• Keeps the game alive(Thank you!)
• Can fit under any criteria, from bad to prodigious
• Usually doesn't have much time to play, only 30 minutes~6 hours a day.
• Can be generous and give people freebies.
• Farming SG? What's that?
• Farming Meseta? What's that?
• Farming augments? What's that?
• Their bar on the chart is simply a question mark. They fit in any criteria: add +20% damage output under any criteria, and you have the "WHALE BONUS". Does not mean game is inherently p2w.
• Keeps the game alive(Thank you!)

Anyway... again, not the most accurate graph, but gives people a better understanding of what category they might fall under. Is this elitist? If the reader thinks it is, then it is. If not, then it isn't. This is an observation, a hyper-generalized one, at that.

Feel free to debate, share your opinion, or even state what category you might fall under. It took me longer to form this post than it did to scribble up this chart.

Also, bad and average can improve to good. Good improving to talented is a lot harder, and likely does not work. Nothing can improve to prodigy: those are just mystical creatures that happen to exist in the same plane as us.

Hm. What is your basis for saying the chart is "somewhat accurate"?

Is "I think this is how it is" = "somewhat accurate"?

Or have you recorded player damage data and statistically aggregated and analyzed the data? What's your sample size?

So what is the point of this post? You say this is an observation, but it is more of an opinion than anything else.

I'm just going to add that putting Solo PD and Phaleg on the same category is misleading as they represent completely different magnitudes of difficulty. Solo PD is basically just testing that you as an individual can handle a quest you've already been slamming your face into prior to this with no frills aside from not being able to be given a moon or have a Techter, Phaleg is not only designed explicitly to test the mettle of a solo player, but outright negates the ability of the player to tank it without arguably crippling overspecialization into bulk.

@kztm said in A generalization of Player Skill levels/criteria, reflected in a chart of damage output:

Hm. What is your basis for saying the chart is "somewhat accurate"?

Is "I think this is how it is" = "somewhat accurate"?

Or have you recorded player damage data and statistically aggregated and analyzed the data? What's your sample size?

There are plenty of videos, a damage parsing tool exists, and there are other means at which you can determine damage dealt by people if not using videos for reference or a parser.

Certain emergency trials in PSO2JP rate players based on their damage dealt. Score in mine defense also helps determine damage(as well as final result title): excluding crystal gatherers, the person who gets "King of Destruction" title dealt the most damage(by a large margin) in mine defense. There is also damage tally practice, though that is more a measurement of one's DPS rotation, if anything. General aggro laws(excluding War Cry, Hero Cry) also indicate who is doing the most damage.

You can also watch other players carefully, while dishing out your optimal rotation. If you see a Hunter using Cross cut ONLY, they are automatically on the bottom of the damage, even below the Techer. If you see a Ranger only using Steady Shot, they are automatically below the Ranger using Impact Slider/Positron Blast(in most cases).

The sample size is over hundreds of various emergency quests plenty, plenty people. 7-8 years of experience(while a bit skewed) also leads this to be more conclusive.

Again, it's somewhat accurate, and this is after meeting and dealing with people from all criteria.... the majority of which would fall under "Bad", unfortunately.

Also, i'm basing this both on NA and JP experiences, numbers, videos, etc.

@DarkstalkerX99 said in A generalization of Player Skill levels/criteria, reflected in a chart of damage output:

So what is the point of this post? You say this is an observation, but it is more of an opinion than anything else.

I'm average at the game IMO. I can do the solo PD fight easily enough with consistent s-ranks with less than optimal gear on my ranger. But "that fight", no way in hell. That ain't a PSO2 fight and despite the comparisons, it ain't even a Dark Souls fight. I mean even Dark Souls has the decency to allow you to heal if you can find a window of opportunity, nor does it time gate you on its boss fights. If the time limit wasn't there I could manage. Be hard and I'd take my sweet time and probably never get an S-rank, but I could manage.

I gave up on "that fight", not worth the rage or stress. Maybe in episode 6 with a 15* weapon and 13* units I'll try again, but not before.

@Lapinoire , Just a word of caution, I would avoid the use of damage parsing tools. Sega had made it official policy to ban Accounts found using such tools such as OverParse a long time ago and these remain rules which continue to be enforced (as in, while there are ways to go around the GameGuard block of said tools, you could be reported for using such tools): https://www.reddit.com/r/PSO2/comments/4qqwm9/sega_now_officially_threatening_account/

A lot of rules from the JP version, such as ban on accounts found leaving Urgent Quests early, had been brought over to the Global version. You may wanna be careful about openly bringing up such tools.

@Leonkh99 said in A generalization of Player Skill levels/criteria, reflected in a chart of damage output:

A lot of rules from the JP version, such as ban on accounts found leaving Urgent Quests early, had been brought over to the Global version. You may wanna be careful about openly bringing up such tools.

Merely bringing up the fact that it exists doesn't put someone at risk. Anyone who has joined or played with well-organized teams would know of the existence of parsing tools-- they simply exist in any MMO, whether the developers like it or not.

The bannable offense is publicly posting parse logs in social media sites(such as twitter, facebook) and forums, and using the logs to shame someone or a group of people.

Cool! This applies to every other game that is an MMO with similar features. Great job though, just saying it's not only tied to PSO2, since that's what you seem to only have played a lot of by the horrendous signature (takes half the screen). Almost similar to life besides the fact of inheritance and some dumb luck. Also, people are good at different things so being a prodigy of fighting bosses with audio queues vs visual queues vs attack patterns could also factor in big. Like (an exaggerated example), a blind person could be really good fighting Phaleg, but bad at fighting Deus, and etc. Also for those that might be upset; these kinds of charts are non-statistical, they are self surveyed samples, so people don't need to take it seriously. Lastly, talented can become a prodigy, the gap literally becomes non-existent as it's about retaining more knowledge than the other person. Natural can go far early in, but then knowledge stops them (that's when you see the prodigy actually try to study too). Average people start with knowledge, then acquire the way of the flow and in-the-zone to close the gap to prodigy (takes a bit longer but doable). There is no such thing as; unattainable, people just have to figure out what works best for them...

@Lapinoire said in A generalization of Player Skill levels/criteria, reflected in a chart of damage output:

The sample size is over hundreds of various emergency quests plenty, plenty people. 7-8 years of experience(while a bit skewed) also leads this to be more conclusive. Again, it's somewhat accurate, and this is after meeting and dealing with people from all criteria.... the majority of which would fall under "Bad", unfortunately. Also, i'm basing this both on NA and JP experiences, numbers, videos, etc.

So you have not done any actual statistical analysis. It's just anecdotal. You don't even have support evidence or theory to show that your experience is representative of the population.

We all know how subjective impression cannot be trusted, no matter how many years you have played the game.

Make no mistake, I'm not saying your conclusions are wrong, I just want to make it clear that you actually don't have a basis to claim it's somewhat accurate. It's your anecdotal experience only. You mention there are lots of videos and parses, but have you aggregated those actual numbers and made an analysis? Are those videos are parses representative of the population? Obivously not.

You can say, "from my experience, I believe this graph roughly represents the player population." But you cannot say "this graph is somewhat accurate."

It might sound like nitpicking, but you are making a rather significant claim when using the words "somewhat accurate".

Well when i belong on bad players when i did have really hard time doing explorations on super hard difficulty solo before i got 13 star weapon with +30 enhancement level , 11 star units at +10 enhancement level with ok augments and 2 rings that works well on my force class that then made doing explorations on super hard difficulty solo easy. I haven't tried Profound Darkness solo because it's a extreme difficulty urgent quest and i haven't unlocked Phaleg story quest.

So it would better if i stop playing PSO2 forever when no matter how hard i try, i will never able to speed run any mission on hardest difficulty without using good gear and outdamage every player with good or best gear. Also sorry for wasting good and talented players time for be bad player and playing PSO2 for 296 hours.

I'm between bad and average then... I can do Solo PD easily (with S-rank to boot) but I can't do Phaleg if my life depended on it.

Hello I was hoping to stroke my e-peen.

Have I come to the right place?

your graphic there is wrong bad players don't rely in good gear, they don't rely on anything they just use anything they find and go with it, bad players are bad players because they don't learn how the game works and they don't want to learn, is average players that rely mostly on gear because they are still learning how the mechanics works