Guild Renown Changes

[eris2323]

The cool thing about being squelched is that you're the only one who doesn't see my posts, all of the rest of the forum population do :)

But, yet again, you have proven my point - you are not here to discuss, you are here to preach your sermon, and you will silence all who oppose you!

Luckily you succeeded in PART of your proposal - you wanted your system to be transparent - well; it is - it's transparently obvious that it will harm the game and large guilds, solely to benefit tiny and solo guilds.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I know that's why imo he wants to punish large guilds who foster a sense of community for all players. I don't get it, it harms the game, it's why I sometimes think he works for NWO.

/squelch. DFTT

[Tshober]

I know that's why imo he wants to punish large guilds who foster a sense of community for all players. I don't get it, it harms the game, it's why I sometimes think he works for NWO.


Well, he does say that he never ever wants any guild to lose levels but he absolutely insists that his plan must allow them to do just that. I don't know what to make of that logic. Your theory makes more sense than that to me and I am usually very skeptical about conspiracies.

[UurlockYgmeov]

And it doesn't change that decay per account damages the playerbase's sense of community.

We never left decay per account - just now the large guilds don't feel it.

Examples:

ten account level 100 guild : 6,750 decay per account.
one-hundred account level 100 guild: 675 decay per account
one-thousand account level 100 guild: 67.5 decay per account.


That is decay per account. the temporary system is as broken as the old system.

Now lets find a solution rather than pointing fingers and feeding the trolls.

[Charononus]

Well, he does say that he never ever wants any guild to lose levels but he absolutely insists that his plan must allow them to do just that. I don't know what to make of that logic. Your theory makes more sense than that to me and I am usually very skeptical about conspiracies.

Exactly there has been such a low amount of logic that leads to two options, one is probably against forum rules to state, the other is conspiracy theory.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Well, he does say that he never ever wants any guild to lose levels but he absolutely insists that his plan must allow them to do just that. I don't know what to make of that logic.

TINC.

personally - I don't want guild to loose levels. That is personally.

The system on the other hand needs balance. For balance to be present in a system - there must be a chance of loosing a level.

[Charononus]

TINC.

personally - I don't want guild to loose levels. That is personally.

The system on the other hand needs balance. For balance to be present in a system - there must be a chance of loosing a level.

That's not balance it's a poor design in guild xp just like it was in character xp.

[Zargarx]

Unless told otherwise, guild size cannot be part of the equation as per dev post.

So, outside of removing renown (that also does not appear to be an option), how can mitigate the heavy decay rate per account for smaller guilds that was massively reduced for large guild?

I've made a few previous suggestion with the following a slightly adjusted version of my favorite.

As almost all of the better buffs are below guild level 65, my suggestion is that decay is linear from level 26 to 60, and then accelerates until level 100 matches the current decay rate (basically compress the decay scaling to above level 60).

This does minimizes the decay impact for almost all small guilds while still keeping decay very relevant if trying to reach level 100 for power guilds.

There will not be any perfect solution, but given the current info given by the devs I think this is a reasonable and likely quick/simple change.

[Tshober]

We never left decay per account - just now the large guilds don't feel it.

Examples:
[list]
ten account level 100 guild : 6,750 decay per account.
one-hundred account level 100 guild: 675 decay per account
one-thousand account level 100 guild: 67.5 decay per account.

That is decay per account. the temporary system is as broken as the old system.



I think I am squelched but...

With all due respect, I don't think you understand what was being discussed. The current system adds no additional decay per account at all. None. But both the old decay system and your proposal do add more decay for each account. That is why your plan has the same problems that the old system had.

[Tshober]

TINC.

personally - I don't want guild to loose levels. That is personally.

The system on the other hand needs balance. For balance to be present in a system - there must be a chance of loosing a level.


Help me out here. How does guilds losing levels equal balance? It sounds like some silly philosophical yin/yang thing. If we all agree that guilds losing levels is bad, why not just make it so it does not happen. What does that hurt? The mystical balance of the universe? What exactly is the harm done to DDO if guilds don't lose levels?

[UurlockYgmeov]

I think I am squelched but...

With all due respect, I don't think you understand what was being discussed. The current system adds no additional decay per account at all. None. But both the old decay system and your proposal do add more decay for each account. That is why your plan has the same problems that the old system had.

With all due respect I do understand. The old system just had way too much decay that ramped up way too high as you got higher in levels. (went from a 2.5 multiplier to a 4 (IIRC) multiplier at level 100).

The old system had per account on both sides of the equation. Now the temporary system has a 20 in place of the account on one side of the equation - but still retains the per account on the other.

As long as their is decay - their will always be a per account on one side of the equation.

Math to compute decay on one side of the equation - and the other side is math to compute decay shares.

[Decay Computation] = [Decay Share]

best I can come up with to explain

It isn't about how many members earn - it is about just plain how many members.

In order to remove the bias you must have accounts on both side of the equation.

I know people don't understand or choose to understand this and let the flaming begin.

Its about a balanced system - and system B (my proposal does that) AND eliminates the pressure to boot due to guild size optimization.

[Nestroy]

Tshober,

do you remember our discussion on guild renown in the general forum?

I do fondly remember - partly because Uur was not spamming, but mostly because there were loooots of good ideas brought up.

In regard of guilds being able to go back into obscurity, there was one solution proposed by quite a lot of players to formulate a hefty decay penalty for guilds that went completely inactive (no log in of any member within a month) until they finally dissolve automatically after a given period of time.

This easy-to-implement (a few simple SQL statements would suffice) solution would work fine for all active guilds, would as well help clean up the servers from the garbage guilds and would fullfill the one and only function of decay we could think off: Weed out the inactive.

But then again, this does not look that beautifully annyoing pink on every full-spammed side in this thread as with other "solutions" presented here.

[Charononus]

With all due respect I do understand. The old system just had way too much decay that ramped up way too high as you got higher in levels. (went from a 2.5 multiplier to a 4 (IIRC) multiplier at level 100).

The old system had per account on both sides of the equation. Now the temporary system has a 20 in place of the account on one side of the equation - but still retains the per account on the other.

As long as their is decay - their will always be a per account on one side of the equation.

Math to compute decay on one side of the equation - and the other side is math to compute decay shares.

[Decay Computation] = [Decay Share]

best I can come up with to explain

It isn't about how many members earn - it is about just plain how many members.

In order to remove the bias you must have accounts on both side of the equation.

I know people don't understand or choose to understand this and let the flaming begin.

Its about a balanced system - and system B (my proposal does that) AND eliminates the pressure to boot due to guild size optimization.
You keep claiming that it eliminates the pressure to boot, we keep saying it does not and offering reasons why it doesn't. You want to actually convince someone refute the point don't just keep repeating yourself. Unless you know others are right.

What you call bias others call the facts of life, more people can accomplish something of this nature faster than less people.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Help me out here. How does guilds losing levels equal balance? It sounds like some silly philosophical yin/yang thing. If we all agree that guilds losing levels is bad, why not just make it so it does not happen. What does that hurt? The mystical balance of the universe? What exactly is the harm done to DDO if guilds don't lose levels?

The specific reasons are for the devs to say. I can only speculate, and rather not because the doomsayers will spin my thoughts.

I can say that the system has always had the possibility of possible decline and atrophy.

I can also say that the first choice of my proposal is to eliminate decay.

If the dev's aren't willing to eliminate decay - then that also means they won't be willing to make it so that you can't actually loose renown - because they essentially are the same concept.

What we can do is minimize the amount a person can loose - and the ways they can loose it. Currently with only test numbers - the most that can be lost by anyone earning renown in a level 50 guild (of any size) is 125 renown. And since it is over 350,000 renown from level 49-50 and over 380,000 renown from level 50 to 51 - it would take 2,940 player renown days of not getting a trophy in order to backslide enough to go from mid 50 to mid 49.

[Tshober]

Tshober,

do you remember our discussion on guild renown in the general forum?

I do fondly remember - partly because Uur was not spamming, but mostly because there were loooots of good ideas brought up.

In regard of guilds being able to go back into obscurity, there was one solution proposed by quite a lot of players to formulate a hefty decay penalty for guilds that went completely inactive (no log in of any member within a month) until they finally dissolve automatically after a given period of time.

This easy-to-implement (a few simple SQL statements would suffice) solution would work fine for all active guilds, would as well help clean up the servers from the garbage guilds and would fullfill the one and only function of decay we could think off: Weed out the inactive.

But then again, this does not look that beautifully annyoing pink on every full-spammed side in this thread as with other "solutions" presented here.


Yes, lots of good ideas were being discussed until somewhat recently. Now because we have to deal with a spammer, it is far more difficult to discuss any other ideas. Most people in this thread have had the simple courtesy to post their proposal once or twice and then refer to it thereafter with links. That allowed many different ideas to all get equal discussion.

[UurlockYgmeov]

In regard of guilds being able to go back into obscurity, there was one solution proposed by quite a lot of players to formulate a hefty decay penalty for guilds that went completely inactive (no log in of any member within a month) until they finally dissolve automatically after a given period of time.

Good idea - kindly develop it further and will include it in the proposal!


In regard of guilds being able to go back into obscurity, there was one solution proposed by quite a lot of players to formulate a hefty decay penalty for guilds that went completely inactive (no log in of any member within a month) until they finally dissolve automatically after a given period of time. Thank you Nestroy! (http://forums.ddo.com/member.php?u=430250)

[eris2323]

Good idea - kindly develop it further and will include it in the proposal!


In regard of guilds being able to go back into obscurity, there was one solution proposed by quite a lot of players to formulate a hefty decay penalty for guilds that went completely inactive (no log in of any member within a month) until they finally dissolve automatically after a given period of time. Thank you Nestroy! (http://forums.ddo.com/member.php?u=430250)


So.... wait... now you want people to actually lose their guilds if they go too casual?

This is a disgusting proposal, and I will not support that either.

That would also actively harm the game and the social atmosphere.

It actually works to destroy solo guilds entirely - woops, I got involved with another game, there goes my guild, forever. Never mind the fact that someone might have paid money for their guild, their ship; now you want to impose your own morality of 'you must play or there goes your guild'

You just can't seem to stop latching onto bad ideas.

The continued attacks by you on large guilds, medium guilds, and now towards tiny and solo guilds is baffling; I request you stop attacking everyones playstyle and insisting we play the same way you do.

[Tshober]

The specific reasons are for the devs to say. I can only speculate, and rather not because the doomsayers will spin my thoughts.

I can say that the system has always had the possibility of possible decline and atrophy.

I can also say that the first choice of my proposal is to eliminate decay.

If the dev's aren't willing to eliminate decay - then that also means they won't be willing to make it so that you can't actually loose renown - because they essentially are the same concept.

What we can do is minimize the amount a person can loose - and the ways they can loose it. Currently with only test numbers - the most that can be lost by anyone earning renown in a level 50 guild (of any size) is 125 renown. And since it is over 350,000 renown from level 49-50 and over 380,000 renown from level 50 to 51 - it would take 2,940 player renown days of not getting a trophy in order to backslide enough to go from mid 50 to mid 49.


First, my suggestion of having a minimum net decay of zero does not eliminate decay. You can still lose all of the renown you earned to decay, all the way down to zero.

You are arguing that the total amount that can be lost to decay in your plan as it is now (w/o my suggestion) is tiny. Logically that means that the difference between your plan with my suggestion and your plan without my suggestion must be just as tiny. If the difference really is as tiny as you claim, then why not just incorporate my suggestion? It would only reduce decay just a tiny bit more, by your own numbers, and it would eliminate the possibility that players might be shunned/kicked because they earned less renown than they cost in decay. Such a tiny difference in decay amount is surely worth not discriminating against casual & social players, isn't it?

[eris2323]

We never left decay per account - just now the large guilds don't feel it.

Examples:
[list]
ten account level 100 guild : 6,750 decay per account.
one-hundred account level 100 guild: 675 decay per account
one-thousand account level 100 guild: 67.5 decay per account.

That is decay per account. the temporary system is as broken as the old system.

Now lets find a solution rather than pointing fingers and feeding the trolls.

It is very hard to have a 1000 account guild; you're at the max, and each character would have only one char in guild.

Most large guilds allow the alts - I know, I know, you have no experience with this situation, but that's how it goes...

Why you would even discuss a 1000 account guild is beyond me; I'm not sure such a beast has ever existed, or will.

Looks like you're just using unrealistic number again, to emphasize the differences - but nevertheless, unrealistic they are ;)

[Tshober]

In regard of guilds being able to go back into obscurity, there was one solution proposed by quite a lot of players to formulate a hefty decay penalty for guilds that went completely inactive (no log in of any member within a month) until they finally dissolve automatically after a given period of time. Thank you Nestroy! (http://forums.ddo.com/member.php?u=430250)


Actually, I don't have a problem with this. If no player in the guild even logs in once in an entire month, then that guild is effectively a dead guild. I see no good reason to perpetuate dead guilds. If a member of such a dead guild comes back to DDO, then they can join another guild or buy a new guild charter and start over. IMO, we already have far too many dead guilds in this game. If there is great objection from the solo guild crowd, then I could see maybe extending the time limit to 2 or 3 months, but for me 1 month seems fine.

[Enoach]

We never left decay per account - just now the large guilds don't feel it.

Examples:

ten account level 100 guild : 6,750 decay per account.
one-hundred account level 100 guild: 675 decay per account
one-thousand account level 100 guild: 67.5 decay per account.

That is decay per account. the temporary system is as broken as the old system.

Now lets find a solution rather than pointing fingers and feeding the trolls.

I think the main hang-up here is that the Decay Amount Total is no longer the sum of per Account. It can still be divided up on an Account Basis. Which does show a bit of an advantage to larger "Account" guilds because they have more "hands".

However, I've pointed this out at the beginning of this thread when another posted numbers like this. To fairly represent the numbers you need to consider the "Renown Adjustment".

1 150%
2 180%
3 210%
4 240%
5 270%
6 300%
7 285%
8 270%
9 255%
10 240%

Your example of 10 Account Guild with a total of 67,500 Decay a day actually requires pulling 2,812.5 Renown per day per Account. While still almost 5x per account more than a 100 Account Guild it is still 562.5 renown per account Less than a 20 Account Guild which needs 3,375.

I'm utilizing the 20 Account Adjusted Guild Size as that appears to be the point Turbine has set as a baseline.

Under the Current System with everyone having the same Decay Amount at any level. It appears that Guild Sizes of 8 - 10 Actually fair better than 20 Account Guilds, with 6 and 7 Account Guilds fairing just slightly worse on a Guild Renown to Account Ratio requirement to cover Decay.

The main sticking point is what Size should be the "Average" renown earner. I don't know what the Average Account size is per Guild on a Server. I'm pretty sure that we don't have any 1,000 Account Guilds, but I could see we may have a few in the 500 range - but I would be inclined more towards Large Guilds actually having somewhere between 250 to 300 Individual Accounts at any given time.

[Nestroy]

So.... wait... now you want people to actually lose their guilds if they go too casual?

This is a disgusting proposal, and I will not support that either.

That would also actively harm the game and the social atmosphere.

It actually works to destroy solo guilds entirely - woops, I got involved with another game, there goes my guild, forever. Never mind the fact that someone might have paid money for their guild, their ship; now you want to impose your own morality of 'you must play or there goes your guild'

You just can't seem to stop latching onto bad ideas.

The continued attacks by you on large guilds, medium guilds, and now towards tiny and solo guilds is baffling; I request you stop attacking everyones playstyle and insisting we play the same way you do.

The original idea some time back was going along more moderate lines actually. The orignal idea was to give decay any purpose.

So no decay for any active guild regardless of size and level as long as any member logs in any time before going inactive. So only truely inactive guilds would get the decay. Inactivity in the original idea would have followed the 1-month policy for accounts.

In the original idea, a guild would loose a certain ammount of decay equaling 1/12th of total renown before going inactive. So the guild would need one year to reach exactly zero renown. Upon reaching zero renown after one full year of inactivity the guild would be officially dissolved and would not eat up resources on the server, from repopulating ships to being the last guild on the leaderboards.

Of course the guild would only be marked "dissolved" and the regular scripts would not repopulate the guild on the server. Upon any former account from that guild entering the game again, there could be a script safeguard reopening the guild with whatever status the DEVs would deem right for a guild nobody had cared about for at least one year.

But then again, this was proposed when there was the big discussion about decay in general when even the great guilds did battle the decay system.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Actually, I don't have a problem with this. If no player in the guild even logs in once in an entire month, then that guild is effectively a dead guild. I see no good reason to perpetuate dead guilds. If a member of such a dead guild comes back to DDO, then they can join another guild or buy a new guild charter and start over. IMO, we already have far too many dead guilds in this game. If there is great objection from the solo guild crowd, then I could see maybe extending the time limit to 2 or 3 months, but for me 1 month seems fine.

Am thinking of having the decay increase over time - but we need to allow for a little longer period of time - just in case the entire guild was say a family and they went on a cruise that got stuck in Sint Maartin.. :P

or :eek: was a soccer team on a road trip and they got stuck in the middle of Montana surrounded by halfling paladins and barbarians! :p

But slowly increasing the decay after no logins after a month (start slowly) and allow for the guild to totally slip away after six months (whatever is the time frame for the game to archive characters???)

The game mechanic is simple - fewer dead guilds (guilds without members) to clog the servers up during maintenance and reboots (repopulate ships).

Still might want to have a grandfather clause so existing guilds don't take offense - but all new guilds agree that if your guild has no members or is inactive for xxx period of time - it will atrophy (faster and faster) until it goes *poof*.

[UurlockYgmeov]

First, my suggestion of having a minimum net decay of zero does not eliminate decay. You can still lose all of the renown you earned to decay, all the way down to zero.

You are arguing that the total amount that can be lost to decay in your plan as it is now (w/o my suggestion) is tiny. Logically that means that the difference between your plan with my suggestion and your plan without my suggestion must be just as tiny. If the difference really is as tiny as you claim, then why not just incorporate my suggestion? It would only reduce decay just a tiny bit more, by your own numbers, and it would eliminate the possibility that players might be shunned/kicked because they earned less renown than they cost in decay. Such a tiny difference in decay amount is surely worth not discriminating against casual & social players, isn't it?

what you are suggesting is a tax - so you might as well just reduce renown earned in general by 10% and that would have the same effect.

Tiny still equates difference, noticeable measurable difference.

But your suggestion would then increase the possibility of players being booted/shunned because they didn't earn enough renown. As I have stated - you cannot eliminate this completely because it is a human thing, all you can do is eliminate as much as you can by making the system fair and by eliminating the biggest causes of concern - the daily mail checker and social gamer (which I do all the time - log in and do mail / guild chat) and sometimes I get to play (depending upon lag and my internet connection)

You suggestion does that by eliminating decay. I say eliminating because the guild cannot decay because the only source of decay in your suggestion has been eliminated because your cannot be affected my more decay than you earn.

Let's chalk this one up to fundamental differences. I have added you new suggestion to the proposal - right after eliminate decay altogether.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I think the main hang-up here is that the Decay Amount Total is no longer the sum of per Account. It can still be divided up on an Account Basis. Which does show a bit of an advantage to larger "Account" guilds because they have more "hands".

However, I've pointed this out at the beginning of this thread when another posted numbers like this. To fairly represent the numbers you need to consider the "Renown Adjustment".

1 150%
2 180%
3 210%
4 240%
5 270%
6 300%
7 285%
8 270%
9 255%
10 240%

Your example of 10 Account Guild with a total of 67,500 Decay a day actually requires pulling 2,812.5 Renown per day per Account. While still almost 5x per account more than a 100 Account Guild it is still 562.5 renown per account Less than a 20 Account Guild which needs 3,375.

I'm utilizing the 20 Account Adjusted Guild Size as that appears to be the point Turbine has set as a baseline.

Under the Current System with everyone having the same Decay Amount at any level. It appears that Guild Sizes of 8 - 10 Actually fair better than 20 Account Guilds, with 6 and 7 Account Guilds fairing just slightly worse on a Guild Renown to Account Ratio requirement to cover Decay.

The main sticking point is what Size should be the "Average" renown earner. I don't know what the Average Account size is per Guild on a Server. I'm pretty sure that we don't have any 1,000 Account Guilds, but I could see we may have a few in the 500 range - but I would be inclined more towards Large Guilds actually having somewhere between 250 to 300 Individual Accounts at any given time.

I like your ideas and well said!

One person in this thread (name escapes me) said that they were part of a guild that had hit the hard cap on members, and now was having to pick and choose who to boot in order to allow in different accounts. (Question - is it a 1000 account cap or is it a 1000 character cap?)

Why add more complexity?

Can we just change the inactive threshold to 1 day instead of 30? This will assist all guilds near the 50 accounts and less immediately. Yes, the term should be renamed as well - but this helps without bias as well.

[Auralana7214]

Ah - another Griffon's Nest. :D

Pie charts don't work well when comparing these types of information. [colorful overposted words here]



I really just wanted pie, I didn't need to see your proposal again. I would call you names, but that is just unbecoming of a lady.

The fact that the post has been re-posted in order to spam this thread should not be allowed. The fact that you then put your post in chart form is ridiculous. The fact that you pm'd me after my previous comment is stalkerish.

I am another Griffon and the general consensus among our High Council is that the current renown system is working splendidly. I would only ask that whatever changes are made, please leave large guilds out of it. We have lost members over being stagnate in an MMO that is about bringing people together. That, in it's core, is wrong.

[Tshober]

But your suggestion would then increase the possibility of players being booted/shunned because they didn't earn enough renown. .

No. You are completely incorrect here. With my suggestion there would never be a case where a guild would benefit (with more renown) from kicking a player versus keeping that player. They would always gain more renown from keeping the player.

As long as you refuse to accept this, your plan will be taking us back to the problems of the old decay system. And I can never support that.

[UurlockYgmeov]

No. You are completely incorrect here. With my suggestion there would never be a case where a guild would benefit (with more renown) from kicking a player versus keeping that player. They would always gain more renown from keeping the player.

As long as you refuse to accept this, your plan will be taking us back to the problems of the old decay system. And I can never support that.

Fundamental differences. I accept that.

IMO Decay is a strategic thing - it has to have substance and teeth (just not with nasty, big, pointy teeth... MPATHG). Decay should be a factor, a game mechanic and should promote activity and log-ins.

Decay is what you pay the mistrals to herald your epic heroic brave deeds to the masses and what pays the captain to drive the ship, feeds the elemental engines, and keeps the deck scrubbed from all the creature companions without diapers. :P

[Tshober]

One person in this thread (name escapes me) said that they were part of a guild that had hit the hard cap on members, and now was having to pick and choose who to boot in order to allow in different accounts. (Question - is it a 1000 account cap or is it a 1000 character cap?)


Oh my god! You don't even understand how the current game mechanics work for large guilds but you want to plan for their future mechanics? Wow! Just wow!

[UurlockYgmeov]

You don't even understand how the current game mechanics work for large guilds but you want to plan for their future mechanics? Wow! Just wow!

I understand and the question of is it max account/or characters. I have always heard accounts.

There is nothing in wiki or compendium (that I can find or google) that states this - so the only way to know for sure is experience with a guild that has hit its cap.

So do you know? If so - please link the reference for me. Ok - so since you gave me reason I squelched you again. So somebody else kindly link the reference or pm it. TYIA

[UurlockYgmeov]

More delicious irony from the guy who's plan discriminates against casual and social players and any guilds that are willing to accept them as members.

I am done with your sarcasm and twisting my words.

/squelch (again)

[Auralana7214]

More delicious irony from the guy who's plan discriminates against casual and social players and any guilds that are willing to accept them as members.

Yeah, I'm soooo done. GLHF.

[Tshober]

I understand and the question of is it max account/or characters. I have always heard accounts.

There is nothing in wiki or compendium (that I can find or google) that states this - so the only way to know for sure is experience with a guild that has hit its cap.

So do you know? If so - please link the reference for me.

Of course I know because I actually have experience in leading a large guild, which it is painfully obvious that you lack.

I'm sorry but it is now obvious that you are not qualified to plan for the future of DDO's guilds. You don't even know how they work currently. In addition to not knowing how large guilds work, you were claiming that the current decay system doubled the decay for small guilds, until I pointed out that you were completely incorrect. You claimed that was just a simple math error, but anyone with a lot of experience running a small guild and dealing with daily decay would have known that was untrue, without having to even do any math. And even if you had no experience dealing with decay, anyone who had read and understood the comments the devs have made in this thread would have known that was incorrect. Please do some more research and get a MUCH better understanding of how the current system works before you start trying to re-design it.

Ugh, what a waste of time this has been.

[eris2323]

If you don't understand the system, why are you trying to re-design it?

And I want to say something about Godwins Law, too.... but I'll stop now.

You need to learn the system you are trying to modify, and get some experience with large guild mechanics, before you are even close to qualifying to be able to make uch sweeping changes to the system.

And I'm not really in the teaching mood; it is easy to research the issue, please do so before you come back.

[eris2323]

I am done with your sarcasm and twisting my words.

/squelch (again)

I assure you, I agree with him totally; he is not twisting your words nor being sarcastic.

Your plan DOES penalize casual and social guilds; and you are unqualified to decide the fate of all DDO guilds, as you don't even understand the mechanics of the system you have been fighting against for the last week.

[Tychagara]

Now to compare the first three by dividing the decay by the member count:

Again - kindly verify data - since these are drafts:

Old System:
Temporary System:
System 'A'

Nice. Great work! +1

Can clearly see how this is broken like the last one. System A is slightly better. Might want to go from 1 to 20 instead of 2 to 20.

Keep it up! Thanks from all of us in guilds that aren't huge! We've got your back!

[Tychagara]

in a game you have left all civil discourse behind and moved to another country from where it lives.
obviously irony and sarcasm escape you.

any mode of favoritism is bad.

obviously those who benefit will always resist change, and often try to disuade others from change through any means possible.

[Tychagara]

The original idea some time back was going along more moderate lines actually. The orignal idea was to give decay any purpose.

So no decay for any active guild regardless of size and level as long as any member logs in any time before going inactive. So only truely inactive guilds would get the decay. Inactivity in the original idea would have followed the 1-month policy for accounts.

In the original idea, a guild would loose a certain ammount of decay equaling 1/12th of total renown before going inactive. So the guild would need one year to reach exactly zero renown. Upon reaching zero renown after one full year of inactivity the guild would be officially dissolved and would not eat up resources on the server, from repopulating ships to being the last guild on the leaderboards.

Of course the guild would only be marked "dissolved" and the regular scripts would not repopulate the guild on the server. Upon any former account from that guild entering the game again, there could be a script safeguard reopening the guild with whatever status the DEVs would deem right for a guild nobody had cared about for at least one year.

But then again, this was proposed when there was the big discussion about decay in general when even the great guilds did battle the decay system.

i like.

[Tychagara]

IMO Decay is a strategic thing - it has to have substance and teeth (just not with nasty, big, pointy teeth... MPATHG). Decay should be a factor, a game mechanic and should promote activity and log-ins.

Decay is what you pay the mistrals to herald your epic heroic brave deeds to the masses and what pays the captain to drive the ship, feeds the elemental engines, and keeps the deck scrubbed from all the creature companions without diapers. :P

like membership dues to feed the piper. makes sense.

[Charononus]

obviously irony and sarcasm escape you.

any mode of favoritism is bad.

obviously those who benefit will always resist change, and often try to disuade others from change through any means possible.

While his post wasn't nazi's it was comparing game systems to mass murder, and as such falls under godwin's law imo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

When you make such a ridiculous (and that is the politest way I can think of stating it) statement, you have lost the debate and reduced any credibility you may have had before to zero.

[Tychagara]

Exactly there has been such a low amount of logic that leads to two options, one is probably against forum rules to state, the other is conspiracy theory.

You don't agree with a person. Fine, you are entitled to your opinion. And my opinion of your opinion is that it lacks any semblance of reality.

Keep pushing this liablous nonesense please, it is clearly Libel Per Se.

[Tychagara]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
You by mentioning Godwin's Law have ad hoc ergo promptus hoc made it true not the OP.


I need to remember to NFTT....

[eris2323]

You by mentioning Godwin's Law have ad hoc ergo promptus hoc made it true not the OP.


I need to remember to NFTT....

Perhaps you weren't paying attention when the original poster tried to bring apartheid into the conversation as a weapon against us.

[eris2323]

You don't agree with a person. Fine, you are entitled to your opinion. And my opinion of your opinion is that it lacks any semblance of reality.

Keep pushing this liablous nonesense please, it is clearly Libel Per Se.

Please don't threaten other forum members with 'laws' regarding libel.

That is for the moderators to do, not you. I feel like you are trying to threaten people with that statement, and it makes me uncomfortable.

[eris2323]

While his post wasn't nazi's it was comparing game systems to mass murder, and as such falls under godwin's law imo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

When you make such a stupid (and that is the politest way I can think of stating it) statement, you have lost the debate and reduced any credibility you may have had before to zero.

Yes, the instant he tried to equate the game systems to being in any way shape or form related to slavery and other issues was immediately evident, that's why I mentioned it.

Not falling for it though...

[eris2323]

I guess since we've proved he has no idea even how the current system works, that it's time for his friends to come in and start with this nonsense again.

Time to call the cube; I don't like wasting my time with stuff like this.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Any suggestions on how to present the information and keep the one person accounts on the charts?

[eris2323]

I am so glad I can't see what was probably a not very nice comment.

Thank the Gods for Squelch!

Any suggestions on how to present the information and keep the one person accounts on the charts?

Yes, again, you can squelch all opposition - until you are the only two speaking on the forums, or so it seems...

The rest of us will have to talk around you.

Which is difficult, since you spam the same stuff day, after day, after day, after day.

But we'll manage. Enjoy your break; if the stress of the forums is too much for you, you obviously need it!

You might want to take some time to actually figure out how the current system, and the old system works, before you come back.

[Tychagara]

I am so glad I can't see what was probably a not very nice comment.

Thank the Gods for Squelch!

Any suggestions on how to present the information and keep the one person accounts on the charts?

sorry no

[Enoach]

I like your ideas and well said!

One person in this thread (name escapes me) said that they were part of a guild that had hit the hard cap on members, and now was having to pick and choose who to boot in order to allow in different accounts. (Question - is it a 1000 account cap or is it a 1000 character cap?)

Why add more complexity?

Can we just change the inactive threshold to 1 day instead of 30? This will assist all guilds near the 50 accounts and less immediately. Yes, the term should be renamed as well - but this helps without bias as well.

First, the Hard Cap is 1,000 Characters. If all members of a guild were F2P and had all their characters in the Guild that 1,000 Characters would equal 500 Accounts (F2P without purchases has two characters). Now if each member averaged 4 characters the Account size would be around 250ish.

What I posted is not a suggestion - It is how the system currently works. If the Account Size is 1 to 10 Turbine has already added a Size Adjustment Percentage on the Renown you pull. Basically these smaller guilds have a bonus with the idea that an Account size of 20 is where the balance is being made.

Personally I like that guild size does not effect the amount of decay a guild earns - Why should an organization become "Less" famous because it has more members. The idea of inactivity for 1 day would mean that once again we have ventured into the decay being based on size. This was the original system and it penalized Casual Guilds (Small and Large). Change inactive from 30 to 1 day is not a fix, even if it is limited to earning renown (which is a complexity in itself as there are many ways to earn small amounts of renown). It would hurt those that only have a half-hour/hour to play, because they would have to make the choice of earning XP and not earning "Their share" or force them to "Not do anything but bank/chat".

What we have right now is a "Fixed" by Level Decay system. It is by no means perfect, it still favors active Guilds. But it also does not pose an artificial CAP on a Guild causing them to have to Jettison Dead weight (casual renown earner).

The issue that still needs to be resolved is the Base Size Adjustment issue -

If 20 is not the right base line than what is?
If 20 is the right base line than what can we do for Guilds smaller than 20 so that they can have the same leveling potential as the Base Line - Renown Earning Adjustment? or Renown Decay Adjustment?

I think we should leave the Inactive Guild Piece alone. I think the current system is fine - an no guild should ever go back to 0 Renown - they should all stop at 25.

[Arnez]

First I saw charts (which almost had me) then I heard about pie (which almost had me)

Now I see someone squelching Tshober (who I believe is not only a part of a small guild, but has been a champion for small guilds in this forum) by someone who wants benefits solely for ONE ACCOUNT GUILDS?!?!?!?
(which is NOT a guild, you just want a personal ship- that's a whole other topic)

Madness.

Let me bring up the KISS:

Remove Decay.
I'll even give up my Small Guild Bonus if it means removing decay for everyone.

[eris2323]

First, the Hard Cap is 1,000 Characters. If all members of a guild were F2P and had all their characters in the Guild that 1,000 Characters would equal 500 Accounts (F2P without purchases has two characters). Now if each member averaged 4 characters the Account size would be around 250ish.

What I posted is not a suggestion - It is how the system currently works. If the Account Size is 1 to 10 Turbine has already added a Size Adjustment Percentage on the Renown you pull. Basically these smaller guilds have a bonus with the idea that an Account size of 20 is where the balance is being made.

Personally I like that guild size does not effect the amount of decay a guild earns - Why should an organization become "Less" famous because it has more members. The idea of inactivity for 1 day would mean that once again we have ventured into the decay being based on size. This was the original system and it penalized Casual Guilds (Small and Large). Change inactive from 30 to 1 day is not a fix, even if it is limited to earning renown (which is a complexity in itself as there are many ways to earn small amounts of renown). It would hurt those that only have a half-hour/hour to play, because they would have to make the choice of earning XP and not earning "Their share" or force them to "Not do anything but bank/chat".

What we have right now is a "Fixed" by Level Decay system. It is by no means perfect, it still favors active Guilds. But it also does not pose an artificial CAP on a Guild causing them to have to Jettison Dead weight (casual renown earner).

The issue that still needs to be resolved is the Base Size Adjustment issue -

If 20 is not the right base line than what is?
If 20 is the right base line than what can we do for Guilds smaller than 20 so that they can have the same leveling potential as the Base Line - Renown Earning Adjustment? or Renown Decay Adjustment?

I think we should leave the Inactive Guild Piece alone. I think the current system is fine - an no guild should ever go back to 0 Renown - they should all stop at 25.

I'm not sure we could ever agree on a number, but those two questions really do get to the heart of it.

I would be agreeable to changing that 20 to a 10, 6 - even 1, if we all get the same value, no matter how many actual accounts we have.

Well said for the rest of it though.

[eris2323]

If they got rid of decay, they could close this thread....

IMAGINE THE FREEDOM

Say it with me folks, down with decay for everyone, we are not a number, we are people turbine!

[Gremmlynn]

I did the numbers for all three - but only posted the 2-20 since you said you wanted to help the smaller guilds.

Numbers are posted for this as System A - and so are the charts. Kindly check the math / formula to make sure it is correct and accurately reflects your idea.

Just looking for verification on the math.Drop the fractional members. Also factor in size bonuses or the rest is pretty meaningless.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Drop the fractional members. Also factor in size bonuses or the rest is pretty meaningless.

thank you. change it to 1-20 or leave it 2-20?

size bonuses will take me a moment but will do.

[UurlockYgmeov]

First I saw charts (which almost had me) then I heard about pie (which almost had me)

Now I see someone squelching Tshober (who I believe is not only a part of a small guild, but has been a champion for small guilds in this forum) by someone who wants benefits solely for ONE ACCOUNT GUILDS?!?!?!?

Remove Decay.
I'll even give up my Small Guild Bonus if it means removing decay for everyone.
First thank you for your post!

Well, that is only 3 of the 4 systems. Gremmlynn and I are finishing the math / charts for system A first.

I squelched because of constant argumentative and personal attacks and the twisting the meaning of my words. 'nough said.

System needs to be fair for all size guilds. 'nough said. I don't advocate for any size guild - rather a balanced system that is fair to all size and levels of guilds.

As you said - the validity of one account guilds (not one person because that is apples to oranges) is a topic for another whole thread.

With that said:
I don't like decay - think it should go away - but am enough of a realist to understand that if it doesn't, we need another plan.

[Gremmlynn]

that is what I thought as well - but isn't a one-account guild. Is a six account guild, yes all six one person - but still six accounts.Just because it might be possible to train a monkey to level a guild to 100 doesn't mean anyone thinks it's worth the time to do so. So, if we exclude trained monkeys from the discussion, it's only fair to assume that anyone who even tries to do such would be smart enough to use the 5 dummy account work around that the devs left in for them.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Just because it might be possible to train a monkey to level a guild to 100 doesn't mean anyone thinks it's worth the time to do so. So, if we exclude trained monkeys from the discussion, it's only fair to assume that anyone who even tries to do such would be smart enough to use the 5 dummy account work around that the devs left in for them.

how smart players may or may not be is not the point. The system needs to be fair for all or it isn't fair.

If they want to pay for everything (charter, ship, amenities, etc) all on their own they are also entitled to a fair system.

[Enoach]

how smart players may or may not be is not the point. The system needs to be fair for all or it isn't fair.

If they want to pay for everything (charter, ship, amenities, etc) all on their own they are also entitled to a fair system.

How do we get to that point? What is fair for all?

Zero Decay still means that Larger and more active guilds will level faster than smaller and less active guilds. While the numbers are now static, is it fair for all. Small Guilds might argue it is not as it will take them longer to achieve that goal (especially when comparing themselves to larger guilds)

Putting in a system where Decay is based on number of Active Accounts now puts additional burden on the Large as well as the casual guilds, Turbine already tried this and went to the "Fixed" decay system which removed the "artificial" level cap on Large and Medium guilds especially casual ones.

Is the only way to be "fair" to base the Level requirements and Decay requirements off of size of the guild? Remove bonuses from small guilds and as new members are added/removed Adjust the Guild Level accordingly? Even that could be manipulated.

If renown decay needs to stay, than I think one of the best approaches would be to re-evaluate the Under 20 Account Earning Potential and make sure they are darn near close to the same leveling potential as their 20 counter parts.

[UurlockYgmeov]

How do we get to that point? What is fair for all?

Zero Decay still means that Larger and more active guilds will level faster than smaller and less active guilds. While the numbers are now static, is it fair for all. Small Guilds might argue it is not as it will take them longer to achieve that goal (especially when comparing themselves to larger guilds)

Putting in a system where Decay is based on number of Active Accounts now puts additional burden on the Large as well as the casual guilds, Turbine already tried this and went to the "Fixed" decay system which removed the "artificial" level cap on Large and Medium guilds especially casual ones.

Is the only way to be "fair" to base the Level requirements and Decay requirements off of size of the guild? Remove bonuses from small guilds and as new members are added/removed Adjust the Guild Level accordingly? Even that could be manipulated.

If renown decay needs to stay, than I think one of the best approaches would be to re-evaluate the Under 20 Account Earning Potential and make sure they are darn near close to the same leveling potential as their 20 counter parts.

forgive - just skimmed - need sleep will come back and re-review. you make valid points.

As far as how fast a guild levels - that is entirely up to them and the number of members earning renown.

Just the ability to level to 100 needs to be fair - so a one account guild can reach 100 if they have enough time and are active; but not as fast as a 1000 member guild who is even only 25% as active. The decay needs to be fair the ability to level is up to the guild; if they want to level faster - yes more members and or more activity.

more after sleep.

[Gremmlynn]

We never left decay per account - just now the large guilds don't feel it.

Examples:

ten account level 100 guild : 6,750 decay per account.
one-hundred account level 100 guild: 675 decay per account
one-thousand account level 100 guild: 67.5 decay per account.


That is decay per account. the temporary system is as broken as the old system.

Now lets find a solution rather than pointing fingers and feeding the trolls.Well other than removing decay completely, I can't think of a way of making it impossible for those who insist on looking at it as decay/account to not do so. Simply because as long as there is an amount of decay and there is a number of accounts it will be impossible for someone not to be able to compare the two values, regardless how irrelevant the result (as it is now).

Better to simply tweak the current system so it's something everyone can live with than to change it into something those who currently feel put out like at the expense of putting others out.

Throw some decay relief at the smaller guilds, whether it be 12-20, 2-10, 2-20, or whatever the values the devs who actually have the ability to do something about it choose and call it a day. Trying to find a perfect system in an imperfect universe that satisfies the diverse wants of all the imperfect beings that will be affected by it is an exercise in futility.

I read the humorous anecdote at the end of your proposal. Interesting thought, but I just don't see how it is a good idea for the devs to implement anything that even approximates it.

[Gremmlynn]

In regard of guilds being able to go back into obscurity, there was one solution proposed by quite a lot of players to formulate a hefty decay penalty for guilds that went completely inactive (no log in of any member within a month) until they finally dissolve automatically after a given period of time.

This easy-to-implement (a few simple SQL statements would suffice) solution would work fine for all active guilds, would as well help clean up the servers from the garbage guilds and would fullfill the one and only function of decay we could think off: Weed out the inactive.I don't even see the point in this. If a guild is totally inactive it has zero effect on the game, so what need to "weed it out"?

Why waste time developing code that fulfills no purpose in the game?

[Gremmlynn]

Actually, I don't have a problem with this. If no player in the guild even logs in once in an entire month, then that guild is effectively a dead guild. I see no good reason to perpetuate dead guilds. If a member of such a dead guild comes back to DDO, then they can join another guild or buy a new guild charter and start over. IMO, we already have far too many dead guilds in this game. If there is great objection from the solo guild crowd, then I could see maybe extending the time limit to 2 or 3 months, but for me 1 month seems fine.Again. If nobody from a guild logs in, how is that guild in any way "in the game"? So really, what need to do anything about them?

I really don't understand how anyone see's this as a problem that is in need of a solution.

[Arnez]

Soooooo many posts and ideas in this topic.

Perhaps it's time to think outside the box and in the hearts (i.e. standing orders) of the Devs and give them good (i.e. monetary) ideas for making the Removal of Guild Decay profitable.

I would guess that the MAIN reason that "they" would not want to remove guild decay is due to the DDO store. After all- they have real data on the sheer number of Guild Potions being sold and it's effect on their bottom line.

In my small 10 person guild, we often suggest it- especially when someone can pull a Legendary Victory.

Perhaps we need an alternative. IF they were to remove decay, they need a way for guilds to keep buying things from the DDO store. Perhaps better Amenities? Especially for higher level guilds- or.... more hook points (as a store bought item?).
Not gonna lie- I'd spend more in the store getting amenities if I didn't waste it getting guild potions.
Heck- I'd even buy more hook points if it were available in the store.

[Tshober]

If they got rid of decay, they could close this thread....

IMAGINE THE FREEDOM

Say it with me folks, down with decay for everyone, we are not a number, we are people turbine!

Down with decay!!!

We are not tooth enamel! We are imaginary characters! Set us free!!

[Gremmlynn]

IMO Decay is a strategic thing - it has to have substance and teeth (just not with nasty, big, pointy teeth... MPATHG). Decay should be a factor, a game mechanic and should promote activity and log-ins.Here is the problem. Decay used that way can end up sinking it's teeth into it's maker by causing players to not play this game more, but play some other game that better fit's their play habits. In many cases how often one plays isn't a matter of choice, so it wouldn't even be a matter of play habits as simply not having the time the game requires. In either case it leads to a lower customer base for Turbine.

Maybe Turbine's demographic numbers show that it's customer base has a lot of free time with little else of merit to fill it. In which case this sort of mechanic might be a good idea. But it still alienates everyone else from the game.

[Tshober]

Again. If nobody from a guild logs in, how is that guild in any way "in the game"? So really, what need to do anything about them?

I really don't understand how anyone see's this as a problem that is in need of a solution.

I agree it is low priority. But our friend who keeps re-posting his misguided proposal has made it a feature of his plan that guilds will "decay away" and the original proposal of this idea was to demonstrate that this could be better accomplished with a separate system that gets rid of dead guilds.

As far as why to get rid of dead guilds at all, the main advantage of that is it would make the statistics about how many tiny and small guilds there are more realistic. It is my belief that many, many tiny and small guilds are really just dead and dying guilds and not real guilds at all. It would also reduce the overhead that DDO incurs for calculating decay on all those dead guilds each day. Neither of these is high priority.

[Gremmlynn]

Nice. Great work! +1

Can clearly see how this is broken like the last one. System A is slightly better. Might want to go from 1 to 20 instead of 2 to 20.

Keep it up! Thanks from all of us in guilds that aren't huge! We've got your back!2-20 as that follows the devs example of basing guild size on an optimal minimum of 6. Also, what the exact numbers end up being if the devs choose to follow any plan are completely up to them. So trying to refine things lacking their data or perspective is nothing more than a pointless mental exercise. In the end, the numbers will be whatever they choose.

Besides, any system that uses a base of one means that in any guild larger than that, barring the unlikely event of everyone pulling the same amount of renown, someone would be better off going it alone, rather than having their renown lowered by having it averaged with that of those who earn less. Can't see much point in a guild system that mechanically favors one player guilds.

[Gremmlynn]

any mode of favoritism is bad. I disagree. Just like showing favoritism to subscribers (even in calling them VIPs) is good from the game. Showing favoritism towards guilds that are open to the least invested and least socially connected players is also good for the game.

For some of you a guild seems to be a competition or virtual accomplishment. For others, it's primary purpose is as a place to find reliable people to play with. It's kind of hard to accomplish that for casual players if the only one's willing to play with them are those who play as infrequently as they do.

So yeah, I'm all for giving guilds a mechanical incentive to let active players tag along as their active members strive for those virtual accomplishments. It keeps servers populated and budgets approved.

[Gremmlynn]

thank you. change it to 1-20 or leave it 2-20?

size bonuses will take me a moment but will do.2-20. Not that it matters as the devs, if they do anything even resembling to the proposal, are likely to set values wherever they like. But it fit's with the 6 member size bonus apex they gave us.

[Gremmlynn]

how smart players may or may not be is not the point. The system needs to be fair for all or it isn't fair.

If they want to pay for everything (charter, ship, amenities, etc) all on their own they are also entitled to a fair system.What does "fair" have to do with anything? Realistically viable would be a better target as it's much more likely to even be possible with the number of variables we have when it comes to guilds. Making the system fair to guilds of all sizes assumes a degree of uniformity amongst players that simply doesn't exist. Making it realistic for a guild with any number of reasonably active players to succeed seems a much better idea. Allowing the less than reasonably active players to ride along for free seems the best way to not allow the system from inconveniencing their game play, likely it would enhance it so adds more value to the system.

[eris2323]

2-20 as that follows the devs example of basing guild size on an optimal minimum of 6. Also, what the exact numbers end up being if the devs choose to follow any plan are completely up to them. So trying to refine things lacking their data or perspective is nothing more than a pointless mental exercise. In the end, the numbers will be whatever they choose.

Besides, any system that uses a base of one means that in any guild larger than that, barring the unlikely event of everyone pulling the same amount of renown, someone would be better off going it alone, rather than having their renown lowered by having it averaged with that of those who earn less. Can't see much point in a guild system that mechanically favors one player guilds.

You know, that last part is a very good point; I hadn't thought of that.

The only thing I can think to counter it is 'don't change the amount of renown needed per level' - because then, yes, they can choose to make the 80 bazillion renown required solo, or go at it with a team, if that is too slow.

Change the decay; sure. But perhaps the multiplier shouldn't be lowered too much anyways - perhaps it should be a range of 6-20 for the decay modifier; but I am not sure I agree with it being a straight '1' anymore.

But if the system swings to far in favor of solo guilds, large guilds will again suffer; everyone wants to be the king, and with a system that favors solo guilds, everyone WILL be king.

I'm also with you on the 'inactive guilds don't need to be culled' theory. I think that's a stupid idea as well - and if no one from the guild is online, then what resources is that guild really using? Don't steal someones hard earned guild away from them, simply because they are not playing often enough for some of the hardcore power gamers; they don't get to choose how to play my game.

I choose how to play my game; and I choose which game I'll be playing. Ruin the system so that it harms how I like to play the game, I'll go elsewhere.

And so will many others.

As for making money - well, Turbine is kinda missing out here.

Everyone wants to be king, and they sell guild charters for a stupidly cheap price. I believe the price of guilds themselves should be raised to a more respectable amount. If they are 150 now (yeah, it's been too long, I can't recall), they should be more in line with the cost of the best adventure packs.

Perhaps 600-1000 turbine points each.

[Tshober]

Besides, any system that uses a base of one means that in any guild larger than that, barring the unlikely event of everyone pulling the same amount of renown, someone would be better off going it alone, rather than having their renown lowered by having it averaged with that of those who earn less. Can't see much point in a guild system that mechanically favors one player guilds.

Yes, this is my main problem with those who want to treat all guilds exactly equally, even solo guilds. It means that banding together to work in cooperation is completely pointless as far as leveling up your guild. Everyone might as well just go it solo. There is no incentive at all in such a system to work together. All of the incentive is to go it alone in isolation. This is, IMO, unhealthy for any MMO. There should be advantages to banding together with your fellow players to accomplish things.

[Tshober]

As for making money - well, Turbine is kinda missing out here.

Everyone wants to be king, and they sell guild charters for a stupidly cheap price. I believe the price of guilds themselves should be raised to a more respectable amount. If they are 150 now (yeah, it's been too long, I can't recall), they should be more in line with the cost of the best adventure packs.

Perhaps 600-1000 turbine points each.

I disagree with you on the need to keep dead guilds around forever, but I completely agree that the cost of a guild charter should be higher. However, making them cost high TP puts them out of reach of most F2P players so I would say make them cost either 500+ TP OR 1 million plus plat. That way F2P players can also be guild leaders of they work at it some.

[eris2323]

I disagree with you on the need to keep dead guilds around forever, but I completely agree that the cost of a guild charter should be higher. However, making them cost high TP puts them out of reach of most F2P players so I would say make them cost either 500+ TP OR 1 million plus plat. That way F2P players can also be guild leaders of they work at it some.

Well - here's a thought.

Make those guilds 'inactive' - so they aren't losing anything, and also don't show up on the leaderboards at all.

But the instant someone logs back in, the guild is back. It could be at level 25, because of decay, but it'll be back, and the owner hasn't lost their money that they used to buy a ship.

But tell me 'if you don't play enough, you'll lose your guild and ship'. I'm out. I'm not going to let some game company choose my amount of playtime, this is a game, not a full time job. Pay me, if you want that. I'm not going to let a company STEAL my money if I buy something but don't play their game enough to meet their standards. Ever.

As for cost...

A F2P player can make that much free turbine points - but then again, those f2p people who never pay are the ones who usually quit the game fairly quick. Someone who has put real money into the system is more likely to stick around a little longer.

Right now you can game the system and farm renown on the 6 (?) servers and get a free guild in less than a week (probably more like a day), then off you wander to a game you like more.

But really in the end, that's a personal view. I think turbine is stupidly missing out on more profit, if the game is in such desperate need of cash flow, then they need to look at what sells.

And seems to me, everyone wants to be king ;)

(and really, don't care THAT much, it's their company - if they didn't change the price, no skin off my back)

[Gremmlynn]

Change the decay; sure. But perhaps the multiplier shouldn't be lowered too much anyways - perhaps it should be a range of 6-20 for the decay modifier; but I am not sure I agree with it being a straight '1' anymore.

Well the reason I went with 2 for a minimum is because the formula divides by 3. So a minimum of 6 would put all guilds of 20 or less at the modified minimum level, which wouldn't be the sort of tiny guild relief people seem to be looking for. At 2 it puts all guilds of 8 or less at the modified minimum.

[Gremmlynn]

Well - here's a thought.

Make those guilds 'inactive' - so they aren't losing anything, and also don't show up on the leaderboards at all.

But the instant someone logs back in, the guild is back. It could be at level 25, because of decay, but it'll be back, and the owner hasn't lost their money that they used to buy a ship.

But tell me 'if you don't play enough, you'll lose your guild and ship'. I'm out. I'm not going to let some game company choose my amount of playtime, this is a game, not a full time job. Pay me, if you want that. I'm not going to let a company STEAL my money if I buy something but don't play their game enough to meet their standards. Ever.

As for cost...

A F2P player can make that much free turbine points - but then again, those f2p people who never pay are the ones who usually quit the game fairly quick. Someone who has put real money into the system is more likely to stick around a little longer.

Right now you can game the system and farm renown on the 6 (?) servers and get a free guild in less than a week (probably more like a day), then off you wander to a game you like more.

But really in the end, that's a personal view. I think turbine is stupidly missing out on more profit, if the game is in such desperate need of cash flow, then they need to look at what sells.

And seems to me, everyone wants to be king ;)

(and really, don't care THAT much, it's their company - if they didn't change the price, no skin off my back)I agree. Also I think people are exaggerating the problems these inactive guilds cause. I doubt they populate any guildship until a player actually boards one. The long populating issue after an update is more likely due to many players all boarding ships at the same time when the servers go back up, as well as entering many other instances with higher priority. As for the leader boards, a simple inactive icon should be good enough.

As for cost. All raising the price would do is practically stop sales as guild charters are VIP perks. Instead of paying a reasonable rate for one, players will be using the "have a subscriber form the guild and transfer leadership" work around that already exists. I don't see the perk being eliminated or limits being placed on transferring leadership, likely would cause more angst that it's worth to do either.

[Tshober]

I agree. Also I think people are exaggerating the problems these inactive guilds cause.

I think we all agree that doing anything about dead guilds is very low priority. The important thing is settling the renown & decay issues.

[Arnez]

But tell me 'if you don't play enough, you'll lose your guild and ship'. I'm out. I'm not going to let some game company choose my amount of playtime, this is a game, not a full time job. Pay me, if you want that. I'm not going to let a company STEAL my money if I buy something but don't play their game enough to meet their standards. Ever.


THIS.

I may not see eye to eye with you on large guilds vs (we) small guilds, but take my ship that I paid Real $ for (and coerced my few friends into buying lots of renown potions to reach 55) and I'm OUT.
Heck- I can get a free base in DCUO without worrying I'll lose it due to decay.

We may only be able to do 1-3 quests per night, but don't penalize us for being casual.

(as an aside- it's sad that people regard 2-3 hours PER NIGHT as casual)

[Tshober]

(as an aside- it's sad that people regard 2-3 hours PER NIGHT as casual)

I agree with the aside.

But to elaborate a bit further:

If you play for a few hours per week, you are a casual player.

If you play for a few hours per month, you are a very casual player.

However, if you have not logged in at all for months, you are not an extremely causal player. You are not a player at all. You have left the game. You might return to the game someday and once again become a player. But for now you are not a player at all.

[eris2323]

THIS.

I may not see eye to eye with you on large guilds vs (we) small guilds, but take my ship that I paid Real $ for (and coerced my few friends into buying lots of renown potions to reach 55) and I'm OUT.
Heck- I can get a free base in DCUO without worrying I'll lose it due to decay.

We may only be able to do 1-3 quests per night, but don't penalize us for being casual.

(as an aside- it's sad that people regard 2-3 hours PER NIGHT as casual)

I do not want to hurt your game; I just want the guild system, if it gets changed again, to NOT destroy our large guild that we have also spent literally years building.

I do agree that small and casual guilds should get a tiny bit more of a break - if it's killing them, then help them out... but not at the expense of our players in OUR guild. I did like gremmlynns idea; it was simple, and would help small guilds immediately, without requiring a lot of programming changes.

Only reason I'm so vocal is really, if the system changes to penalize large guilds, I can not see ANY reason to stay on this game; others will allow me to have the kind of guild *I* want - so I'd go there, I can not play a game that penalizes you for having a large guild, to me, it's the epitome of stupidity, in a multiplayer online game.

[Tshober]

Remove Decay.
I'll even give up my Small Guild Bonus if it means removing decay for everyone.

I agree with you that removing decay would be the best solution overall. That way ALL guilds, regardless of size or play-style, would be able to advance and to eventually reach the highest levels. Smaller guilds are hit harder by decay in the current system. Eliminating decay would benefit smaller guilds far more than it would larger guilds. However, smaller guilds, even with no decay, would still have a harder time earning renown than larger guilds. So it may well be that small guild bonuses are needed, even with no decay at all, to ensure that small guilds remain a viable option for players who prefer them to larger guilds.

[Gremmlynn]

I agree with you that removing decay would be the best solution overall. That way ALL guilds, regardless of size or play-style, would be able to advance and to eventually reach the highest levels. Smaller guilds are hit harder by decay in the current system. Eliminating decay would benefit smaller guilds far more than it would larger guilds. However, smaller guilds, even with no decay, would still have a harder time earning renown than larger guilds. So it may well be that small guild bonuses are needed, even with no decay at all, to ensure that small guilds remain a viable option for players who prefer them to larger guilds.To me, this reads like the xp bonuses some games give accounts that have been inactive. The way I see it, if a guild doesn't put in the man hours another does, due to either fewer members or less active members, they shouldn't even expect to keep up. While I don't find the small guild bonus as really detrimental to the game, I don't see a real need for it, especially if decay were to go away.

[Tshober]

To me, this reads like the xp bonuses some games give accounts that have been inactive. The way I see it, if a guild doesn't put in the man hours another does, due to either fewer members or less active members, they shouldn't even expect to keep up. While I don't find the small guild bonus as really detrimental to the game, I don't see a real need for it, especially if decay were to go away.

I want to be sure small guilds are viable. It should not be impossible for them to level up, either because of decay or simply because the required renown is unattainable in a reasonable amount of time. For example, if it would take a small somewhat casual guild 20 years to level up to 100, that is not really any better than never getting there at all. Viability does not mean they will get there fast, but it does mean the time required should at least not be longer than the likely life of the game itself. I think that is where small guild bonuses could be helpful, even with no decay.

[Gremmlynn]

I want to be sure small guilds are viable. It should not be impossible for them to level up, either because of decay or simply because the required renown is unattainable in a reasonable amount of time. For example, if it would take a small somewhat casual guild 20 years to level up to 100, that is not really any better than never getting there at all. Viability does not mean they will get there fast, but it does mean the time required should at least not be longer than the likely life of the game itself. I think that is where small guild bonuses could be helpful, even with no decay.What's a "small somewhat casual guild" though? Small and active or large and mostly casual are a lot better benchmarks to base things around. Even large and casual, if such a thing exists, shouldn't have expectations of great progress. Though the elimination of decay will ensure progress of some sort and eliminate the stagnation and sliding back that seems to be the root of most of the frustration. I just don't know how much progress a small casual guild should expect to make. I think of it this way, how much money would a small business with a part time owner and a few employees who show up when the mood hits them make? While I know this is a game and the players are customers, they should still realize that if they aren't playing enough to earn a lot of renown, it would be unreasonable to expect to make a lot of progress.

Some sort of small guild bonus wouldn't be bad. But anything that tries to "level the playing field" between casual and active players would be a slap in the face of the active players and anything that disadvantages active players for playing with casuals would be bad for the game as a whole.

[Tshober]

Some sort of small guild bonus wouldn't be bad. But anything that tries to "level the playing field" between casual and active players would be a slap in the face of the active players and anything that disadvantages active players for playing with casuals would be bad for the game as a whole.

I think we agree on that. My example, I thought, made it clear. If small guilds are in a situation where effectively they can never level up to the highest levels, then some adjustment of the small guild bonus might be appropriate. The devs should have the stats necessary to determine if small guilds are viable. It might be that no small guild bonus is needed at all. After all, eliminating decay will help them a lot. I just don't have the data to be able to say one way or the other so I must hold out the possibility that more help might be needed.

[Tychagara]

I think we need to start talking about a general framework for guilds - what we want from Turbine to improve our guild experience. Then continue the discussion on renown.

[Nestroy]

I think we need to start talking about a general framework for guilds - what we want from Turbine to improve our guild experience. Then continue the discussion on renown.

The question remains what the improvements for the experience would be.

There could be only a private opinion and I think that most regular contributors on this thread already have vokalized their thoughts on this at least once. And, as the discussions the last 20 or so pages have shown there is some discordance in opinions here.

[Tychagara]

The question remains what the improvements for the experience would be.

There could be only a private opinion and I think that most regular contributors on this thread already have vokalized their thoughts on this at least once. And, as the discussions the last 20 or so pages have shown there is some discordance in opinions here.

The that is perfect. Need a framework that works for everyone.

I will start.

A guild consists of at least one account or more, to a maximum of 1000 accounts. A guild doesn't need to have a stated purpose

yes, the current is 1000 characters (can't find confirmation anywhere) from previous posts. This is my idea of the first part of the framework.

[eris2323]

I would add that no guild should ever be penalized for recruiting players, no matter how casual they are. If this means removal of decay, do it - if it means a cap on the system as it is now, do it. A guild leader should never have to count the cost of a 'casual' player earning back their 'renown debt' for the day.

I would add that 'tiny and solo' guilds shouldn't get so much of a bonus that it invalidates the work of large guilds, or makes it so that it makes more sense to go at it alone.

I would add that tiny and small guilds shouldn't expect to grow as fast as a large guild, although they should be able to grow.

I would add that solo guilds shouldn't get so much of a bonus to this system that it makes it easy to solo a guild to 100.

I'm sure some wouldn't agree with me.

And it feels like we're beating a dead horse, here.

Frankly, I kind of like the system we have now.

[Tshober]

I would add that no guild should ever be penalized for recruiting players, no matter how casual they are. If this means removal of decay, do it - if it means a cap on the system as it is now, do it. A guild leader should never have to count the cost of a 'casual' player earning back their 'renown debt' for the day.

I would add that 'tiny and solo' guilds shouldn't get so much of a bonus that it invalidates the work of large guilds, or makes it so that it makes more sense to go at it alone.

I would add that tiny and small guilds shouldn't expect to grow as fast as a large guild, although they should be able to grow.

I would add that solo guilds shouldn't get so much of a bonus to this system that it makes it easy to solo a guild to 100.

I'm sure some wouldn't agree with me.

And it feels like we're beating a dead horse, here.

Frankly, I kind of like the system we have now.


I pretty much agree with all of that. I would have stated some of it differently but the meaning would be essentially the same. I would have placed more emphasis on helping out the smaller guilds that are still struggling with decay. But nothing you said precludes that so overall, I agree.

[UurlockYgmeov]

The that is perfect. Need a framework that works for everyone.

I will start.

A guild consists of at least one account or more, to a maximum of 1000 accounts. A guild doesn't need to have a stated purpose

yes, the current is 1000 characters (can't find confirmation anywhere) from previous posts. This is my idea of the first part of the framework.

I think I understand what you are going - building consensus by finding common agreements.

You are right - I don't think I have ever seen a definitive written statement by Turbine for the intentions of the guild system. I agree - we should work together to define the basic fundamentals.


A guild will gain renown in direct proportion to the number of members it has earning, and how active they are.
A guild should have leadership, and the ability to elect a second leader (hard to describe - kind of a proxy leader)
Guild leadership needs to have the ability to delegate authority and responsibility
Guild leadership needs to have effective tools to manage the guild roster, events, guild property (ship, amenities), and recruiting, and others.
A guild needs to be able to gauge itself against other guilds on the same server and game wide.

[Tshober]

A guild will gain renown in direct proportion to the number of members it has earning, and how active they are.

I totally disagree with this statement.

I would substitute:

"A guild will gain the amount of renown that all of its members earn."


This is much simpler and intuitive. There are a hundred ways to define how active someone is and likewise several different ways to count how many earners a guild has. Just leave all that junk out and say, if you earn renown your guild gets credit for it. Period.

[Tshober]

A guild should have leadership, and the ability to elect a second leader (hard to describe - kind of a proxy leader)
Guild leadership needs to have the ability to delegate authority and responsibility
Guild leadership needs to have effective tools to manage the guild roster, events, guild property (ship, amenities), and recruiting, and others.


These are all pointless with a solo guild, but whatever.




A guild needs to be able to gauge itself against other guilds on the same server and game wide.



Why? Why should I care about what other guilds are doing? I see no reason for this.

[Charononus]

A guild needs to be able to gauge itself against other guilds on the same server and game wide.


This is the cause of all current guild problems with decay.

[eris2323]

I'm not at all interested in:

A guild needs to be able to gauge itself against other guilds on the same server and game wide

At all.

Really don't care how other guilds are doing, this is not a PVP game, and I like it that way :)

editted to add: perhaps people won't complain about the advancement of their guilds if there are no guild leaderboards to get jealous about other guilds with ;)

[curiouspilot]

Since the change, the largest guild "Legends of Orien" on Orien, has already gone from lvl60(they'd been lvl60 for years) to lvl90 now, and there's no more individual effort. In other words, everyone in the guild just plays casually as always, to get the guild to eventual lvl100.

[Tshober]

Since the change, the largest guild "Legends of Orien" on Orien, has already gone from lvl60(they'd been lvl60 for years) to lvl90 now, and there's no more individual effort. In other words, everyone in the guild just plays casually as always, to get the guild to eventual lvl100.


Yes, that is my guild. We were stuck in the low 60's for many months. We are also the most active guild on our server. We ALWAYS have more players logged in playing DDO than any other guild on our server, 24 hours per day and 7 days per week, and we have been the most active guild on the server for more than a year. We have lots of people who play many hours each day. We also have many people who play infrequently. We have people who RP. We have people who spend much of their time online chatting with their friends. We have people who are constantly raiding. We have every type of player in our guild and we all work together to level it up. Our doors are open to anyone who is willing to play by the rules (both of them) as long as we are not full, which we often are.

Don't you think it's fair that the most active guild, by a huge margin, and the most inclusive and open guild on the server ought to be able to level up? Or is it your opinion that extremely active guilds must be stagnated and unable to ever level up, just because they are large and willing to accept all types of players?

[Gremmlynn]

I think we agree on that. My example, I thought, made it clear. If small guilds are in a situation where effectively they can never level up to the highest levels, then some adjustment of the small guild bonus might be appropriate. The devs should have the stats necessary to determine if small guilds are viable. It might be that no small guild bonus is needed at all. After all, eliminating decay will help them a lot. I just don't have the data to be able to say one way or the other so I must hold out the possibility that more help might be needed.The problem is, how do you decide where to set the benchmark for a small guild that can't make it to 100. Is it a single player guild that plays 1 hour/month? What it really comes down to is deciding how many man/hours played is required to reach 100. Any guild that is to small or to casual to play that much simply wont make it to 100 regardless of bonus.

Though I suppose replacing decay with a renown credit that would automatically level every guild to 100 over a set period of time, with any renown actually gained from playing just speeding the process up, would work. I just don't see very many people thinking it would be the way they would like to see things go.

[Tshober]

The problem is, how do you decide where to set the benchmark for a small guild that can't make it to 100. Is it a single player guild that plays 1 hour/month? What it really comes down to is deciding how many man/hours played is required to reach 100. Any guild that is to small or to casual to play that much simply wont make it to 100 regardless of bonus.

Though I suppose replacing decay with a renown credit that would automatically level every guild to 100 over a set period of time, with any renown actually gained from playing just speeding the process up, would work. I just don't see very many people thinking it would be the way they would like to see things go.

I am not a fan of making it easy for solo guilds to reach level 100. That would make working together pointless. If I had to make the decision on where to draw the line I would probably do something like the 99.9th percentile of non-dead guilds ranked by total renown earned per day and structure it so a guild at that percentile would take 4 or 5 years to reach 100. I don't have the data to do that so I will have to defer to the devs, who are going to do what they want anyway.

Also, I do not advocate any kind of "auto leveling" mechanism. I think that would also make it less attractive to work together with other players. I am a big fan of rewarding players for banding together with their fellow players to accomplish long term goals in all MMO's, not just DDO.

[eris2323]

Since the change, the largest guild "Legends of Orien" on Orien, has already gone from lvl60(they'd been lvl60 for years) to lvl90 now, and there's no more individual effort. In other words, everyone in the guild just plays casually as always, to get the guild to eventual lvl100.

It sounds like you are very bitter and angry towards a group of people who are finally able to enjoy their game.

I for one, am very glad, that this guild who has spent so long stuck is now finally able to move forward, and I am very happy for all of the people in the guild.

Congrats, guys!

Not levelling fast enough? Consider recruiting! It'll do wonders, in this multiplayer online game!

[Gremmlynn]

I am not a fan of making it easy for solo guilds to reach level 100. That would make working together pointless. If I had to make the decision on where to draw the line I would probably do something like the 99.9th percentile of non-dead guilds ranked by renown earned. I don't have the data to do that so I will have to defer to the devs, who are going to do what they want anyway.

Also, I do not advocate any kind of "auto leveling" mechanism. I think that would also make it less attractive to work together with other players. I am a big fan of rewarding players for banding together with their fellow players to accomplish long term goals in all MMO's, not just DDO.I agree. That's why I would set the benchmark around 6 (the number the devs seem to favor) rather active players. This seems reasonable for everyone. As even an all casual guild that simply has enough mass to reach that benchmark of man/hours played adjusted by any size bonus or lack there of, will be able to reach the level cap in the designated time. I just see setting the benchmark to low, say 6 rather casual players, would either be little different than an auto level system for larger or more active guilds or necessitate a size bonus large enough to cause active players to shun casual players as the bonus would outweigh any benefits they would gain from guilding with them. Which, IMO, causes more harm to the game than an "unfair" guild level system.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Disagree.

Discriminating against a guild because of its size (large or small) is just wrong.

[Gremmlynn]

Disagree.

Discriminating against a guild because of its size (large or small) is just wrong.Actually it would be discriminating against it due to a lack of total activity level.

[Nestroy]

I think I will go back to the fundamentals again...


1.) We all agree there has to be some kind of organized groups on the servers that we now call guilds. I think that is one of the only things we do not need a discussion.

2.) We all agree that there has to be some sort of efficient management tools for these guilds, like management structures, roosters and statistics on membership. On what tools we want for managing the guild we have to discuss.

3.) We all agree that there should be certain ammenities and certain benefits comming along with the groups called guilds. On which ammenities this could be we have to discuss.

4.) We all agree that there should be low entry barriers to form such a group. Which kind of entry barriers we could discuss - but the current guild charter system works fine, as far as the discussions in here have shown.

5.) We all agree that there should be a wide bandwidth of sizes for the groups, from only a handful of members to several hundret or even 1,000 members. On the exact guild sizes there is only a minor discussion in here - but we could try to find out if 1 member to 1,000 members is the best solution.

6.) We all agree that somehow Turbine has to raise the money to provide DDO. The alternative simply would be no DDO. We cannot ignore the fact that Turbine needs the guild system to make money. Therefore, when discussing any changes, we need to include options for Turbine to profit.

7.) We all agree that renown and renown decay is a disputable concept. Well, finding any formula that benefits all will be hard to agree upon, especially when counting in the need to make money for Turbine.

8.) We all agree that most benfits should eventually go to those that are actively playing, casual or power gamers alike. There seems to be a general consensus here that once archieved benefits should not go away even if these groups called guilds go inactive. But even this was already contested in here.

I think we can build on this. Please feel free to add. Of course the general directions and strategic views of our appreciated DEVs would be most welcome for further discussion.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Actually it would be discriminating against it due to a lack of total activity level.

activity level vs size is two separate concepts.

However, now that you mention it:

should not discriminate against an guild due to size (from one to max)

AND

should not discriminate against a guild due to activity (from on vacation / deployed to playing the game through multiboxing 12 hours a day)

[UurlockYgmeov]

I think I will go back to the fundamentals again...


1.) We all agree there has to be some kind of organized groups on the servers that we now call guilds. I think that is one of the only things we do not need a discussion.

2.) We all agree that there has to be some sort of efficient management tools for these guilds, like management structures, roosters and statistics on membership. On what tools we want for managing the guild we have to discuss.

3.) We all agree that there should be certain ammenities and certain benefits comming along with the groups called guilds. On which ammenities this could be we have to discuss.

4.) We all agree that there should be low entry barriers to form such a group. Which kind of entry barriers we could discuss - but the current guild charter system works fine, as far as the discussions in here have shown.

5.) We all agree that there should be a wide bandwidth of sizes for the groups, from only a handful of members to several hundret or even 1,000 members. On the exact guild sizes there is only a minor discussion in here - but we could try to find out if 1 member to 1,000 members is the best solution.

6.) We all agree that somehow Turbine has to raise the money to provide DDO. The alternative simply would be no DDO. We cannot ignore the fact that Turbine needs the guild system to make money. Therefore, when discussing any changes, we need to include options for Turbine to profit.

7.) We all agree that renown and renown decay is a disputable concept. Well, finding any formula that benefits all will be hard to agree upon, especially when counting in the need to make money for Turbine.

8.) We all agree that most benfits should eventually go to those that are actively playing, casual or power gamers alike. There seems to be a general consensus here that once archieved benefits should not go away even if these groups called guilds go inactive. But even this was already contested in here.

I think we can build on this. Please feel free to add. Of course the general directions and strategic views of our appreciated DEVs would be most welcome for further discussion.

I mostly agree, except that if we are concerned with profits, then the guild system will be P2W - and that is as bad for Turbine as it is for the players.

Design the system for F2P (except charters) and Turbine will find ways to profit. Basic capitalism 101 - law of supply and demand. If the system is popular - then there will be a demand for items that profit the company. If the system is designed first to be profitable for the company - that will be at the expense of the players.

Please don't misunderstand - yes, Turbine needs to be profitable in order to continue to evolve this game - in order to just remain operational. However, the natural order of business is that 'if you build it they will come' - make it enjoyable and Turbine will find a way to profit from it. That is the core concept of F2P games.

As for what was said about size - Guild's need self determination - the ability to decide what is best for them and their members as far as size, style, mission, values, etc (as long as it doesn't violate the EULA). That means allowing for the greatest possible choices - from 1 to 1000, etc.

And yes - further input from Dev's is always welcome. Even if it is just an invitation only thread.

I do believe that if we establish the fundamentals - that it will be fun and profitable.

[Dandonk]

So, another month has gone by with no word from Turbine.

What can we say at this point that has not been said a thousand times over in this thread? We argued with Turbine's own guild goals, we have argued with statistics, we have argued with fairness - but Turbine is still ignoring us.

I think we can, at this point, safely say that finding an equitable guild decay system for all guild sizes is somewhere below making a daily dice system in priority, and below messing up the collectable system. We, as small guilds, simply do not matter to Turbine. Why this is, I have no clue - we are a sizeable portion of the player base.


We don't want to promote any particular guild size.

That easy to say, Vargouille - but the current system very much favors one size of guild over another. And has done for months. When can we expect a system that does what you say you want it to? This spring? This summer for expansion ("Rise of the Fair Guild System! Yes, you are once again wanted if you are in a small guild - buy the expansion pack now!")?

Or do you care so little about small guilds that you will, once again (and still), say nothing at all?

[Tychagara]

I'm not at all interested in:

A guild needs to be able to gauge itself against other guilds on the same server and game wide

At all.

Really don't care how other guilds are doing, this is not a PVP game, and I like it that way :)

editted to add: perhaps people won't complain about the advancement of their guilds if there are no guild leaderboards to get jealous about other guilds with ;)

Just because YOU aren't interested doesn't mean that others aren't as well. It is human nature to be curious and compare.

PVP? Well, it is there and there are many that do PVP.

Uurlock - when are you posting the final charts and graphs? You've been very quiet lately.

There will always be contention about the speed of advancement. However, in the absence of fact and real statistics there will only be angry speculation.

Also - I see Uurlock's point about guild advancement is proportional - the more members, and the more active those members are the faster it will gain renow.

[Tshober]

Just because YOU aren't interested doesn't mean that others aren't as well. It is human nature to be curious and compare.

The stated goal was to reach concensus. Four people have already posted that they don't care at all about what other guilds are doing and don't want guilds to be a competition. Only you and UUR have supported the competition statement. When 2 agree and 4 disagree, that means there is NO consensus.

Several of his other statements are poorly defined and so I can't agree with them either.

[Tshober]

I think we can, at this point, safely say that finding an equitable guild decay system for all guild sizes is somewhere below making a daily dice system in priority, and below messing up the collectable system. We, as small guilds, simply do not matter to Turbine. Why this is, I have no clue - we are a sizeable portion of the player base.


I also wish the devs would make a decision. I do not envy them that decision because, IMO, it is not really possible to design a system that makes all guild sizes equal and also promotes inclusiveness. Nor is that a desirable goal. I do believe that all guild sizes should be viable and should be able to advance and eventually reach the highest levels. But making all guild sizes equal is saying that working together with other players toward a common goal is useless. In such a system, everyone might as well just go it alone in isolation. I believe that is unhealthy for the game overall.

Think about it. Is it reasonable to argue that a solo guy with a few fake accounts should be treated exactly the same as a group of 300 players all working together toward a common goal? And if you do treat those both the same, where is the incentive to do anything other than go it alone? Are you really being fair to the group of 300 people who chose to band together to help each other if you tell them they, as a whole, are no different at all from a random solo dude? I don't think you can reasonably treat such vastly different guilds equally.

I do believe, however, that the current system could and should be greatly improved for small guilds. But not at the expense of alienating casual and social players by going back to a system where they earn less renown than they cost in decay. In other words, not at the expense of going back to a system that encourages and rewards exclusiveness.

[Dandonk]

I also wish the devs would make a decision. I do not envy them that decision because, IMO, it is not really possible to design a system that makes all guild sizes equal and also promotes inclusiveness. Nor is that a desirable goal. I do believe that all guild sizes should be viable and should be able to advance and eventually reach the highest levels. But making all guild sizes equal is saying that working together with other players toward a common goal is useless. In such a system, everyone might as well just go it alone in isolation. I believe that is unhealthy for the game overall.

Think about it. Is it reasonable to argue that a solo guy with a few fake accounts should be treated exactly the same as a group of 300 players all working together toward a common goal? And if you do treat those both the same, where is the incentive to do anything other than go it alone? Are you really being fair to the group of 300 people who chose to band together to help each other if you tell them they, as a whole, are no different at all from a random solo dude? I don't think you can reasonably treat such vastly different guilds equally.

I do believe, however, that the current system could and should be greatly improved for small guilds. But not at the expense of alienating casual and social players by going back to a system where they earn less renown than they cost in decay. In other words, not at the expense of going back to a system that encourages and rewards exclusiveness.

I'm just quoting Turbine's own words back at them.

I do not think we will ever see eye to eye on the issue of small guilds vs. large guilds, but if Turbine does not really mean what they say (that they do not want to promote one guild size over another), I will settle for a system that makes sure that all guilds can eventually reach the same levels - even if it does take smal guilds longer.

I want this game to be inclusive. This means that kicking players for renown reasons is bad, and should never have to happen.
But inclusiveness also means that different players and play styles and guild sizes should be supported. If we do not have that, it's not inclusiveness. Right now, we have an exclusive system - albeit exclusive for other people than before.

I do not get why that is OK. Much less why it's OK for it to be the case for months on end... or rather, without end.

I do not want any new system to hurt large guilds. But I do not want small guilds to keep hurting, either. I don't think it should have to be one or the other.

[Gremmlynn]

activity level vs size is two separate concepts.

However, now that you mention it:

should not discriminate against an guild due to size (from one to max)

AND

should not discriminate against a guild due to activity (from on vacation / deployed to playing the game through multiboxing 12 hours a day)So you're a proponent of the "give every guild an automatic renown stipend instead of decay" concept I mentioned. I guess I was wrong about the ideas popularity. So how many days of zero activity do you suggest level 100 should take?

Personally I'm a believer in either be active or in a guild in which others are active to succeed at the leveling gimmick. But I'm open to an everybody wins scheme as it doesn't interfere with guilds being what they were before the whole guild level nonsense was introduced.

[eris2323]

I'm just quoting Turbine's own words back at them.

I do not think we will ever see eye to eye on the issue of small guilds vs. large guilds, but if Turbine does not really mean what they say (that they do not want to promote one guild size over another), I will settle for a system that makes sure that all guilds can eventually reach the same levels - even if it does take smal guilds longer.

I want this game to be inclusive. This means that kicking players for renown reasons is bad, and should never have to happen.
But inclusiveness also means that different players and play styles and guild sizes should be supported. If we do not have that, it's not inclusiveness. Right now, we have an exclusive system - albeit exclusive for other people than before.

I do not get why that is OK. Much less why it's OK for it to be the case for months on end... or rather, without end.

I do not want any new system to hurt large guilds. But I do not want small guilds to keep hurting, either. I don't think it should have to be one or the other.

The old system was 'okay' to the devs for years, even though it was destroying the game.

We're lucky a few people started campaigns to change from the garbage system it was before.

The vast majority of people got a break with the new system - and you all want to force them to 'hurry up and fix guilds'?

Seems to me they never cared about guilds. Ever.

Remember, at one point there was supposed to be the ability for leaders to make new 'levels' in the guilds, vs just 'leader/officer/member'? Ever see that materialize?

No. We did not.

We barely got a change to the system, after begging for it.

Seems to me they never ever cared about guilds, and still don't - their money must be coming from somewhere else (astral shards, anyone, with a side order of a new auction house?)

Old system:

All large guilds penalized; small guilds got the benefits. No way for a large guild to compete without deleting people.

New System:

All guilds over a certain size got a break - and small guilds didn't change from the old rules - and the added bonus that any small guild who was not happy DID have a way to fix the problem without deleting people. They simply have to add people.

At least you have a choice. Just because you don't WANT to recruit, doesn't mean the choice isn't there.

One system awarded deleting people from the guild. One system awards recruiting and helping new players find a home.

Guess which one I prefer for the state of the game as a whole.

In "DDO time" - the time since the changes went into effect is nothing. We've barely had time to enjoy it, after suffering for years.

[Dandonk]

All guilds over a certain size got a break - and small guilds didn't change from the old rules - and the added bonus that any small guild who was not happy DID have a way to fix the problem without deleting people. They simply have to add people.

At least you have a choice. Just because you don't WANT to recruit, doesn't mean the choice isn't there.

In "DDO time" - the time since the changes went into effect is nothing. We've barely had time to enjoy it, after suffering for years.

Sorry, I do not appreciate you, or the system, telling me how to organize my guild. That was wrong before, an it is wrong now.

And small guilds are worse off now, compared to before. No, renown decay did not change - but the ransack did.

I'm sorry you had to hard a time before. Truly, I am. But I do not feel this is grounds for making other people miserable now.

[Gremmlynn]

Just because YOU aren't interested doesn't mean that others aren't as well. It is human nature to be curious and compare.

PVP? Well, it is there and there are many that do PVP.
If that's the case then just like PvP guilds should have to actively opt in if they want to participate in this comparison.

[eris2323]

Sorry, I do not appreciate you, or the system, telling me how to organize my guild. That was wrong before, an it is wrong now.

And small guilds are worse off now, compared to before. No, renown decay did not change - but the ransack did.

I'm sorry you had to hard a time before. Truly, I am. But I do not feel this is grounds for making other people miserable now.

I'm not telling you how to run your guild, I'm telling you to enjoy the CHOICE you as a leader have to make; you can choose to run a small guild, or you can choose to recruit more people.

At least you are not 'choosing' - or having it forced on you - to destroy people from your guild.

I'm sorry if 'ransack' changed, and you can no longer gain multiple levels per day. Better get used to it though, as you gain levels, you will no longer worry about ransack, because you will not be gaining multiple levels per day :)

[Dandonk]

I'm not telling you how to run your guild, I'm telling you to enjoy the CHOICE you as a leader have to make; you can choose to run a small guild, or you can choose to recruit more people.

At least you are not 'choosing' - or having it forced on you - to destroy people from your guild.

I'm sorry if 'ransack' changed, and you can no longer gain multiple levels per day. Better get used to it though, as you gain levels, you will no longer worry about ransack, because you will not be gaining multiple levels per day :)

But you are. You are telling to either suck it, or to recruit. That's telling me how to run my guild. I would appreciate it if neither you, nor the guild system, did that. Thank you.

Inclusiveness is not inclusiveness if it only pertains to people who play in large guilds. Then it is exclusiveness. Which, I think we all agreed, is bad.

Ransack kicks in after the FIRST level gained. It always did, but the reduction in renown is higher now. Any small guild who ever gains a level is hit by this new and higher penalty.

[eris2323]

If that's the case then just like PvP guilds should have to actively opt in if they want to participate in this comparison.

I agree - to me, these guild leaderboards cause nothing but trouble, and I would like that system to be opt-in.

There is too much jealousy from tiny guilds who see a large guild gaining level.

I mean, seriously. When there's 30-40 people logging into our guild every day, playing.... of course we're going to gain levels.

If you have 1-3 people logging into your guild.... I can see why you'd have problems. But that's no reason to get all jealous - it's a fact of life, we're MUCH more active in the game, we do things for our guild like plan guild events weekly, make message boards, and do other things to help our guild and make it more attractive to others - leading to more people joining, and more people being happy.

And then some just wanna play a solo guild and level like the big-guys, just because they think they should...

I disagree ;) And my 200+ members opinions vs your 1-3... well as spock would say... the needs of the many.... outweigh... the needs of the few. Or the one.

[eris2323]

But you are. You are telling to either suck it, or to recruit. That's telling me how to run my guild. I would appreciate it if neither you, nor the guild system, did that. Thank you.

Inclusiveness is not inclusiveness if it only pertains to people who play in large guilds. Then it is exclusiveness. Which, I think we all agreed, is bad.

Ransack kicks in after the FIRST level gained. It always did, but the reduction in renown is higher now. Any small guild who ever gains a level is hit by this new and higher penalty.

Yelling at the devs to hurry up and fix things - well, we've seen how well that works ;)

I've never had to deal with ransack. I've just had to deal with the cost of casual players outweighing the renown gained per day, and having our guild stuck at lower levels simply because we allow casual players.

There was no way to fix that. You have a way to fix your problem - you just refuse to use it, because you demand that you should be able to play the game 'your way'. And that's fine. But I don't think you should expect the same treatment as 200+ people, simply because YOU WANT!

[Gremmlynn]

Sorry, I do not appreciate you, or the system, telling me how to organize my guild. That was wrong before, an it is wrong now.

And small guilds are worse off now, compared to before. No, renown decay did not change - but the ransack did.

I'm sorry you had to hard a time before. Truly, I am. But I do not feel this is grounds for making other people miserable now.Actually, I think everyone in this discussion supported reforming the ransack system and most seem to be supporting some sort of decay relief for smaller guilds.

[eris2323]

Actually, I think everyone in this discussion supported reforming the ransack system and most seem to be supporting some sort of decay relief for smaller guilds.

Exactly. As we have stated multiple times.

I'm just not at all interested in supporting any ideas that will go back to the old system, and the problems it had.

And any new system should NOT make it more attractive and/or the easier and/or the same amount of work for a solo guild to level as a guild of 200 people.

[Dandonk]

Yelling at the devs to hurry up and fix things - well, we've seen how well that works ;)

I've never had to deal with ransack. I've just had to deal with the cost of casual players outweighing the renown gained per day, and having our guild stuck at lower levels simply because we allow casual players.

There was no way to fix that. You have a way to fix your problem - you just refuse to use it, because you demand that you should be able to play the game 'your way'. And that's fine. But I don't think you should expect the same treatment as 200+ people, simply because YOU WANT!

Well, it worked for large guilds, so I'm not sure why it shouldn't work for small guilds, too.

I do not see why, when Turbine themselves say that they do not want to promote wóne guild size over another, that being able to have my guild the way I want without undue penalties is such a big deal. What does it hurt you? Why do you care how I play?


Actually, I think everyone in this discussion supported reforming the ransack system and most seem to be supporting some sort of decay relief for smaller guilds.

Well, it doesn't seem to me that Eris does, but I agree that most other people seem to. And I'm glad. But that still does not help much, since Turbine hasn't done anything - nor even commented - for months. And months. And months.

[eris2323]

Well, it worked for large guilds, so I'm not sure why it shouldn't work for small guilds, too.

I do not see why, when Turbine themselves say that they do not want to promote wóne guild size over another, that being able to have my guild the way I want without undue penalties is such a big deal. What does it hurt you? Why do you care how I play?



Well, it doesn't seem to me that Eris does, but I agree that most other people seem to. And I'm glad. But that still does not help much, since Turbine hasn't done anything - nor even commented - for months. And months. And months.

Right now, you're right- your solo or tiny guild doesn't affect me at all.

With the old system, your tiny or solo guild would be either a) one that our power-gamers would leave us for, or b) they would form their own tiny or small guild, to take all the benefits of the renown bonus, so they could level.

I have, by the way, stated I'm in favour of either removing decay entirely, or setting the multiplier lower for tiny guilds.

I am not in favour of setting the multiplier to 1. I think it should be 6, or 10.

Either way, you'd still get a break - and I argue FOR you to get a break, as long as your 'break' doesn't destroy our guild.

If you haven't seen it, I invite you to read this whole thread :)

[Gremmlynn]

I'm sorry if 'ransack' changed, and you can no longer gain multiple levels per day. Better get used to it though, as you gain levels, you will no longer worry about ransack, because you will not be gaining multiple levels per day :)That's not the problem. It's that ransack kicks in as soon as a new level is gained. If a guild starts the day 5k renown from the next level and has 10k renown decay, as soon as that 5k is earned ransack kicks in and can make it unlikely to get the 10k needed to retain that level after decay is deducted. If they earn half that, they end up where they were the day before and as soon as they regain the level ransack kicks in again. Thus an endless cycle.

The system really needs a minimum renown eared before ransack kicks in that is greater than one days decay at any level. I would go as far as to say much greater, as in gaining a level and earning at least 100K renown before it hits for example.

[eris2323]

That's not the problem. It's that ransack kicks in as soon as a new level is gained. If a guild starts the day 5k renown from the next level and has 10k renown decay, as soon as that 5k is earned ransack kicks in and can make it unlikely to get the 10k needed to retain that level after decay is deducted. If they earn half that, they end up where they were the day before and as soon as they regain the level ransack kicks in again. Thus an endless cycle.

The system really needs a minimum renown eared before ransack kicks in that is greater than one days decay at any level. I would go as far as to say much greater, as in gaining a level and earning at least 100K renown before it hits for example.

Due to our large guild having many casual players, I've never had to deal with ransack.

We just had to deal with never ever ever ever gaining levels, and treading water for years, as our power gamers mostly left us in favour of tiny guilds that DID have a possibility of gaining levels - because the system obviously favoured them.

If it's a such an issue for tiny guilds, then by all means change it; it won't affect them at higher levels anyways, when you need bazillions of renown to level.

[Dandonk]

Right now, you're right- your solo or tiny guild doesn't affect me at all.

With the old system, your tiny or solo guild would be either a) one that our power-gamers would leave us for, or b) they would form their own tiny or small guild, to take all the benefits of the renown bonus, so they could level.

I have, by the way, stated I'm in favour of either removing decay entirely, or setting the multiplier lower for tiny guilds.

I am not in favour of setting the multiplier to 1. I think it should be 6, or 10.

Either way, you'd still get a break - and I argue FOR you to get a break, as long as your 'break' doesn't destroy our guild.

If you haven't seen it, I invite you to read this whole thread :)

I apologize, then - your recent posts here led me to believe otherwise. But nice.

I do not want a return to a system where people leave large guilds for small ones due to decay reasons. I think guild style and size should be a personal choice, influenced as little as possible by renown mechanics.

I just hope and pray that Turbine will actually act on their own words and fix the new decay system to be fair for all guilds. And until they do, I'll keep coming back to this thread, and others, to remind them that it has not been forgotten, is not being forgotten, and will never be forgotten.

[eris2323]

I apologize, then - your recent posts here led me to believe otherwise. But nice.

I do not want a return to a system where people leave large guilds for small ones due to decay reasons. I think guild style and size should be a personal choice, influenced as little as possible by renown mechanics.

I just hope and pray that Turbine will actually act on their own words and fix the new decay system to be fair for all guilds. And until they do, I'll keep coming back to this thread, and others, to remind them that it has not been forgotten, is not being forgotten, and will never be forgotten.

No worries - I'm not mad :)

I don't want to hurt others guilds, I just want to make sure when the system does change, it's not a change that will destroy us in favour of small guilds :)

That's all!

I'm fully in favour of giving a break to small guilds, though - I know the feeling of never ever gaining levels due to the insane old system - if a further tweaking can help the small and tiny guilds without killing us, I'm totally for it.

We should all enjoy our game.

[Gremmlynn]

Exactly. As we have stated multiple times.

I'm just not at all interested in supporting any ideas that will go back to the old system, and the problems it had.

And any new system should NOT make it more attractive and/or the easier and/or the same amount of work for a solo guild to level as a guild of 200 people.Or for a guild of 10 active players as a guild of 10 active and 190 casual players IMO.

[Dandonk]

No worries - I'm not mad :)

I don't want to hurt others guilds, I just want to make sure when the system does change, it's not a change that will destroy us in favour of small guilds :)

That's all!

I'm fully in favour of giving a break to small guilds, though - I know the feeling of never ever gaining levels due to the insane old system - if a further tweaking can help the small and tiny guilds without killing us, I'm totally for it.

We should all enjoy our game.

Well, we are not really disagreeing, then, as much as have different special interests at heart while looking for the same thing. Good!

Now we just need Turbine to come out and say something useful. Preferably soon, instead of Soon(TM), or Thoon(TM).

[Gremmlynn]

If it's a such an issue for tiny guilds, then by all means change it; it won't affect them at higher levels anyways, when you need bazillions of renown to level.Actually it would affect them more at higher levels as the decay also goes up. You don't seem to be getting the point, it doesn't matter if a guild takes a day or a year to gain a level, as soon as a level is gained ransack kicks in and gaining enough renown to get beyond what their decay is becomes problematic. If they don't gain enough they lose their level and as soon as they gain it back ransack kicks in again. It's rather poorly set up unless the object is to accelerate stagnation.

[Lowz]

Lets not tell others how to play the game. If they want 100 accounts or 500, or even one account as a guild that's thier choice.

[eris2323]

Actually it would affect them more at higher levels as the decay also goes up. You don't seem to be getting the point, it doesn't matter if a guild takes a day or a year to gain a level, as soon as a level is gained ransack kicks in and gaining enough renown to get beyond what their decay is becomes problematic. If they don't gain enough they lose their level and as soon as they gain it back ransack kicks in again. It's rather poorly set up unless the object is to accelerate stagnation.

No, you're right - I'm burnt out on this whole subject, and didn't really go research nor really think about it.

If it's killing tiny and small guilds, fix it - as long as it doesn't hurt my guild.

I don't expect we'll be hearing anything from the devs any time soon, what with the enhancement changes (maybe) coming soon, and a new expansion. But I've been wrong before!

[eris2323]

Lets not tell others how to play the game. If they want 100 accounts or 500, or even one account as a guild that's thier choice.

Yes, we all agree on that - and we all want the system to NOT favour tiny and solo guilds again, as well.

[Tshober]

Ransack kicks in after the FIRST level gained. It always did, but the reduction in renown is higher now. Any small guild who ever gains a level is hit by this new and higher penalty.

Yes, the ransack is hurtful to small guilds in the current system. That should be changed. Small guilds should also have got a break from decay like everyone else did. But Eris has a point. The old system, as horrible as it was, hung around for years before anything was done about it. Guilds have always been a very low priority for Turbine. I still can't believe there is no way to get the current number of members in my guild so I will know if we are full or not. But there isn't. <sigh> DDO's guild tools are the weakest I have seen in any MMO I have ever played, and I have played a lot of MMO's. Three fixed member ranks (including leader!) with completely fixed rule sets. What modern MMO has that? Turbine just does not put a high priority on guilds, for whatever reason. It's annoying but at least they are consistent about it.

[Tychagara]

Yes, we all agree on that - and we all want the system to NOT favour tiny and solo guilds again, as well.

From 1 to 1000, decay needs to treat all fairly.

[Tychagara]

Well, we are not really disagreeing, then, as much as have different special interests at heart while looking for the same thing. Good!

Now we just need Turbine to come out and say something useful. Preferably soon, instead of Soon(TM), or Thoon(TM).

Agree. Treat all fairly - and that means all.

[Tshober]

And they should be able to sign on to compete with each other. Just leave those who aren't interested out of the whole deal.

That brings up a good point. The only coherent argument I have heard so far for keeping decay (other than to make money for Turbine) is that it allows guilds to compete with each other. The problem with that, as you point out, is that many guilds are simply not interested in competing with other guilds. It is much like PvP. Some players want to compete with other players and do so in PvP. But PvP is purely voluntary and players who opt out of it give up nothing at all by opting out. If guilds want to compete with other guilds, it should work the same way PvP does. It should be purely voluntary and any guild that opts out of the competition should not have to give up anything at all for opting out. Unfortunately, because decay is tied to guild leveling, the competition is not voluntary. Guilds are forced into any such competition because they will be unable to level if they do not participate. There is no opt-out that does not cost them the ability to level up.


So here are some recommendations to give those who want to compete with other guilds a way to do so:

1) Remove renown decay so all guilds can level up.

2) Set up periodic guild competitions that give "bragging rights" prizes only. (ie. cosmetics, temp buffs, in-game announcements, leader boards, etc. Nothing that gives a permanent or endlessly repeatable advantage in the game.)

3) Make participation in these guild competitions completely voluntary.


This would give those who want guild competitions, fair competitions with other guilds that are interested in competing. But it would not force guilds that don't want to compete into competing and would not make those guilds that opt-out give up anything important by doing so.

[eris2323]

It is a shame Turbine won't just listen to the one underlying thread to all these arguments....

I believe it's about, oh, 99.99999999% who have so far said "GET RID OF DECAY, BUT IF YOU WON'T DO THAT THEN DO ANOTHER THING"

So Turbine, how about getting rid of decay? You have other ways to make money, a certain astral shard auction house comes to mind.

Why do you keep punishing your players by taking away their advancement based on such an unfair, unpopular mechanic?

Set decay to 0, across the board.

[Tshober]

I believe it's about, oh, 99.99999999% who have so far said "GET RID OF DECAY, BUT IF YOU WON'T DO THAT THEN DO ANOTHER THING"

So Turbine, how about getting rid of decay? You have other ways to make money, a certain astral shard auction house comes to mind.


Perhaps they just need some more time to develop and implement more money-making features to offset the drop in sales of renown pots. Maybe once they are able to make money in other ways we will see them come around to the conclusion that almost everyone in this thread has reached. That is my optimistic view.

[eris2323]

Perhaps they just need some more time to develop and implement more money-making features to offset the drop in sales of renown pots. Maybe once they are able to make money in other ways we will see them come around to the conclusion that almost everyone in this thread has reached. That is my optimistic view.

Maybe!

I mean, they keep dropping expansions on us, once a year - surely they must be making money on that, as well!

Maybe some day they will just let us play our guilds how we want; surely that day will only come after Turbine is rich, rich, rich!

And hopefully not after we've all left for other games that are newer, better, faster, prettier, or allow us a social game.

[curiouspilot]

I'd like to begin my explanation/defense by first saying that I've been following the thread and I've only posted a few times. Seeing everyone's argument, I have a pretty good idea of where this thread is going, and just so you guys know that I am not gonna go back and forth to reply for a few pages to endlessly explain what's already been said and obvious.

Vanshilar of the Over Raided, whom I agree with completely, has already explained his point of view in detail earlier on page 142, if any of you would like to re-read it. Since I am not nearly as articulate with words nor as analytical with statistical numbers as him, I'll quote him from time to time to reply some of you(I'll just hope that he does not mind :p).


Yes, that is my guild. We were stuck in the low 60's for many months. We are also the most active guild on our server. We ALWAYS have more players logged in playing DDO than any other guild on our server, 24 hours per day and 7 days per week, and we have been the most active guild on the server for more than a year. We have lots of people who play many hours each day. We also have many people who play infrequently. We have people who RP. We have people who spend much of their time online chatting with their friends. We have people who are constantly raiding. We have every type of player in our guild and we all work together to level it up. Our doors are open to anyone who is willing to play by the rules (both of them) as long as we are not full, which we often are.

Don't you think it's fair that the most active guild, by a huge margin, and the most inclusive and open guild on the server ought to be able to level up? Or is it your opinion that extremely active guilds must be stagnated and unable to ever level up, just because they are large and willing to accept all types of players?
No I don't think so, and with all due respect sir, may I say that you don't know what "extremely active" means.

Here's a quote from Vanshilar:
--------------------------------
"As an example, I previously documented that Over Raided averaged 4367 base renown per member per day to reach level 100 within a year -- so that means the average member in Over Raided was getting about 4.4 legendaries a day. As I also calculated in that post, if a 100-account guild had also wanted to hit level 100 within a year, they would've needed to gain 3834 base renown per account per day -- or about 3.8 legendaries, or 88% of our level of effort. For a 200-account guild, it would've been 3488 base renown, or 80% of our level of effort.

Similarly, our level 1-to-85 averaged 4485 base renown per account per day. A large 100-account guild would've only needed 2379 to reach level 85 at the same time as us, or 53% of our level of effort. A 200-account guild would've only needed 1700, or 38% of our level of effort. In other words, if a 100-account guild were working about half as hard as we were, we would've been neck-and-neck to be first at level 85. If a 200-account guild were working about one third as hard as we were, it would've been a close race to level 85. If a 100-account guild had been working as hard as we were, they would've absolutely crushed us at renown; this hypothetical guild would've reached level 100 after about 7 months, when we were still level 86."
--------------------------------
So the conclusion here is, if every member of a large guild work as hard(or as efficient) as members of a small but "extremely active" guild, they would advance faster.


It sounds like you are very bitter and angry towards a group of people who are finally able to enjoy their game.

I for one, am very glad, that this guild who has spent so long stuck is now finally able to move forward, and I am very happy for all of the people in the guild.

Congrats, guys!

Not levelling fast enough? Consider recruiting! It'll do wonders, in this multiplayer online game!
No sir, there's neither sound or tone, and there's no need to be.

Most large guilds has already achieved level 63 or higher, which is the level to get most ship buffs in the game, I'd really doubt that people will only start to be "able to" have fun after they have access to the rest few shrines.

Here's a quote from Vanshilar:
--------------------------------
With the change to renown decay, small guilds are still characterized by small gain and small loss, but large guilds are now characterized by large gain and small loss. Thus large guilds are no longer encumbered by decay and will easily level up, while small guilds still continue to be held in check by renown decay and will not reach the higher levels unless they are among the most active of players. This is in direct contradiction to Turbine's stance that the guild system should not promote any particular guild size, yet there's been little word after nearly 4 months about how they will remedy this situation.
--------------------------------
So the question is, why should small guilds recruit more players just to gain renown, when Turbine doesn't want the guild system to particularly benefit certain guild size? Previous guild renown system already favor large guilds, it's just that most people don't realize it. Now that their gain is so much that their renown loss is near negligible. If small guilds is forced to recruit more players to become, let's say medium guilds, does Turbine favor medium guilds? and if more players in general will make it easier to gain renown, then Turbine certainly favor large guilds, which isn't Turbine's intention whatsoever, and it also isn't fair, because the system should benefit all size of guilds equally.

[eris2323]

I'd like to begin my explanation/defense by first saying that I've been following the thread and I've only posted a few times. Seeing everyone's argument, I have a pretty good idea of where this thread is going, and just so you guys know that I am not gonna go back and forth to reply for a few pages to endlessly explain what's already been said and obvious.

Vanshilar of the Over Raided, whom I agree with completely, has already explained his point of view in detail earlier on page 142, if any of you would like to re-read it. Since I am not nearly as articulate with words nor as analytical with statistical numbers as him, I'll quote him from time to time to reply some of you(I'll just hope that he does not mind :p).


No I don't think so, and with all due respect sir, may I say that you don't know what "extremely active" means.

Here's a quote from Vanshilar:
--------------------------------
"As an example, I previously documented that Over Raided averaged 4367 base renown per member per day to reach level 100 within a year -- so that means the average member in Over Raided was getting about 4.4 legendaries a day. As I also calculated in that post, if a 100-account guild had also wanted to hit level 100 within a year, they would've needed to gain 3834 base renown per account per day -- or about 3.8 legendaries, or 88% of our level of effort. For a 200-account guild, it would've been 3488 base renown, or 80% of our level of effort.

Similarly, our level 1-to-85 averaged 4485 base renown per account per day. A large 100-account guild would've only needed 2379 to reach level 85 at the same time as us, or 53% of our level of effort. A 200-account guild would've only needed 1700, or 38% of our level of effort. In other words, if a 100-account guild were working about half as hard as we were, we would've been neck-and-neck to be first at level 85. If a 200-account guild were working about one third as hard as we were, it would've been a close race to level 85. If a 100-account guild had been working as hard as we were, they would've absolutely crushed us at renown; this hypothetical guild would've reached level 100 after about 7 months, when we were still level 86."
--------------------------------
So the conclusion here is, if every member of a large guild work as hard(or as efficient) as members of a small but "extremely active" guild, they would advance faster.


No sir, there's neither sound or tone, and there's no need to be.

Most large guilds has already achieved level 63 or higher, which is the level to get most ship buffs in the game, I'd really doubt that people will only start to be "able to" have fun after they have access to the rest few shrines.

Here's a quote from Vanshilar:
--------------------------------
With the change to renown decay, small guilds are still characterized by small gain and small loss, but large guilds are now characterized by large gain and small loss. Thus large guilds are no longer encumbered by decay and will easily level up, while small guilds still continue to be held in check by renown decay and will not reach the higher levels unless they are among the most active of players. This is in direct contradiction to Turbine's stance that the guild system should not promote any particular guild size, yet there's been little word after nearly 4 months about how they will remedy this situation.
--------------------------------
So the question is, why should small guilds recruit more players just to gain renown, when Turbine doesn't want the guild system to particularly benefit certain guild size? Previous guild renown system already favor large guilds, it's just that most people don't realize it. Now that their gain is so much that their renown loss is near negligible. If small guilds is forced to recruit more players to become, let's say medium guilds, does Turbine favor medium guilds? and if more players in general will make it easier to gain renown, then Turbine certainly favor large guilds, which isn't Turbine's intention whatsoever, and it also isn't fair, because the system should benefit all size of guilds equally.

Under the old system, there was no way out - you either kicked your casuals, or you hit the decay wall and stayed there for years.

My point is that simply there is now a way out: Recruit more.

Or, we could argue back and forth here for years waiting for a change - we could do that, but to me, simply recruiting a few more people is a lot easier.

Sorry you don't agree, and sorry you are so persecuted, but just because you don't want to take the solution that fixes your problem, doesn't mean the solution doesn't exist.

I've already stated I wanted renown lowered for small guilds, or removed completely for everyone.

But the fact of the matter is, you have a way to solve your problem, you just don't WANT to use it. That's not my fault, that's yours, and the only ones who are suffering for that are your guildies.


PS: Griffons Nest on Sarlona is still recruiting, and will continue until we hit the cap. Come be part of our family! With twice weekly scheduled raids, a guild website, and a teamspeak server, our high council has put a lot of work into making our guild attractive to new and old players alike! Come to think of it, we'll probably continue even after we hit the cap, and just rotate out some players who haven't played in a few months, and then rotate them back in if they come back :)

[Tshober]

No I don't think so, and with all due respect sir, may I say that you don't know what "extremely active" means.

With all due respect, you don't know what extremely active means when it comes to guilds. You are confusing activity per player with overall, sustained activity for the entire guild. They are both measures of activity but the former is a measure of the activity of players, not the activity of the guild. What we are discussing in this thread is a guild leveling system. We need to be careful that we are comparing guilds and not comparing players, as you and Vanshilar mistakenly did. The proper way to compare two guilds on renown earned is to compare the total renown earned by each guild. The amount earned per player is irrelevant when you are comparing two guilds.

[curiouspilot]

Under the old system, there was no way out - you either kicked your casuals, or you hit the decay wall and stayed there for years.

My point is that simply there is now a way out: Recruit more.

Or, we could argue back and forth here for years waiting for a change - we could do that, but to me, simply recruiting a few more people is a lot easier.

Sorry you don't agree, and sorry you are so persecuted, but just because you don't want to take the solution that fixes your problem, doesn't mean the solution doesn't exist.

I've already stated I wanted renown lowered for small guilds, or removed completely for everyone.

But the fact of the matter is, you have a way to solve your problem, you just don't WANT to use it. That's not my fault, that's yours, and the only ones who are suffering for that are your guildies.

There was.

Here's a quote from Vanshilar:
--------------------------------
Let's look at some of the arguments:

The renown system should reward activity
I've said this since day one -- that the key to gaining guild levels in the long run is to maximize gains (encourage fellow players to play), not to minimize losses (remove players that don't log on as often).

Yet previously, what argument did we hear for why renown decay had to be lessened? Because the only option these guild leaders had to continue leveling was to remove less active people from the guild, since they're all working very hard and there's no way they could possibly make the guild more active. Even when I said that they should encourage players to play more instead, and gave Over Raided's strategy as an example, they scoffed at this and said that it was impossible. I invite Turbine to look through the previous renown threads to see this argument in abundance.
--------------------------------
Please read my previous reply to Tshober, same post as my reply to you. :)

================================



With all due respect, you don't know what extremely active means when it comes to guilds. You are confusing activity per player with overall, sustained activity for the entire guild. They are both measures of activity but the former is a measure of the activity of players, not the activity of the guild. What we are discussing in this thread is a guild leveling system. We need to be careful that we are comparing guilds and not comparing players, as you and Vanshilar mistakenly did. The proper way to compare two guilds on renown earned is to compare the total renown earned by each guild. The amount earned per player is irrelevant when you are comparing two guilds.

Even when comparing guilds, this kind of extreme activity is quite pointless imho. If I am a new player who likes the game and I am looking for an active guild, is it any of help by getting into a guild with 1000 members which most of them play somewhere from 30 minutes to an hour? What percentage of players log on to only play for 10 to 20 minutes? In other words, almost everyone plays for 30 minutes or more, so what would be the point of being in a large guild under the new system when practically nearly everyone you encounter is at least as active as the next person? Here's a simple question for you sir, if you own a company, what would you rather have, 1,000 casual workers or 100 dedicated workers? Which one would be more efficient? and which one would you be more proud of? I'm open to all opinions so let me know your thoughts.

Oh and please read my previous reply to eris2323 also, to get a better understanding of my view point. :)

[Tshober]

Even when comparing guilds, this kind of extreme activity is quite pointless imho. If I am a new player who likes the game and I am looking for an active guild, is it any of help by getting into a guild with 1000 members which most of them play somewhere from 30 minutes to an hour? What percentage of players log on to only play for 10 to 20 minutes? In other words, almost everyone plays for 30 minutes or more, so what would be the point of being in a large guild under the new system when practically nearly everyone you encounter is at least as active as the next person? Here's a simple question for you sir, if you own a company, what would you rather have, 1,000 casual workers or 100 dedicated workers? Which one would be more efficient? and which one would you be more proud of? I'm open to all opinions so let me know your thoughts.


Everyone wants different things from a guild. Some want a guild that is social and gives them fun and friendly people to chat with. Some players are just in it for the airship and buffs. Some want to find people who are online and playing when they are to group with. Some are new players who don't know the game well and want advice from players who are more experienced. Some enjoy helping out new players and showing them the game. Some want to do serious, hardcore raiding all the time. Some enjoy several of these aspects of guild life at once. Some guilds are very inclusive and have a very diverse membership. To many players, that is extremely appealing. Some guilds are not very inclusive and ensure that all players who join will pretty much play the same way. That also appeals to some players. Neither is better. They both appeal to some kinds of players and they both provide a suitable home for the players they appeal to.

I don't think the company with workers is a good analogy. DDO is a game. People play DDO for entertainment and for fun & relaxation. Most people don't go to work for entertainment or for fun & relaxation. In fact, most everyone I know plays MMO's specifically to escape from the drudgery of work and other real world unfunness. A better analogy might be a social club. Would I rather be a member of a small social club where everyone had the same interests and approached things the same way? Or would I prefer a large social club with many diverse interests and opinions? That would depend on the specific circumstances but I can certainly see the merits of both types of social club and of both types of guild.

All players (who follow the TOS rules) are important to DDO. All players help the game grow and prosper. Even anti-social players that always solo and have a 1-man guild are important to the game, at least from a revenue perspective. If there is a healthy diversity of guilds that appeal to all types of players, that improves DDO overall. What I find destructive, is people who seem to believe that the only "good" way to play the game is their way. That does not help the game at all and actually causes much unnecessary strife.

The problem with the old decay system, and with the system proposed by Uur, is they both divide the player-base into players who are desirable to guilds (because they earn more renown than they cost in decay), and into players who are undesirable to guilds (because they earn less renown than they cost in decay). They both reward guilds for kicking/shunning players who earn negative net renown. That is why the old decay system was rejected and why the Uur proposal should also be rejected. All players are important to DDO, not just those who earn lots of renown.

[Tychagara]

Everyone wants different things from a guild. Some want a guild that is social and gives them fun and friendly people to chat with. Some players are just in it for the airship and buffs. Some want to find people who are online and playing when they are to group with. Some are new players who don't know the game well and want advice from players who are more experienced. Some enjoy helping out new players and showing them the game. Some want to do serious, hardcore raiding all the time. Some enjoy several of these aspects of guild life at once. Some guilds are very inclusive and, to many players, that is extremely appealing. Some guilds are not very inclusive and ensure that all players who join will pretty much play the same way. That also appeals to some players. Neither is better. They both appeal to some kinds of players and they both provide a suitable home for the players they appeal to.

I don't think the company with workers is a good analogy. DDO is a game. People play DDO for entertainment and for fun & relaxation. Most people don't go to work for entertainment or for fun & relaxation. In fact, most everyone I know plays MMO's specifically to escape from the drudgery of work and other real world unfunness. A better analogy might be a social club. Would I rather be a member of a small social club where everyone had the same interests and approached things the same way? Or would I prefer a large social club with many diverse interests and opinions? That would depend on the specific circumstances but I can certainly see the merits of both types of social club and of both types of guild.

All players are important to DDO. All players help the game grow and prosper. Even anti-social players that always solo and have a 1-man guild are important to the game, at least from a revenue perspective. If there is a healthy diversity of guilds that appeal to all types of players, that improves DDO overall. What I find destructive, is people who seem to believe that the only "good" way to play the game is their way. That does not help the game at all and actually causes much unnecessary strife. -emphasis added

Well spoken.

Now back to getting my Nerd Glaze back on - have two season of something to watch again before Sunday. :P

[Lowz]

Curious - so agree.

Tsboer - agree..



-emphasis added

Well spoken.

Now back to getting my Nerd Glaze back on - have two season of something to watch again before Sunday. :P

What is a "nerd glaze"?????

[UurlockYgmeov]

-emphasis added

Well spoken.

Now back to getting my Nerd Glaze back on - have two season of something to watch again before Sunday. :P
Yes, well spoken Tsober


Curious - so agree.

Tsboer - agree..




What is a "nerd glaze"?????

*chuckle* new term coined by Peter Dinklage on a late night show (search google / Peter Dinklage / nerd glaze) to refer to watching back-to-back episodes of his show and coming back to work all 'glazed' eye..... something like that.

Yeah Tychagara - I gotta do the same thing... for winter is coming!

[Lowz]

I'd like to begin my explanation/defense by first saying that I've been following the thread and I've only posted a few times. Seeing everyone's argument, I have a pretty good idea of where this thread is going, and just so you guys know that I am not gonna go back and forth to reply for a few pages to endlessly explain what's already been said and obvious.

Vanshilar of the Over Raided, whom I agree with completely, has already explained his point of view in detail earlier on page 142, if any of you would like to re-read it. Since I am not nearly as articulate with words nor as analytical with statistical numbers as him, I'll quote him from time to time to reply some of you(I'll just hope that he does not mind :p).


No I don't think so, and with all due respect sir, may I say that you don't know what "extremely active" means.

Here's a quote from Vanshilar:
--------------------------------
"As an example, I previously documented that Over Raided averaged 4367 base renown per member per day to reach level 100 within a year -- so that means the average member in Over Raided was getting about 4.4 legendaries a day. As I also calculated in that post, if a 100-account guild had also wanted to hit level 100 within a year, they would've needed to gain 3834 base renown per account per day -- or about 3.8 legendaries, or 88% of our level of effort. For a 200-account guild, it would've been 3488 base renown, or 80% of our level of effort.

Similarly, our level 1-to-85 averaged 4485 base renown per account per day. A large 100-account guild would've only needed 2379 to reach level 85 at the same time as us, or 53% of our level of effort. A 200-account guild would've only needed 1700, or 38% of our level of effort. In other words, if a 100-account guild were working about half as hard as we were, we would've been neck-and-neck to be first at level 85. If a 200-account guild were working about one third as hard as we were, it would've been a close race to level 85. If a 100-account guild had been working as hard as we were, they would've absolutely crushed us at renown; this hypothetical guild would've reached level 100 after about 7 months, when we were still level 86."
--------------------------------
So the conclusion here is, if every member of a large guild work as hard(or as efficient) as members of a small but "extremely active" guild, they would advance faster.


No sir, there's neither sound or tone, and there's no need to be.

Most large guilds has already achieved level 63 or higher, which is the level to get most ship buffs in the game, I'd really doubt that people will only start to be "able to" have fun after they have access to the rest few shrines.

Here's a quote from Vanshilar:
--------------------------------
With the change to renown decay, small guilds are still characterized by small gain and small loss, but large guilds are now characterized by large gain and small loss. Thus large guilds are no longer encumbered by decay and will easily level up, while small guilds still continue to be held in check by renown decay and will not reach the higher levels unless they are among the most active of players. This is in direct contradiction to Turbine's stance that the guild system should not promote any particular guild size, yet there's been little word after nearly 4 months about how they will remedy this situation.
--------------------------------
So the question is, why should small guilds recruit more players just to gain renown, when Turbine doesn't want the guild system to particularly benefit certain guild size? Previous guild renown system already favor large guilds, it's just that most people don't realize it. Now that their gain is so much that their renown loss is near negligible. If small guilds is forced to recruit more players to become, let's say medium guilds, does Turbine favor medium guilds? and if more players in general will make it easier to gain renown, then Turbine certainly favor large guilds, which isn't Turbine's intention whatsoever, and it also isn't fair, because the system should benefit all size of guilds equally.
+1
funny how people's eye's glaze over when they read long posts.

forget about numbers.

[curiouspilot]

I don't think the company with workers is a good analogy. DDO is a game. People play DDO for entertainment and for fun & relaxation. Most people don't go to work for entertainment or for fun & relaxation. In fact, most everyone I know plays MMO's specifically to escape from the drudgery of work and other real world unfunness. A better analogy might be a social club. Would I rather be a member of a small social club where everyone had the same interests and approached things the same way? Or would I prefer a large social club with many diverse interests and opinions? That would depend on the specific circumstances but I can certainly see the merits of both types of social club and of both types of guild.
While I agree with you that DDO is a game, but I don't think it can only be just a game; what I mean is, it's a game just as Chess is a game, or basketball, or boxing, or even Life itself, can be just a game, but it's about the attitude one have towards them. One can always choose be casual or hardcore. One could relax and summon a hire, begin his questing and finish after 40 minutes, while some prefer to finish Frame Work on elite in 3 minutes or raid 4 hours every day, each to his own(I am usually the former :p).

Now of course that it doesn't seem possible to live off playing DDO, but that's because DDO isn't as popular as let's say WoW, and I am sure there are some players who could make bank with WoW, and those players are the type of players who take the game very seriously because they have a drive, no matter what kind, to be better than others, to beat the game.

A 6-men guild used to be able to compete with a large guild, it's because of the small guild renown bonus and hard-work. So at 300% more renown gain, 6 accounts actually equal to 24 accounts, and each member just has to play 4 times as hard, to be able to advance nearly as quick as a guild with 100 accounts(24*4). Now with the new system, a large guild no longer has to be afraid to add more members, so a large guild with 100 accounts can easily become a huge guild with 1000 accounts such as Legends of Orien on server Orien(I don't really have grudges against the guild, I am only using it as an example), and in order for a tiny guild to keep up, each member has to play 40 times as hard, and that is nearly impossible, or close to possible for players who do not have jobs and play all day.

Having said all that, I gotta say that I am more of a play-for-fun type. But really, who wanna social and chat all day? Isn't the point of playing games, well, playing games? No matter how much one wants to talk about how corrupted the US government is, or one's experience with chemotherapy, or how wonderful one's family is on general chat, one's gotta step into the dungeon and play the game, and who wants to be bad at the game that they like so much? I know I don't. It's definitely not fun for me to miss three-point shots 9 outta 10 when I play basketball, and for as good and as hardworking as Michael Jordan was, I knew he was having fun in most games, I really think so.:)

[UurlockYgmeov]

While I agree with you that DDO is a game, but I don't think it can only be just a game; what I mean is, it's a game just as Chess is a game, or basketball, or boxing, or even Life itself, can be just a game, but it's about the attitude one have towards them. One can always choose be casual or hardcore. One could relax and summon a hire, begin his questing and finish after 40 minutes, while some prefer to finish Frame Work on elite in 3 minutes or raid 4 hours every day, each to his own(I am usually the former :p).

Now of course that it doesn't seem possible to live off playing DDO, but that's because DDO isn't as popular as let's say WoW, and I am sure there are some players who could make bank with WoW, and those players are the type of players who take the game very seriously because they have a drive, no matter what kind, to be better than others, to beat the game.

A 6-men guild used to be able to compete with a large guild, it's because of the small guild renown bonus and hard-work. So at 300% more renown gain, 6 accounts actually equal to 24 accounts, and each member just has to play 4 times as hard, to be able to advance nearly as quick as a guild with 100 accounts(24*4). Now with the new system, a large guild no longer has to be afraid to add more members, so a large guild with 100 accounts can easily become a huge guild with 1000 accounts such as Legends of Orien on server Orien(I don't really have grudges against the guild, I am only using it as an example), and in order for a tiny guild to keep up, each member has to play 40 times as hard, and that is nearly impossible, or close to possible for players who do not have jobs and play all day.

Having said all that, I gotta say that I am more of a play-for-fun type. But really, who wanna social and chat all day? Isn't the point of playing games, well, playing games? No matter how much one wants to talk about how corrupted the US government is, or one's experience with chemotherapy, or how wonderful one's family is on general chat, one's gotta step into the dungeon and play the game, and who wants to be bad at the game that they like so much? I know I don't. It's definitely not fun for me to miss three-point shots 9 outta 10 when I play basketball, and for as good and as hardworking as Michael Jordan was, I knew he was having fun in most games, I really think so.:)

+1; would give more rep - but must spread the love first. :P

[Gremmlynn]

So the question is, why should small guilds recruit more players just to gain renown, when Turbine doesn't want the guild system to particularly benefit certain guild size? Previous guild renown system already favor large guilds, it's just that most people don't realize it. Now that their gain is so much that their renown loss is near negligible. If small guilds is forced to recruit more players to become, let's say medium guilds, does Turbine favor medium guilds? and if more players in general will make it easier to gain renown, then Turbine certainly favor large guilds, which isn't Turbine's intention whatsoever, and it also isn't fair, because the system should benefit all size of guilds equally.Except that outside of the ransack change, small guilds are no worse off than they were before the change. The big thing that changed was that players that actually stood a chance of succeeding in this mini-game are no longer barred from playing with those who didn't and in fact are more likely to succeed if they do.

Granted the ransack system could really use an adjustment. But anything beyond that would be, IMO, little more than oiling the squeaky wheels.

[UurlockYgmeov]

small guilds are no worse off than they were before the change.

Correct - the math clearly shows small guilds are still being penalized for being small, and the higher the level they achieve the more impossible it is for them to continue.

The system didn't change for the guilds with fewer than 20 accounts (modified) - and is still broken for them.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I've seen you state this but don't understand why you feel it MUST do so. As the system, from it's inception has always been mechanically unfair to guilds under 6 (size bonus) as well as guilds under 10 (decay minimum) it seems the developers also don't feel this is something they MUST do.

Just because it is now - doesn't mean that it should be. What is now is not fair, neither was the system before that.

What we need is a system that doesn't favor one size over another for decay purposes. In order to do that - that mean all sizes - from one to cap, and everything in between must be treated fairly when dealing with decay.

Fair doesn't discriminate or favor one for one arbitrary (or non-arbitrary reason) or another.

A system that starts with objectivity and without bias has a chance to remain so - while a system that starts with bias is inherently already started down the path to bias and unfairness. A system can only be as fair as the most basic of its concepts allow it to be.

As far as size bonuses - I am neutral - and believe they are a separate issued to decay.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fair)

marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism <a very fair person to do business with>

Consisting of an objective state

Merriam-Webster: Objectivity (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/objectivity)

expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations <objective art> <an objective history of the war> <an objective judgment>

[Gremmlynn]

A 6-men guild used to be able to compete with a large guild, it's because of the small guild renown bonus and hard-work. So at 300% more renown gain, 6 accounts actually equal to 24 accounts, and each member just has to play 4 times as hard, to be able to advance nearly as quick as a guild with 100 accounts(24*4). Now with the new system, a large guild no longer has to be afraid to add more members, so a large guild with 100 accounts can easily become a huge guild with 1000 accounts such as Legends of Orien on server Orien(I don't really have grudges against the guild, I am only using it as an example), and in order for a tiny guild to keep up, each member has to play 40 times as hard, and that is nearly impossible, or close to possible for players who do not have jobs and play all day. The problem here is that 6 man guilds are not directly competing with large guilds for anything. They are both playing against the system and it is possible for each to win. Might it be easier for a a very active 6 man guild with a bunch of more casual player to do so than a very active 6 man guild without? Maybe, if enough casuals are added to make up for the loss of size bonus. But what is wrong with that as it encourages those 6 very active players to interact with those casual players?

[UurlockYgmeov]

The problem here is that 6 man guilds are not directly competing with large guilds for anything. They are both playing against the system and it is possible for each to win. Might it be easier for a a very active 6 man guild with a bunch of more casual player to do so than a very active 6 man guild without? Maybe, if enough casuals are added to make up for the loss of size bonus. But what is wrong with that as it encourages those 6 very active players to interact with those casual players?

The game should encourage interaction for gain and social fun, not the system.

And currently a six account guild cannot achieve the highest of guild levels without extreme activity. (67500 / (4 (size modifier) x 6 (accounts) = almost 3000 base renown a day each account (base is before size bonus)

Large guilds have nothing to fear when competing for who can earn the most renown in a given time period simply because the more members earning renown the faster a guild earns renown. A six account, let alone a one account guild cannot keep up (and they don't expect to).

What is the point is that the system is biased against small guilds when it comes to decay. Small guilds are feeling the pressure to remove less active members in order to try to outpace decay.

The system has to be fundamentally fair from the start (for decay purposes) in order for the entire system to be fair.

And forcing a guild to do something just to promote social behavior is wrong, and will only lead to bad will towards others. A small guild usually chooses to be small for many reasons - including the culture (especially). Forcing them to abandon the culture to continue advancement is simply a bad system and will lead to many leaving the game because they aren't having fun.

Case in point. I am a part of a dedicated TR group. I also PUG allot, and do some quests Solo. My TR group is 90% in the same guild. We play together because we have the same style and because we enjoy each others company. We build our TR's based on what the others are doing. I am doing Arty again next life, another is doing Druid mix, and another is doing something else, and another is doing something else. Blended well. Following this next life I plan on doing a 9 rogue - 9 wiz - 2 arty life. And the others in my group will be doing builds that compliment the group. Forcing us to massively expand just to keep up with decay is not fair. We love our culture - and we all contribute to the guild. We aren't small but we aren't big either. We are just where we want to be at this moment - just right - in the 'Goldilock zone.'

[Gremmlynn]

Just because it is now - doesn't mean that it should be. What is now is not fair, neither was the system before that.

What we need is a system that doesn't favor one size over another for decay purposes. In order to do that - that mean all sizes - from one to cap, and everything in between must be treated fairly when dealing with decay.

Fair doesn't discriminate or favor one for one arbitrary (or non-arbitrary reason) or another.

A system that starts with objectivity and without bias has a chance to remain so - while a system that starts with bias is inherently already started down the path to bias and unfairness. A system can only be as fair as the most basic of its concepts allow it to be.

As far as size bonuses - I am neutral - and believe they are a separate issued to decay.Ah, for it to fit your definition of fair it must be so. Personally, I think fair is far from possible as to be fair the system would have to take into account variations in players interest, ability and availability to play and find a balance for all. I find a much more reasonable target to be reasonably passable for all to succeed with a bias towards anything that helps Turbine to succeed at their goals.

[Gremmlynn]

The game should encourage interaction for gain and social fun, not the system.

And currently a six account guild cannot achieve the highest of guild levels without extreme activity. (67500 / (4 (size modifier) x 6 (accounts) = almost 3000 base renown a day each account (base is before size bonus)

Large guilds have nothing to fear when competing for who can earn the most renown in a given time period simply because the more members earning renown the faster a guild earns renown. A six account, let alone a one account guild cannot keep up (and they don't expect to).

What is the point is that the system is biased against small guilds when it comes to decay. Small guilds are feeling the pressure to remove less active members in order to try to outpace decay.

And I proposed a change that reduced decay for small guilds by a factor of up to 10. As well as support the elimination of decay entirely (no, I don't agree that this would hurt the game as personally, I see leveling to 100 and not having to worry about it ever again as superior to a system that causes anyone any guild to remove members) or remove the whole guild level/perks nonsense completely and return guilds to the social, mutual aid organizations they were before the system was added.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Ah, for it to fit your definition of fair it must be so. Personally, I think fair is far from possible as to be fair the system would have to take into account variations in players interest, ability and availability to play and find a balance for all. I find a much more reasonable target to be reasonably passable for all to succeed with a bias towards anything that helps Turbine to succeed at their goals.

Good - we agree on the fair requirement.

The system doesn't have to take into account variations in players interests, ability and availability to play; rather it just has to allow the players and guilds 'self-determination' - the ability to choose their own and in order to do this - the guilds and players need better tools (like better information about what guilds are out there, their focuses, and the ability for guilds to give out trial guild invites to see if players will like the guild and the other guild members will like the player)

What the system needs is to be fair not only to all sizes, but all styles. To provide management and information tools for players and guilds alike.

Anything that makes the game more enjoyable will ultimately help Turbine reach their goal - and as a for-profit entity that runs a F2P game - enjoyable means more revenue.

[UurlockYgmeov]

And I proposed a change that reduced decay for small guilds by a factor of up to 10. As well as support the elimination of decay entirely (no, I don't agree that this would hurt the game as personally, I see leveling to 100 and not having to worry about it ever again as superior to a system that causes anyone any guild to remove members) or remove the whole guild level/perks nonsense completely and return guilds to the social, mutual aid organizations they were before the system was added.

I saw it and posted the charts/graphs/math.

While it is a start - it doesn't go far enough and still has inherent bias.

I also support no decay, but also am one who plans for backup kobolds. I really don't think Turbine would eliminate decay - it serves a purpose:


Decay is rather like membership dues used to pay the minstrels to fame (gild the lily) the guilds deeds far and wide by memorizing and embellishing the deeds of guild members. Also inferred but not specified are the upkeep of the guild’s ship (including but not limited to feeding the Elementals that power the ship; docking and landing fees; royalties to House Lyrandar’s for continued use of its Dragonmark for navigation; concessions (bribes) to the various business enterprises, gangs, consortiums, and various other interests needed to satisfy in order to successfully operate without incident; along with paying the Captain’s, First Mate and other (below decks (hidden)) crew’s salaries and upkeep.)

So we must also look at decay going forward (if Turbine doesn't just eliminate it - which they would already if they had any intention of doing so).

[Charononus]

Fair, is a myth as humans never see past their own biases. In uur's case he hates large guilds and wants to punish them.

[Tshober]

A 6-men guild used to be able to compete with a large guild, it's because of the small guild renown bonus and hard-work. So at 300% more renown gain, 6 accounts actually equal to 24 accounts, and each member just has to play 4 times as hard, to be able to advance nearly as quick as a guild with 100 accounts(24*4). Now with the new system, a large guild no longer has to be afraid to add more members, so a large guild with 100 accounts can easily become a huge guild with 1000 accounts such as Legends of Orien on server Orien(I don't really have grudges against the guild, I am only using it as an example), and in order for a tiny guild to keep up, each member has to play 40 times as hard, and that is nearly impossible, or close to possible for players who do not have jobs and play all day.

There are no 1000 account guilds. DDO caps guilds at 1000 characters, not accounts. And LoO has not ever changed how it recruits from the very first day it started recruiting, more than 3 years ago. We have always been inclusive of all types of players and always will be. We don't care at all about your small guild. We don't care at all that your small guild reached 100 first. We just want to play DDO and have fun and advance our guild.

The fact that your small guild could compete with a much larger guild under the old system was not really due to your guild working harder. It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses. The large guild was, in reality, earning much more renown than your small guild was, only more of it was being taken away after they had earned it in decay. Your ability to compete was a total illusion. But, more importantly, the large guild you mentioned, Legends of Orien, was not even trying to compete with you. The entire "competition" was all in your head. How can you get any satisfaction from "beating" opponents who are not even trying to compete with you and are not even aware that you are trying to compete with them? That seems like it would be a pretty hollow and unfulfilling "victory" to me.

I know there are some people who feel they must make everything into a competition. Even something that, to me, is so obviously about cooperation as guilds. I have proposed that we allow for the competition junkies by having guild competitions that do not force all guilds to compete against their will because it is tied to leveling. See the link below:


The only coherent argument I have heard so far for keeping decay (other than to make money for Turbine) is that it allows guilds to compete with each other. The problem with that, as you point out, is that many guilds are simply not interested in competing with other guilds.

[curiouspilot]

There are no 1000 account guilds. DDO caps guilds at 1000 characters, not accounts. And LoO has not ever changed how it recruits from the very first day it started recruiting, more than 3 years ago. We have always been inclusive of all types of players and always will be. We don't care at all about your small guild. We don't care at all that your small guild reached 100 first. We just want to play DDO and have fun and advance our guild.

You're right, I've mistaken account numbers to character numbers of the guild LoO, I apologize. But account sizes of LoO is still easily ten times of a lot of guilds, so this doesn't change much of anything.


The fact that your small guild could compete with a much larger guild under the old system was not really due to your guild working harder. It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses. The large guild was, in reality, earning much more renown than your small guild was, only more of it was being taken away after they had earned it in decay. Your ability to compete was a total illusion. But, more importantly, the large guild you mentioned, Legends of Orien, was not even trying to compete with you. The entire "competition" was all in your head. How can you get any satisfaction from "beating" opponents who are not even trying to compete with you and are not even aware that you are trying to compete with them? That seems like it would be a pretty hollow and unfulfilling "victory" to me.
I am not in a top end small guild like Vanshilar, so the small guild mentioned was just for example. Oh and if you'd bother to read what I quote from Vanshilar to you earlier, you'd get that large guilds really weren't in any disadvantage of gaining renown, even with that seemingly large renown decay.
-------------------------------
I'd like to add this bit, that no matter what I said or argued about, I don't really care so much about the outcome, be it the old or the new system, because I like this game so much that I can enjoy the game with or without ship buffs and such, but of course I wouldn't want a system to be so unfair to certain groups of players, so people would start leaving the game. The old guild renown system may not be flawless, but it's fair, imho.

[Lowz]

Fair, is a myth as humans never see past their own biases. In uur's case he hates large guilds and wants to punish them.

I disagree. from what Uurlock has posted it is clear that uurlock is not about punishing any size guild. you are completely mistaken.

[Lowz]

We just want to play DDO and have fun and advance our guild.

The fact that your small guild could compete with a much larger guild under the old system was not really due to your guild working harder. It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses. The large guild was, in reality, earning much more renown than your small guild was, only more of it was being taken away after they had earned it in decay. Your ability to compete was a total illusion. But, more importantly, the large guild you mentioned, Legends of Orien, was not even trying to compete with you. The entire "competition" was all in your head. How can you get any satisfaction from "beating" opponents who are not even trying to compete with you and are not even aware that you are trying to compete with them? That seems like it would be a pretty hollow and unfulfilling "victory" to me.
That is what everyone else wants as well.

actually - everyone was punished rather quite equally under the previous system. now it is just the smaller guilds that are being punished.

most competitions that mean anything (like golf) are entirely in ones head. that doesn't make them any less valid. comparing progress against ones peers is just plain good for understanding and improving if that is what you want.



I am not in a top end small guild like Vanshilar, so the small guild mentioned was just for example. Oh and if you'd bother to read what I quote from Vanshilar to you earlier, you'd get that large guilds really weren't in any disadvantage of gaining renown, even with that seemingly large renown decay.

most didn't read because to quote them tl:dr which means too long didn't read. They should have before replying.

[Wipey]

It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses.
So why exactly was large build punished more ?

[Tshober]

So why exactly was large build punished more ?

Because of decay. Under the old system, decay increased for every player you added to your guild. So even though the larger guild really earned far more renown than the smaller guild did, the decay took far more away from the larger guild than it did from the smaller guild. Add small guild renown bonuses on top of that and the old system favored small guilds over large guilds. Any system where adding more players to your guild can actually reduce the amount of renown your guild earns, favors exclusion, and favors smaller guilds.

The current system does not allow players to contribute less than zero net renown to a guild and so it favors inclusion and large guilds.

[Lowz]

Because of decay. Under the old system, decay increased for every player you added to your guild. So even though the larger guild really earned far more renown than the smaller guild did, the decay took far more away from the larger guild than it did from the smaller guild. Add small guild renown bonuses on top of that and the old system favored small guilds over large guilds. Any system where adding more players to your guild can actually reduce the amount of renown your guild earns, favors exclusion, and favors smaller guilds.

The current system does not allow players to contribute less than zero net renown to a guild and so it favors inclusion and large guilds.

and the current and previous system favored large guilds. Look at the math uurlock and that other guy posted. plain as the nose on your face.

and the current system allows everyone to contribute less than zero. even it if is a miniscule amount (less than 1), it is still more than zero.

[Tshober]

I disagree. from what Uurlock has posted it is clear that uurlock is not about punishing any size guild. you are completely mistaken.

He absolutely insists that his plan MUST allow guilds to lose levels. He wants his guild to be able to advance and he insists that other guilds must be allowed to lose levels. When offered a very small change, by his own numbers, that would ensure that no guilds would lose levels, he rejected that option because he feels very strongly that guilds must be able to lose levels. Which guilds do you think those are?

His plan adds more decay for every player in your guild, which the current system does not do. Which guilds will incur the most decay under his plan?

He has been extremely evasive about why his plan must be allowed to have guilds lose levels. But those of us who see how his plan adds more decay for every player you add to your guild, can see who it is that his plan will allow to lose levels, and it won't be his small guild.

[Tshober]

and the current system allows everyone to contribute less than zero. even it if is a miniscule amount (less than 1), it is still more than zero.

What? That makes no sense. Under the current system, no player can ever earn less renown than they cost in decay. Under the old system, many players did earn less renown than they cost in decay. And that gave guilds an incentive to kick/shun such players. And that is why we have the current system and not the old system .

[eris2323]

And here we go again...

Two (?) people claiming the old system favoured large guilds, when it is clear that it did not.

Sorry, you're just wrong, and you weren't paying attention then, when the numbers favoured small guilds, were you?

Two people who don't understand the guild system or its history who have grand designs of re-designing it to favour solo and tiny guilds?

Not interested. Do your homework. And stop suggesting changes that will solely benefit you while destroying large guilds.

You're not qualified to change the system, and your suggestions have been shouted down quite a few times as harmful to the game as a whole.

And you use too much text to try to 'snowjob' it past us....

Not. Interested. Not even gonna read.

[eris2323]

And for all those who keep repeating 'the devs said, the devs said, the devs said, the devs said, the devs said...'

Might I remind you that someone high up in turbine once told us we'd be able to take 'paralyzation off that kama and put it on the longsword!!!!!'.

Devs are wrong; Devs are incorrect, and sometimes, you have to just deal with it.

I for one hope the devs are never considering adding such disgusting, anti-social features back to the game as to destroy the large guilds just so a few tiny and solo guilds can level faster.

Those who keep repeating 'vanshilar said, van said, van said, van said'

Please keep mind, this person has no access to internal stats; can not see account numbers of anyone outside his guild, can not see how many people are active today, and are basically good at taking bad, and outdated data (as myddo is broken) and making that readable and mean whatever he wants it to say.

However, doesn't change the fact he doesn't know the full details of any guild except his own, and all his numbers are suspect because myddo is broken.

[Tshober]

However, doesn't change the fact he doesn't know the full details of any guild except his own, and all his numbers are suspect because myddo is broken.

I have to concur with your assessment of myddo.com data. I took one look at the data for my guild and decided the guild data was just as horribly wrong as the account and character data are. It showed people as current officers in my guild that have not been in the guild for years, much less officers. It showed that my guild had nearly 4000 current members, even though the DDO cap is 1000 characters. Nothing that comes from myddo.com data can be trusted to tell you anything remotely truthful or accurate.

I used to say that they should just turn myddo.com off, except I would miss the lotteries, even though half of my characters that "win" the lottery were deleted years ago. But now even the myddo.com lotteries are completely broken for most accounts and have been for months. So please, just turn this loser off entirely Turbine. The data is so wrong that it is totally useless. And it actually does harm because some people don't realize that it is just garbage, and try to use it as though it were actually correct. Just turn off myddo.com please, until it can be fixed.

[eris2323]

I have to concur with your assessment of myddo.com data. I took one look at the data for my guild and decided the guild data was just as horribly wrong as the account and character data are. It showed people as current officers in my guild that have not been in the guild for years, much less officers. It showed that my guild had nearly 4000 current members, even though the DDO cap is 1000 characters. Nothing that comes from myddo.com data can be trusted to tell you anything remotely truthful or accurate.

I used to say that they should just turn myddo.com off, except I would miss the lotteries, even though half of my characters that "win" the lottery were deleted years ago. But now even the myddo.com lotteries are completely broken for most accounts and have been for months. So please, just turn this loser off entirely Turbine. The data is so wrong that it is totally useless. And it actually does harm because some people don't realize that it is just garbage, and try to use it as though were actually correct. Just turn off myddo.com please, until it can be fixed.

Yes; they should really turn off broken data sources like that - it leads to all sorts of people making all sorts of claims based on it.

When in reality - no one knows how active any guild is, unless they are in it, and have access to more information than that. For instance; you wouldn't have a clue who was unique and who was an alt, unless you were in our high council and had access to that data.

For another instance, you wouldn't have a clue how many accounts are even in the guild - just number of characters, as that is not published either.

For yet another instance - you can't see how long each player plays, and how long each is in-game, unless you are watching the guild chat 24 hours a day - and you're not in our guild, so I don't see how thats possible.

Bad data from myddo leads to bad assumptions, then people taking those bad assumptions and making it into gospel simply because they are in love with the numbers and pretty charts based on garbage data :)

It's all garbage.

Turn off myddo.

[Gremmlynn]

Good - we agree on the fair requirement.

The system doesn't have to take into account variations in players interests, ability and availability to play; rather it just has to allow the players and guilds 'self-determination' - the ability to choose their own and in order to do this - the guilds and players need better tools (like better information about what guilds are out there, their focuses, and the ability for guilds to give out trial guild invites to see if players will like the guild and the other guild members will like the player)

What the system needs is to be fair not only to all sizes, but all styles. To provide management and information tools for players and guilds alike.

Anything that makes the game more enjoyable will ultimately help Turbine reach their goal - and as a for-profit entity that runs a F2P game - enjoyable means more revenue.Then the system we now have will work. As small guilds can and have succeeded by being active enough and casual players can succeed simply by either hitching their wagon to active players or getting a large enough group of other casual players (unlikely). Now small guilds of casual players may not be able to succeed, but I'm not the one insisting decay has to remain.

[Gremmlynn]

I am not in a top end small guild like Vanshilar, so the small guild mentioned was just for example. Oh and if you'd bother to read what I quote from Vanshilar to you earlier, you'd get that large guilds really weren't in any disadvantage of gaining renown, even with that seemingly large renown decay.Only if they made it a point to either boot, or encourage casual players to quit. I laugh at the idea that a guild could encourage players to play more, as anyone who would actually want to do that would if they were able and anyone who didn't simply wouldn't. Better to let players play as much as they can or want to and design a system that lets then contribute when they do, than tell them they must play this much to break even and see them simply finding a game that fits the amount of time they are willing or able to play. Seems pretty obvious to me.

[Gremmlynn]

most competitions that mean anything (like golf) are entirely in ones head. that doesn't make them any less valid. comparing progress against ones peers is just plain good for understanding and improving if that is what you want.Improving what in this case though? All it is is a "competition" to see who plays the most, or maybe spends the most on renown elixirs. I really don't think renown awards are going to make anyone better at opening chests faster.

[Gremmlynn]

and the current and previous system favored large guilds. Look at the math uurlock and that other guy posted. plain as the nose on your face.No it heavily favored very active players to form into small groups in order to magnify their gains with size bonuses. It was very prejudiced against anyone for whom the game is a diversion rather than a devotion and any guild that included them as a member.

[Gremmlynn]

And here we go again...

Two (?) people claiming the old system favoured large guilds, when it is clear that it did not.

Sorry, you're just wrong, and you weren't paying attention then, when the numbers favoured small guilds, were you?

Two people who don't understand the guild system or its history who have grand designs of re-designing it to favour solo and tiny guilds?

Not interested. Do your homework. And stop suggesting changes that will solely benefit you while destroying large guilds.

You're not qualified to change the system, and your suggestions have been shouted down quite a few times as harmful to the game as a whole.

And you use too much text to try to 'snowjob' it past us....

Not. Interested. Not even gonna read.Actually in theory it could favor large guilds if you could get a large enough group of serious players to stick together long enough to do it. The problem is that serious players have a tendency to disagree on the most minor of points as well as hold ambitions that are less likely to be fulfilled by such a group. So your typical large guild has a core of serious players small enough to get along and a majority of less serious, generally less active players who, under the old system, contributed much more to decay than they generally did to renown.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Then the system we now have will work. As small guilds can and have succeeded by being active enough and casual players can succeed simply by either hitching their wagon to active players or getting a large enough group of other casual players (unlikely). Now small guilds of casual players may not be able to succeed, but I'm not the one insisting decay has to remain.

If Turbine doesn't eliminate decay, then decay will remain - but be overhauled.

No small guilds haven't succeeded - in fact the success stories after level 70 are very limited and only to those uber active guilds.

And trying to spin this to twist my words is not productive.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Only if they made it a point to either boot, or encourage casual players to quit. I laugh at the idea that a guild could encourage players to play more, as anyone who would actually want to do that would if they were able and anyone who didn't simply wouldn't. Better to let players play as much as they can or want to and design a system that lets then contribute when they do, than tell them they must play this much to break even and see them simply finding a game that fits the amount of time they are willing or able to play. Seems pretty obvious to me.

The desire of wanting to play with friends is very powerful and is more effective a tool to encourage active play than any other.

The culture of a small guild can be one of tight knit group that promotes people to come online the same time everyday and look for one another. This draws people in.

The current and prior system tells small guilds that they have to play this much in order to just maintain - that is wrong. A system needs to be fair to all size guilds and should be designed to allow for different play styles.

[Lowz]

He absolutely insists that his plan MUST allow guilds to lose levels. He wants his guild to be able to advance and he insists that other guilds must be allowed to lose levels. When offered a very small change, by his own numbers, that would ensure that no guilds would lose levels, he rejected that option because he feels very strongly that guilds must be able to lose levels. Which guilds do you think those are?

His plan adds more decay for every player in your guild, which the current system does not do. Which guilds will incur the most decay under his plan?

He has been extremely evasive about why his plan must be allowed to have guilds lose levels. But those of us who see how his plan adds more decay for every player you add to your guild, can see who it is that his plan will allow to lose levels, and it won't be his small guild.
All guilds - uurlock has said it over and over and over and over. some just seem to read large guilds. no all guilds. should be able to loose renown through decay.

I am fine with decay per player. I am fine with the chance that with neglect a guild can loose a level (if enough time is there)..

That isn't a small change. You wanted to tie decay directly to the individual players. You want to make it impossible to loose renown. No, you just wanted to try and sneak in something that Turbine would flat reject. He included it already first option eliminate decay or if that won't fly then....

I can tell you that you haven't even looked at the numbers. Most guilds would actually have signifigantly less decay under his system than now. All guild sized treated equally. Only those that actually earn renown during a day caount for decay. Fair playing feild where yes more members can mean more decay - but playing an hour in a quest easily earns more renown than decay. law of averages say that since only those earning decay affect decay then those that earn more renown will make up for those that earn less. The more players a guild has the faster they will progress and the more likely they will not decay.

And as far as loosing a level? It can happen now. Under Uurlock's idea if a guild doesn't log in for a day they might loose a hundred renown at level 50, or even 250 at level one hundred - a day.... wow.. how long will it take to loose a level at level 100 when you when a guild has 51.5 million renown .... how about 16 years.

Sit down and think about the idea instead of doing a knee jerk. Open your guild panel and count the number of characters that show hours instead of days and hours since last log in. Divide that by 4 and you will get accounts (rule of thumb). Multiply that number buy guild level and by 2.5. Compare that to the existing decay. You will be surprised. Show you math.

I see no evasiveness in Uurlock so far, just straight pure logic. Seen a mistake in math which he owned up to and corrected. seen a common misconception that based upon a simple common sense thing, where hard fact is nowhere to be found. Evasive no. Uurlock has explained it numerous times, but me thinks that you just skipped the brain and just went directlyto knee jerk.

I don't like decay. but understand its function.

No wonder why uurlock has said so little about his own guild with the haters flaming him for even posting something, bending and twisting and flat out lying and then attacking him personally.

I have read and think I understand uurlock's idea. very well thought out and if you read back through the pages you will see it has evolved through discussion. It isn't just one thing, it is many things that should be simple to do (he claims many can be done without bringing down the servers), and even some ideas that improve the quality of life for guilds and members, some that even earn some revenue for the company.

Sitting here and yelling down with decay has gotten you exactly nowhere. Trying to bend a good idea by putting a badly hidden attempt to remove decay rider on it is not good either. Yes, we don't want decay but what do we want if the devs insist on keeping it. that is what we should be working on, that and Tychagara's idea about a guild framework.

If you don't have the time or whatever reason to just do the math to see how it would affect your guild then send me the information and i will it for you. you count, I multiply. How many people have logged into your guild in the last 24 hours, divide by 4 to eliminate multicharacters and mail/ah/dd checkers; and multiply by 2.5 times guild level. Going to about the same, probably less.

[Lowz]

No it heavily favored very active players to form into small groups in order to magnify their gains with size bonuses. It was very prejudiced against anyone for whom the game is a diversion rather than a devotion and any guild that included them as a member.

no look at the charts. guild were forced to use the size bonus in order to fight the really unfair decay that had wicked rows of shark teeth and the appetite of a blue whale.

I like a system that if a guild wants to remain small that is good, but if they run into another player they like they have no pause to just invite them. That is uurlocks. current system and previous system everyone did the min-max game just to survive. now the only ones that have that luxury is the large guilds.

[eris2323]

All guilds - uurlock has said it over and over and over and over. some just seem to read large guilds. no all guilds. should be able to loose renown through decay.

I am fine with decay per player. I am fine with the chance that with neglect a guild can loose a level (if enough time is there)..

That isn't a small change. You wanted to tie decay directly to the individual players. You want to make it impossible to loose renown. No, you just wanted to try and sneak in something that Turbine would flat reject. He included it already first option eliminate decay or if that won't fly then....

I can tell you that you haven't even looked at the numbers. Most guilds would actually have signifigantly less decay under his system than now. All guild sized treated equally. Only those that actually earn renown during a day caount for decay. Fair playing feild where yes more members can mean more decay - but playing an hour in a quest easily earns more renown than decay. law of averages say that since only those earning decay affect decay then those that earn more renown will make up for those that earn less. The more players a guild has the faster they will progress and the more likely they will not decay.

And as far as loosing a level? It can happen now. Under Uurlock's idea if a guild doesn't log in for a day they might loose a hundred renown at level 50, or even 250 at level one hundred - a day.... wow.. how long will it take to loose a level at level 100 when you when a guild has 51.5 million renown .... how about 16 years.

Sit down and think about the idea instead of doing a knee jerk. Open your guild panel and count the number of characters that show hours instead of days and hours since last log in. Divide that by 4 and you will get accounts (rule of thumb). Multiply that number buy guild level and by 2.5. Compare that to the existing decay. You will be surprised. Show you math.

I see no evasiveness in Uurlock so far, just straight pure logic. Seen a mistake in math which he owned up to and corrected. seen a common misconception that based upon a simple common sense thing, where hard fact is nowhere to be found. Evasive no. Uurlock has explained it numerous times, but me thinks that you just skipped the brain and just went directlyto knee jerk.

I don't like decay. but understand its function.

No wonder why uurlock has said so little about his own guild with the haters flaming him for even posting something, bending and twisting and flat out lying and then attacking him personally.

I have read and think I understand uurlock's idea. very well thought out and if you read back through the pages you will see it has evolved through discussion. It isn't just one thing, it is many things that should be simple to do (he claims many can be done without bringing down the servers), and even some ideas that improve the quality of life for guilds and members, some that even earn some revenue for the company.

Sitting here and yelling down with decay has gotten you exactly nowhere. Trying to bend a good idea by putting a badly hidden attempt to remove decay rider on it is not good either. Yes, we don't want decay but what do we want if the devs insist on keeping it. that is what we should be working on, that and Tychagara's idea about a guild framework.

If you don't have the time or whatever reason to just do the math to see how it would affect your guild then send me the information and i will it for you. you count, I multiply. How many people have logged into your guild in the last 24 hours, divide by 4 to eliminate multicharacters and mail/ah/dd checkers; and multiply by 2.5 times guild level. Going to about the same, probably less.

And what YOU don't understand is it's not the numbers, I don't care if you are proposing to lower the decay rate by 93%, I only care that the system allows the casual and new players a place in guilds, and a return to 'everyone pays renown debt based on number of accounts' is counter productive to what I believe is good for the game.

I'm not interested in his mess of a system; it's flawed at its very core by not understanding the problem. There have been MANY better suggestions.

MANY.

You won't be able to force your flawed system down my throat, I see it is flawed, and I hate it. I would quite literally rather quit the game forever than allow your system to take hold; it's that bad.

Sorry about that.

The changes you want will be an easy button for tiny, small, and solo guilds, at the expense of large guilds.

That disgusts me, luckily, others have seen right through it too.

[Lowz]

Improving what in this case though? All it is is a "competition" to see who plays the most, or maybe spends the most on renown elixirs. I really don't think renown awards are going to make anyone better at opening chests faster.


improving oneself is always a good thing. seeing if one can do things better. i don't know, if possible I skip aggro i don't need to kill in order to complete. that I learned from others in a PUG. learned different tricks like arrow skipping and how to actually do certain quests on elite at level from others. competition is inate to human beings, we do it all the time. better to have it out in the open and optional than through proxy.

and if a guild wants bragging rights then that is all good. if you aren't interested - don't look. but I betcha you will look, and have already.

[Lowz]

No it heavily favored very active players to form into small groups in order to magnify their gains with size bonuses. It was very prejudiced against anyone for whom the game is a diversion rather than a devotion and any guild that included them as a member.

system still does except now it is prejudiced toward large guilds.

[eris2323]

system still does except now it is prejudiced toward large guilds.

Actually, now, there is an option for those who don't make the game their life; they can join a large guild, where they are welcome, because the renown debt per day is already taken care of, based on the max amount. Every new person can only help us.

Or, they can join a small, very active guild, and enjoy the same bonus they always got.

THere was no option for large guilds with casual players before, except to remove the casuals.

And you still don't understand this?

Wow.

[Lowz]

What? That makes no sense. Under the current system, no player can ever earn less renown than they cost in decay. Under the old system, many players did earn less renown than they cost in decay. And that gave guilds an incentive to kick/shun such players. And that is why we have the current system and not the old system .


under the current system nothing has changed for small guilds. players earn less than they earn all the time. you just don't see it by choice or because your are in a very large guild.

we have the current system because it is what the devs could do without downtime. they wanted something they could do without downtime that is akin to putting a donut on a semi's front tire under heavy load.

[eris2323]

under the current system nothing has changed for small guilds. players earn less than they earn all the time. you just don't see it by choice or because your are in a very large guild.

we have the current system because it is what the devs could do without downtime. they wanted something they could do without downtime that is akin to putting a donut on a semi's front tire under heavy load.

And that 'emergency measure' was needed after a vast majority of guild leaders complained for a very long time and finally made turbine understand the damage their old system was causing.

That's no reason to go back to a flawed, broken system. Just because we're using an emergency system, it works 1000 times better than it did before!

And with all the new ways to make renown - if your players are making less renown, they're playing less. That's a problem when your guild is too small and too casual, I will admit - and others have suggested some great changes to fix that.

[Tshober]

under the current system nothing has changed for small guilds. players earn less than they earn all the time. you just don't see it by choice or because your are in a very large guild.



Under the current system, adding a player to a guild, any guild of any size, NERVER EVER causes more decay. Never.

The fact that you can't see that, is not my problem. It is however, true.

Adding a player to a guild in the old system, quite often caused more decay for the guild than the added player earned in renown. That is why the old system encouraged exclusiveness and smaller guilds.

Uur's proposed plan would go back to where adding a player to a guild could and would increase the decay for the guild by more than the added player earned in renown, just like in the old system. That is why it needs to be rejected like the old system was.

Just because Uur's proposal is flawed at its core, does not mean all hope for small guilds is lost. There have been many other solutions proposed that would greatly benefit small guilds without going back to a system that adds more decay with every member you add to your guild.

[Lowz]

Under the current system, adding a player to a guild, any guild of any size, NERVER EVER causes more decay. Never.

The fact that you can't see that, is not my problem. It is however, true.

Adding a player to a guild in the old system, quite often caused more decay for the guild than the added player earned in renown. That is why the old system encouraged exclusiveness and smaller guilds.

Uur's proposed plan would go back to where adding a player to a guild could and would increase the decay for the guild by more than the added player earned in renown, just like in the old system. That is why it needs to be rejected like the old system was.

Just because Uur's proposal is flawed at its core, does not mean all hope for small guilds is lost. There have been many other solutions proposed that would greatly benefit small guilds without going back to a system that adds more decay with every member you add to your guild.

I see what you are saying - but you are only including half of the equation.

and the other solutions are just remove decay, and those are already included in his proposal, in big bold words. However, Turbine will probably never remove decay and you will be stuck on a dead end street.

And the system doesn't add more decay for each member that you add. only those members that earn renown are counted, and only for the day the earn renown.

Did you do the simple excercise I asked? The count and I will do the basic math for you to proove the point? Didn't think so.

[eris2323]

Excellent. Looks like myddo will soon be gone. Now people can stop trying to take its broken numbers and using them for broken arguments!

Guild leaderboards gone, too... I approve!

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4961696&postcount=1

[Tshober]

Excellent. Looks like myddo will soon be gone. Now people can stop trying to take its broken numbers and using them for broken arguments!

Guild leaderboards gone, too... I approve!

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4961696&postcount=1


Myddo.com data going away = YAY!! About time.

More focus on social media = Boo!

[Tshober]

And the system doesn't add more decay for each member that you add. only those members that earn renown are counted, and only for the day the earn renown.


This only means there will be fewer players who will be discriminated against by the system. It does not eliminate them. It only reduces the number of them. They will still exist and there will be just as much incentive to discriminate against them as there was in the old system. If his plan actually made it impossible for such players to exist, then there would be no such problem. I even suggested such a modification to his plan and he rejected it because he felt strongly that guilds must be allowed to lose levels. Why they must be able to lose levels is completely unclear. When I asked exactly why they need to lose levels, he tried to blame Turbine, somehow. His rationale made no sense at all to me.



Did you do the simple excercise I asked? The count and I will do the basic math for you to proove the point? Didn't think so.

If I thought it were valuable to the debate, I would. But it is not. Making the numbers work out so that on average (with very gross assumptions about average play amounts) a system allows guilds to level, completely glosses over the discrimination that would still be inherent toward players who earn less renown than they cost their guild in decay. It is very much like the way that using average renown per player completely hides which guilds actually earned the most renown. You are hiding the problems inherent in your system behind averages, and worse yet behind assumed averages.

So I will not waste my time plugging numbers in to do a calculation that does not address the problem at all.

[eris2323]

Myddo.com data going away = YAY!! About time.

More focus on social media = Boo!

Meh, there's a choice - facebook (with real names) or twitter (with fake ddo cool names) - it's super easy to set up an twitter account solely to follow DDO, as well as the few websites on twitter that actually have draws and give out free turbine points!

I've already won a few batchs of TP via twitter, without exposing my real names to anyone :)

It's actually the reason I got into twitter, to get free turbine points - and now I can't stop twittering, it is actually one of the best real-time news outlets for things the media is either too slow to report on, or don't want to report on :)

I'm okay with it.

myddo was broken, they didn't care for years, time for it to go.

I was kind of horrified to find out anyone could just look up my characters any time they wanted on myddo, unless I knew enough to go turn it off.

Now I am super glad it is being removed - as it is full of bad data, and people don't understand that, and they use the bad data to explain away anything they want to explain.

I hate bad data.

Should be illegal.

[Gremmlynn]

If Turbine doesn't eliminate decay, then decay will remain - but be overhauled.

No small guilds haven't succeeded - in fact the success stories after level 70 are very limited and only to those uber active guilds.

And trying to spin this to twist my words is not productive.Not an attempt to spin. But you are right, in order to succeed small guilds would have to consist of very active players and under the old system that's the only type of guild that could succeed. The reason I like the way things are now is that it also allows those very active players to drag less active players with them, even gives them a faster track for success to do so. While I'm not really a big fan of either system, I prefer the one that gives those very active players an incentive to play with less active players while playing their guild leveling mini-game much more than than the one that gives them an incentive not to play with them due to their guild leveling mini-game.

As long as decay exists all the guild leveling system will be is a mini-game for the very active players IMO. I just would rather it have a positive effect on the game for the rest than a negative one. Remove decay and it becomes a mini-game all guilds can play for however long it takes them to win. From what I see those are the two options that best salvages some positive functionality from what was initially a rather bad system. Either a perpetual system in which most players have to adjust to conform to or a temporary system that they don't.

I have yet to see any proposals that change that. Just a few trying to make the winning conditions be whatever best fits their personal preference.

[Gremmlynn]

The desire of wanting to play with friends is very powerful and is more effective a tool to encourage active play than any other.

The culture of a small guild can be one of tight knit group that promotes people to come online the same time everyday and look for one another. This draws people in.

The current and prior system tells small guilds that they have to play this much in order to just maintain - that is wrong. A system needs to be fair to all size guilds and should be designed to allow for different play styles.The desire to want to play with friends is what was keeping some guilds from succeeding under the first system. Because it doesn't change the fact that some people simply can't do so due to real life priorities. Or to stop playing completely in order to not let one's real life responsibilities hold back their friends.

The desire to play with others in a more stable and mutually responsible environment than the LFM panel offers is also quite desirable. Not allowing those who don't play the game as actively as a "serious" player is a good way to get those players to do so in some other game. Very few of the people I play with started playing with friends and very few made many friends puging. Most of the friendships came from joining a guild.

I'm all for a system that works for both those who want to guild with friends and those who want to guild to make friends. I just don't see a way of bending the system we were given into something that supports both without removing decay and making it temporary.

[Gremmlynn]

improving oneself is always a good thing. seeing if one can do things better. i don't know, if possible I skip aggro i don't need to kill in order to complete. that I learned from others in a PUG. learned different tricks like arrow skipping and how to actually do certain quests on elite at level from others. competition is inate to human beings, we do it all the time. better to have it out in the open and optional than through proxy.

and if a guild wants bragging rights then that is all good. if you aren't interested - don't look. but I betcha you will look, and have already.So, you say skipping one's child's soccer game to make your renown quota is a way of improving oneself? This whole system is really little more competitive than a hair growing contest. It's most basic premise was to see who could spend the most money on the game, either directly through renown elixirs or indirectly through all the other pay to win **** people buy to not have to actually improve due to simply playing more to meet their quotas. While spending more to buy those amenities the system was slanted to not let the average guild rise high enough to get the plat versions of. It was defiantly NOT set up to make the game better however one chose to play it.

[Gremmlynn]

system still does except now it is prejudiced toward large guilds.So your real problem is that instead of being biased towards uber active small guilds it is biased toward guilds consisting of uber active small groups with lots of casuals helping them.

I just haven't figured out if you find it bad that you have to hang out with noobs or if you find it bad that noobs can get a free ride. Though I suspect that it's both.

[Gremmlynn]

Actually, now, there is an option for those who don't make the game their life; they can join a large guild, where they are welcome, because the renown debt per day is already taken care of, based on the max amount. Every new person can only help us.

Or, they can join a small, very active guild, and enjoy the same bonus they always got.

THere was no option for large guilds with casual players before, except to remove the casuals.

And you still don't understand this?

Wow.What seems to be consistently missed is that any system in which small casual guilds are the baseline for success is not likely to be a very good system. It will either be easy for very active small guilds and large casual guilds or just the very active small guilds if adjusted for size.

I really don't see a way of making it competitive for small casual, basically static group type guilds while not hurting the casuals who are not part of one of those static groups.

[Tshober]

What seems to be consistently missed is that any system in which small casual guilds are the baseline for success is not likely to be a very good system. It will either be easy for very active small guilds and large casual guilds or just the very active small guilds if adjusted for size.

I really don't see a way of making it competitive for small casual, basically static group type guilds while not hurting the casuals who are not part of one of those static groups.

I don't think 'competitive" is a realistic goal in the case of small AND casual guilds. I think the best that can be expected in that case is viable and able to progress.

[Charononus]

Honestly I think most of this conversation is moot until we know if Turbine is happy with the changes. They said they were going to be watching the progress of guilds when they made the changes and haven't really said anything one way or the other about it since. (yes there have been a few comments but with not much really said) Now personally I think they made the changes because they found that new players were having a hard time being guilded and thus having a hard time feeling part of a community and staying with the game. From what I've seen that problem is fixed, but I don't have Turbine's data. However if that is true Turbine might be happy with the current system and all our talk and suggestions might as well be directed to a brick wall. Honestly we need more of a dev response, but I doubt we'll get it unfortunately as this thread has turned into a pit that should have been locked and probably would have been if it wasn't an official turbine post.

[Tshober]

Honestly we need more of a dev response, but I doubt we'll get it unfortunately as this thread has turned into a pit that should have been locked and probably would have been if it wasn't an official turbine post.

My theory is they are keeping this open to keep people from starting threads on this subject in the general discussion forums.

[Gremmlynn]

I don't think 'competitive" is a realistic goal in the case of small AND casual guilds. I think the best that can be expected in that case is viable and able to progress.I agree, but others seem to think the system can be competitive without giving an unfair advantage to anyone who doesn't play in a small casual guild.

They don't seem to realize that the more competitive the system is made, the more it will favor those who base their guilds around whatever gives them the most advantage and only the most active players will even be in the game (or a decently run guild for the most part). Though I think some just feel it's unfair that a team of many has an advantage over a "team" of one and want everything in the system reflect an average output of all members of a guild. Possibly to make a one member "guild" more viable than competitive.

[TedSandyman]

I know a lot of people complain about guild decay, but it really is the one thing that is making me so angry that I am going to quit this game. The only thing that has kept me playing is the fact that if I quit, the guild that I have spent so much time building is going to start going backwards. But here is the thing, no matter what I do anymore I cannot keep my guild moving forward. I play a lot. I have put a lot of money into this game over the years. And I didn't mind that my guild was only advancing slowly. I knew that if I kept playing eventually I would work my way up and for the longest time it was true. But that isn't the case anymore. I am stuck. And I don't feel that it is my fault. I just got through with a solo run of "The Lords of Dust" on elite. I am level 17 and the dungeon is level 18. I didn't get through but I did get all the way to the end fight. I killed three red names along the way and got three chests. Each of those chests had a heroic deeds in them. I am so angry that I don't know what to do. I was tempted to quit when the last heroic deeds appeared. And I mean quit forever. How can I keep up guild renoun when i lose 3000 points every day and when I do run quests I get garbage. There should not even be the possibility of a heroic deeds in a level 18 dungeon on elite. It is an insult to give someone a heroic deeds and to get three in a row makes me feel helpless to do anything. I ran most of the walkup quests in gianthold with a pug group a few days ago and received Heroic deeds for most of the end quest rewards. I have a small guild, I am the only active member. I don't have guildies to run quests with whenever I want. I am often waiting around for a pug that happens to be doing what I need, which is rare. If you aren't in a big guild you are at an extreme disadvantage in this game. Most of the time I end up running the wilderness areas, which give **** for renoun. And I am finally to the point that when I get a good day and make around 10000 renoun, I will have thrree bad days and lose it all. When I get to the point that my guild moves backwards, I will quit. I don't see how I can keep playing a game that punishes me for playing. I understand punishing people for not playing, but I am online and active A LOT and I feel that I am still getting punished. I can't move forward so what is the point of playing? I guess I could abandon my guild and join a bigger one, but I don't want to do that. I am proud of the fact that I got to level 54 essentially alone. I have already paid for the ship at level 55, but I can't get there. I guess I could recruit people. I have tried, but that ends up doing more harm than good. I get people who don't bring in much renoun, but add to my decay. Most good active players are in a big guild and don't want to move back to a level 54. As I type I realize two things, 1. no one is going to read all of this and 2. it is futile to continue playing.

[Nestroy]

(...) 1. no one is going to read all of this and 2. it is futile to continue playing.

At least I read it. And while it as horrendous to read the one single block, I perfectly well can understand your rant.

My guild is lv. 62. We get hit by about 10k decay / day and I do not know why, because according to wiki this only should be at about 5k. Turbine as usual does not give an answer / dime for this. We currently grow at about 50k a week - slowly but growing. We have 14 active accounts of which 7 are daily payers. I would call these players experienced casuals, with about 2 hours / day playtime each at least.

My guild will hit level in the 70ies at the current rate. We expect this. It is a sad thing. But thats the way the rules are set currently. I still feel positive at least the big guilds have got what they wanted - the easy walk in the park to lv. 100. We small guilds will not get any free lunch, at least as far as I can see currently. Perhaps we finally will get away with decay completely for all guilds, so my guild could run up to the 100k - 120k renown gain potental / week we could have. At least we could go for the best ship eventually. It still would take us about 350 weeks to eventually reach lv. 100 - so much for the better renown earning potential of small guilds due to the very big time bonus handed to them that was discussed in this thread here.

I feel sorry for your guild. I can feel for you. But as far as Turbine seems inclined at the moment, they give a s**t on what small guilds would need or would like and your only real options are to either accept your fate, grow like hell from Korthos and hope some players stick, join a big guild or leave the game.

[Nestroy]

Honestly I think most of this conversation is moot until we know if Turbine is happy with the changes. They said they were going to be watching the progress of guilds when they made the changes and haven't really said anything one way or the other about it since. (yes there have been a few comments but with not much really said) Now personally I think they made the changes because they found that new players were having a hard time being guilded and thus having a hard time feeling part of a community and staying with the game. From what I've seen that problem is fixed, but I don't have Turbine's data. However if that is true Turbine might be happy with the current system and all our talk and suggestions might as well be directed to a brick wall. Honestly we need more of a dev response, but I doubt we'll get it unfortunately as this thread has turned into a pit that should have been locked and probably would have been if it wasn't an official turbine post.

I concur with Tshober that this forum will stay open for venting or else they will see the Guild Renown and Decay back again in the general discussion. There had been the rumor (based mainly on some obscure statements even in this discussion here from our DEVs several hundreds posts past) that a complete re-work of the renown and decay system is planned. If that is the case, any further input on the Topic from the DEVs would be most welcome. Even a "get lost, we do it and we will make your wallet bleed dry for it".

[Tictman]

I don't mind working for renown but it's getting old.

One thing that really bugs me is slayers. For example you need 5k slayers in the Vale, but renown ransack sets in way before you reach that number. If you need that many slays for xp why does the renown in rare chests dry up so fast. Makes no sense at all.

[Nestroy]

I agree, but others seem to think the system can be competitive without giving an unfair advantage to anyone who doesn't play in a small casual guild.

They don't seem to realize that the more competitive the system is made, the more it will favor those who base their guilds around whatever gives them the most advantage and only the most active players will even be in the game (or a decently run guild for the most part). Though I think some just feel it's unfair that a team of many has an advantage over a "team" of one and want everything in the system reflect an average output of all members of a guild. Possibly to make a one member "guild" more viable than competitive.

Gremmlynn, the best solution for "open-to-all-but-competitive" systems still is a system where everybody might get the best from the benefits eventually and to have a follow-up high-end mechanic where there is a repetitive ongoing competitions for some different goals (like wandering trophies) with eventual resets of the leaderboards to enable newcomers to participate. The reset would be once a month or so to give everybody enough time to prepare. I even would work these leaderboards cross-over the servers, so as to enable all guilds of a certain level to compete against each other.

In our current system this would work something like this: No decay until lv. 100 is reached. All lv. 100 guilds would get invited to participate in different Trophies like "most renown / member", "most XP / member", "most rares and optionals / member", "most newcomers helped in Korthos / existing members", "most quests on elite / member" or whatever. The trophies should be wandering (even across server boundaries) and should be some kind of special non-gamebreaking buff for showing on the guild ship. There also could be a name for each trophy that would be related to the task, e.g. the "Korthos Liberation Trophy" for the most newcomers helped (run with them - quests count).

[UurlockYgmeov]

As I type I realize two things, 1. no one is going to read all of this and 2. it is futile to continue playing.
You have been read. :D
There is change coming. SOON™

At least I read it. And while it as horrendous to read the one single block, I perfectly well can understand your rant.

My guild is lv. 62. We get hit by about 10k decay / day and I do not know why, because according to wiki this only should be at about 5k. Turbine as usual does not give an answer / dime for this. We currently grow at about 50k a week - slowly but growing. We have 14 active accounts of which 7 are daily payers. I would call these players experienced casuals, with about 2 hours / day playtime each at least.

My guild will hit level in the 70ies at the current rate. We expect this. It is a sad thing. But thats the way the rules are set currently. I still feel positive at least the big guilds have got what they wanted - the easy walk in the park to lv. 100. We small guilds will not get any free lunch, at least as far as I can see currently. Perhaps we finally will get away with decay completely for all guilds, so my guild could run up to the 100k - 120k renown gain potental / week we could have. At least we could go for the best ship eventually. It still would take us about 350 weeks to eventually reach lv. 100 - so much for the better renown earning potential of small guilds due to the very big time bonus handed to them that was discussed in this thread here.

I feel sorry for your guild. I can feel for you. But as far as Turbine seems inclined at the moment, they give a s**t on what small guilds would need or would like and your only real options are to either accept your fate, grow like hell from Korthos and hope some players stick, join a big guild or leave the game.
Level 62 should be ~6674 a day. submit a ticket and find out.

And yes, I also feel your pain.


I concur with Tshober that this forum will stay open for venting or else they will see the Guild Renown and Decay back again in the general discussion. There had been the rumor (based mainly on some obscure statements even in this discussion here from our DEVs several hundreds posts past) that a complete re-work of the renown and decay system is planned. If that is the case, any further input on the Topic from the DEVs would be most welcome. Even a "get lost, we do it and we will make your wallet bleed dry for it".

Change is coming. Just like winter is coming (tomorrow :D)

Time to go back to getting my Nerd Glaze on!:D :cool: :eek:

[Charononus]

I know a lot of people complain about guild decay, but it really is the one thing that is making me so angry that I am going to quit this game. The only thing that has kept me playing is the fact that if I quit, the guild that I have spent so much time building is going to start going backwards. But here is the thing, no matter what I do anymore I cannot keep my guild moving forward. I play a lot. I have put a lot of money into this game over the years. And I didn't mind that my guild was only advancing slowly. I knew that if I kept playing eventually I would work my way up and for the longest time it was true. But that isn't the case anymore. I am stuck. And I don't feel that it is my fault. I just got through with a solo run of "The Lords of Dust" on elite. I am level 17 and the dungeon is level 18. I didn't get through but I did get all the way to the end fight. I killed three red names along the way and got three chests. Each of those chests had a heroic deeds in them. I am so angry that I don't know what to do. I was tempted to quit when the last heroic deeds appeared. And I mean quit forever. How can I keep up guild renoun when i lose 3000 points every day and when I do run quests I get garbage. There should not even be the possibility of a heroic deeds in a level 18 dungeon on elite. It is an insult to give someone a heroic deeds and to get three in a row makes me feel helpless to do anything. I ran most of the walkup quests in gianthold with a pug group a few days ago and received Heroic deeds for most of the end quest rewards. I have a small guild, I am the only active member. I don't have guildies to run quests with whenever I want. I am often waiting around for a pug that happens to be doing what I need, which is rare. If you aren't in a big guild you are at an extreme disadvantage in this game. Most of the time I end up running the wilderness areas, which give **** for renoun. And I am finally to the point that when I get a good day and make around 10000 renoun, I will have thrree bad days and lose it all. When I get to the point that my guild moves backwards, I will quit. I don't see how I can keep playing a game that punishes me for playing. I understand punishing people for not playing, but I am online and active A LOT and I feel that I am still getting punished. I can't move forward so what is the point of playing? I guess I could abandon my guild and join a bigger one, but I don't want to do that. I am proud of the fact that I got to level 54 essentially alone. I have already paid for the ship at level 55, but I can't get there. I guess I could recruit people. I have tried, but that ends up doing more harm than good. I get people who don't bring in much renoun, but add to my decay. Most good active players are in a big guild and don't want to move back to a level 54. As I type I realize two things, 1. no one is going to read all of this and 2. it is futile to continue playing.
I read it, and this part is no longer true, as of last oct I think it was adding a member does not add 1 extra point of decay, decay is now set by guild level.

[Tychagara]

i know a lot of people complain about guild decay, but it really is the one thing that is making me so angry that i am going to quit this game. The only thing that has kept me playing is the fact that if i quit, the guild that i have spent so much time building is going to start going backwards. But here is the thing, no matter what i do anymore i cannot keep my guild moving forward. I play a lot. I have put a lot of money into this game over the years. And i didn't mind that my guild was only advancing slowly. I knew that if i kept playing eventually i would work my way up and for the longest time it was true. But that isn't the case anymore. I am stuck. And i don't feel that it is my fault. I just got through with a solo run of "the lords of dust" on elite. I am level 17 and the dungeon is level 18. I didn't get through but i did get all the way to the end fight. I killed three red names along the way and got three chests. Each of those chests had a heroic deeds in them. I am so angry that i don't know what to do. I was tempted to quit when the last heroic deeds appeared. And i mean quit forever. How can i keep up guild renoun when i lose 3000 points every day and when i do run quests i get garbage. There should not even be the possibility of a heroic deeds in a level 18 dungeon on elite. It is an insult to give someone a heroic deeds and to get three in a row makes me feel helpless to do anything. I ran most of the walkup quests in gianthold with a pug group a few days ago and received heroic deeds for most of the end quest rewards. I have a small guild, i am the only active member. I don't have guildies to run quests with whenever i want. I am often waiting around for a pug that happens to be doing what i need, which is rare. If you aren't in a big guild you are at an extreme disadvantage in this game. Most of the time i end up running the wilderness areas, which give **** for renoun. And i am finally to the point that when i get a good day and make around 10000 renoun, i will have thrree bad days and lose it all. When i get to the point that my guild moves backwards, i will quit. I don't see how i can keep playing a game that punishes me for playing. I understand punishing people for not playing, but i am online and active a lot and i feel that i am still getting punished. I can't move forward so what is the point of playing? I guess i could abandon my guild and join a bigger one, but i don't want to do that. I am proud of the fact that i got to level 54 essentially alone. I have already paid for the ship at level 55, but i can't get there. I guess i could recruit people. I have tried, but that ends up doing more harm than good. I get people who don't bring in much renoun, but add to my decay. Most good active players are in a big guild and don't want to move back to a level 54. As i type i realize two things, 1. No one is going to read all of this and 2. It is futile to continue playing.

+1

[Nestroy]

I read it, and this part is no longer true, as of last oct I think it was adding a member does not add 1 extra point of decay, decay is now set by guild level.

Not exactly true. If a guild depends on only a few doing the renown runs, any additional member not contributing reduces bonus and therefore reduces total renown gained. So with small guilds adding a member and not adding at large (and getting medium or large) is a very problematic move. AND YES, SMALL GUILD BONUS MEANS KICKING PLAYERS FROM SMALL GUILDS IF THEY DO NOT CONTRIBUTE!!! And thats so much for the argument from the large guilders here that with the new system kicking players is not necessary any more... Yes, not necessary for the large guilds any more, that is.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Not exactly true. If a guild depends on only a few doing the renown runs, any additional member not contributing reduces bonus and therefore reduces total renown gained. So with small guilds adding a member and not adding at large (and getting medium or large) is a very problematic move. AND YES, SMALL GUILD BONUS MEANS KICKING PLAYERS FROM SMALL GUILDS IF THEY DO NOT CONTRIBUTE!!! And thats so much for the argument from the large guilders here that with the new system kicking players is not necessary any more... Yes, not necessary for the large guilds any more, that is.

+1 - I'd give rep but all out - will try to give tomorrow.

[Tshober]

So with small guilds adding a member and not adding at large (and getting medium or large) is a very problematic move. AND YES, SMALL GUILD BONUS MEANS KICKING PLAYERS FROM SMALL GUILDS IF THEY DO NOT CONTRIBUTE!!! And thats so much for the argument from the large guilders here that with the new system kicking players is not necessary any more... Yes, not necessary for the large guilds any more, that is.

This is completely an artifact of small guild renown bonuses and has nothing at all to do with the decay formula. The devs addressed the problems with the old decay system initially by changing the decay formula because it was easy and could be done with no coding changes and no outage. That change completely remedied the problem with guilds being rewarded with less decay for kicking low renown earners. No guild of any size is ever rewarded with less decay for kicking a low renown earner under the current system.

The problem with small guilds having to stay under the renown bonus caps to be able to advance was present in the old system and has not been addressed yet in the new system. I agree this needs to be addressed and I believe it can best be addressed by further reducing decay so that small guilds can more easily advance and gain levels without the need to worry overly much about staying within the renown bonus caps. Many good proposals have been made along these lines that help small guilds greatly. But it is important that while we go about fixing the remaining problems that small guilds face, we do not undo the fix that has already been made to the decay formula, and bring back a system that rewards guilds with less decay for kicking the lowest renown earners.

[Nestroy]

This is completely an artifact of small guild renown bonuses and has nothing at all to do with the decay formula. The devs addressed the problems with the old decay system initially by changing the decay formula because it was easy and could be done with no coding changes and no outage. That change completely remedied the problem with guilds being rewarded with less decay for kicking low renown earners. No guild of any size is ever rewarded with less decay for kicking a low renown earner under the current system.

The problem with small guilds having to stay under the renown bonus caps to be able to advance was present in the old system and has not been addressed yet in the new system. I agree this needs to be addressed and I believe it can best be addressed by further reducing decay so that small guilds can more easily advance and gain levels without the need to worry overly much about staying within the renown bonus caps. Many good proposals have been made along these lines that help small guilds greatly. But it is important that while we go about fixing the remaining problems that small guilds face, we do not undo the fix that has already been made to the decay formula, and bring back a system that rewards guilds with less decay for kicking the lowest renown earners.

While I can agree to about 80% with the second part of your posting, I have to strongly idsagree with the first. Exactly the setting of decay = 20 active accounts did lead to the exact problem with the renown gain against bonus. Please remember that the minimum 20 accounts size was set with U14. Before it was minimum 10 and before this the minimum has been even the exact account size (pre U12, if I can remember correctly). I do not know why on gods earth the DEVs thought 20 accounts would be the perfect limit for decay, but they borked the system now completely. When before the change big guilds wanted to grow they had to kick players. Now if small guilds want to grow, they have to kick players. Simple as that. If any guild has to kick players, the system is broken. No guild should be forced to kick players in order to generate growth. Never ever, not a single time!

I never argued for re-introducing decay for bigger guilds, as you will remember. I am still of the opinion that "set DecayAccountSize=0" would be the best practical solution. Even the nice (or less nice) ideas from UurlockYgmeov can not compete with that beautiful solution. So please stay away from blaming me with arguing for more decay for bigger guilds.

EDIT: To my mind the DEVs borked the system by not taking into account the psychology behind the guild system. As Long as only the best of the best ever would have been able to get to lv. 100 and big guilds got stopped in their 70ies to 80ies, while most small guilds found the stop somewhere between lv. 40 and lv. 100, there was no big difference between small and big. Both got smacked by the system. Most small guilds never ever could even dream of reaching the upper Levels. Most big guilds while reaching the best buffs (lv. 63) easily could never dream of getting into the 90ies. Only a small handful of super eager power players ever reached lv. 100. Now the big guilds got the release from the decay grip. Fine. I really am happy for all the big guilds out there. And holla! We see a lot of big guilds on the rise. What a surprise! And again, I am happy for you folks out there.

And then there are the small guilds, still the vast majority of players, and they do look up to the big guilds on the raise. And they know that the big guilds got the better end of the change. And they see how decay eats away about 30% or 40% or even 100% of daily renown production. And all they can see are the big guilds having eaten away 5%, 7 % or 10% of daily prduction on the same levels. And now please tell me again that this system is fair. Or that this system still favors small guilds.

Well, the system is what the system is. If I do not like to have eaten away 100% of renown production by decay, there are 4 simple Solutions. 1st, expand the guild. This sounds great advise but there is only one player base, there are only so much active players and there are only limited growth opportunitiies left. So this normally leave choice 2nd: Join a more active bigger guild. This is sound advice, with the exception that perhaps the guild one person is in is a guild the player has done a lot for, where the friends are in and where there is an emotional tie to the guild as well. That leaves only two other Solutions still valid, as long as we rule out external changes again - 3rd accepting the Status quo of the stagnating guild or 4th leaving the game completely.

And with 3 options out of 4 for small guilders to be less than satisfactory and the 4th near to impossible to attain, there is muchby the DEVs artificially created dissatisfaction. I wonder if this already hurts sales?

[Charononus]

Not exactly true. If a guild depends on only a few doing the renown runs, any additional member not contributing reduces bonus and therefore reduces total renown gained. So with small guilds adding a member and not adding at large (and getting medium or large) is a very problematic move. AND YES, SMALL GUILD BONUS MEANS KICKING PLAYERS FROM SMALL GUILDS IF THEY DO NOT CONTRIBUTE!!! And thats so much for the argument from the large guilders here that with the new system kicking players is not necessary any more... Yes, not necessary for the large guilds any more, that is.

Reducing a bonus is not adding a penalty, honestly it's the same as flawless and lfm's that state no -10 imo.

[Tshober]

No guild should be forced to kick players in order to generate growth. Never ever, not a single time!


I am 99% sure we agree here, although I would state it differently. I would say the guild renown system should NEVER reward guilds (with more net renown) for kicking/shunning low renown earners. I prefer to state it that way because it eliminates the argument that guild leaders should be somehow forcing/convincing people to play more. When you adopt that stance, which I think you agree with based on your statement above, I can only see two possibilities for complete solutions that meet the stated criteria. 1) Eliminate decay entirely. 2) Cap decay for each account at the amount of renown that account earned. Both of these guarantee that no player will ever earn less renown than they cost the guild in decay so decay is covered with either of them.

But that does not guarantee that there will never be a situation where a guild would not benefit by kicking/shunning low renown earners in order to stay under a small guild bonus cap. Unfortunately, the only option I see to ensure that guilds will never, ever benefit from shedding a player in that circumstance is to eliminate small guild bonuses, in conjunction with either option 1) or 2) above. Obviously option 1) would be better for small guilds, especially if they are going to have to give up small guild bonuses to avoid being rewarded for dumping low renown earners in favor of higher renown earners. But realistically, with decay eliminated or greatly reduced, would there be enough pressure that staying under the bonus caps would be absolutely required? Isn't it conceivable that greatly reducing decay for small guilds might remove the pressure enough that it would no longer be important to stay under the bonus caps? Does it make any difference that, in this kind of scenario, there would be plenty of larger guilds that would be quite happy to have such small guild castoffs? To my mind it does, but you may disagree.

[Gremmlynn]

EDIT: To my mind the DEVs borked the system by not taking into account the psychology behind the guild system. As Long as only the best of the best ever would have been able to get to lv. 100 and big guilds got stopped in their 70ies to 80ies, while most small guilds found the stop somewhere between lv. 40 and lv. 100, there was no big difference between small and big. Both got smacked by the system. Most small guilds never ever could even dream of reaching the upper Levels. Most big guilds while reaching the best buffs (lv. 63) easily could never dream of getting into the 90ies. Only a small handful of super eager power players ever reached lv. 100. Now the big guilds got the release from the decay grip. Fine. I really am happy for all the big guilds out there. And holla! We see a lot of big guilds on the rise. What a surprise! And again, I am happy for you folks out there. No. The system was set up, using the data they had, to cause the majority of guilds to stagnate right around the level 55 mark. Just high enough to buy a decent ship and +2 stat/30 resist gold seal buffs but not quite high enough to get any of those shrines for plat. They don't seem to have envisioned that most guilds would actually adapt and change due to the system, removing less active players and taking advantage of the mathematical sweet spots the addition of size bonuses created.

[curiouspilot]

I know a lot of people complain about guild decay, but it really is the one thing that is making me so angry that I am going to quit this game. The only thing that has kept me playing is the fact that if I quit, the guild that I have spent so much time building is going to start going backwards. But here is the thing, no matter what I do anymore I cannot keep my guild moving forward. I play a lot. I have put a lot of money into this game over the years. And I didn't mind that my guild was only advancing slowly. I knew that if I kept playing eventually I would work my way up and for the longest time it was true. But that isn't the case anymore. I am stuck. And I don't feel that it is my fault. I just got through with a solo run of "The Lords of Dust" on elite. I am level 17 and the dungeon is level 18. I didn't get through but I did get all the way to the end fight. I killed three red names along the way and got three chests. Each of those chests had a heroic deeds in them. I am so angry that I don't know what to do. I was tempted to quit when the last heroic deeds appeared. And I mean quit forever. How can I keep up guild renoun when i lose 3000 points every day and when I do run quests I get garbage. There should not even be the possibility of a heroic deeds in a level 18 dungeon on elite. It is an insult to give someone a heroic deeds and to get three in a row makes me feel helpless to do anything. I ran most of the walkup quests in gianthold with a pug group a few days ago and received Heroic deeds for most of the end quest rewards. I have a small guild, I am the only active member. I don't have guildies to run quests with whenever I want. I am often waiting around for a pug that happens to be doing what I need, which is rare. If you aren't in a big guild you are at an extreme disadvantage in this game. Most of the time I end up running the wilderness areas, which give **** for renoun. And I am finally to the point that when I get a good day and make around 10000 renoun, I will have thrree bad days and lose it all. When I get to the point that my guild moves backwards, I will quit. I don't see how I can keep playing a game that punishes me for playing. I understand punishing people for not playing, but I am online and active A LOT and I feel that I am still getting punished. I can't move forward so what is the point of playing? I guess I could abandon my guild and join a bigger one, but I don't want to do that. I am proud of the fact that I got to level 54 essentially alone. I have already paid for the ship at level 55, but I can't get there. I guess I could recruit people. I have tried, but that ends up doing more harm than good. I get people who don't bring in much renoun, but add to my decay. Most good active players are in a big guild and don't want to move back to a level 54. As I type I realize two things, 1. no one is going to read all of this and 2. it is futile to continue playing.
Then be content with level 53/54 sir, you've earn it and it's a decent guild level, but not everyone gets to advance, just as not everyone gets to be Usain Bolt, because the faster/higher one move/climb, the more wind resistance/gravity one gets. If, however, you'd like to be Lance Armstrong, you'd need a team. ;)

BTW, this problem of yours has little to do with being in a small guild under the old system. The fact that it's easier for large guilds to gain renown right now does not mean you're being punished directly. Everyone in the game gets "garbage" just as often as you on average, and everyone's being punished as much as you under the same formula. Being in a solo guild is a challenge as we all know, so it's more of a personal choice than the imagined "I am being treated unfairly" condition. If we're under the old system you'd still be able to complain about the same situation that you're in. I hope you understand what I am trying to say here, sir.

[Gremmlynn]

...The fact that it's to easy for large guilds to gain renown right now does not mean you're being punished directly...You seem to be confusing opinion with fact.

[curiouspilot]

You seem to be confusing opinion with fact.Fixed.

[Nestroy]

No. The system was set up, using the data they had, to cause the majority of guilds to stagnate right around the level 55 mark. Just high enough to buy a decent ship and +2 stat/30 resist gold seal buffs but not quite high enough to get any of those shrines for plat. They don't seem to have envisioned that most guilds would actually adapt and change due to the system, removing less active players and taking advantage of the mathematical sweet spots the addition of size bonuses created.

Disclamer for Tshober first: No, I do not want the old system back.

OK, now to answer Gremmlynn: The more the new system got boked. And it´s your own argument telling me that. When the original system was set with a lv. 55 guild buing most ammenities by gold contract in mind, the less I understand the switch in policy by the DEVs with the new system. Now the rip-off is clearly with all the small guilds and small guilds alone.Where the big and small guilds got ripped off in the old system alike, the rip-off of the big guilds finally stopped. And on what single achivement? They are big. That´s all.

So the systematic and system-immanent rip-off only continues for the small guilds now.

Well, as alread stated several postings past, there are only 4 options open for small guilders, all of them hurting the Turbine business model. And thank god for this, because money seems to be the only language Turbine ultimately understands.

[eris2323]

Well, the system is what the system is. If I do not like to have eaten away 100% of renown production by decay, there are 4 simple Solutions. 1st, expand the guild. This sounds great advise but there is only one player base, there are only so much active players and there are only limited growth opportunitiies left. So this normally leave choice 2nd: Join a more active bigger guild. This is sound advice, with the exception that perhaps the guild one person is in is a guild the player has done a lot for, where the friends are in and where there is an emotional tie to the guild as well. That leaves only two other Solutions still valid, as long as we rule out external changes again - 3rd accepting the Status quo of the stagnating guild or 4th leaving the game completely.

And with 3 options out of 4 for small guilders to be less than satisfactory and the 4th near to impossible to attain, there is muchby the DEVs artificially created dissatisfaction. I wonder if this already hurts sales?

So you're saying that there are never, ever, ever any new players coming to this game, or you are saying that the guild you represent is unable to give these new players any sort of incentive to join them, with guild voice chat servers, web servers, or scheduled raids/training runs, so therefore, you can't grow?

I disbelieve. Rolled a 20. Made the save.

Perhaps it's just this: not as many people WANT to be in a tiny guild as you think, and most would rather a large guild with many players, and you are blind to this fact?

[Gremmlynn]

Disclamer for Tshober first: No, I do not want the old system back.

OK, now to answer Gremmlynn: The more the new system got boked. And it´s your own argument telling me that. When the original system was set with a lv. 55 guild buing most ammenities by gold contract in mind, the less I understand the switch in policy by the DEVs with the new system. Now the rip-off is clearly with all the small guilds and small guilds alone.Where the big and small guilds got ripped off in the old system alike, the rip-off of the big guilds finally stopped. And on what single achivement? They are big. That´s all.

So the systematic and system-immanent rip-off only continues for the small guilds now.

Well, as alread stated several postings past, there are only 4 options open for small guilders, all of them hurting the Turbine business model. And thank god for this, because money seems to be the only language Turbine ultimately understands.Overreaction to the way guilds adjusted to the original system by booting players would be my best guess. Since I started playing, it's often seemed to me Turbine was more trying to play catch up with where their game was than following some sort of over all plan. I actually think they developed the system with an emphasis on not letting guilds recruit to gain an advantage and it never occurred to them that guilds might boot the less active players.

[Tshober]

No. The system was set up, using the data they had, to cause the majority of guilds to stagnate right around the level 55 mark. Just high enough to buy a decent ship and +2 stat/30 resist gold seal buffs but not quite high enough to get any of those shrines for plat. They don't seem to have envisioned that most guilds would actually adapt and change due to the system, removing less active players and taking advantage of the mathematical sweet spots the addition of size bonuses created.

Yes, I agree that it seems they very much underestimated the lure that guild levels would have for guilds. A fundamental rule of MMO's is never underestimate the ridiculous lengths that players will go to in order to advance even a tiny bit in an MMO. If it can be done at all, no matter how crazy it might seem, there will be players who will do it and find ways to improve the efficiency of it too.

[Gremmlynn]

Yes, I agree that it seems they very much underestimated the lure that guild levels would have for guilds. A fundamental rule of MMO's is never underestimate the ridiculous lengths that players will go to in order to advance even a tiny bit in an MMO. If it can be done at all, no matter how crazy it might seem, there will be players who will do it and find ways to improve the efficiency of it too.You would think the popularity of their True Reincarnation system would have showed them that.

[Nestroy]

So you're saying that there are never, ever, ever any new players coming to this game, or you are saying that the guild you represent is unable to give these new players any sort of incentive to join them, with guild voice chat servers, web servers, or scheduled raids/training runs, so therefore, you can't grow?

I disbelieve. Rolled a 20. Made the save.

Perhaps it's just this: not as many people WANT to be in a tiny guild as you think, and most would rather a large guild with many players, and you are blind to this fact?

Well, I could tell you something now about servers like Wayfinder I am on with my guild but I will save my breath now because I alread got through the discussion that will certainly follow about 500 - 1000 Posts past in this discussion thread and I do not want to repeat. Let me put it this way: From about 80 accounts that went through our guild alone on Wayfinder I have a core group of 7 playing regularly and about 60 that after more or less time playing left the game completely and on very different reasons. And even the guys from Superiority Complex are not that overstuffed with players...

There is just not a player base on any server that allow any guild to grow endlessly. Even with homepage, teamspeak, guild raids (very funny on a 7 active acount guild, really!), etc. Else all guilds would be 1000 members strong. And now please stay with your big guild and stop talking about things you do not know anything about like playing in small and underleveled struggling startup guilds.

[Nestroy]

Yes, I agree that it seems they very much underestimated the lure that guild levels would have for guilds. A fundamental rule of MMO's is never underestimate the ridiculous lengths that players will go to in order to advance even a tiny bit in an MMO. If it can be done at all, no matter how crazy it might seem, there will be players who will do it and find ways to improve the efficiency of it too.


You would think the popularity of their True Reincarnation system would have showed them that.

I concur with both of you. I am still not convinced they do not do this on purpose in order to make the most money they can get away with out of it before anyone complains. And this would be called a rip-off.

Just let me say "daily dice".

[slarden]

I know a lot of people complain about guild decay, but it really is the one thing that is making me so angry that I am going to quit this game. The only thing that has kept me playing is the fact that if I quit, the guild that I have spent so much time building is going to start going backwards. But here is the thing, no matter what I do anymore I cannot keep my guild moving forward. I play a lot. I have put a lot of money into this game over the years. And I didn't mind that my guild was only advancing slowly. I knew that if I kept playing eventually I would work my way up and for the longest time it was true. But that isn't the case anymore. I am stuck. And I don't feel that it is my fault. I just got through with a solo run of "The Lords of Dust" on elite. I am level 17 and the dungeon is level 18. I didn't get through but I did get all the way to the end fight. I killed three red names along the way and got three chests. Each of those chests had a heroic deeds in them. I am so angry that I don't know what to do. I was tempted to quit when the last heroic deeds appeared. And I mean quit forever. How can I keep up guild renoun when i lose 3000 points every day and when I do run quests I get garbage. There should not even be the possibility of a heroic deeds in a level 18 dungeon on elite. It is an insult to give someone a heroic deeds and to get three in a row makes me feel helpless to do anything. I ran most of the walkup quests in gianthold with a pug group a few days ago and received Heroic deeds for most of the end quest rewards. I have a small guild, I am the only active member. I don't have guildies to run quests with whenever I want. I am often waiting around for a pug that happens to be doing what I need, which is rare. If you aren't in a big guild you are at an extreme disadvantage in this game. Most of the time I end up running the wilderness areas, which give **** for renoun. And I am finally to the point that when I get a good day and make around 10000 renoun, I will have thrree bad days and lose it all. When I get to the point that my guild moves backwards, I will quit. I don't see how I can keep playing a game that punishes me for playing. I understand punishing people for not playing, but I am online and active A LOT and I feel that I am still getting punished. I can't move forward so what is the point of playing? I guess I could abandon my guild and join a bigger one, but I don't want to do that. I am proud of the fact that I got to level 54 essentially alone. I have already paid for the ship at level 55, but I can't get there. I guess I could recruit people. I have tried, but that ends up doing more harm than good. I get people who don't bring in much renoun, but add to my decay. Most good active players are in a big guild and don't want to move back to a level 54. As I type I realize two things, 1. no one is going to read all of this and 2. it is futile to continue playing.

It is a shame the system doesn't work for guilds like yours which are perfectly fine the way they are. I encourage you to try and enjoy DDO despite the guild system, but if you made up your mind to leave DDO, I would suggest Neverwinter as a great D&D alternative for folks that want to group the way you do. You won't miss out on any in-game benefits by being in a small guild. Achievements are individual and the guild mechanic is purely social with no pressure and concerns about moving backwards. Three people from my guild and 4 from other small guilds on Sarlona are moving Neverwinter because of the guild system as well. It won't be live for a few months though.

While many people say all guilds shouldn't advance and the system is great the way it is now because guilds are no longer forced to kick players- it's ridiculous. As for the "earning" comments - they are also ridiculous. Someone can join a big high level guild and get all those benefits immediately. You have been working a long time and will never get those benefits because of decay.

First of all guilds were never forced to kick anyone. They did so to try to advance levels. The problem was never the way decay was calculated - the problem was that decay was too high and they couldn't advance. If decay was calculated on a per/account basis but kept low- nobody would care how it was calculated because all guilds could advance.

Your frustration with not advancing is not only understandable it's completely normal. If a system punishes a certain play style, over time more of those people will leave the game. Folks in large guilds previously pointed out the importance of being able to advance when they had the same decay/player that small guilds currently have. As you pointed out, the problem isn't that you aren't playing enough or doing enough, it's the system.

Unfortunately I don't think it will change. The developers made the current change within a few weeks of a forum post where guild leaders expressed their frustration with the system (big and small). It's been 6 months since then and nothing has been done for small guilds and not a single empathetic comment has been made by the developers. They could have lowered the fixed decay from 20 to 15 or 10 so small guilds also got a decay break, but they didn't. Instead they chose to make it even harder for guilds of 10 or less by increasing the ransack penalty without any other helpful changes. I see no reason to expect a beneficial change. Most likely the only changes made will require you to spend more money because you are in a small guild - not to help out small guilds.

I wish you the best in making a good decision.

[Nestroy]

(...)The developers made the current change within a few weeks of a forum post where guild leaders expressed their frustration with the system (big and small).(...)

Well, Slarden, then we shall start again in the General Forum, if the DEVs do not react in any way. I allready suggested this some posts past but this only would make sense if not only one single user but a bigger group of Players would start to campaign again in the General Forum. Else the thread will just get closed again with link in here and we are none the wiser.

Even a statement like "get lost" would help a lot. We then at least know what we have to expect.

With my guild we currently have 3 players only waiting for NWO to go online in full mode. 2 of them stated for the reason they leave: "We do not want to see our accomplishements getting eaten away by decay." Well, there the discussion stops. And it did not help that several guilides from bigger guilds commented that these players should join the bigger guilds either.

[Tshober]

The problem was never the way decay was calculated - the problem was that decay was too high and they couldn't advance. If decay was calculated on a per/account basis but kept low- nobody would care how it was calculated because all guilds could advance.

Actually, there was a problem with how decay was calculated. Several in fact. And just lowering it so some more guilds could advance would not necessarily have solved the problems. Any system where there are players who earn less renown than they cost their guild in decay, will encourage and reward guilds for kicking/shunning those players. That is the unintended side effect of adding more decay for each player in the guild. If you do not take steps to ensure that no players will be net negative renown contributors, then guilds will be incentivized to get rid of those players.

I agree with you that it is not fair to make players who want to be in small guilds, unable to advance. But it is even more unfair to make players who can't earn as much renown as the decay system takes away from their guild for having them, both unable to advance and unwelcome in every guild that does want to advance. The current system completely solves the 2nd (and greater) unfairness but it does not address the 1st unfairness at all. Fortunately, the current system can be made to address the 1st unfairness pretty easily. The only question is whether or not the devs will see fit to do so.

You said that the change was made within a few weeks of a general discussion forum post, and that is true as far as you went. But that forum post was just the most recent of a very long line of forum posts going back for well over a year pointing out the same problems. This has been a very long time coming. I had been advocating in the DDO forums for the elimination (or at least significant reduction) of renown decay for many months prior to the change. After so many months of seeming to totally ignore us, suddenly he devs acted. Perhaps that is just how they are going to proceed on this.

[UurlockYgmeov]

It is a shame the system doesn't work for guilds like yours which are perfectly fine the way they are. I encourage you to try and enjoy DDO despite the guild system, but if you made up your mind to leave DDO, I would suggest Neverwinter as a great D&D alternative for folks that want to group the way you do. You won't miss out on any in-game benefits by being in a small guild. Achievements are individual and the guild mechanic is purely social with no pressure and concerns about moving backwards. Three people from my guild and 4 from other small guilds on Sarlona are moving Neverwinter because of the guild system as well. It won't be live for a few months though.

While many people say all guilds shouldn't advance and the system is great the way it is now because guilds are no longer forced to kick players- it's ridiculous. As for the "earning" comments - they are also ridiculous. Someone can join a big high level guild and get all those benefits immediately. You have been working a long time and will never get those benefits because of decay.

First of all guilds were never forced to kick anyone. They did so to try to advance levels. The problem was never the way decay was calculated - the problem was that decay was too high and they couldn't advance. If decay was calculated on a per/account basis but kept low- nobody would care how it was calculated because all guilds could advance.

Your frustration with not advancing is not only understandable it's completely normal. If a system punishes a certain play style, over time more of those people will leave the game. Folks in large guilds previously pointed out the importance of being able to advance when they had the same decay/player that small guilds currently have. As you pointed out, the problem isn't that you aren't playing enough or doing enough, it's the system.

Unfortunately I don't think it will change. The developers made the current change within a few weeks of a forum post where guild leaders expressed their frustration with the system (big and small). It's been 6 months since then and nothing has been done for small guilds and not a single empathetic comment has been made by the developers. They could have lowered the fixed decay from 20 to 15 or 10 so small guilds also got a decay break, but they didn't. Instead they chose to make it even harder for guilds of 10 or less by increasing the ransack penalty without any other helpful changes. I see no reason to expect a beneficial change. Most likely the only changes made will require you to spend more money because you are in a small guild - not to help out small guilds.

I wish you the best in making a good decision.


Well, Slarden, then we shall start again in the General Forum, if the DEVs do not react in any way. I allready suggested this some posts past but this only would make sense if not only one single user but a bigger group of Players would start to campaign again in the General Forum. Else the thread will just get closed again with link in here and we are none the wiser.

Even a statement like "get lost" would help a lot. We then at least know what we have to expect.

With my guild we currently have 3 players only waiting for NWO to go online in full mode. 2 of them stated for the reason they leave: "We do not want to see our accomplishements getting eaten away by decay." Well, there the discussion stops. And it did not help that several guilides from bigger guilds commented that these players should join the bigger guilds either.

The Dev's are reading and changes are coming. It was just PAX and GoT and so it will just take time (later this year) before their Nerd Glaze wears off and they can roll out the code.

Slarden - exactly my points. Per active account (24 hour window and must have earned renown); and a reasonable amount (which my idea is actually too little).

(let the flaming begin)

[Nestroy]

The Dev's are reading and changes are coming. It was just PAX and GoT and so it will just take time (later this year) before their Nerd Glaze wears off and they can roll out the code.

Slarden - exactly my points. Per active account (24 hour window and must have earned renown); and a reasonable amount (which my idea is actually too little).

(let the flaming begin)

I will not flame you. I really hope you are right, especially on the DEV part...

[Charononus]

The Dev's are reading and changes are coming. It was just PAX and GoT and so it will just take time (later this year) before their Nerd Glaze wears off and they can roll out the code.

Slarden - exactly my points. Per active account (24 hour window and must have earned renown); and a reasonable amount (which my idea is actually too little).

(let the flaming begin)

You may be right, they could change thing tomorrow we have no way of knowing. That said, disagreement, and thinking an idea is horrible and the last thing turbine should do is not flaming, it's part of a debate.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I will not flame you. I really hope you are right, especially on the DEV part...

Appreciate. I don't think you flame. :)

Is just whispers - but whispers nonetheless. Major changes be coming.

On the decay of dead guilds - have had a break through. It so simple that I can't believe it took so long to think of.

Will finish polishing the explanation - but should post later this week.

[Arnez]

Unfortunately I don't think it will change. The developers made the current change within a few weeks of a forum post where guild leaders expressed their frustration with the system (big and small). It's been 6 months since then and nothing has been done for small guilds and not a single empathetic comment has been made by the developers. They could have lowered the fixed decay from 20 to 15 or 10 so small guilds also got a decay break, but they didn't. Instead they chose to make it even harder for guilds of 10 or less by increasing the ransack penalty without any other helpful changes. I see no reason to expect a beneficial change. Most likely the only changes made will require you to spend more money because you are in a small guild - not to help out small guilds.

I wish you the best in making a good decision.

I remember that post (in the General Forum)- I don't believe that any further changes are anywhere near close.
What they did (after that General Post) was strategic AND effective. Let me explain...

It effectively satisfied (at least) HALF of those complaining in that thread. In terms of hours of development time versus costumer satisfaction (while at the same time leading to more DDO Store Sales), the move was masterful.
Now they can effectively IGNORE medium & small guilds- because even the Large guilds have turned on us.

They had to do something within a week of that post in General- we were a united front at that point.
Now that the large guilds are happy- they are Actively going against ANY gains that medium & small guilds can get (even if only in theory).

[Tshober]

Now that the large guilds are happy- they are Actively going against ANY gains that medium & small guilds can get (even if only in theory).

What? Almost every poster in this thread from large guilds has endorsed at least one suggestion that would be very helpful to small guilds that are struggling against decay. No one that I know of has been more vocal in advocating for the complete elimination of decay than I have. Go ahead and do a forum search and try to find anyone who has been more consistent on that than I have over the last 12 months! And I am the leader of a quite large guild. I want all guilds to be able to advance and reach the highest levels and the suggestions I have supported would ensure that all guilds can and will be able to advance and reach the highest levels. The people I have spent the most time arguing with in this thread have said, over and over, that "some guilds should NOT be able to reach level 100". Most people from large guilds want all guilds to be able to advance because we know what it is like to not be able to do so. It is most certainly NOT large guilds who want guilds to stagnate and be unable to level. It is those who liked the old system and wish we would return to it who want that.

[Nestroy]

What? Almost every poster in this thread from large guilds has endorsed at least one suggestion that would be very helpful to small guilds that are struggling against decay. No one that I know of has been more vocal in advocating for the complete elimination of decay than I have. Go ahead and do a forum search and try to find anyone who has been more consistent on that than I have over the last 12 months! And I am the leader of a quite large guild. I want all guilds to be able to advance and reach the highest levels and the suggestions I have supported would ensure that all guilds can and will be able to advance and reach the highest levels. The people I have spent the most time arguing with in this thread have said, over and over, that "some guilds should NOT be able to reach level 100". Most people from large guilds want all guilds to be able to advance because we know what it is like to not be able to do so. It is most certainly NOT large guilds who want guilds to stagnate and be unable to level. It is those who liked the old system and wish we would return to it who want that.

Well, you have to admit that there are posters like Eris... Of course this cannot be said for ALL the people from big guilds. And as far as I can remember there had been seceral posts in the old thread then from small-guilders arguing against change. "Big guilds only have to raise their activity", "big guilds could always advance, they only Need to do away with non-contributing members"... Sound familiar?

Well, not for you in special, look at these arguments:

"Big guilds can grow, they only Need to get more active" - "small guilds can grow, they only need to get more active!"
- Answer: In theory this sounds solid but in reality this does not work, except for having players from Chinese prisons. We cannot force anybody to contribute more if that person does not like to. And there would be only one other solution left then - the kick.

"Big guilds can grow, they only need to kick noncontributing players" "small guilds can grow, they only need to add new members!"
- Answer: Again, in theory sound advice. Practivally the suggested solution would have been as bad for big guilds, as it is now for small ones. Kicking players from big guilds has beenn the big argument against decay last time. And how to grow from stagnating / shrinking server player-bases for small guilds? Small guilds could build up Korthos Armies - well, I do not want to discuss that. They can canibalize other guilds. They can go for the few players that are not guilded. Always without guarantee that the added member will contribute anything.

"Big guilds need to add contributing members, the rest will be done by math" - "small guilds only need to add contributing members, the rest will be done by math!"
- Answer - this is a variant from what already has been said above, except it has the charme of beeing backed by actual calculations. Again, in theory this would be sound. Practically the solution is lacking due to the fact that there is no endless supply of contributing players for any guild to add.

So basically the only positive upside is the fact that meanwhile no member needs to be kicked from big guilds in order for them to grow. There still is no solution for the small/medium guilds and due to bonus needed for combatting decay they now need to kick all the inactive mebers in order to generate growth...

[Charononus]

What? Almost every poster in this thread from large guilds has endorsed at least one suggestion that would be very helpful to small guilds that are struggling against decay. No one that I know of has been more vocal in advocating for the complete elimination of decay than I have. Go ahead and do a forum search and try to find anyone who has been more consistent on that than I have over the last 12 months! And I am the leader of a quite large guild. I want all guilds to be able to advance and reach the highest levels and the suggestions I have supported would ensure that all guilds can and will be able to advance and reach the highest levels. The people I have spent the most time arguing with in this thread have said, over and over, that "some guilds should NOT be able to reach level 100". Most people from large guilds want all guilds to be able to advance because we know what it is like to not be able to do so. It is most certainly NOT large guilds who want guilds to stagnate and be unable to level. It is those who liked the old system and wish we would return to it who want that.

Agreed the problem isn't reducing small guild decay it's wanting to return to a version of the old system where decay is per player and creates social problems for new and casual players. The good news is I guess I won't need to care soon as I won't be playing a game where a hacker can get my cc information with a vBulletin hack.

[UurlockYgmeov]

well, you have to admit that there are posters like eris... Of course this cannot be said for all the people from big guilds. And as far as i can remember there had been seceral posts in the old thread then from small-guilders arguing against change. "big guilds only have to raise their activity", "big guilds could always advance, they only need to do away with non-contributing members"... Sound familiar?

Well, not for you in special, look at these arguments:

"big guilds can grow, they only need to get more active" - "small guilds can grow, they only need to get more active!"
- answer: In theory this sounds solid but in reality this does not work, except for having players from chinese prisons. We cannot force anybody to contribute more if that person does not like to. And there would be only one other solution left then - the kick.

"big guilds can grow, they only need to kick noncontributing players" "small guilds can grow, they only need to add new members!"
- answer: Again, in theory sound advice. Practivally the suggested solution would have been as bad for big guilds, as it is now for small ones. Kicking players from big guilds has beenn the big argument against decay last time. And how to grow from stagnating / shrinking server player-bases for small guilds? Small guilds could build up korthos armies - well, i do not want to discuss that. They can canibalize other guilds. They can go for the few players that are not guilded. Always without guarantee that the added member will contribute anything.

"big guilds need to add contributing members, the rest will be done by math" - "small guilds only need to add contributing members, the rest will be done by math!"
- answer - this is a variant from what already has been said above, except it has the charme of beeing backed by actual calculations. Again, in theory this would be sound. Practically the solution is lacking due to the fact that there is no endless supply of contributing players for any guild to add.

So basically the only positive upside is the fact that meanwhile no member needs to be kicked from big guilds in order for them to grow. There still is no solution for the small/medium guilds and due to bonus needed for combatting decay they now need to kick all the inactive mebers in order to generate growth...

+1

[UurlockYgmeov]

well, i could tell you something now about servers like wayfinder i am on with my guild but i will save my breath now because i alread got through the discussion that will certainly follow about 500 - 1000 posts past in this discussion thread and i do not want to repeat. Let me put it this way: From about 80 accounts that went through our guild alone on wayfinder i have a core group of 7 playing regularly and about 60 that after more or less time playing left the game completely and on very different reasons. And even the guys from superiority complex are not that overstuffed with players...

There is just not a player base on any server that allow any guild to grow endlessly. Even with homepage, teamspeak, guild raids (very funny on a 7 active acount guild, really!), etc. Else all guilds would be 1000 members strong. And now please stay with your big guild and stop talking about things you do not know anything about like playing in small and underleveled struggling startup guilds.

+1

[Tshober]

Okay. Judge for yourself:


yes - it should be possible to loose guild levels because of decay.


Not every guild should be 100 and not every guild should be at the level they are already.


Again, not all guilds should be able to reach level one hundred.


The point is to make it so all guilds can make it to level 100, but not all guilds will.


Because if everyone could do it - what is the actual achievement?






Decay should be a set amount, and that amount should be zero. All guilds should be able to eventually reach level 100.


Who wants guilds to stagnate and be unable to advance and who does not? Who really wants ALL guilds to be able to advance and who does not? Who is clear about it and who is trying to obfuscate?

[Dandonk]

Decay should be a set amount, and that amount should be zero. All guilds should be able to eventually reach level 100.

I couldn't agree more.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I couldn't agree more.

Agree - but what if Turbine doesn't? Since they probably won't?

[Vargouille]

Devs still trying to keep up with this thread.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Devs still trying to keep up with this thread.

Thank you Vargouille for posting - but more importantly for trying to keep up with us busy posters. :D

Have a lovely day and look forward to hearing more SOON™ :)

[Starla70]

The decay is a issue for our small guild. It seems the more we play the more we loose. This gets frustrating very quickly. However fact is we have lives outside of the game. We were moving pretty well, until these changes, now, since the first of the year, we have made one level, even with 3 to 6 playing daily, weekends it can go to 12 or more. 57 to 80 seems like 2 years away.