Thelanis Guild Power Rating Week 2

[Mindsynk]

I was going to change the title of the original post as to keep from duplicate threads but I couldn't figure out how to do it. If someone can help me with that I'd appreciate it then I could just keep one thread updated.

In any case, week 2 of the power rankings are out. They include the new metrics of change in xp & change in members. This will allow the rating to reflelct recent reknown and membership gains and losses. I believe these new metrics have really helped refine the ratings and better reflect the current power situation amongst Thelanis guilds. Most of the big well known guilds have moved towards the top, while smaller hard working guilds are still sprinkled throughout the rankings.

http://ddoguilds.blogspot.com/

I made the decision to use the change in membership metric in a way that it rewards membership gain and punishes excess purges in the short term. Like all other metrics this is simply one component of the rankings so simply adding hundreds of members will not make a guild #1, nor will thinning the ranks drop it to the bottom. The guilds that continually add a moderate amount of reknown producing members on a regular basis will be the ones helped most by this particular metric.

Please take a moment to look at the new ranking and give your comments. I hope to get to the point that the Thelanis Rankings are legitimate enough that the formula can be the model to use for all servers. It is never going to be perfect but I think it is beginning to be a decent reflection of Guild power.


BTW if anyone can comment on the How-to on the title change thing, it'd be a big help. Thx

[RTN]

I'm sure you put in a lot of time and thought into this. That's great. Unfortunately, the problem is that the ranking reflects little since Renown isn't a reliable measure of anything useful.

A guild full of noobs (not newbs) with lots of active players that are mostly lowbies will rack up a ton of Renown and yet might have very little skill or ability to accomplish things by themselves. Some of the older guilds on your list have a ton of characters, but not that many active players (or mutiple players with multiple accounts--a new, lowbie guild with 500 characters probably has over 200 players, while an old guild with 500 characters might well only have 50 players--guess which will have an easier time accumulating Renown). Until we see ACCOUNTS in a guild, renown will be difficult to use in a comparative way.

Another issue, there are guilds high up on your list that the most skilled guilds won't allow into a raid (if they even had anyone of the required level) because they don't have the skill necessary. Not what you wanted to hear, I'm sure, but you asked for feedback.

[Levonestral]

A guilds "power" cannot be measured by simply numbers alone, regardless of how you spin them.

Their ability to get the job done under various situations using various methods and classes is a far better reflection on their "power" than any amount of number crunching.

Experiencing their abilities first hand while in group with them is a far better measurement; and even then, it's all a matter of perception for each person.

The ability to kill mobs and loot chests as a level 20 in a level 4 quest to "farm renown" does not reflect a guilds "power".

I appreciate the effort in the number crunching you did, but sorry, they really do mean nothing.

This is why The Madborn have decided to simply run as we always have and gather renown at a pace we know we can maintain and not focus on "renown grinding".

[Ministry]

I agree that this "Power Rankings" is completely off.

If I'm forming a raid and don't have enough people, I would definitely not use this "Power Ranking" to help me with who I would accept, and in fact, I actually avoid some of your top 10 guilds, based on my experience and that of comments from friends.

Playing this game 4 years and knowing many people and guilds, I would draft almost any player from the following guilds with complete confidence with your current ranking in (parenthesis):

Legion (6)
Erebus (14)
Darpa (Out of your top 20+)
Pestilence (18)
Inferus Sus (Out of your top 20+)
Attacks the Darkness (Out of your top 20+)

Then my next group would be I would take a fair number of their people based on their guild tag... almost as many as the above group, but not quite as many:

Renowned (13)
Bane (7)
CLAW (2)
Foreign Legion (Out of your top 20+)
The Band of the Shifting Sands (Out of your top 20+)

I understand theortecially what you are attempting, but when crunch time comes, it's not about numbers, it's about people that can get it done, fast, hard, and competently.

I look at a few of the guilds you have in your top 10 and I would either take none of their players in their whole guild, or only 1 or 2. My ranking is based on years of play and feedback from a LOT of people.

Nice to see the Archangels at your #15 spot, but my guess is my guildmates would be picked a lot higher than #15 for filling pug spots and a fair bit higher than members of a number of the guilds you have ranked higher.

Numbers are good, but they aren't everything.

Especially when a number of our guildmates are on holidays or were taking advantage of playing lowbies during the +20% time period.

Nice effort, but No Thanks.

[SolarDawning]

(Ministry's sentiments on power ranking)

I agree wholeheartedly, Ministry. A renown measuring metric can't tell you the quality of a player, only how many people their guild has grinding renown.

In DARPA, we all decided we wouldn't do anything differently, and would just play as we normally do. No matter what we do or don't do, renown will just accumulate over time, so we'll eventually reach a level that our guild can maintain naturally.

Nice to see the Archangels at your #15 spot, but my guess is my guildmates would be picked a lot higher than #15 for filling pug spots and a fair bit higher than members of a number of the guilds you have ranked higher.

Absolutely. I've had nothing but good experiences running with you guys. Archangels' members are a great bunch, and are very competent. You're always welcome in my groups, or as far as I know, those of any other DARPA member.

[toastjeff]

I agree with a lot of what the other responses are saying.

You've obviously done a good deal of work, but it is a total waste of time. The numbers that Turbine gives us can in no way add up to anything useful. Last week, you used the example of the sports power rankings. You could look at a sports team and see that they lost five out of the six games they played that week and that a bump down the rankings is warranted.

Now look at your list. Last week's number one is down to number eleven. Are they having a bad week? Did they fail too many raids? What did that guild do to fall and what can they do to move back up?

I agree with what RTN had to say. I come at it from the other direction. I'm in a small guild that couldn't fill a raid party if their life depended on it. I'm dependant on the PUG spots of other guilds to do my raiding. I won't name names, but there are guilds high on that list whose LFM's I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. It's not because I'm some uber player, it's because I know from experience that a raid led by some of these guilds has a good chance of failing, and if not failing, taking a lot longer than it should.

You asked for comments. Here are mine in a nutshell: this is obviously your baby, and something you are very proud of. Regardless of that fact, it is useless. Anyone who raids or plays high level content on Thelanis can come to this conclusion in less than ten seconds of looking at it.

[systemstate]

In DARPA, we all decided we wouldn't do anything differently, and would just play as we normally do. No matter what we do or don't do, renown will just accumulate over time, so we'll eventually reach a level that our guild can maintain naturally.

This is exactly our decision as well regarding the new system.

[Mindsynk]

I do appreciate the comments(it takes less than an hour to produce the rankings so I am not married to this or spending tons of time slaving over it, but I do appreciate the comments recognizing some effort goes into it. Honestly it takes more time to reply on the forum than produce the ratings), but I think there are a few misconceptions about the ratings.

I will list one major assumption I make first:

1. Reknown trophies are not truly random. They are some unknown function of toon vs. level of quest vs. the toons level vs. the level of the quest. This is based off some programming rumors I read here on the forum. This leads to:

1a) There is a higher chance of scoring a larger trophy in a higher level quest.
1b) There is a chance of scoring a larger trophy by questing above your level.
1c) Higher level toons hunting higher level quests at the relative same degree of difficulty(toon 17 quest 18), have a higher chance of scoring larger trophies than lower level toons(toon 4 quest 5). Both hunting 1 level above, older toon has higher chance of scoring larger trophy.

If this function is not weighted correctly(lower level toons gathering same amount or more of reknown while hunting at lower difficulty), or doesn't exist at all then reknown becomes less meaningful. Right now I am leaning toward the former. If someone knows for sure that reknown trophies are truly random and not weighted at all based on quest level and relation of toon lv to quest lv, let me know. It would certainly have an effect on the "meaningfulness" of reknown, but not really on which guild is best at collecting it. Even if it is purely random, then guilds that quest more would find more. Again that would have to be some indication as to the power/activity/efficiency of a guild.

These are misconceptions I believe people have about what the Power Rating is suppose to ""mean".

2. That this prevailing, "There are scores of guilds with massive amounts of noobs collecting reknown way faster than established guilds with smaller forces of older toons" is complete and utter nonsense. Yes there is an exception or two, but this is not happening on any scale, let alone a wide one.

2a) Look at the largest guilds by member, most are older guilds.

2b) Look at the largest guilds by guild xp, most are old guilds.

2c) Noobs quit and play way less frequently than older vets on a daily basis. Vets with 10 lv 20 toons spend more hours a day playing than a noob with a lv2 toon. You would need a massive superiority of noobs vs vets to ever get the noob production to surpass vet production.


To show this I posted again showing the change in guild xp and members for every guild since last rating. You can review it and determine for yourself whether this myth is true.

3. There is a misconception that a guild's power rating somehow translates to the abilities of individual guild members. Just because a guild is listed as powerful does not mean that anyone in it is capable of running a raid. Like any organization, a guild will have people with a range of talents. Just because a guild is in the top 10 does not mean they can't have incompetent members. Likewise, just because a guild is not listed, it does not mean members of that guild are worthless. The power rating is the ability of that organization of toons to collect total guild xp, as well as the efficiency of its members.

4. Many are getting hung up on my guild is not in the Top 10, 20, 50...

There are over 2000 guilds on Thelanis alone. Therefore the top 20 are in the 99th percentile. Spots 21-40 are the 98th percentile. The 100th best guild is in the 95th percentile. But for some reason many commenting feel as though if you are not top 10 or top 20, the ratings are saying you are worthless. This is completely false. The ratings are trying to split hairs amongst the finest guilds in the land. Honestly you would be well served to join any of them. I can almost guarantee as more and more data becomes available, the right guilds will ascend to the top. You can see that already in comparing initial rankings with the new ones.

Perhaps a good analogy is college football rankings. It is a fluid thing. Just because a team is ranked 18th does not mean it can't beat #1 or that its team is comprised of worthless players. The individual players on the 18th ranked team first had to be good enough to play football at that level, and then be good enough as a team to play "better" than all but a small handful of teams at that current moment in time. If they come together and produce results, there is a chance their team will be ranked #1 at some point.

Remember now that there is change in xp and members metrics, how a guild does each week is going to have a large influence on weekly rankings. Maybe the best way to look at it is the ranking reflect a combination of a review of the previous weeks works and the enitre history of the guild. It is not saying that the top guild is the greatest guild in the history, present, or future of DDO. What it is saying is here is a list of the best guilds on Thelanis currently, and if you took a snapshot just today, here is how one person would rank them.

Personally if I were running a guild (and I am, but not in top 50 so it must suck too), I would use this as a way to measure the guild against itself. Now that I know how much xp the guild produced last week, I can compare this week to it and see if we are getting better or worse, and whether new additions or subtractions hurt or help us. I admit I do find the juggling of positions and production of top guilds interesting to look at and review, but my guild is never going to be CLAW or Legion in any liklihood. However that doesn't mean I am not interested in how other guilds our size are doing and how my guild improves or declines from week to week.

[dasein18]

This is an interesting exercise. However, it is like watching the freeway. Taking a note of the make, model, and speed of cars. Then putting this together to come up with the idea that the Honda Civic is the fastest car out there since you calculated the most mile per hour total for that make.

Or in this case.. one guild is better at farming a quest with re-spawning monsters and more chests per minute played so they are more powerful.


I do applaude your interest in statistics. So which guilds on Thelanis have the most capped toons and multi capped TRs? The most capped FvS and clerics (something Sockie put together a long time ago as a sign of self sufficient raid guilds). Can you also figure out how many people would need to be recruited by the Libeterian party to make an impact on current US politics?

[centurian1]

'black one'

[Ministry]

In DARPA, we all decided we wouldn't do anything differently, and would just play as we normally do. No matter what we do or don't do, renown will just accumulate over time, so we'll eventually reach a level that our guild can maintain naturally...

This is the exact same thing our guild decided on before the "reknown" was announced.

If we play the way we do, raid the way we do and everything else, the reknown will either come on it's own, or it's stupid and needs to be re-visited.

The past few weeks we have had many people like myself on holidays, enjoying summer, busy with work... etc... etc... and in the case of the people online, taking advantage of the +20%.

When we are all back from being afk and all our toons capped again and raiding a bunch like we did months ago, the reknown will happen. Hell, we are over Level 24 in guild reknown or Rank #15 on this list, with around 1/2 to 3/4 our guild active and a lot of them playing lowbies. Not bad.

[DagazUlf]

In DARPA, we all decided we wouldn't do anything differently, and would just play as we normally do. No matter what we do or don't do, renown will just accumulate over time, so we'll eventually reach a level that our guild can maintain naturally

Definitely the same philosophy we're following, and it seems the way to go for long-term sustainability. This exercise in using the data available from Turbine is interesting, though, and could really be neat if we get some more data and metrics as they flesh-out the development of guilds (assuming we see more stuff).

It should also be neat to see how this plays out as the euphoria of something-new-to-do wears off and we see guilds either plateau, decline, or increase steadily. Might make some interesting line graphs.

[RTN]

I will list one major assumption I make first:

1. Reknown trophies are not truly random. They are some unknown function of toon vs. level of quest vs. the toons level vs. the level of the quest. This is based off some programming rumors I read here on the forum. This leads to:

This assumption is largely true from what I have seen. Higher level quests have chances for bigger Renown rewards. Doing quests above your level give you a chance at a larger than normal Renown reward.

Even if it is purely random, then guilds that quest more would find more. Again that would have to be some indication as to the power/activity/efficiency of a guild.

Exactly. The guild that quests more will find more. But that has nothing to do with efficiency and everything to do with numbers.

These are misconceptions I believe people have about what the Power Rating is suppose to ""mean".

2. That this prevailing, "There are scores of guilds with massive amounts of noobs collecting reknown way faster than established guilds with smaller forces of older toons" is complete and utter nonsense. Yes there is an exception or two, but this is not happening on any scale, let alone a wide one.

2a) Look at the largest guilds by member, most are older guilds.

2b) Look at the largest guilds by guild xp, most are old guilds.

You are confusing character numbers with account and member (i.e., real life people) numbers. They are not related. The "largest guilds" are by character, not member. We have no way of knowing how many members a guild has unless they track it and share that info. The older guilds are much more likely to have a member with 5-10 characters each (some members have multiple accounts, which could mean a member with 20 (or more) characters). A new guild with lots of lowbies and newbs will tend to have fewer characters/member simply because they haven't been around long enough to make as many characters, or are F2P or premium, which also limits them. Therefore, a large new guild will tend to have more members playing than the equivalent sized older guild when measured by characters. This is why the amount of Renown/guild doesn't tell us anything about efficiency at the moment.

3. There is a misconception that a guild's power rating somehow translates to the abilities of individual guild members. Just because a guild is listed as powerful does not mean that anyone in it is capable of running a raid. Like any organization, a guild will have people with a range of talents. Just because a guild is in the top 10 does not mean they can't have incompetent members. Likewise, just because a guild is not listed, it does not mean members of that guild are worthless. The power rating is the ability of that organization of toons to collect total guild xp, as well as the efficiency of its members.

No, what we're telling you is that a guild's power ranking doesn't mean anything useful at all for a variety of reasons, but mostly because we don't have the right measurement (the number of accounts in a guild, but more ideally, the number of members). Look at what Ministry and toastjeff wrote for why.

btw, this is leaving out all sorts of things like exploits, tricks and Renown pots, which we can't account for.

[dasein18]

It should also be neat to see how this plays out as the euphoria of something-new-to-do wears off and we see guilds either plateau, decline, or increase steadily. Might make some interesting line graphs.

I agree and that is one interesting item about the OP's stats. He is posting week by week total reknown. This will make it easy to compile and make it clear which guilds are playing consistently in the same manner and which had been farming reknown.

[Montrose]

If one truly felt that renown and the power list didn't matter, then one would not feel compelled to post in this thread.

I wonder if some of the people posting in this thread spent time trolling knitting forums discussing how pattern rankings are ****.

[dasein18]

If one truly felt that renown and the power list didn't matter, then one would not feel compelled to post in this thread.

I wonder if some of the people posting in this thread spent time trolling knitting forums discussing how pattern rankings are ****.

As someone with advanced degrees in multiple sciences, I read the post and info presented and reply much as I would on any topic that seems incorrectly applied. I think there is potential in what the OP is doing. Thanks for contributing.

[Ministry]

If one truly felt that renown and the power list didn't matter, then one would not feel compelled to post in this thread.

I wonder if some of the people posting in this thread spent time trolling knitting forums discussing how pattern rankings are ****.

Offering absolutely nothing to a thread, other than to slam people who are contributing is in essense; trolling.

TY for nothing.

Keep adding to your rep... what is it now? Oh ya... "0".

[Terelle]

You are confusing character numbers with account and member (i.e., real life people) numbers. They are not related. The "largest guilds" are by character, not member. We have no way of knowing how many members a guild has unless they track it and share that info. The older guilds are much more likely to have a member with 5-10 characters each (some members have multiple accounts, which could mean a member with 20 (or more) characters). A new guild with lots of lowbies and newbs will tend to have fewer characters/member simply because they haven't been around long enough to make as many characters, or are F2P or premium, which also limits them. Therefore, a large new guild will tend to have more members playing than the equivalent sized older guild when measured by characters. This is why the amount of Renown/guild doesn't tell us anything about efficiency at the moment.

Quoted for truth. If the leaderboards listed 'accounts' rather than 'members', then this metric might -start- to get useful.

[Montrose]

Offering absolutely nothing to a thread, other than to slam people who are contributing is in essense; trolling.

TY for nothing.

Keep adding to your rep... what is it now? Oh ya... "0".

I'm not slamming the people who are contributing.

As for my rep. I'll tell you what, I'll turn my rep bar on for the next few days. Just for you.

[Montrose]

As someone with advanced degrees in multiple sciences, I read the post and info presented and reply much as I would on any topic that seems incorrectly applied. I think there is potential in what the OP is doing. Thanks for contributing.

It's safe to say that a high majority of the people on these boards probably have advanced degrees in multiple sciences.

If one of yours is in statistical analysis and you would like to present a coherent and compelling argument of causality versus correlation, that would be a welcome addition to the thread.

(Edit: BTW, this is my favorite link on the subject --> http://xkcd.com/552/)