Time to Remove Guild Renown Decay

[gk_zone]

Our guild ranges from 40-50 active accounts at any one time. We have 90 accounts that are a part of the guild. As a casual, no play time requirement guild, its nice to come and go as we please. There should be no reason my guild suffers if I go camping for a week. Or should my friend who is on Spring Break that is playing 18 hours a day have to earn "my fair share" of the decay.

Regardless of your thoughts, reasons, ideas, or feelings Guild Decay is unnecessary mechanic. It artificially injects a penalty where there should be none. I play the game. The game should not penalize me for that.

<snip>

Guild Decay is unnecessary and harmful mechanic to the game. Removing it would make the game better.

/signed

I recently had to travel for 8 consecutive weeks for work and even on weekends didn't have time to play due to family commitments. I would have hated to have been booted from my guild for that. I do hate that my time away hurt my guildies, though.

I think a fair solution would be to eliminate guild decay for VIP accounts, reduce the decay for Premium accounts, and keep decay the same for F2P accounts. This way you are encouraging people to support the game for the benefits of joining a guild.

[madmaxhunter]

I'm very torn on the guild renown system that we have in place. On one side I see your point OP, it is very discouraging to reach that plateau and then have to decide what is more important to you, your friends or your renown. Frankly I think that if you consider these people friends then it is a no brainer.

The other side I see is the we are a large guild and got to level 60+ overnight and now have plateaued. These guilds need to keep in mind that while the smaller guild will eventually catch up and pass them, they get to enjoy the higher level amenities for a much longer time. Looking at this side makes me like guild renown decay because I see a balance there. Be a large guild for early high level stuff (level 60-80) but cap out in that range, or be a small guild for late high level stuff but have the capability to surpass and get even higher level.

Now the real reason why I felt the need to post here today... someone mentioned that with our current system there is a level of griefing happening. People joining guilds and then leaving them to hurt there renown. This is minor in my opinion because the only guilds I can think of that would fall prey to this would be the type of guilds that recruit from Korthos with blind invites. In other words, they almost deserve it for their poor security measures when recruiting.

Let's consider what kind of griefing would occur under the OP's vision. I see one almost immediately. Picture a guild that is relatively small. The leader considers that given his renown gain, in 13-16 months they would be level 100. Or he could go on a mass recruitment drive and even though his guild would be a complete mess, he would get level 100 in 2-3 months. Once his guild reached his desired goal, he then boots all the new recruits and him and his buddies go on with their now level 100 guild with no punishment for their actions.

This form of griefing would happen and everyone here knows it. This isn't a world of sunshine and lollypops. Reality is that there are actually mean and even evil people in this world. Do these mean people play DDO? Yes. Do these evil people play DDO? Yes. Therefore, systems must be put in place to prevent these types of people from taking advantage of others. Therefore Guild renown decay and renown loss when members leave or get booted is a necessity.

Okay, but then the best formula would be to invite lots of people into your guild, hit 55, hack all but the best 12, and then race to 100.

[herzkos]

well off the beaten track:
I would prefer to see the decay go away totally.
In conjunction with this, I would change the purchase mechanism for buffs.
You want a greater fire resist shrine, ok, that'll be 30000 renown to purchase it.
you want a altar of "whatever", thats 20k renown.
you want to upgrade to a Windspyre "dreadnaught" with 25 hookpoints? no problem sir
that'll be 200 mil renown.

the renown cost would obviously be a subject for negotiation among the dev team but
it would effectively let them get rid of decay while keeping the prestige of having a high
guild level for the most active guilds.

obviously guild leaders and officers would be the only ones able to purchase buffs, but please
pick your officers with care due to potential for griefing.

/edit, as to renown loss when players leave? yes. if a player is booted the guild should lose whatever percent of renown that the player gained. ex, guild has 100 renown.
player x gained 25 of that renown. the guild loses 25 renown and is now at 75.
another example, guild has 100,000 renown. player x contributed 25000 renown to the guild.
guild leader purchases a widget for the ship costing 20,000 renown. guild now has 80000 renown.
leader boots player x, guild loses 20000 renown (player x's contribution to the guild total is 1/4). this suggestion would require keeping track of a players gained renown versus
the guilds total accrued renown regardless of expenditures). yes, I do believe that losing someone that has been in the guild for a week should have less of an effect than
losing someone who has been in guild for years.
If a player is not booted and leaves voluntarily, there should be no guild renown loss at all for that.

[stainer]

Here a suggestion I made a few months ago.
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=332099
I propose that at certain guild levels, decay is cut to 1% of normal. Lets say guild level 50, 70, and 85 for instance. This would allow guild to hit a mark and not worry so much about dropping below it. That would mean you still would have to work to level a guild, but not feel the pressure to pour on the renown.

[sigtrent]

The stated purpose of decay is to reward guilds who want to use renown as team accomplishment and the idea was that 100 etc... are more glory awards and bragging rights than functional benefits.

I don't mind all that and personally I see the guild ship benefits as gravy rather than anything anyone "needs" or should get their knickers in a twist about. One of my guilds is about as sleepy as a guild can be, and its still growing in renown at 35. If Umberhulks can get there, it isn't exactly hard work.

But... I understand there are many players that aren't satisfied with anything less than everything and that in a game the notion of going backwards, loosing ground, is pretty hated and is not fun. (ya, in PvP games its part of the gig but this isn't one of those)

So how about some kind of hybrid?

Make it so decay can never drop your guild level, unless you are at 90+ (or wherever it is the meaningful benefits of build level stop).

This means a guild can never really slip backwards in game functionality, but it does have to overcome decay to move up which keeps the guild rankings semi competitive for those that are into such things.

[Barazon]

I agree that it should be removed. I've seen people posting saying "not every guild deserves to be level 100!", but what about character levels? Does every toon deserve to be level 20? Would you think it was right if you couldn't log in for two weeks due to an illness, logged in to do some epics and were level 18?

I play with a static group of RL friends, several of whom have been playing since the game's release, and have their founder's helms to prove it. They were joking about the new bravery bonus last night. One said "Bravery bonus?! That's not a bravery bonus! Bravery was when we used to 2-man a new dungeon, knowing that we'd lose so much xp from dying a few times that we'd walk out with less xp than when we went in!" The other replied "Ha, bravery was when we'd go into a dungeon knowing it was filled with kobolds, and that we'd come out with a curse that we had no way to remove! I was cursed for a whole week once before we found a cleric to cure it." "Oh yeah! Remember when you logged out blind, and then logged back in blind two days later, and I had to guide you to the bar by voice to find a cleric, because we couldn't afford a cure blindness potion?"

Fortunately the developers have learned from some of their mistakes and things have changed since then. NOW curses and blindness wear off eventually! NOW learning a dungeon doesn't mean you come out with less xp than when you went in! NOW the same should be done for guild renown. Having a guildie be deployed to Iraq but able to log in once in a while to say "hello" should NOT come down to a "Dear John" letter of "well we like you and all, and thanks for fighting for our country, but we needed to decide whether you're worth the guild renown decay you're costing us, and ..."

Our guild has made the decision that people are more important than guild renown, but that doesn't make everyone immune to the depression when the weekend ends with more renown than we started with, but over the weekdays when people play less the renown goes back down to where it was last Friday. It seems like sometimes we spend a week grinding away at renown just to get back to where we started. This doesn't mean we're lazy slackers, this doesn't mean we need to reassess our guild goals, it means the developers should revisit the renown system and remove the decay.

[Saravis]

Its not just the decay thats an issue, the whole renown mechanic in general is horrible. Its a system that relies far too heavily on luck, you could run elites and epics constantly and earn nothing but heroic deeds (if that), where as someone else can get legendary victories left and right. To have a random means of gain combating against a consistent and continual means of loss is not the way to do this. The whole system needs reworked not just the decay.

[Karranor]

I agree that I think it is a no brainer that if you are a friend, you can stay in the guild. No I don't care if you only play once every three weeks. No I don't care if you keep a mule in guild to say hi once in awhile. No I don't care if you have different characters in different guilds. But even though I, as a player, don't care and think it is totally wrong to boot a friend from my guild for any reason I, as a guild leader, have to deal with 50 other peoples opinions on the matter. Even though the choice to keep a friend a friend is a no brainer the whole guild has to deal with the repercussions of that decision in our current decay/loss system.

A system that even brings up the question, "Should I boot my best friend from the guild even though he helped to create it because he can only play a couple hours a week?" is harmful to the game as a whole.

[spencer64]

In regards to your comments about the Guild Renown System, all I can say is that there comes a time when a guild's leadership has to make a choice about the direction of their guild.

Do you value the friendships that you have made in guild more than the number next to the tag? If so, then the answer is easy! Continue gaming as you were before the system was introduced in the first place and trust that the members of your guild feel the same way.

If not, ditch any members who aren't contributing more than their membership is costing the guild in renown and move forward to your goal of LvL 100.

Just realize that with either decision you will alienate some group of people, but you will also place an identity and a set of expectations to your guild and guildmates.

The problem with this is that a guild leader does not make up the guild! This is a Community of players...the leader is the leader, not a dictator. Follow this line of thinking and the guild will be toast!

[Hafeal]

A system that even brings up the question, "Should I boot my best friend from the guild even though he helped to create it because he can only play a couple hours a week?" is harmful to the game as a whole.

Absolutely dead on.

[CountHenri]

/not signed

Lets see now :

1. Randomness of Guild rewards ~ why yes you could pull nothing but heroic victories in say a Shroud run but the odds of that are about the same as pulling all Legendaries ~ calling a system flawed based on a scenrio that as a oneoff is unlikely let alone as an ongoing issue is somewhat flakey as an aguement. In fact the balance of rewards over time seems quite well balanced to me and I run a lot of stuff.

2. Casual vs Powergaming ~ if you are a 'casual' guild then really expecting to go above GL50 is probably an incorrect assumption. A 'powergaming' guild on the otherhand will expect to eventually hit 100 and will structure the Guild and how it functions in order to accomodate this. Like any society there will be varying degrees of desire and ambition towards certain goals. A high guild level is one of these goals in DDO.

3. Comparing GL to Character Level ~ no rational comparison there ~ two completely different and unrelated mechanisms to reward effort on 2 fronts. I was a fan of Death Penalty but I understand why it was removed. The thought of death penalty on a double+ TR is just horrible. Interestingly one of the rewards for TR is a chance to earn more guild rewards along the way ~ this again is a seperating factor between casual and powergaming guilds.

4. Guild Size ~ yes this is important but not in the way traditionally complained about in these types of threads. The best guild size is as large as you can manage so that there are always the bulk of online people in guild runs. If a 200 member guild can achieve this level of organisation they'll shoot up the levels. The reality of course is that its almost impossible to do so and thus smaller guilds tend to do well just because it is very easy for them to coordinate full Guild raids.

5. Player commitment ~ if a player logs in for 2 hours 3 times a week and spends the whole time glued to the AH while spamming trade well thats not going to help Guild Level is it? If a player logs in 1-2 hours per day and spends that raiding or elite levelling a TR then that is going to contribute quite a bit. Having both sorts of players in a guild will slow progression depending on the ratio.

Overall the sytem is fine and IMO well balanced. If you want Guild Level 100 guess what ~ you're going to have to set it as a goal and work for it. If that means restructing your guild and removing certain players then thats what needs to be done (I can think of a couple of well known guilds on Kyhber that are going through this right now). If your gaming experience is more casual/social orientated then simply dont expect to reach L100 and stop saying the system is broken ~ it works fine for those its intended to work for ~ as a final point consider Ship buffs : these give most benefit to low level characters particularly TRs ~ the rewards are designed for the more hardcore players and for them this works out quite well.

[SHOCK_and_AWE]

well off the beaten track:
I would prefer to see the decay go away totally.
In conjunction with this, I would change the purchase mechanism for buffs.
You want a greater fire resist shrine, ok, that'll be 30000 renown to purchase it.
you want a altar of "whatever", thats 20k renown.
you want to upgrade to a Windspyre "dreadnaught" with 25 hookpoints? no problem sir
that'll be 200 mil renown.

I like this idea, though I'm not sure it's the best way to fix this. For the attachments and crewmates, they would cost a certain amount of renown to have for a certain amount of time. For ships, they would just be unlocked at a renown level like they are now. This would still encourage playing and renown gathering, but it wouldn't punish players for not playing.

[spencer64]

Well, I am an officer in the OP's guild, and we are starting to track the decay...at 11:25pm last night we were at 12,176,489, and this morning at 8:00 we were at 12,160,943. So we lost 15,500.00+ renown overnight. We have been at guild level 62 for months and months.

Can you see why members of our guild would be frustrated? Even the best of friends? Months of taking renown....for what? Zippo! Are you willing to make 1000 Abbott runs and never pull a litany.....really? This tension and drama in the guild didn't develop overnight...it has been gradually building, and as responsible officers we are trying to nix it before it really explodes.

No matter which side of the discussion you fall on, the simple fact is that Turbine states “… Turbine is known for…fostering powerful online gaming communities.” (http://www.turbine.com/studio.html).

Our guild is experiencing the renown decay system as accomplishing the exact opposite of "fostering community". A game mechanic is not worth losing friends over.

Maybe ask this question, what and whom does getting rid of the decay system hurt?

[Hafeal]

Maybe ask this question, what and whom does getting rid of the decay system hurt?

No one.

Also, we were keeping track of our guild renown as well, we have plateaued at 70 for quite some time, and I want to say the daily loss of renown was 100K / day.

[Aaxeyu]

If they were to simply remove renown decay and remove the loss upon dismissal/departure there would be no point in having guild levels.

Yeah. Just like without character experience decay there is no point in having character levels. Oh wait...

Losing a bonus is not the same as a penalty.

Yes, it for all intents and purposes is the same.


As for the op, /signed. I don't like renown decay and what it entails.

[Airabela]

I am one of those casual players that only plays a few hours a week. I became a VIP because of my guild and the friendships I've made through that guild. Now I take guild renown whenever I can to suuport the guild I take pride in being a part of.

But with the guild decay why bother? Any renown I get for my guild will be taken away because of my casual play style.

Why should you literally penalize a VIP that loves the game but only get to play once a month? Guild decay is doing exactly that.

I agree with Karranor, why should I be penalized for loving the game, taking pride in my guild, but only playing a few hours a week? Why should my guild be penalized for my play style? That's not right.

[kuro_zero]

I came back from a year hiatus due to real life to find myself guildless. The guild underwent a leadership and subsequently a restructuring which involved booting inactive members. I believe the renown system was a large factor in this decision.

Bear with me as I go off on a bit of a tangent here:

I believe the key point this post is trying to make is a large one affecting many parts of DDO and that is marked progress towards improvement. It is a big part of why, for the most part, I stopped running raid/epic content. Its hit or miss - all or nothing. I get the loot/shard/seal/scroll/et all or I don't.

So, I shifted goals - I am now aiming for completionist. Simple reason being every quest I complete, every XP I gain, every life I complete gets me a step closer to my goal of ingame improvement. (I suppose with exception with Artificer PL, grrr).

Measurable progress. I am x XP away from next level. x Lives from completionist. The OP analogy to character XP IS appropriate. Do I "need" those PL bonuses? Do I "need" the completionist feat? Of course not, but if I'm not gaining anything from my time playing, why play?

The guild decay system is akin to taking away XP every time I join a party, more XP being subtracted with each additional member. This is under an assumption that a party will have an easier time completing quests and accumulating more XP. In theory its fine - for anyone who has joined a bad pug, in practice it is not always the case. In this analogy, our PUG is work, kids, vacations, school, and any of a myriad of Real Life Issues(TM) that may classify someone a "casual" player.

It is simply poor game design to take away something players have earned. Redoing what was done already on a daily basis (ie regaining renown lost to decay) becomes a chore, not a game. Increase renown requirements for each level for all I care (not a suggestion, BTW), but do not remove progress earned by players.

And yes, /signed.

[Ungood]

Since the Inception of Guild Levels and Decay, I have have been a strong opponent to Guild Decay, and still am. I thought it was stupid when implemented and I still think it is stupid today. Time has not placated my hate for the idea of renown decay.

Regardless of what anyone says, Renown is earned by players, on two fronts. Players have to Play Run Quests to earn renown which makes Renown Akin to EXP. And to gain more, they would have to take the Victories which makes Renown Akin to Loot.

Which makes Guild Renown comparable to both, EXP and Loot. Two things players do not want taken from them. No one wants their gear to just go away over time, they would not want their bank account to decrease over time, and they would not want their exp to decay either.

Sure, Some people like attrition games of diminishing returns, but it seems the vast majority do not. Which is why over time these mechanics have been removed from DDO which has made the game better, more enjoyable.

However. I feel that the best solution to renown and decay would be to bind Renown to Character, not the guild. Make this arbitrary and pointless Decay mechanic that DDO wants in bound to character as well as well as any Bonuses.

What would Binding the Renown to the Character Solve?

• First Off: It would remove the idea that anyone is supporting anyone else. Each player only has to deal with their personal renown earning, which is contingent upon their overall renown earned, so their decay scales with their earning, not the earning of everyone else in the guild. IE: No one is Carrying Anyone Else.
• It would remove the need to question if removing someone was good or bad. If Renown was bound to Character, each player only supports themselves, no one else impacts their decay levels or what they need to do to keep gaining.
• It would give players a sense of pride for their own renown earned as they get to keep it.
• Everyone would earn the same amount of Renown. No Small Guild Bonus, +10 Ghost accounts decaying the guild. None of that junk would need to be added to make a very convoluted and annoying system.
• It would make things streamline. Everyone would only have to worry about their number, not the number of the guild, or some level * Modifier Number + 10 accounts, with Guild size Bonus, blah, blah, blah. Just removes the silliness. Like your Loot and EXP, Your Renown is your Renown. End of Discussion.
• Questions about booting friends who don't play much would never come up.

There are many issues that Binding renown to the Character would solve, and make the game overall better for everyone playing. It would inspire people to want to build bigger guilds, hold on to friends, and not worry about the guild level, in fact it would allow casuals players to get back to just playing the game for fun and allow the Hard Core Players to focus on getting higher. Think of it like an Alt-Exp Bar.

This is my feelings on the issue. And yes, I think every guild should have within their grasp the ability to get to 100th with doing nothing but working slowly and steady towards a goal, just like they can do with player levels or crafting levels.

[Synnestar35791]

Hardcore Raiders: You have a brag right, sure, game with what ya were born with...
Casual Gamers: Shut up; the Epic Gods don't feel you have a right to any luxury beyond what they can accomplish without a single effort....

Now with that out of the way...
There ARE 3 types of players....
Casual....
The ones that play because they enjoy the time & comradery of friends on-line in an entertaining environment....
Dedicated....
The grinders but not stress maniacs....
Elitist....
These are the ones that instituted *Decay* concepts....
If you don't perform , you lose....
Well, life is NOT all Elite...
if you think it is.....
You're a maniac with issues....
I like the game - I'm not a fan of *Epic*, but ain't afraid to face a challenge, lose & try again another day...
Guild Renown, I earned just about ALL my renown all on my own...
Oh, yes, I'm a lvl 29 Guild of all my own characters....
I ask for minimal help from others, I keep all my toons logged on, so I should be penalized if (Heaven forbid) I can't connect to internet for two months...
No, I take the OP's side, but I don't think large or small groups should be penalized level of guild because other people can't meet their obligation to guild...
The rest of the group isn't bound to be held accountable for the inability of a few... & mostly there are good reasons for absence....
Whatever the cause for a failure to log a rostered character, the whole shouldn't be held to a standard.
They gave us a GL100 boat on Lamania & the Plat to equip it... it took 1 week to drop to GL95 from decay...it was sad... I know how it feels to watch in horror as the level slides backwards...
Change it - or - remove it....

[Karranor]

There has been some great thoughts here and I love to see everyone's viewpoint on this.

Besides removing guild renown decay and loss there have been some other mechanics of this that have been pointed out that I also think need addressing.

After you get rid of renown loss the idea of renown as rewards has its flaws as well. Since renown IS guild XP why not change it to something much more akin to XP? What about adding a Renown XP component to quests and wilderness areas? It could be something as simple as 10% of the quest's XP earned.

Currently I take renown 99.9% of the time it is in a chest. I rarely even look at the rewards anymore because I am trying so desperately to combat the decay. In a vein attempt as Guild Leader I have been trying to get the renown for my friends that can't play much so I can "make up" for them. If Renown isn't available I take essences for crafting. Last but not least I will take items that are then decon'd into essences. Then with almost 0 income I'm trying to keep all the guild ship amenities on the boat!

The point is that the mechanic seems to crossover between loot and XP. At the end chest of a quest, we don't have to make a choice whether to take XP for the quest.

This would eliminate another part of the renown annoyance of hounding each other to take renown. It would be real easy, if you are playing and in a guild you are earning Renown AKA XP for your guild.

This is just a though, I don't want to get to distracted from the meat of this thread that Decay and Loss should be removed. We earn it, we should get to keep it.