Time to Remove Guild Renown Decay

[~sumptingwong]

A guild is a "An association of people for mutual aid or the pursuit of a common goal." Renown is "The condition of being known or talked about by many people; fame." So basically in ddo a guild is a collection of players working to level up the guild whether or not you want to. How does a group of players under a certain name just loose reputation everyday when people are most likely doing things in that guild every day that is heroic and etc...? If anything it would make more sense to have guilds loose renown for being squelched, and so turbine would have to have guild squelches. Of course then people could roll up toons and guild squelch guilds just because and there would be many flaws with this idea. Still this idea to me makes MORE SENSE then just loosing renown daily where your guild has daily heroes doing heroic things.

I say Remove renown or make the decay alot less

[Mastese]

Good arguments on both sides, which means that no changes will likely be feasable any time in the near future. Renown decay is, after all, a necessary evil in trying to keep the balance in a world clearly divided by the haves and the have nots. It just does a very poor job in attempting to do so. The Guild system as a whole has been fairly dissapointing from the get-go.

-Mastese

[Vanquishedfo]

Fact is once I was in the OPs camp long ago, but that came largely from a view based on experiance with other MMOs and not seeing DDOs own unique needs enough which almost always do come into play once you examine the games society.

The fact is Renown decay is a needed evil because the guild ship buffs are very substantial and meant as a carrot to help encourage the small and most isolated elite community together. Its frankly obvious to me OP that you try to guise your own selfish desire for personal buffage as a ruse away from the truth. THe fact you would betray your own friends to reach that goal. If you care more about your friends then the question of guild level becomes meaningless.

And you may be confused but your not an elected leader your the frelling captain. And Capt. Mal does not take a vote he gives orders. If anyone doesnt like your ship throw them off, they dont like your friend then throw them off. But sure as sin dont give in to peer pressure from a bunch of bodies to stab a friend in the back. Better to be alone on your ship with one REAL FRIEND then 50 who would ask such of you.

[Tsuarok]

Instead, add xp decay! That way, if you take a month off, you might just find your TR has become that level 6, 28 point gimpy rogue you dragged to level 20 a few months back.

Or require token drops required to maintain your raid loot without which it will disappear.

If that sounds ridiculous, it should. Make rewards hard to get in the game, but don't take away things that players earn.

[AtomicMew]

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

Hi guys, I have an awesome idea! Instead of having renown decay and the current system, guilds should be able to true re-incarnate at level 100!

/not signed

The alternatives of no decay would lead to 1) the ability to trivially reach level 100 or 2) having Turbine implement a colossal extended grind to keep people interested (cf TR/completionist) . Maybe decay could be tweaked a little to be more fair, but the concept absolutely needs to be there. It rewards active play and not simply how long you've been playing. The only reason new guilds can pop up and surpass older guilds is due to the fact that older guilds have experienced more decay. This needs to be possible, otherwise it'll just lead to stagnation and elitism based on how long a guild has been around.

Guild level should approximate how active and how skilled a guild actually is, not how long it's been around and not how many people you can recruit out of korthos.

[grins78]

I myself am an officer as well in the OP’s guild.

I see many different comments on here that do ask good questions as well as bring up valid points. Our guild does have a wide variety of players, but all are willing to help teach, lead or die with each, but we always have fun .. we have about 40 – 50 active accounts on average with about 90 accounts in game. Now saying that we don’t have the same active 40-50 accounts from week to week because we do truly believe that RL comes first.

Our frustration stems from the fact that we all collect guild renown when and if we can. We all participate as much as we can, but we can’t get “unstuck” from level 62. We have been here for quite a while. But I know that everyone is participating because every time I log in people post when they get high amounts… and we talk about it on our own guild forums.

We are just now voicing our frustration on the fact that no matter how hard we work, we can’t get passed a certain point. But we are not willing to throw away friendships just so our guild can have the “uber” buffs. We are looking for support in getting Turbine to review and either do away with or fix the decay system as it stands today. I know it effects us all in different ways and we knew others shared the same frustration.

Please keep posting and voicing different ideas and opinions. All are welcome and might help us get the “attention” that we need to find a solution.

[roc25rs]

Well, was quite fun reading all this. I just felt like I should put in my two cents.
First off, I was the founder of True Reincarnated on Thelanis server. I had to take a 2 month break, I stepped down and gave leadership to Maz, who eventually kicked me because I wasn't contributing renown. Sucks, but what can I do?

I'm fine with how the renown system is. Lets take a look at what "renown" means.

re·nown/riˈnoun/

Noun:

The condition of being known or talked about by many people; fame.

To me, lets say, if you're a super hero. You do some good, you get known. People take about you, but then you decide to stop being a super hero. You stop doing deeds and people forget you. Your renown with the people is lost. You're not being spoken about therefore you're forgotten. Therefore your renown is no more. If you're not out adventuring gaining renown through "patrons" how would your renown be? Without a decay it couldn't be called "renown" because renown is forgotten in all situations.

So, I suggest like many have said. Ignore the system or sit down and discuss what it is YOU want from your guild. Are you shooting for a status? If so, clean house and keep the active players. Keep your numbers low, below 10. If you're not worried and want to enjoy the game alittle more if you're not renown hungry keep it as you are and ignore the decay.


BUT maybe change it from an everyday decay to a weekly like someone has stated already. I'm fine either way, when I was leading TR we (5 of us) reached 65 in a matter of months.

[aristarchus1000]

/signed OP. With some other possible suggestions.

Some guilds want to be "better" than others and be recognized for it. Fine. You can have reknown for that.

What's the big deal if a guild eventually can get every amenity? It's not like they are that big of a deal after a certain point, they are mostly convenience items, and they do incur some significant cost, whether in terms of plat or Turbine Points.

Guild reknown can stay what it is, but perhaps have amenities be earned over time and not lost. Either that, or just let every guild get to 100 reknown eventually, and give guilds other ways to build "fame" to distinguish themselves from each other.

[CountHenri]

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.

So 15.5k guild renown decay a day...

How big is your (listed) active Guild Membership?

I get the feeling it aint the system thats broke for your guild...

[FranOhmsford]

So 15.5k guild renown decay a day...

How big is your (listed) active Guild Membership?

I get the feeling it aint the system thats broke for your guild...

Remember people would have likely been online earning renown during those 8 hrs too - possibly 17-20k renown loss.

As I said earlier - Streamline the renown decay so You don't need to have a degree in math to comprehend it and apply it weekly rather than daily to allow for weekend players - Servers go down regularly on mondays anyway.

[CountHenri]

OK stray thought : maybe scale the non-decay point based on guild size.

So a 1 member guild can be 100 without decay.

2 member is 96

3 member is 91

4 member is 84

5 member is 75

etc until 25 as a minimum

If 1 person could grind up 60 million renown I'd think that an achievement (and also stop worrying I wasnt doing enough with my life)...

[CountHenri]

Remember people would have likely been online earning renown during those 8 hrs too - possibly 17-20k renown loss.

As I said earlier - Streamline the renown decay so You don't need to have a degree in math to comprehend it and apply it weekly rather than daily to allow for weekend players - Servers go down regularly on mondays anyway.

OK so lets say 20k a day ~ you'd prefer 140k as a weekly hit?

I'm in a guild that has 18 active members ~ our daily decay is 60k+ ~ yet we still keep going forwards...

And before anyone suggests it ~ no we are not blob creatures living in our parents basement ~ personally I hold down a real job and a nice social life (though quite a few of my friends are WoW players the poor misguided souls) ~ other guildies have families as well as jobs and other comittments.

Why we keep going forward is the fact we are, for want of a better term, powergamers (hmmm never thought I'd accuse myself of that)...

For me say I've got 2 hours to play : log in ~ see who's on in guild ~ check lfms & raid timers. If nothings on then Scroll farm for an hour which generates 2-3k renown from Epic kills. After that do a Shroud which is probably 1~3k renown and then another raid preferably with guildies which gives more renown...

So even on a small session I'm personally generating enough renown (pro-rata) to deal with my % amount of decay and giving a surplus.

Oh and I'm not logging in to play everyday ~ like I said work and social life ~ I try to log in before work to enter the DDO lotteries (XP pots for the TR win) ~ heh and guess what my guildies are the same. We just make our time ingame count...

As I said in an earlier post ~ you want L100 Guild you set it as a goal and work for it. This is one of those odd times where work and fun can co-exist ~ we're working for it and we are having a lot of fun doing it and you better believe when we are the first guild to hit 100 on Kyhber we are going to enjoy it.

To those complaining about the Guild system and how decay is wrong and all ~ sorry but you're not doing it right...

[Urist]

Why is this in the "Fansite News" forum?

Suggestion: Replace guild renown with guild favour.
Whenever a guild member does something which is worth favour (ie. complete a quest), their guild gets an equivalent amount of favour. This includes things which would not increase a character's favour, such as running a quest for which the favour has already been granted.
So a character does a quest on hard, gets 6 Coin Lords favour, and the guild gets 60 (or whatever) favour. Then the character does the same quest again on normal, gets no additional favour themselves, but their guild gets 40 favour.
The guild favour could be either generic, or specific (Coin Lords, Jorasco, Twelve, etc.). If specific, then each ship amenity probably needs to be assigned to a faction (though a lot of them already name a faction, so it shouldn't be that hard). Though some more permanent perks (like new ships) could come from total favour gained, as happens with total character favour.

Then we get to decay, which would come from factions doing the guild favours in return. That is; Having a banker on your ship is a significant favour from House Kundarak, so their continued assignment aboard would gradually use up your accumulated good-will with the house (so much favour lost per day/week/whatever).
Though players may grow to resent certain factions, if the quests aren't there (or are too tedious) to support that faction's amenities.

Remove "u"s to taste.

[Ungood]

I still believe that if they are going to keep in some asinine system of attrition like Guild Decay, they should bind the Renown to the Character not the Guild, that way, each player deals only with their own personal renown.

This would eliminate anyone carrying anyone else in the guild, and a high earner could overcome their own decay quite easy and a low earner could overcome theirs, and a low/slow/casual player would not need to worry about trying to keep up with the big boys because the guild shot up around them and now the leader is thinking of kicking them out.

This way everyone would contribute to the overall well being of the guild.

[CountHenri]

I still believe that if they are going to keep in some asinine system of attrition like Guild Decay, they should bind the Renown to the Character not the Guild, that way, each player deals only with their own personal renown.

This would eliminate anyone carrying anyone else in the guild, and a high earner could overcome their own decay quite easy and a low earner could overcome theirs, and a low/slow/casual player would not need to worry about trying to keep up with the big boys because the guild shot up around them and now the leader is thinking of kicking them out.

This way everyone would contribute to the overall well being of the guild.

Your trolling right?

No thinking about it your trolling...

[vampiregoat69]

The decay is so bad that 99% of guilds refuse to let anyone in because they have NO idea if that person is going to help the guild or cause more decay. They figure WHY bother to recruit more when we have so much decay it will only be cause for alarm.

[Karranor]

The decay is so bad that 99% of guilds refuse to let anyone in because they have NO idea if that person is going to help the guild or cause more decay. They figure WHY bother to recruit more when we have so much decay it will only be cause for alarm.

This is another one of the side effects of decay. Instead of opening their doors to see who is out there they keep them closed. This in no way fosters the community to grow. It causes it to fracture. This also makes it that much harder for new players to get into the game because they can't get into guilds.

Some of the best players I have ever met have come from open recruiting and new people to the game. But guild renown decay adds a lot more of a risk and liability when bringing new people into a guild.

[Vanquishedfo]

I myself am an officer as well in the OP’s guild.

I see many different comments on here that do ask good questions as well as bring up valid points. Our guild does have a wide variety of players, but all are willing to help teach, lead or die with each, but we always have fun .. we have about 40 – 50 active accounts on average with about 90 accounts in game. Now saying that we don’t have the same active 40-50 accounts from week to week because we do truly believe that RL comes first.

Our frustration stems from the fact that we all collect guild renown when and if we can. We all participate as much as we can, but we can’t get “unstuck” from level 62. We have been here for quite a while. But I know that everyone is participating because every time I log in people post when they get high amounts… and we talk about it on our own guild forums.

We are just now voicing our frustration on the fact that no matter how hard we work, we can’t get passed a certain point. But we are not willing to throw away friendships just so our guild can have the “uber” buffs. We are looking for support in getting Turbine to review and either do away with or fix the decay system as it stands today. I know it effects us all in different ways and we knew others shared the same frustration.

Please keep posting and voicing different ideas and opinions. All are welcome and might help us get the “attention” that we need to find a solution.

What your describing is commonly referred to as the personal cap for your guild. Instead of fighting against it and asking for it to cater to your personal needs accept that you have done it!. You have achieved your own personal guild goal. Guild buffs are just bonuses not perma rewards/upgrades that you could then use to become an easy recruitment tool and definatly far to easy to exploit.

Some small casual guilds for example happily live with a lvl 25 cap on themselves. Be happy where your at, and hey if some leave to join bigger more active guilds, tahts no sin on thier part and frankly encourage it.

[Ungood]

Your trolling right?

No thinking about it your trolling...

I give. Why am I trolling.

If you can tell me what disadvantage there is to making renown decay (Assuming there is this need to keep it in the first place) being based on the individual earner as opposed to the guild as a whole: which in my mind, would make it fair to everyone in the guild, as opposed to a convoluted system of active vs inactive, with guild size bonus based on this active/inactive/departed scheme, and ghost accounts counting against you; I am open to hear it.

[Karranor]

What your describing is commonly referred to as the personal cap for your guild. Instead of fighting against it and asking for it to cater to your personal needs accept that you have done it!. You have achieved your own personal guild goal. Guild buffs are just bonuses not perma rewards/upgrades that you could then use to become an easy recruitment tool and definatly far to easy to exploit.

Some small casual guilds for example happily live with a lvl 25 cap on themselves. Be happy where your at, and hey if some leave to join bigger more active guilds, tahts no sin on thier part and frankly encourage it.

The only reason we have hit the "cap" is because we are nice enough not to boot players that don't play 10 hours a week or more. Why should that then cap us? Should we be "rewarded" by booting out someone who is serving in Afghanistan and can only play once every couple of weeks? Should we be "rewarded" by booting someone who is in the hospital? Should we be "rewarded" by booting a college student that is studying for finals? Absolutely not.

I would accept the "guild cap" argument if everyone played the exact same amount of time in the guild. If they did the exact same thing all the time then it may work out. But the fact of the matter is everyone plays for different reasons and plays a different amount of time and this guild decay system punishes that. Simple as that.

I see where people are trying to be elitists with this guild renown system. Without decay or not you will still be elite. You will have more completionists, you will have more epic gear, you will have more money, you will have more because you play more. That is the mechanic that allows you to be uber.

The base guild renown mechanic should not, in any way, punish a guild and its players for playing the game. Whether they are playing for 2 hours a month or 20 hours a day.

As stated before but I want remind. I'm not asking for extra favors or to lower the XP to get to Level 100. I'm asking to not be punished by allowing part time players and casual players in my guild.

When level 60 is taken away, everyday, for three weeks in a row. That is punishment. We get on, we take renown instead of loot we could use to get us to level 60. The next day decay takes that away. That is completely demoralizing and frustrating. I'm not asking to be granted 60, we EARNED 60! We earned it everyday for almost a month and it was taken away the very next day. That is not right. That feels very much like a punishment to my players and my guild for playing the game.

And to those that are "happy" to have 25th be there cap I am sorry for them. Why should a group of 4 real life friends that want to have a RP guild have to be stuck at 25? Why should they not have the opportunity to build a guild ship up to 100? I think they should. I think that every player and every guild should have a chance to hit the top. It will still take them much longer. But they will still feel that they are progressing in the game.

When it boils right down to the basics of game play. The main purpose most players play for is to advance in some way. Through gear, levels and even exploring it all. When you throw an artificial wall in front of a players advancement it takes away from that players fun and gaming experience. Do it to a guild and it takes away the fun to the whole gorup. Taking the fun out of the game directly equals pushing players out of the game. There is simply too many other games out there and when people feel the fun is gone, so will they.

I'm trying to stop that because I have seen this mechanic over the last year do just that. I love this game and I want it to be better. I think removing guild renown decay will do just that.