Time to Remove Guild Renown Decay

[Karranor]

Trivializing the benefits of an entire line of gear as well as buffs is totally distracting to the real core issue.

How do you call 30 point resistance to all elemental damage, across the board, trivial?
How do you say running with an effective 44 point character (32 Base + (6 stats X 2)) as trivial?
How is running with a +5% XP advantage, trivial?
How is having all of these things combined trivial?

Assuming you can do quests in under an hour you can assume that you will have all these bonuses, at all times.

Then you consider guild gear. With an extra slot to boost up HP, SP, skills, attack and damage these things stack up and can greatly increase the power of a character and a guild as a whole.

Between the gear and the buffs characters are much more powerful, they are nearly immune to damage for the first 5 levels at least. They save buckets of spell points on buffs, their survivability increase through resists, DR, AC, their stats are higher, skills more uber and they level faster! This is not trivial.

Then how do you say that only a very specific kind of player in a specific kind of guild even has a chance of getting this stuff? Guild renown decay makes this problem a reality.

The player that plays once a month for a few hours still can hit level 20, can still get raid flags, can still craft, can still get epic gear, etc.

The player that plays for 20 hours a day can have all of this stuff as well. They are rewarded by having more of all of this because of the time in game they spend.

It doesn't matter if they spend 20 hours to reach a goal in a day or in 6 months. Each player has the same goal and can reach it in a certain amount of game time.

However, with the guild decay system the player that plays 20 hours a day gets the world, and the player that plays 20 hours in 6 months gets nothing. Not only that they are TAKING AWAY from those around them.

Why is that OK?

And if we want to talk dollars and cents. The power player that grinds through the whole game in a month gives Turbine $15.00 and moves on. The casual player that takes a year to go through the game gives Turbine $180.00. In this case I would definitely be catering to the casual player from a business perspective alone.

[Airgeadlam]

Then how do you say that only a very specific kind of player in a specific kind of guild even has a chance of getting this stuff? Guild renown decay makes this problem a reality.

I'm not a powergamer. I'm not uber. I don't have all the shinies. I don't live for DDO. Got a job, got other hobbies. Still I've been and am in guilds with players like me, mostly casual, non elites, and we have the 30 resist shrines +2 to all stats, navigator and some other perks aboard.

If you want to create a guild with your 3 friends, and suddenly got all the stuff, say so, don't say system has to be taken down because I don't have it.

[Gorbadoc]

The individual both wants to (A)have their casual friends in their guild, and (B)be able to utilize high level guild benefits. The situation is self contradicting because if the leader doesnt remove their casual friends they will likely not make it to those high levels needed, and if they do, they are not gaming with the people they chose to be in their guild. Whatever their course of action is, it will contradict one of their goals. This is the damned if they do, damned if they dont scenario. They cant both have A and B at the same time. There is a catch to either course of action.

Ah, I understand. I realize this isn't perfect, but while we're waiting for a better solution, I recommend you check out my advice on the previous page about setting up a channel for you and ALL your friends, even if the renown system splits you into the "part-timers" guild and the "full-timers" guild.

Trivializing the benefits of an entire line of gear as well as buffs is totally distracting to the real core issue.

How do you call 30 point resistance to all elemental damage, across the board, trivial?
How do you say running with an effective 44 point character (32 Base + (6 stats X 2)) as trivial?
How is running with a +5% XP advantage, trivial?
How is having all of these things combined trivial?

Exaggeration is unhelpful. In the last couple pages, you're the first to use the word "trivial". I did make a case for why the perks aren't game-breaking. You're welcome to disagree with my argument, of course, but, again, don't exaggerate in presenting evidence. Weaker versions of the above benefits are available at such low guild levels that renown decay is a non-issue. If we're truly talking about renown decay, then we need to compare a high-level guild to a low or mid-level guild, NOT to a guildless player. I won't repeat my previous analyses, but you raise a point I hadn't covered:

+1 to all stats doesn't effectively raise your build point count. Adding to dump stats isn't the same as having extra points. Also, those points don't count toward feat prerequisites. And, yes, it's +1 to all stats; +1 stat shrines are low-level, so the difference is 1 point per stat. Do the bonuses help? Yeah, a little. Like I said, though, don't exaggerate.

[Chai]

Ah, I understand. I realize this isn't perfect, but while we're waiting for a better solution, I recommend you check out my advice on the previous page about setting up a channel for you and ALL your friends, even if the renown system splits you into the "part-timers" guild and the "full-timers" guild.

Ive been using that channel system for years now, in order to organize raids and selectively group.

Im fine using the current system UNTIL something that is realized that resolves the many issues we are seeing with it, but im not fine with keeping it around on a perminent basis.

Exaggeration is unhelpful. In the last couple pages, you're the first to use the word "trivial". I did make a case for why the perks aren't game-breaking. You're welcome to disagree with my argument, of course, but, again, don't exaggerate in presenting evidence. Weaker versions of the above benefits are available at such low guild levels that renown decay is a non-issue. If we're truly talking about renown decay, then we need to compare a high-level guild to a low or mid-level guild, NOT to a guildless player. I won't repeat my previous analyses, but you raise a point I hadn't covered:

+1 to all stats doesn't effectively raise your build point count. Adding to dump stats isn't the same as having extra points. Also, those points don't count toward feat prerequisites. And, yes, it's +1 to all stats; +1 stat shrines are low-level, so the difference is 1 point per stat. Do the bonuses help? Yeah, a little. Like I said, though, don't exaggerate.

People farm hundreds of completions of quests for raid and epic items that give roughly the same, or even sometimes less benefit than ship buffs do. I think its hilarious that people shrug off +4 to hit and +3 damage, 20% heal amp, and +2 to all stats for example, then farm for claw sets, TOD sets, and LOTD religiously.

Theres no exageration in the benefit of ship buffs.

[Gorbadoc]

it's +1 to all stats; +1 stat shrines are low-level, so the difference is 1 point per stat. Do the bonuses help? Yeah, a little. Like I said, though, don't exaggerate.

People farm hundreds of completions of quests for raid and epic items that give roughly the same, or even sometimes less benefit than ship buffs do. I think its hilarious that people shrug off +4 to hit and +3 damage, 20% heal amp, and +2 to all stats for example, then farm for claw sets, TOD sets, and LOTD religiously.

Theres no exageration in the benefit of ship buffs.

It's amazing: You actually quoted an explanation of why what you have said is factually incorrect. A +2 shrine is only +1 better than a +1 shrine. If I'm wrong, and if there's a +3 stat shrine, or if two minus one is something other than one, I ask that you just say so. When you distract from the issue by insisting on factually incorrect premises, there's little point continuing the discussion.

[spencer64]

Also you say "ignore the renown is not that easy because others on guild think different", so you have another problem, not the renown decay. You have a guild formed by people who are not on the same boat. But it is your guild, you are the leader. If it is casual and no renown needed, they can either accept or leave. If they accept, greate. If not, great. What's the deal? One of your friends wants to be casual, the other one wants shinies, and you are caught in the middle? Could happen, but not something to blame the system, just the players.

This would cover a lot of guilds, but doesn't apply to all guilds...say those made up completely of real life family members and relatives (our guild has several close RL friends and family...for instance when guild members have kids, we send cash and gift cards to buy diapers). Also, the line between casual or shrines is not that clear cut.

Again I ask...How does renown decay make DDO a better game or experience? What does renown decay do for you as a player? As DDO is entertainment, does renown decay add to your entertainment value?

[oberon131313]

It's amazing: You actually quoted an explanation of why what you have said is factually incorrect. A +2 shrine is only +1 better than a +1 shrine. If I'm wrong, and if there's a +3 stat shrine, or if two minus one is something other than one, I ask that you just say so. When you distract from the issue by insisting on factually incorrect premises, there's little point continuing the discussion.

A +1 shrine is less than a +2 shrine when you have an even stat. When you have an even stat, +1 shrines are the same as not using a shrine at all.

In Ddo, if the stat is even, then 2-1=0

[DrenglisEU]

I'm all for removing the decay... it's sucks that the work a uild has put to grind is then just running away. Everybody cannot be online everyday to combat this. One's hard grinded favor should stay at the lvl is it! Remove the decay, simple and fair!

[Airgeadlam]

This would cover a lot of guilds, but doesn't apply to all guilds...say those made up completely of real life family members and relatives (our guild has several close RL friends and family...for instance when guild members have kids, we send cash and gift cards to buy diapers). Also, the line between casual or shrines is not that clear cut.

Again I ask...How does renown decay make DDO a better game or experience? What does renown decay do for you as a player? As DDO is entertainment, does renown decay add to your entertainment value?

Seems to cover what the OP said. He stated that he could not just ignore the renown, he wants to cause there are guildies who play less and so... but others are not happy with those "casual members". Using logic, what I get here is: Friend A wants shinies, friend B wants casual, I'm caught in between, don't care about renown but also don't want A to get mad at me.

In your case... Why are you concerned about renown? You're playing with family and friends, having fun... Isn't that enough? Well, then there's the problem. I got RL friends that play various MMO's here and there, now and then. I have a different playstyle, and never guilded with them in other games, and would not on this one either. They are still my friends, and when all get online at once to play WhateverFancyGame, I will certainly join for a bit. But I understood that RL friends/Relatives does not equal same style/preferences, and this works for DDO or RL. I got a friend that loves scuba diving, I love rugby. We are not on the same scuba/rugby team, because we're not fond of the same things. He dives, I play, gather later for a beer. Easy!

Now, answering your questions... To me, renown decay means nothing. Guild wins level? Good. Guild loses level? Good. Are there the same people I quest with? Yes? Then let the levels come and go as they want. I am in a guild in which I feel confortable, that is what matter.

I'm not advocating that it is the perfect system, that's why I also proposed some ideas to debate earlier in this thread. But I can undestand it. Is a system made to encourage people to play often, on a constant way, to get a "reward", aside from the personal rewards for their toons (meaning loot). Is not so different really as leveling a toon. The often you play, the earlier you will have more power (more level/items).

Can it be improved? Certainly. But as I said, getting the perks of an airship is not that hard, and people playing more often will cover the renown loss from others just questing, and taking here and there those impressive or legendary. Smaller guilds (which should be your case) have less renown decay, so even easier to deal with. If your members are gonna be a long time away (ie: military deployed abroad) their accounts will be treated as inactive, so no renown loss there, no harm.

This looks like the OP got too many people in the guild with different thoughts about the game. That's all. Happens often, and decisions have to be made. Eventually, some people will leave the guild, no matter what. If you call casual, and I'm powergamer, I will leave. If you call powergamer, and I'm casual, I will leave.

The OP wants to be casual, yet gaining what the powergamers have for free... To me, that doesn't seem fair. And I'm casual. Took me over 1 year to cap one toon, my first one, and it was the only one I played! Go figure! I know I will not have the things the elite guilds/players have soon, or maybe never. I don't care. If I don't have a Resist fire 30 shrine i will have a team mate who will provide, or will use pots from the Twelve, or use trash wands if I can. Stat shrines? nice to have, but not game breaking. Taking my main, a 20 WF melee/healer FvS:

- +2 INT, WIS, DEX shrines = What for?
- +2 CHA shrine = miiiiiiiiiinor sp gain.
- +2 STR, CON = well, 20 more hp, +1 to hit and +1 damage. My DPS will not be uber due to this, and 20 more hp means 587hp instead of 567. Hardly those 20 hp will be the ones to save me when things go south.

Also, personal point of view, I wouldn't let people use this stuff unless they were level 12+. Or TR. Elitist, you say? Nope. But I do think people should learn the game as it is, with no bonuses. Why? To actually learn the game, and get some skills and thoughts. If you can run around a room full of casters because at level 6 you have resist 30 (now add evasion to the equation and every single Fireball is a joke) this, and resist 30 that, you're missing some learning stuff: take casters first, use tactics if needed, block line of sight when possible.. etc.


PS: is the OP sure the renown loss is not compensated solely because of the less active players' renown loss is that high? Just saying this because I know cases in which some people complains about having level loss and this and that... while never picking renown from end reward when avaliable.

[DeadlyPoison]

Because of guilds and their endless amounts of buffs, the game has become that much more difficult for the unguilded and the new player that wants to learn the game before joining a guild.

You know people NEVER want to admit they are new and don't know anything.

When you have these 1st level characters running around with uber buffs, the DEVS have to make the game more challenging for these players.

Now, when you join the game, all of a sudden you are a 1st level character on Korthos with 25 HP. You have no buffs. Somehow you survived to the sunny side. Now, all of a sudden everything is geared to the power gamers and the power guilders.

Where is the fun in that when you are new? All you learn is that you have no chance and the uber power gamers treat you like dirt.

[JOTMON]

Can it be improved? Certainly. But as I said, getting the perks of an airship is not that hard, and people playing more often will cover the renown loss from others just questing, and taking here and there those impressive or legendary. Smaller guilds (which should be your case) have less renown decay, so even easier to deal with. If your members are gonna be a long time away (ie: military deployed abroad) their accounts will be treated as inactive, so no renown loss there, no harm..

-----------------------------------------------------------
DDOWIKI:
Modified Guild Size = Total Active Accounts - Inactive Accounts (>30 days since any character has logged in on that account. These accounts do not count at all for anything.) + Recent Departures (<14 days since the last character in that account left the guild. Willingly or not.)
------------------------------------------------------------
The inactive member isn't considered inactive until they have been gone 30 days, so that is still a month where they are considered active and their portion of decay is still caclulated against the guild. This timer is reset if they even pop in to say "hey hows it going..."

I would suggest that the activity marker be set to start counting activity as soon as this player jumps into any quest and stop when they are not questing (like the xp bonus pot). this % multiplier gets prorated against their guild renown decay calculation. That way a casual player that plays for an hour with their kids only needs to recouver 1/24th the decay that a 6pack redbull chugging 24 hour marathon player does. or some other prorated amount that is deemed reasonable.

The OP wants to be casual, yet gaining what the powergamers have for free... To me, that doesn't seem fair.

No different than inviting the pug group to the ship to get buffs before starting a quest.

I would have like to have seen the House P favour buffer get upgraded(currently capped at the 150 favour) , giving the non-guild people options to access those buffs for a premium. The bigger ships would still have access to better buffs overall, but the basic resist 30's and some of the other buffs would be available for the right price.

Also, personal point of view, I wouldn't let people use this stuff unless they were level 12+. Or TR. Elitist, you say? Nope. But I do think people should learn the game as it is, with no bonuses. Why? To actually learn the game, and get some skills and thoughts. If you can run around a room full of casters because at level 6 you have resist 30 (now add evasion to the equation and every single Fireball is a joke) this, and resist 30 that, you're missing some learning stuff: take casters first, use tactics if needed, block line of sight when possible.. etc.
.

/Agreed, there should be a pro-rating based on the player level.
No lowbies level 4's should be running around doing harbour quests with 30 resist taking no elemental damage. (and note to the Dev's we do not want the mobs in the quests to do more damage because it is expected everyone will be running lowbie quests with ship buff's..stop overpowering mobs because of inbalanced buffs)

That should scale down player level by using some factoring maybe 3/level(cap at 30 resist at level 10) giving a level 4 toon a 12 resist so it is better than a pot but not over the top.

PS: is the OP sure the renown loss is not compensated solely because of the less active players' renown loss is that high? Just saying this because I know cases in which some people complains about having level loss and this and that... while never picking renown from end reward when avaliable.

That is part of the problem with not being able to see what people in the guild are actually contributing vs what they may say they are contributing.

I think the Guild tab needs to show the guld leader and officers how much each guildie has contributed in renown in total, and vs their portion of decay on a daily basis. This way you can see if players are pulling their weight, would also be usefull to the players to be able to see how much is expected from them to break even.

There are those that say it will be used as a kick tool or greifing tool, but if the guild wants to progress it is nearly impossible to tell who the real dead weight is.

[kormasta]

Jotmon, I see where you are trying to balance out these quests and make things a bit more fair. I appreciate the fervor, truly, but I still don't see where mitigating the decay as opposed to eliminating it will offer a solution. The guild level is a game mechanic that is put into DDO. In its current form, the idea of losing that which is gained is a mechanic element that doesn't seem to have the impact Turbine was looking for.

Hopefully the healthy discussions we've had will fall on their minds and allow them to redo this element of the game. Any time there is a "penalty" introduced to a game it can cause rifts, but in this case it is working against the intention of improving the game experience. As was mentioned in an earlier post series, there are definitely some good mechanics that would still mitigate gaining levels based on structure/makeup of the membership. These should at the least replace the decay, if the decay itself cannot be flatly removed.

I think that is as simply as I can put it.

[Gorbadoc]

Because of guilds and their endless amounts of buffs, the game has become that much more difficult for the unguilded and the new player that wants to learn the game before joining a guild.

You know people NEVER want to admit they are new and don't know anything.

When you have these 1st level characters running around with uber buffs, the DEVS have to make the game more challenging for these players.

Now, when you join the game, all of a sudden you are a 1st level character on Korthos with 25 HP. You have no buffs. Somehow you survived to the sunny side. Now, all of a sudden everything is geared to the power gamers and the power guilders.

Where is the fun in that when you are new? All you learn is that you have no chance and the uber power gamers treat you like dirt.

Are you speaking from experience? I find people are pretty helpful in DDO, and the ones who aren't in a mood to be helpful are usually polite enough not to be mean about it. I haven't been new to the game in a long time, but my perception is that there's still plenty of guidance to be had by new players. I'd love to hear personal accounts from a variety of people on this, though.

As for new players not admitting that they need help, I'm not sure what you expect anyone to do for them. DDO is NOT a simple game. It's tough to learn if you don't get at least some coaching from more experienced players.

This doesn't make the power disparities at level 1 okay; the game is more fun if all party members are able to contribute to the success of the quest. That's a separate issue, though; removing renown decay would do nothing to reduce the disparity.

I would have like to have seen the House P favour buffer get upgraded(currently capped at the 150 favour) , giving the non-guild people options to access those buffs for a premium. The bigger ships would still have access to better buffs overall, but the basic resist 30's and some of the other buffs would be available for the right price.

That sounds like a reasonable request to me.

In its current form, the idea of losing that which is gained is a mechanic element that doesn't seem to have the impact Turbine was looking for.

Au contraire. It has exactly the desired impact of stabilizing a guild at level X, where X is a nonlinear function of the average activity of the guild's members. The problem is with the side effects this system has had.

[JOTMON]

... but I still don't see where mitigating the decay as opposed to eliminating it will offer a solution. The guild level is a game mechanic that is put into DDO.

The problem I see with eliminating decay is that every guild will be guild level 100. I could see a situation where you have everyone leave a guild and have a 1 person level 100 ship with all the buffs. Everyone would have level 100 ships. People will just keep moving around joining guild level 100's at which point it will be deemed expected that everyone will have ship buffs and quests will be adjusted to assume everyone has these buffs. Pity the fool that doesn't have a big guild or buffs.

The ship buffs are a perk and i can appreciate a mechanic that requires you to maintain it or have it decay away.
This requires people to work towards maintaing the ship and buffs associated with the ship.

In most cases I don't like how it is put together, I think there should be more personal association for the renown.
In my mind I think a person that leaves a guild takes 50% of his renown with him(after decay calculation) and brings it to whichever guild they decides to join. (losing 50% everytime anyone jumps ship)

My thinking behind this is that of a guild is not going the way a bunch of members like they can leave and reform their own guild at a cost, but not be expected to start from scratch. The guild they left would lose 50% of the contribution those members had and continue from there. We had a situation where another large guild that was close in level to our own disolved. Many players left the guild and reformed their own new guild at level 1. A few joined ours. Essentially they threw away everything they had invested with months of renown collecting and had to restart from scratch. The players are penalized for leaving a guild but all the renown they contributed was collected personally for the benefit of the guild.

[Airgeadlam]

No different than inviting the pug group to the ship to get buffs before starting a quest.

Well, there is a difference. You have to be invited to use what other people has gained (and not everyone is willing to share it, there was a thread about ship buffs a while ago). You have no granted bonuses, you ask others to provide them. If I work hard, do overtime, got a second job, etc... and buy a fancy house while you live in a tiny rented flat because just want to work the minimum... I can invite you to my house if I like you/we're friends/relatives. But is expectable that you won't have the same stuff without doing nothing to get it.

That is part of the problem with not being able to see what people in the guild are actually contributing vs what they may say they are contributing.

I think the Guild tab needs to show the guld leader and officers how much each guildie has contributed in renown in total, and vs their portion of decay on a daily basis. This way you can see if players are pulling their weight, would also be usefull to the players to be able to see how much is expected from them to break even.

There are those that say it will be used as a kick tool or greifing tool, but if the guild wants to progress it is nearly impossible to tell who the real dead weight is.

Agreed. I wouldn't be worried about that function being implemented for officers/leaders to see how much renown I take. Granted, two players, playing the same amount of time, and taking all the renown avaliable can have different values under their names, true. But one would only get suspicious if the difference is too remarkable from the average. If average renown per month is, let's say, 10k, and I have 375... well, either I don't play the game even a tenth my mates do, or I skipped all the renown in favor of vendor trash.

You know people NEVER want to admit they are new and don't know anything.

Speak for yourself. I always did, and always will do. I'd rather deal with 1000 declines than with 1 blacklist. And on the other hand, when I lead something I will ask if anyone is new, stating very clearly that I am ok with that, just to offer advice/instructions/guidance if the quest has some difficulty or hard map.

When you have these 1st level characters running around with uber buffs, the DEVS have to make the game more challenging for these players.

No, they have not. Who can use buffs? People who are in guilds of certain level. New players can not (no guild). If you want to attract new players, you can't only model the game for the well established ones.

Because of guilds and their endless amounts of buffs, the game has become that much more difficult for the unguilded and the new player that wants to learn the game before joining a guild

I started unguilded. Raised some toons, and joined a guild when I finally get to lvl 15 with one toon (loooong time after I started playing). That was the first time I used ship buffs. I didn't know they existed at all. I'm still now learning the game, at my pace, and guilds/ship buffs never prevented so. You just have to bite what you can chew, and no more.

Somehow you survived to the sunny side. Now, all of a sudden everything is geared to the power gamers and the power guilders.

Are we playing the same game? Are you telling me that everyone on harbor on your server is a powergaming player from an endgame elite raiding guild? Man, come to Thelanis, we have new people fresh off the boat. Even me, who will be TRing a forgotten capped toon soon, will be there, at level 1, learning how to play a wizard! Come join! (And yes, after 2 years, which is not big deal, but still, I can remember my first days here, with a crappy crappy rogue/fighter, 12 CON, in full plate, tower shield and bastard sword, looking for groups to venture out on the island and do awesome stuff as "Sacrifices"! I didn't lose the point of view)

Where is the fun in that when you are new? All you learn is that you have no chance and the uber power gamers treat you like dirt.

The fun is where you get it. Do you have fun learning the game? Let the powergamers do their zergs! In fact, you are not meant to blend with them. Get that. You are different. If you join a powergamer pug, you know there will be some factors granted. If you join while being fresh off the boat, odds are you won't meet the standards they seek, they will get angry and you frustrated. Join other people learning, and don't be afraid of saying you're new, need a guide, or whatever. I'm on Thelanis, and always help people if I can and have toons at level (toons at my signature, but can exist more not named: flavor builds, crappy projects, toons i merely forgot, etc). Do not expect me to be an expert, but know one or two things

P.S: On the "they treat you like dirt" issue... Sure one or two can be rude and insulting, but you can avoid them. If they continue to grief you (sending tells, insulting you or saying things about you in general chat), there are tools provided to prevent and punish that kind of behavior as well (Screenshot + Report Harassment).

[kormasta]

The problem I see with eliminating decay is that every guild will be guild level 100. I could see a situation where you have everyone leave a guild and have a 1 person level 100 ship with all the buffs. Everyone would have level 100 ships. People will just keep moving around joining guild level 100's at which point it will be deemed expected that everyone will have ship buffs and quests will be adjusted to assume everyone has these buffs. Pity the fool that doesn't have a big guild or buffs.

I personally cannot see this happening. Even on the eventuality that, if left untouched, the ceiling would never be raised, getting to 100 takes a LOT of tokens, time, and effort. As countless have stated, that is not only not a goal of theirs, but also that their buffs do not matter to them, I do not see "every guild" reaching 100.

But, for arguments sake, let's say that was the case. Wouldn't you then have your PICK of the guild you wanted to be in, since no one was more "special" than the other, and thus revert back to people you WANT to guild with? In a way that almost re-emphasizes the point to remove the decay--making guilds about the people.....

It is already very hard to gain levels. I cannot fathom that, if decay was removed, we would see tremendous climbs. In our last guild night we gained 37% instead of 100% ground. That would more than double our outcome. But in the number needed to get from 62 to 63, it would take weeks of that before we could see 63, let alone 65.

We are honestly more about tokens now in hopes of not LOSING ground more than just gaining ground. At the very least in our case, it would turn it back to "Wow, what a surprise! We gained a level!" instead of the current demoralized situation.

[Eighnuss]

Remove all current means of guild renown loss

Re-implement 'XP Debt' system but as 'Guild Renoun Debt' system.

Consider the effects.

[JOTMON]

I personally cannot see this happening. Even on the eventuality that, if left untouched, the ceiling would never be raised, getting to 100 takes a LOT of tokens, time, and effort. As countless have stated, that is not only not a goal of theirs, but also that their buffs do not matter to them, I do not see "every guild" reaching 100.

My concern is the powercreep effect..

Without guild decay, it would just be a matter of time before every guild hit 100 not just the powergamers looking for every tweak/edge to make them superuber..

I have a second account that i use for my kid when he decides he wants play, in a matter of a few months it is almost level 20. without decay in a years time or two it could easily be 60+ and there are only 3 people in it. So I dont see 100 being difficult to achieve for active players without the decay to contend with.

I would like to see a checkpoint where once you achieve a certain point you cannot drop below it. Like once you hit level 60, you can no longer fall below it unless your member count drops below a certain number.

Once we get to the point where there are more guilds in the high range it would become expected that every player going to quest would have access to the buffs, once that comes into play, then the quests become "too easy" and "not challenging"

for example.. waterworks kobold molitove cocktails do approx 6-15 points of damage so without fire resist those kobolds are tough when you have half a dozen of them lobbing gernades at you. the best a low level 4 toon could access was a 10 resist pot, that mitigated a large portion of that damage but could still hurt. why bother with 10 resist pots when you get a 30 resist ship buff, now they do no damage whatsoever. Instead of limiting resistance to low level players from ship buffs to a reasonable amount for a player at that level to mitigate most but not all of the potential damage we now have low level quests that are cakewalk .. right...

There are a lot of places where real balancing needs to be put into place. Unfortunately there is a habit of over adding to each side of the scale of balance instead of adding just enough or taking a little away.

The problem i see is instead of limiting the resistance , Dev's will instead add something else to the kobolds to make them more formidable.. which will in turn screw up something else... ultimately this overbalancing game will break the scale not fix the balance.

Currently ship buffs are a perk that gives you an edge, in time i see them becoming expected and necessary to break even instead what they were meant to be.

[Gorbadoc]

I would like to see a checkpoint where once you achieve a certain point you cannot drop below it. Like once you hit level 60, you can no longer fall below it unless your member count drops below a certain number.

Guild level marks how active a guild currently is. It seems wrong to make ALL the perks of a high guild level stick around when a guild becomes less active. Maybe instead, there should be a system where you keep some of the benefits of being a higher level.

Have I convinced you? Because that's already how the system works. You hit level 50? Boom, you can upgrade to 6 crew hookpoints (also, 2 large and 8 small amenities). Level 55? 9 crew hookpoints (also, 4 large and 11 small amenities). And once you've upgraded your ship, that upgrade is yours forever.

Of course, you need to stay high enough in level to actually populate those hookpoints. That's not hard. Actually, it would be hard to get a guild low enough that it didn't have access to the buffing crew members. They're available at such a low level, a single legendary victory covers a hundred members' worth of daily decay.

[Ungood]

And if we want to talk dollars and cents. The power player that grinds through the whole game in a month gives Turbine $15.00 and moves on. The casual player that takes a year to go through the game gives Turbine $180.00. In this case I would definitely be catering to the casual player from a business perspective alone.

True that. and it seems that Turbine has lost this view on things.

Yah, a power gamer will go though the content faster then a casual and perhaps get bored of it and move on to try another game, for a while,but they have a high chance to come back when a new pack is put out, or an update is provided with something for them to quest after. A new toy as far as they are concerned. However, a casual that has been driven to discouragement will not come back.

Something to ponder.