Time to Remove Guild Renown Decay

[Karranor]

The full article can be found here on DDM's Realm: It's Time to remove guild renown decay from DDO

Here's my part.
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The guild Renown decay system should be dropped from Dungeons and Dragons Online. I also think that the Renown lost for those that leave or are removed from a guild also needs to be removed. I understand some of the arguments for both of these systems; however, I believe more unforeseen and unintended issues have arisen with the Renown loss systems.

Simply put, the Renown loss and decay system not only punishes the players guild if they do not reach a minimum level of daily Renown gathering, but it also puts an unfair burden on the other players of the guild to try to “pick up their slack”.

If you are not familiar with the guild Renown and daily decay systems, you can reference the details at the link below.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Guild_Renown

The problems that have arisen with this system have strained friendships, guild participation, and has even led members of my guild to leave the guild and Dungeons and Dragons Online completely.

I am the leader of the Disciples of the Apocalypse guild on Sarlona. We are a founders guild that strives to be a casual, no drama adult gaming guild. Our members range from college students to parents of college students. We have no playing requirements and we play all of the content in the game. This allows for a wide variety of players and different playing styles.

We have members who play 6 or 8 hours a day to some that play 8 hours a month. The more frequent player has to make up the Renown that the less frequent player costs the guild. The system breeds resentment and frustration. For those who can not play as often, there is a keen understanding that they are dragging the guild down because of decay, causing feelings of guilt and alienation. The rest of the players, falling between the two extremes, bear the burden of both sides.

Dungeons and Dragons Online players should never be punished for not playing the game. Period.

We should not be penalized for having real life commitments. The game should fit into our lives, our online friends welcoming us in to play, regardless of our level of time commitment.

Our guild has recently begun struggling with instituting rules or policies to address these problems. The only solution seems to be booting player from the guild if they do not reach a certain minimum play time along with mandating players to take Renown for rewards.

I am disturbed and frustrated that this game even has me considering booting a good friend from the guild because they can't play as much as DDO says they should. My friends with new babies, sick families, college finals, or any other thing going on should not be penalized for being responsible adults!

This system also penalizes both guilds and players who have characters in multiple guilds. That players' decay burden is doubled, tripled, or more, which requires the members from multiple guilds to “pick up the slack”.

I think the Renown decay and loss when people leave a guild were added as a noble effort to stop some griefing. However, in effect, it has caused griefing to everyone in the game that belongs to a guild instead.

Guild Renown for a guild should work the same way as XP for players: when you earn it, you should keep it. What would happen if you introduced this mechanic to the players XP? What if players lost XP at a certain rate per day? There would be a revolt. There would be a mass exodus from the game, and it would be justified. Why is it not the same for guild Renown?

Please, Turbine, remove Guild Decay and Renown Loss when players leave a guild or are removed. It is an unnecessary mechanic that has caused much more harm than good. It is constantly straining the relationships of the entire player base. This has caused many good players to leave guilds and the game completely. Let’s put an end to it. I love DDO but this Renown loss and decay is causing way too much drama.

Until Turbine changes these rules, you all better be taking that Renown with every reward! I don’t want to hear you’re broke, or you could use an item, or you like +3 Tomes. If your choices are a +3 Time or some Heroic Deeds, you better take those deeds…

/sigh

Please remove Renown loss and decay from Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Play smarter, not harder!

~Karranor

[SaIamander]

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.

[MeliCat]

Or you could just ignore renown? Our guild does. And there is zero pressure to play or take renown. Sure we only just hit 70. But people are more important than renown.

I like the concept of building a ship up. I don't think it should be linked to renown though.

[SHOCK_and_AWE]

I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. Guild Decay should be completely removed from the game. In every other aspect of DDO, the consequence of not playing is simply missed opportunity whether it is in terms of gear, enjoyment, or building of relationships between players. Join a guild, though, and suddenly you are a liability to other guildmates if you don't play enough.

Do you think XP decay for individual characters is a good idea if you don't play them enough? How about gradually losing platinum for "room and board" while offline? The only difference between these ideas and guild renown decay is that the decay system directly punishes a whole group of players for one other player being offline. It discourages guild participation and casual gameplay (you know, the kind of gameplay that brings in casual players who have jobs and money they like to spend on their hobbies).

Keep the small guild bonus. Keep the steep renown progression. For the sake of the players, remove this punitive system.

[FranOhmsford]

First of all - If a renown item comes up in a named item list I tell my guildies to take the named item they want.

If a Heroic Deeds comes up against a Mnemonic Pot I tell them to take the pot.

If a Leg Vic was to come up against a +1 tome I'd tell them to take the tome.

Otherwise I would prefer they take renown to trash loot.

Renown decay as currently integrated is annoyingly complicated - I don't see why you should need a degree in Mathematics to work it out thank you.

A reasonable max time limit needs to be imposed before guildies can be removed from guild for not playing {The current 6 months + is ridiculous} without losing the guild renown.

If a newbie joins a guild and sees people who haven't played for a month and more they tend to leave guild almost instantly. As such I have a simple policy of one month not logged on and out - If you haven't got 5 mins to log on and off once a month then you really shouldn't join a guild.

Renown decay however is there so you don't simply get 50-100 lvl 100 guilds in a year.

My suggestion would be to count decay once/week rather than every day at 1000 renown x the guild lvl x inactive accounts divided by all accounts that have been active in that past week

So a lvl 10 guild with 10 active members and 3 inactives would get 3000 renown decay for that week

a lvl 80 guild with 200 active members and 50 inactives would get 20000 renown decay for that week.

I'd also like to see the guild sizes reworked - Currently you become a medium guild far too quickly.

My suggestion -
Tiny 1-10 members
Small - 11-75
Medium - 76-200
Large - 201+

[sephiroth1084]

Mostly agree with the OP insofar as renown decay has definitely put strain on both the guild I'm in and other guilds that I run with frequently, though I'm not sure getting rid of it entirely is the way to go. There does need to be some sense of accomplishment with achieving higher guild levels, and I don't believe that it should just be a matter of time. I'd prefer to see renown decay lowered considerably, and penalties on large guilds dropped precipitously. Larger guilds typically support players of many different levels of dedication, and typically get hit the hardest by renown decay in a double whammy, as they get bigger decay for being a big guild and take in less renown than one would expect because they often have many casual players filling out their ranks.

Guilds shouldn't feel pressured to drop inactive members who may come back one day just because they're getting hurt by having them around. I know that if I had discovered that I had been kicked out of The Loreseekers when I came back from a 5 month hiatus from DDO, I likely would have not bothered resubscribing, even knowing that it would have been a simple matter of sending a /tell to an officer to get everyone reinvited, and a /tell to Hordo to see about having my Officer status returned. It's rather unwelcoming, it's disheartening to get kicked out of a group, and this system promotes that.

[Sastol]

I'm a leader of a tiny guild, and we have this problem, we kicked the people that seemed to be deliberately screwing up the renown, the people who would log on for 5 mins a month just to stay active.

However, with those with limited playing time, we have 2-3 members that play maybe 4 hrs a month, now theres no way they can reach their quota in those 4 hours and I wouldn't expect them to take nothing as renown rewards all night just to meet it, they are the players that need the loot from end rewards more than most, but the 4-5 that play 4-5 hrs a night make more than enough renown during their playing time to make up for the few that don't play regularly, I would rather have their company for a few hrs a month than not have it at all just for the sake of a bit of renown! Yes it will probably take us 20x longer than anyone else to reach a high level, but you not what we don't care! There is more to DDO than renown, we survived so long without it, is it really worth losing a few friends over it!

But on a side note, I think killing things in events should generate renown, the amount we've lost with Crystal Cove and Mabar being so close together is amazing! Afterall we're still killing things in the game!!

[Calebro]

If they were to simply remove renown decay and remove the loss upon dismissal/departure there would be no point in having guild levels.
If there would be no point in having guild levels then every guild should automatically and permanently be level 100.
If all guilds were automatically and permanently level 100 then all ship buffs would be available to everyone.
If all buffs were available to everyone then they should become permanent.

Do you see how this spirals out of control if there is no decay?
A little competition between your guild and other guilds, or even with yourself to better your guild, isn't always a bad thing.

There were no ship buffs for a very long time and we managed just fine. As long as you enjoy your guild and it's members, the extra stuff is just a bonus. Enjoy the bonus rather than attempting to get the BEST bonus, because it isn't even necessary. That's why it's a bonus.
Why do you feel the need to impose rules about renown gathering? Why can't you just be happy with what you've gained, and not worry about getting Teh Uberz Boatz?

Every single guild in existence will eventually see the point where they plateau. Only the very small or extremely active guilds will ever be able to attain, let alone stay at, level 100. It appears that you may have plateaued, as my guild probably has as well.

Furthermore, if they were to remove decay in all of it's forms, the renown levels needed to advance levels would need to be increased exponentially, which would create the same problems that you see now about not being able to earn enough to advance.
It would also drop your guild from level 60x down to who-knows-where instead.

[Synnestar35791]

Good news, I like the request, Bad News... The people that are 1/2 way respectable to this cause - aren't going to support it enough based on the fact people simply can't co-exist in unison under one flag flying the same color all the time let alone stay loyal to people they begin to feel don't cater to them or their whims ALL the time...

Look, lets face it, many good people come & go from DDOland , mainly Real Life issues, but excuses to not help those that helped them, greed & disrespect have a way of taking over on game realms regularly...

I've played long enough to know the **Have's** do not want the rest of the up-n-comers to catch them, feeling they earned the **Privilege** of being the Elite Exclusiveness in game land...

I love the game, disagree with pieces of it, but moreover - PEOPLE can be harder than any Epic ever created...

creating a close knit band of people that stick together & respect the space they take up in a guild roster goes only so far...

I think an examination of the Renown system is in order, but the penalizing for idle characters is harsh,
People make accounts JUST to land them in a guild and then abandon them just long enough to hurt renown gain... yeah it happens, so don't pretend it's an absurdity, because there are just those vindictive spiteful types on the realms.... it goes without saying because to make known the evil is to get arrested and scheme dissolved...

Higher end guilds pay the heftiest price for renown gain & loss...
Any roster is susceptible to individuals that lose interest or get overwhelmed IRL...

I support an addressing of renown considerations, changes - well that's where Turbine & the Office have to consider what actually does stop growth on a guild like The Fallen Knights, Usurped & then disbanded, among others, it's the one guild I do know that made the 70'z early on & vanished quietly...

[Karranor]

I stated in the post but see guild levels/renown the same way as I see player/xp. I don't see why a guild level should be penalized in regards to play time. If you get renown while playing, great. You should get to keep it. The guild will still level slowly due to casual players that take can not play a ton.

What would happen if you added the same decay idea to XP? If you do not log in and gain XP at least X times a week you LOSE levels. That's isn't cool. Tons of people would quit.

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.

We have "ignored" renown but that really doesn't work. Even when people try or say they don't care about it they are continually discouraged seeing the progress from yesterday get eaten away every morning. This is discouraging, no fun, and causes all kinds of undue drama between people with different levels of caring about it.

If you remove decay you would get rid of this whole issue. Big power guilds would still level faster then the small guys or casual guilds.

To say that we need change our entire outlook as a guild, that has been running together in one form or another for over 10 years, is not going to happen. We aren't changing our ways, we will change games if that is the only choice. We love who we are. We are all friends in game and real life. We allow people to have lives outside of the game and our one true goal is to have fun. In DOA its OK to log in once a month when you get a change. It's OK to raid or not. It's ok to play how you want to play just because we all want the chance to hang out with friends and have fun. The decay systems in erroding that fun and testing friendships because we do have different styles and goals. That should be OK.

I was fine with decay and loss when it came out. I understood the reasons the devs put it in. The few issues it was meant to "fix" didn't have as much impact as intended. And a whole slew of unintended consequences came from it. It's a nice idea in theory, it doesn't work in practice.

Raise the XP/Renown requirements for guilds if you must. If you really think that they should take longer or whatever. Just remove the decay and loss away as it terrible to see the guild level going backwards.

Then we can talk about Guild TRs...

[Calebro]

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.

This is where you're wrong.
Every single thing that renown offers is an added bonus. Losing a bonus is not the same as a penalty, so guild decay is not penalizing anyone of anything.
You, as the guild leader, are the one that's choosing to penalize that player if you impose renown quotas and/or boot people that aren't active enough.
That isn't Guild Renown penalizing the players. That's Guild Leaders penalizing the players.

To say that we need change our entire outlook as a guild, that has been running together in one form or another for over 10 years, is not going to happen.

But that's exactly what you're doing. You're acting differently within your guild's stucture now than you have ever acted, and you're doing so because of renown. You have already allowed renown to change the outlook of your guild, so to claim it's never going to happen is ridiculous. It has already happened. So stop acting like that, revert to your previous ways, continue to act as you always have for the past 10 years, ignore renown, and CHOOSE be comfortable wherever you happen to plateau.

[Cam_Neely]

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.

This. If you value the members of your guild more then 10 more resist, then renown decay is really not that big of an issue in the grand scheme of issues in DDO.

[Paryan]

The main point to consider is that guild renown doesn't matter unless you let it. XP is needed to level and renown leads to nice buffs which are a bonus. I don't think comparing XP to guild renown is a valid comparison. These buffs from renown aren't mandatory for anything in ddo, but XP or Levels are a requirement to access certain adventure packs or quests.

If you really enjoy the people in your guild, put your priorities in order. The benefit of hanging out and questing with people you really enjoy being with lasts longer than an hour ship buff. If you need these buffs, ask for invites while a raid is forming. Set your priorities with how the game is structured (Friends or renown). If the structure changes due to an update or modification by the devs, reassess your goals.

IMHO renown shouldn't get in the way of a close guild. It's a nice bonus, but I'm in my guild for the people there.

[Karranor]

As a guild leader I want to make those in my guild happy. Yes, it is easy to say "ignore renown" but in practice it is impossible. Each of the member has a little different take, just like this thread is showing we all have different ideas about it.

However, why does a system like even NEED to exist. By the same logic, 9th level is just a perk you get as well. If you log out for a week should you be 8th level when you log back in?

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.

I'll bring up the old school death penalty. You lost XP when you died. That mechanic sucked as well, but at least I did something wrong - I died - and then was penalized. With decay the only thing you are doing "wrong" is not playing enough or choosing enough renown for rewards.

Without Decay the power guilds would still out level the smaller ones. Just as they level to 20 faster then others.

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

[Karranor]

The main point to consider is that guild renown doesn't matter unless you let it.

I would agree with you if the guild bonuses were purely aesthetic. If like many other games you could get the biggest house, ship or castle. A meeting hall full of cool custom furniture and wicked banner you could carry around the city. The bragging rights are still there, its fun to show off, but it doesn't affect the mechanics of the game itself.

Where as in DDO, your guild level has a huge influence on the mechanics of the game with access to a whole line of buffs that stack as well as a whole class of gear.

In this case, since you are working for huge in game benefits, when I bust my butt to get my guild to 60 for said buffs it is completely unreasonable to then log in the next day to a guild level of 59 that no longer has access to those buffs. I worked for it, we worked for it, we should be able to keep it. Regardless of playtime. Period.

I'm not talking about wanting something we didn't earn. We did, it just keeps getting taken away. So now we are playing the game to "stay the same" instead of advancing as we have since the beginning.

I think the analogy to leveling is apt. You don't HAVE to get level 9 to play the game just as you don't have to get guild buffs, XP boost or access to crafting devices. You can do it just fine at level 8. Everyone loves The Pit, right? But to finally get to level 9 and have access to your new spells, cooler weapons or whatever and then to log in the next day and not have that stuff would be horrible.

[madmaxhunter]

No, we shouldn't care about our guild levels. we shouldn't care about the extra 20 hp, +1 to saves, freeing up spots once used for the +30 res items and all the other bennies high levels give players.

Completely agree with OP. You either trim down or stall out. sure, there are prolly guilds that found a magic formula that disputes that, but for most, that's the sad reality. I'm friends with several other guild leaders and they've all hit the 40-50 decay wall. All started out saying they weren't going to trim, most finally realizing the need to.

I've said this in previous posts, set locks on levels, I'd say with each new ship, like level 25 does.

The worst part of the current system is the chance of a fresh player getting into a good guild is very low. I don't see established guilds actively recruiting anymore. And since many guilds only run with guildies, the new player could become disenchanted with the game from the beginning.

[THOTHdha]

The only solution seems to be booting player from the guild if they do not reach a certain minimum play time along with mandating players to take Renown for rewards.

This is far from the 'only' solution. In fact, being happy with a Renown 25 guild (where decay does not exist) is a perfectly viable solution. There is nothing that you have to have from a guild, and even this will get you some nice small perks like cheap guild potions.

If you want to push your guild for the nice guild buffs, then do so. Just own up to that. Turbine is not forcing you to boot less active players. You are doing that all on your own in order to chase a small carrot of ship buffs.

[Hafeal]

I agree with the OP. Guild renown has turned into the evil cousin of XP debt.

I believe the stated 'solution' to ignore it is not a practical solution. The solution encourages anti-social behavior. It encourages people who want the amenities to leave friends. It has encouraged small, elite guilds. It has lead to large guilds, including one I am in, to ask (not demand) to take renown when they can in order to keep amenities. Special events, like Mabar, are especially tough because of the decay because you are earning none. Decay in fact punishes casual players the most - it takes away befits you have earned and in which you have vested time and possibly choice (e.g., if you take guild renown as a loot option).

If they were to simply remove renown decay and remove the loss upon dismissal/departure there would be no point in having guild levels.
If there would be no point in having guild levels then every guild should automatically and permanently be level 100.
If all guilds were automatically and permanently level 100 then all ship buffs would be available to everyone.
If all buffs were available to everyone then they should become permanent.

Do you see how this spirals out of control if there is no decay?

Quite frankly, no. It will take some guilds much longer to achieve 100 than others and many will not make it; even with no guild renown decay. Further, if the benefit is only a 'bonuses', such as you have proclaimed them, what matter does it make if everyone eventually has them? Everyone can be level 20 too - that does not mean they choose to do so.

A little competition between your guild and other guilds, or even with yourself to better your guild, isn't always a bad thing.

I don't play DDO to compete. If you do, and you may, then I would suggest comparing guild renown is a poor way to try and compete.

[JOTMON]

/agreed to some extent.

Remove all guild bonus and decay multipliers.

I can appreciate having a decay process, it prevents everyone from being a super huge guild.
or grouping a bunch of people together to powerlevel a guild then drop and go to another guild, rinse and repeat..

But realistically, the decay factors are too high

Its not like the buffs are free either,every hookpoint has a cost associated to it.

The decay process is hurtful to casual players and any guild they are associated with.
The lack of renown from events isn't very helpful either.



Our guild has effectively given up on the active guild building.
It was felt that the push to 100 would be detrimental to the overall guild.
We are a guild with 860 active members achieved guild level 85, 86 for a short period and are currently down to 82.
We absorbed some members from another active guild that fell apart and brought back some casual/busy with real life players that returned to discover they were guildless.

We struggled to maintain the flow against the decay but as a large guild with a mix of players it wasnt worthwhile.
In my opinion, guild renown should flow with the players to some extent, leaving one guild because it falls apart or whatever and you lose all the renown you put into it.

Change this so you take half of your renown(after decay) with you and it continues to decay based on your personal contribution. join a new guild and what you have left pools towards your current guild, quit and you lose half of your current amount again.(prevents guild hopping).

Do something for capped toons where the xp granted from quests gets converted to guild renown. I laugh at the stupidity of giving xp for completing a quest on epic.

Scale guild renown drops from end rewards to suit the level and reward range for the quest being run. Seeing a heroic deeds on my 20th end reward list and not the ring i am looking for in TOD is pretty sad. If it had been 50,000 Guild renown on that list then at least i would have had something other than vendor trash.

Running level 4 chest heavy quests like irestone inlet i see dropping multiple legandary victories vs seeing Epic DQ chest drop heroic deeds is pitiful.

I would be interested to see the guild renown collected from a guild during 2 hour period comparing...
Epic runs of a full 12 party vs
2 parties of 6 people level 5 vets blitzing the harbor.
with everyone taking guild renown at each opportunity.

[Rapthorn]

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.