I recognize that guild decay exists to get people to play frequently. Turbine is a business and its business is to get people to play. However, I think the decay model could be made more player friendly while not compromising Turbines' goals.

Guild renown should be like experience points: once earned they cannot be taken away. I suggest replacing the daily decay with a negative multiplier to the amount of renown awarded. For example, a level 50 guild with 100 members would earn only 50% of the renown awarded. So, an impressive trophy would award 500 renown, but the guild would get credit for only 250. Certainly I have not thought out a complete table for this , but that would be the gist of the system.

In real terms, this model is very like the existing one because guilds keep only a percentage of the renown earned. Presently, if a guild member earns 500 renown daily, but the guild's daily decay per member is 250, the guild is keeping only half of what is earned. My model takes away the decay, but awards equivalently less renown. As a guild's level increases, the amount of net renown it earns decreases. The difference absent the decay is that the worst a guild can do on any given day is zero gain.

I do not see this as creating a surge in high level guilds. Smaller guilds would take years and years to gain very high levels. The very active, very motivated guilds will get there just as they do now because that is their goal. More casual guilds will not get punished for being casual since their level will not be decreasing out from under them.