Cap Daily Renown Decay at 100K

[Zeklijan]

I really think that renown decay is doing significant harm to DDO and should be scrapped entirely. However, that has been proposed many times and the devs have not (thus far) accepted it. So here is an alternative.

Cap daily renown decay at 100K. Make no other changes to the decay formula, just apply the 100k cap at the end. Could not be easier to code. That is a cap equivalent to 100 Legendary Victories per day. If a guild can earn in excess of 100 legendary victories every day, then that guild is hardly idle and should not be punished excessively. For a large guild with 200 accounts, each account would have to earn 500 renown per day or about 1 legendary victory every 2 days to make up for the capped decay, anything more than that would go toward advancing the guild's level. This would give guild leaders some breathing room to be able to invite casual players into their guild without halting their progress entirely.

Under this scenario a large guild with no casual players would be able to advance pretty rapidly to 100 but so what? What harm does that do? Guild levels, we are told, are mostly just for bragging rights anyway. Small guilds would be unafffected by this cap at all because most of them will never see 100k per day decay. So this levels the playing field a bit between small and large guilds.

This would help in scenarios like the ddo.com DNS fiasco a few weeks ago. For an entire weekend many players could not log in to DDO and play, but decay rolled on like nothing had changed. Really large guilds took a big renown hit for that. My guild lost nearly an entire level that weekend. Capping the daily decay at 100K would have significantly reduced that impact.

If you can't see that decay is harmful and should be eliminated entirely, at least consider restricting it too a reasonable amount per day.

I agree the system should be reviewed,

I do not think the guild renown should cap at 100k, that's beyond me.

HOW is it fair if a guild caps at 100k with 200 members, whereas a 23 members guild (Like Mines) get 80k per day? I mean seriously. You don't need to be level 100 guild if all your members are casual players, i don't think it's intended to be this way.

[djl]

If you can keep your guild level above 70, then who cares about guild renown decay?

Because forward progression is important for many (probably the majority) of players. Even if the progression is slow, as long as it is definitely there, people don't mind. The majority of large guilds hit a wall between 70-75 where they just can't progress. A few of them (like the guild I am in) make it all the way to 80 before hitting that wall. None of them make it to 85, where you get the best boat.

The lack of forward progression is why in console RPGs like Fallout 3/NV, many players lose interest in the game after level-capping. If you aren't being rewarded for your effort, the game seems much less fun.



Also, I like the OP's suggestion but I'd go even further to cap it based on number of active accounts. The renown decay should not exceed 1000 renown times the number of active accounts. This keeps renown in the game and still benefits smaller guilds far more, but it encourages activity without being overbearing.

[phillymiket]

OTG has always been one of the biggest guilds on the G Server. When DDO began we had so many people that we capped out two guilds and had to start a third. It made it difficult for us but they finally changed the mechanics of the system and we were able to combine them. Even after that we had to boot any toon that didn't log in within 30 days to make room for new players. Even with that, we only kept our main toons in guild. OTg has over 10,000 members which cover over 20 MMO's. We are are filled with many different players from casual to hardcore, with permadeath , static groups and puggers. We have some very good players and we have some....not so good ones. We come together because we are looking for some good casual drama free fun.

Many of us (at least 20) have been playing together since pre launch. Our guild has struggled with the current system, and I would say that this is the only rift that our guild has had in many years. Under the current system we are punished for being a big guild and welcoming our casual players or even other members from other MMO's. We have an open invitation for all of them, and know that it will hurt our decay if they don't continue to play, but we want them to enjoy all aspects of the game, especially the ship amenities.

The game in a way is like that with new players. It shuns away new players and creates an uncomfortable.environment for them as well as the players who would welcome them into their guild. This should be fixed. In my opinion it should be addressed. Would we love to be level 100? Absolutely!! But we will not shun away casual or new players to get there. That is the commitment that we have made even though we know it hurts us. We have lost some rare hardcore members over the psst year because the did not agree with this and it sucks that they had to do it..... but that is our commitment to our members.

I always liked you guys.

Good attitude. +1

I was in a few big guilds.
The last one was Citadel.
I had to take a break and when I came back...oh, nvm.

What I have observed is that the current system causes disharmony and stress.

That's my issue.

I don't care about the buffs.
I have none, having started a new guild post-Citadel.

The system should not be set up in such a way that causes people to feel they need to join a group they otherwise would not or boot a player they otherwise would not just for...buffs.

The problem is the buffs are too powerful.
They just are.

There is too much of a difference between a lv 85 ship and a lv 25 ship to not inspire ruthlessness in some people to get their shinies.

I say, get rid of the decay and make guilds a collection of friends again.

I would say nerf the buffs as well (they should be nerfed) but so many people have worked so hard and spent so much RL$ on the guilds that that would be a devastating blow.
.

[Battlehawke]

Thanks Philly. I agree... sorry about Citadel ....

[Kinerd]

Yep, started a guild with my flatmate who is an occasional player, so he could have a ship for getting around. We two manned it to lvl 25 in a weekend. Bought him a sparrow and upgraded it once. Stuck a navigator on it and I haven't been back since lol.

How many 30 resists did you have? +2 stats? etc.

FWIW, A guy solo lvled a guild to 100 in under 22 days. Which goes to show what you can achieve with a dedicated effort.

The key (omitted) phrase there is "during the ByG event". If your point is that Turbine creates transient events with only a vague understanding of their impact, then I will agree with you wholeheartedly.

I just don't think its fair, and I'm not sure whats to debate. The system discriminates against casual players. Its not about guild size to me. Its about casual players not having access to the same advantages that power gamers enjoy.

I hope you forgive my misunderstanding as you explicitly made claims about large vs. small guilds. Be that as it may, the reason I find the Chaosknights example so compelling is they had a significant fraction of casual accounts, to the point where they temporarily booted them en masse in order to get from 81ish to 85... and they were still the #1 guild on Argonnessen to every important benchmark! This is why I just can't accept it when people insist that casual players are anathema. There are at least a dozen small guilds who worked harder per person than Chaosknights and have therefore since passed them, yet this large guild with casuals had every buff when the smalls were slumming it with +1 shrines, often for months.

And somehow the system favors smalls and brutally penalizes casuals??? I just can't figure it.

[Tshober]

Be that as it may, the reason I find the Chaosknights example so compelling is they had a significant fraction of casual accounts, to the point where they temporarily booted them en masse in order to get from 81ish to 85... and they were still the #1 guild on Argonnessen to every important benchmark! This is why I just can't accept it when people insist that casual players are anathema. .

Does it really matter what guild is on top, when the end result is the casual and social players got booted? Seems you make our own case for us. The end result of having the current system is the casuals/socials got the boot. It is the anti-social environment that renown decay fosters, encourages, and rewards that is why it needs to go. I have seen you and others argue in many threads that buffs above level 62 are insignificant, and I sort of see your point, but I don't think you are taking into account how many people think otherwise about these things. Here you cite a guild that was willing to kick out its casual players, even if temporarily, just to get from 81 to 85. Can you not see how this policy encourages such anti-social behavior and rewards it?

I believe the devs, like you, thought that people would be willing to passively accept it when they stagnate and stop progressing. But they underestimated people's desire to progress. I can assure you that many active players will leave a guild that is not progressing. My own guild has lost quite a number of such players. They tell me they love the guild but they can't stand the decay. Some of them had been with the guild for almost two years. When guilds start losing their more active players to other guilds that have already filtered out the the new/casual/social players, the temptation to kick those players yourself is very strong. The leader is in a difficult position. He knows he is losing players he does not want to lose but the only way he can keep them is to kick out the casual and social players to get his guild leveling up again. Either way he loses players he wants to keep, so usually he will choose to kick the casual and social players (by setting activity requirement rules) and level up some more. It is a vicious feedback loop because the more levels he gains the more casual/social players he has to kick to keep from stagnating.

But what if the guild leader makes the other choice and does not kick the casual/social players? Then he will, over time, lose many of his more active players to other guilds that have made the opposite choice and his guild will very likely drop levels as they become more and more casual/social dominated. At some point they will stagnate again at a lower level where they will be punished daily forever for having made the choice not to filter out casual and social players. Sounds really appealing doesn't it.

We should be making new players and casual/social players feel welcome in DDO so they will want to stay and help the game grow and expand. But instead we have a guild decay policy that encourages and rewards exactly the opposite. Guilds are rewarded with higher levels and better perks for kicking out casual and social players. And guilds that take in significant numbers of casual and social players, or help out lots of new players, are punished daily forever for doing so. How in the world can that make for a healthy social gaming environment?

[S0rdmasta]

How many 30 resists did you have? +2 stats? etc.The key (omitted) phrase there is "during the ByG event". If your point is that Turbine creates transient events with only a vague understanding of their impact, then I will agree with you wholeheartedly.I hope you forgive my misunderstanding as you explicitly made claims about large vs. small guilds. Be that as it may, the reason I find the Chaosknights example so compelling is they had a significant fraction of casual accounts, to the point where they temporarily booted them en masse in order to get from 81ish to 85... and they were still the #1 guild on Argonnessen to every important benchmark! This is why I just can't accept it when people insist that casual players are anathema. There are at least a dozen small guilds who worked harder per person than Chaosknights and have therefore since passed them, yet this large guild with casuals had every buff when the smalls were slumming it with +1 shrines, often for months.

And somehow the system favors smalls and brutally penalizes casuals??? I just can't figure it.

Rest assured, I have read your posts and did find the examples you gave most interesting. While I find Chaosknights performance to be impressive.. As you say, they had to boot en masse at times. And that really only strengthens the argument that the current guild system is antisocial. And casual players miss out.

[Singular]

DDO considers them inactive after 1 month of never logging in. And you are correct that such inactive accounts do not cause renown decay.

You did not say what level your guild is.

In larger guilds like mine that are in the 60's, it is impossible to not notice renown decay.

Ah, thanks. I'm now starting to notice renown decay because I invited a bunch of casual players. We're level 44 with 21 active accounts atm.

I don't want to boot the casual players - what a strange system they created.

[Tshober]

Ah, thanks. I'm now starting to notice renown decay because I invited a bunch of casual players. We're level 44 with 21 active accounts atm.

I don't want to boot the casual players - what a strange system they created.

Strange indeed. Other MMO's don't do things like this. No other MMO that I have played has a system that punishes guilds for having casual and soical members.

Back in the early days of MMO's, there were penalties for dying that included loss of exp. In those early MMO's, if you died, progress that you had earned was taken away after you had earned it. Almost no MMO does that anymore. But renown decay does exactly that. It takes away progress you have earned, after you have earned it. But instead of punishing you for dying, DDO punishes your guild because you did not loot enough chests each day. You can't get much more strange than that.

[Singular]

Strange indeed. Other MMO's don't do things like this. No other MMO that I have played has a system that punishes guilds for having casual and soical members.

Back in the early days of MMO's, there were penalties for dying that included loss of exp. In those early MMO's, if you died, progress that you had earned was taken away after you had earned it. Almost no MMO does that anymore. But renown decay does exactly that. It takes away progress you have earned, after you have earned it. But instead of punishing you for dying, DDO punishes your guild because you did not loot enough chests each day. You can't get much more strange than that.

I never thought of it like that - well said.

I'm sure the intention was good, to encourage people to play hard together. But...I have been seeing tons and tons of people without guilds lately. At first I thought "oh, a wave of new players, great!" Now I'm starting to wonder if it's just that they're casual players who aren't being invited to guilds. I mean...I was looking over the roster and thinking "should I boot some of these people? They didn't log in for 10 days and our renown is stagnant."

Yet I really, really don't want to do that - I want the guild to grow, would like people to have access to the ship. It's fun, logging on and being social with others.

So turbine, devs, put some thought into guild renown, please

Anyways, I'm interested in the death causes xp to drop scenario - why didn't that work out? Did it frustrate people too much? Or did it cause veterans to not want to play with new players? I can see that last one. The +10% xp bonus is so important to some people that if you die, they either get all angry or boot you when the quest is over.

[Dysmetria]

Strange indeed. Other MMO's don't do things like this. No other MMO that I have played has a system that punishes guilds for having casual and soical members.

No one is being "punished" for having casual and social members. They just won't be able to advance as far in guild levels as the guilds that only let in active members that are willing to help the guild grow.

It really isn't much different from guilds and their advancement systems in many other MMORPGs. When they have a bunch of members that do not contribute to advancing the guild via those systems, that guild does not advance as far as the guilds full of members that are willing to contribute.

[Tshober]

No one is being "punished" for having casual and social members. They just won't be able to advance as far in guild levels as the guilds that only let in active members that are willing to help the guild grow.

It really isn't much different from guilds and their advancement systems in many other MMORPGs. When they have a bunch of members that do not contribute to advancing the guild via those systems, that guild does not advance as far as the guilds full of members that are willing to contribute.

What else would you call it besides punishment? Guilds that take in casual and social players in significant numbers lose more renown daily than they earned? How can that not be interpreted as a punishment? I suppose you could call it a fine, maybe? Or a tax? I can't think of a better term than punishment because that is exactly what it does. It punishes guilds that take in casual and social members. And at the same time it rewards guilds who kick out or filter out such players.

Please name a few other MMO's that have a guild system that does something similar. I can name some that don't do any such thing: WoW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ, EQ2, DAOC, Atlantica, Vanguard

[Dysmetria]

What else would you call it besides punishment? Guilds that take in casual and social players in significant numbers lose more renown daily than they earned? How can that not be interpreted as a punishment? I suppose you could call it a fine, maybe? Or a tax? I can't think of a better term than punishment because that is exactly what it does. It punishes guilds that take in casual and social members. And at the same time it rewards guilds who kick out or filter out such players.

Please name a few other MMO's that have a guild system that does something similar. I can name some that don't do any such thing: WoW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ, EQ2, DAOC, Atlantica, Vanguard

It's been years but IIRC EQ2 has a guild guild castle system. The guilds that are full of players that contribute get the biggest castles, very much like it is with airships here. Likewise the guilds full of people that are not contributing, will likely never get those big castles just as the guilds full of people that are not contributing here will likely never get those biggest airships.

It's been even longer since I played DAOC but AFAIK it still has guild castles in battle areas that offer buffs for the guild that controls it, and they have to fight to protect and keep it. The guilds full of people willing to contribute to fighting for and to protect those castles get them, while those that have a lot of members that do not contribute will likely never get one or be able to protect it.

I still do not see it as punishment. If a guild wants these casual and social members who will not help the guild grow, then their reward is the company of those members. If the guild wants to advance, then they will have a membership of people that are going to help the guild advance, and that advancement is their reward. Neither are being punished.

[Tshober]

I still do not see it as punishment. If a guild wants these casual and social members who will not help the guild grow, then their reward is the company of those members. If the guild wants to advance, then they will have a membership of people that are going to help the guild advance, and that advancement is their reward. Neither are being punished.

It is a false and unneccssary choice. You should not have to choose between the two. You should be able to advance as a guild AND invite the players you choose into your guild regardless of their playstyle. Yes, if you have lots of casual players you might have to advance more slowly but you should still be able to advance eventually.

Casual players are used to the idea of advancing more slowly than the power gamers. They take longer to level up their characters than power gamers. They take longer to get nice gear than power gamers. But there is a huge, gigantic difference between advancing more slowly and advancing never. No other part of DDO takes away your progress once you have earned it. Not even the tiniest little bit of it is ever taken away once earned. Why should guild renown work so completely differently from every other part of DDO?

[Dysmetria]

It is a false and unneccssary choice. You should not have to choose between the two. You should be able to advance as a guild AND invite the players you choose into your guild regardless of their playstyle. Yes, if you you have lots of casual players you might have to advance more slowly but you should still be able to advance eventually.

Why is it "a false and unneccssary choice?" It seems like a true choice to me, else you wouldn't be claiming people should "not have to choose between the two," in your very next sentence. As for "unneccssary" Turbine clearly deemed it to be necessary, which is why they setup the system to make people choose and have been ignoring threads like this since the renown system was first added.

What is unnecessary is airships, and their amenities, we were successfully completing quests and raids on every difficulty without any of those buffs. I understand you feel you shouldn't have to choose between advancing or carrying a lot of dead weight, but Turbine and many other players feel we should.

Casual players are used to the idea of advancing more slowly than the power gamers. They take longer to level up their characters than power gamers. They take longer to get nice gear than power gamers. But there is a huge, gigantic difference between advancing more slowly and advancing never. No other part of DDO takes away your progress once you have earned it. Not even the tiniest little bit of it is ever taken away once earned. Why should guild renown work so completely differently from every other part of DDO?

I'd imagine renown works differently because while EXP and PP are not taken away, there are systems in place that encourage people to give those away. With EXP, people give it up it by rerolling or TRing and also need to earn more for each alt they play. With coin there are money sinks galore and lots of stuff for people to buy.

[Tshober]

What is unnecessary is airships, and their amenities, we were successfully completing quests and raids on every difficulty without any of those buffs. I understand you feel you shouldn't have to choose between advancing or carrying a lot of dead weight, but Turbine and many other players feel we should.
.

I hope the devs read this. Those people you call "dead weight" are all players. They pay the the same amount of money for VIP and DDO store items that you do when they buy them. They contribute just as much to the DDO social environment as you do, probably more in many cases. They may just be "dead weight" to you, and the renown decay system we have in place today certainly encourages and rewards thinking of them in that way, but I can assure you Turbine does not look at them as dead weight when it comes to revenue and growth of the game.

The renow decay system we have in place encourages and rewards guilds that shun casual and social players and punishes guilds that take in those players or help out lots of new players. The result of that is most DDO guilds will not accept such players and those guilds that do are punished daily forever for doing so. One could hardly blame such players for leaving DDO for a more tolerant gaming environment.

We should be making new players and casual and social players feel welcome in DDO so they will want to stay and help the game grow and expand. Instead we have a guild decay policy that encourages and rewards exactly the opposite.

[Dysmetria]

I hope the devs read this. Those people you call "dead weight" are all players. They pay the the same amount of money for VIP and DDO store items that you do when they buy them. They contribute just as much to the DDO social environment as you do, probably more in many cases. They may just be "dead weight" to you, and the renown decay system we have in place today certainly encourages and rewards thinking of them in that way, but I can assure you Turbine does not look at them as dead weight when it comes to revenue and growth of the game.

The renow decay system we have in place encourages and rewards guilds that shun casual and social players and punishes guilds that take in those players or help out lots of new players. The result of that is most DDO guilds will not accept such players and those guilds that do are punished daily forever for doing so. One could hardly blame such players for leaving DDO for a more tolerant gaming environment.

We should be making new players and casual and social players feel welcome in DDO so they will want to stay and help the game grow and expand. Instead we have a guild decay policy that encourages and rewards exactly the opposite.

I doubt the devs have bothered reading any of the last dozen or so threads uselessly complaining about the renown system. They are all full of the same false claims and flawed logic you are repeating today.

No one is being punished by the system. A few choose to mistakenly believe the system is somehow punishing certain people, but the reality is those players are just punishing themselves by looking at this system the wrong way.

[Tshober]

I doubt the devs have bothered reading any of the last dozen or so threads uselessly complaining about the renown system.

LOL, you best hope so.

[S0rdmasta]

No one is being "punished" for having casual and social members. They just won't be able to advance as far in guild levels as the guilds that only let in active members that are willing to help the guild grow.

I do believe you just contradicted yourself in your opening statement there...

I've read your comments and I'm really not sure what your stake in this discussion is. Obviously you are pro decay, but you never mentioned why, or what you gain from the current system. As far as I can tell, nobody gains anything from the guild decay system and I would be interested to know why you are so passionately in favor of it.