Guild Renown Changes

[Gremmlynn]

Nope, other folks have already commented that they lost people to larger guilds. I never received a random invite from a large guild, but did get one since this change was perceived permanent. So did another guildy.

This just tells me players have more options now. I don't see how this is a bad thing.

[Hendrik]

You are right with the 2 weeks, sorry. Thats happening when not checking everything by core before hitting the post button.

Regarding members leaving small guilds for big guilds, i think that the old system generally barred most big guilds from picking up players, especially when unproven. Now under the new system any addition is welcome. My former fellow guildies certainly would have liked to join big high level guilds from the very beginning - hell, I myself joined with a small guild when I could not get a place with the big ones then. The big ones were not recruiting, on the contrary, and we all know the reason why.

So I do not really condemn the former guild mates and I would not go that far to call them putting buffs before friendship. We still quest together from time to time and I still have them in my friends list. I would have joined the big high-level guilds myself when I had been fairly new to DDO if these big high level guilds would have wanted me to join.

I am very happy with my decision for a small guild, meanwhile. Lv. 58 might not sound like much, but I had been on board there since the very beginning and I can proudly say that my contribution matters. Now I am still totally pro change for the decay system. The big guilds got their share. Now get the small guilds going again!

Before Smalls would not take in new players because it would take them out of the Bonus Range they wanted. Larges would remove players that would/could not help as much as they needed. Neither helped unguilded get guilded - unless they made thier own and then they got to experience issues themselves.

Now, Larges can invite because every member is a benefit. Smalls are still in the same place. Inviting more removes them out of the Bonus range they want. Maybe the bonus range should be expanded some, add another 5 to it. That way small can increase numbers without fear of loosing the bonus?

Would you be willing to recuit some good people/players if you did not have the fear of loosing out on your size bonus? Honest question too...

[Nestroy]

Some things I had been thinking about now for some time:


1.) Guild merger

I would love to see a tool where guilds could merge with each other without much renown loss. If small guilds want to merge at the moment, there is only one way: The guildies of one guild leave the guild and join the other. All renown collected is lost for these guildies. A merge would immediately form a larger, more advanced guild. The guild would be better surviving (especially under the new system) and the collected renown is not lost.

There could be certain restrictions for this, e.g. that a guild could not gain more than a certain amount or level by such a merge (or not more than max 10 levels, or whatever) or that the less advanced guild might only transfer x % of renown... But it greatly would help to clean up the large amount of guilds on the servers. The benefit for those guilds that want to merge would be obvious.

The merger could be costly - in astral shards or whatever. I would suggest 1000 shards minimum, depending on complexity of the merge. There would be a "merge-trader" in the habour, in the house where we buy the air ships. Thart merge-trader would handle the merge.

The merge would have to follow certain rules.

First, a merge could only be completed if ALL officers from both guilds and of course leader and substitute give their consent. Furthermore the merge could only be completed when at least half the regular members would opt for this as well. They would have an interface for this at the merge-trader in the air ship vendor´s shop.

Second, only if the relevant guildies have given their consent first could the merge be paid - by any guild member of both guilds or more, like at the donations for the air ships.

Third, with the next update / hot fix / server restart, the merge gets done. The server goes down and when he is up again, voilá the guilds have merged.

Benefits for turbine: More sales of astral shards. Upsales of guild name changes (to give a merged guild a better fitting name) or other useful post-merge features.

Benefit for guilds / players: Obvious, I think.


2.) Guild splitting

Analogue to guild merge there could be a guild split vendor. Why not? Benefits are less easy to see, but before there is much strife inside a guild, this might be a good solution. The process has to be initiated by any officer of the existing guild by paying a certain astral shards fee (at least that much TP as the new guild charters) or must trade in a guild charter AND astral shards, or whatever... Then any guild member gets an ingame message automatically that it could opt in for the new guild within a certain time. Any guild member opting to join the new guild would be part of the new guild after the opting in period expires.

Every guild member has a counter of personal guild renown gains. This is a certain percentage of total renown ever earned by that guild. Now the current renown gets divided for that certain percentage and the old guild looses x % of renown and the new guild gets x % of renown for each and any guild member going into the new guild. The new guild now starts at the apropriate level.

Benefits for Turbine: Guild charter sales, astral shard sales.

Benefit for players: Less strife, option to join another guild without loosing much renown collected...


3.) More guild ship individualization features

What about the possibility to upload a .gif or .jpg with the guild logo for the flags on the ship. Make this to be bought at the ingame shop. Make this downloadable upon entering the so flagged ship 1st time. Instead of simply selling nice colors for the ship, make the flags customable. I certainly would love to put our guild logo on the flags. Could be a real big time sales. In case Turbine wants to make much money out of this, make it temporary and make it a "buff" to be bought at the first mate. Buy it in the shop for one month or get it for free at lv. 99 or whatever. For guilds without their own logo, provide some standard logos from ingame for this (black Abbot´s would be cool!). Make this freely changeable or at least changeable once per buff. The first mate certainly would do the job of changing the colors of the flaggs happily.

[Dandonk]

Why do you feel the game should be set up in a way which limits players from having the option to join a guild they would rather be in? No one is being forced to join a large guild, they are just choosing to now that those large guilds are giving them the option.

The system is heavily incentivized towards large guilds. If they were on an equal footing, the choice would be great - people could be in the guilds they wanted to without outsize forces acting to heavily influence them.

Don't blame the system if some of your members would rather be in someone else's guild.

Umm, OK. Was that the correct response to large guilds before?

No? I didn't think so.

[Nestroy]

(...)Would you be willing to recuit some good people/players if you did not have the fear of loosing out on your size bonus? Honest question too...

Frankly said, yes. If I get good active people I will take them any time. My personally preferred guild size would be at about 30 -40 active and contributing accounts. This would be a number of players I could still be happy to know and go questing with personally. So far the best in my guild has been 18 accounts active at one given period of time.

I do not care for the size bonus that much. 6 contributing accounts get 300%. 18 accounts contributing the same way would get the same amount of renown in base renown alone, but would still get some bonus on top of this. 36 accounts contributing the same way would double the base renown from the 18 accounts... Here, strenght really lies in numbers. Anybody who wants to contribute is most welcome in my guild!

[slarden]

Again. If the only reason those players were in your guild was because the guild they wanted to be in wouldn't take them, then the change seems to be working to their advantage. Why do you feel the game should be set up in a way which limits players from having the option to join a guild they would rather be in? No one is being forced to join a large guild, they are just choosing to now that those large guilds are giving them the option. Don't blame the system if some of your members would rather be in someone else's guild.

They left because of the system, of course the system is the issue.

Just as large guilds complained vehemently all year last year about how they were losing people when there was just a slighly decay disadvantage even though they had a leveling advantage. Now small guilds have a massive decay and leveling disadvantage.

People leave not beause they don't like the people, but they accept that Turbine is making it difficult for small guilds to advance relative to large guilds.

You can't blame the guildies for wanting the extra buffs and extra xp that comes with higher levels. We all want that. The problem is that in-game benefits are tied to guild rank and the guild rank system isn't working.

I would like to see Turbine change the fixed account multiplier from 20 to 10 so small guilds can retain more of their members.

[Dandonk]

Huh? Decay is now static. Your decay is the same whether they stay, leave or never even joined. (10+10)x level multiplier. Same as every other guild, regardless of how many people stay, go or join.

Renown is deducted from a guild when people leave it.

[Nestroy]

Huh? Decay is now static. Your decay is the same whether they stay, leave or never even joined. (10+10)x level multiplier. Same as every other guild, regardless of how many people stay, go or join.

Gremmlynn, ok, I perhaps have to clear this out a little. We get less bonus due to the active account hit for a certain period of time. So we have proportionally more decay to battle or correctly said we battle the same decay with less bonus as would the real guild size suggest. So it gets harder to battle decay. Now your world ok again?

[slarden]

Huh? Decay is now static. Your decay is the same whether they stay, leave or never even joined. (10+10)x level multiplier. Same as every other guild, regardless of how many people stay, go or join.

Guilds can't earn renown to cover decay only players can. Decay is ultimately a tax on the players in the guild and not the guild itself.

Smaller guilds have a significantly larger decay tax per person to overcome to avoid going backwards.

If one active person leaves for the easy waters of a large guild, the remaining people have to earn even more renown to cover decay. On top of that the guild likely loses a lot of renown even if the person leaves on good terms. So decay definitely becomes a bigger issue in real terms since the real measure of decay difficulty is decay/active accounts.

I would have no problem getting into a higher level guild if I wanted to, but some in the guild aren't so lucky if the rest of the vets left and left them on their own. They would end up in another small guild or a start up guild as always.

As much as we talk about how guilds aren't penalized for adding members, the fact is most high level large guilds are still selective and try to add veterans. This only makes sense as all organizations want the best talent they can get.

[Gremmlynn]

Keep in mind that a guild consists of only ships, buffs and guild chat. Anything else that happens beyond that is what people do and not the guild system itself. Numerous friendships exist outside of the guild and just because someone leaves the guild doesn't mean you will stop being their friend.

You see this is where we disagree. Ships, buffs and guild chat are just add-ons to what I see a guild being. IMO guilds provide accountability to one's actions. In order to gain the benefit of remaining in a guild, that being the ability to game with others who are accountable for their actions, we police our own conduct. While friendship can also cause players to consider how their actions might have a detrimental effect on the enjoyment of those they play with, guilds do it more efficiently. This is readily apparent in games with friendly fire enabled. People are much more careful with AOE placement in guild groups than in a random pug. But the same principal still applies, players in random pugs generally play in a manner that maximizes their own enjoyment without a thought to how that effects the random players they are playing with as there is little consequence for doing so.

Though this difference in perception as to what role guilds fulfill may be leading to a lot of the friction in this thread.

[Hendrik]

Frankly said, yes. If I get good active people I will take them any time. My personally preferred guild size would be at about 30 -40 active and contributing accounts. This would be a number of players I could still be happy to know and go questing with personally. So far the best in my guild has been 18 accounts active at one given period of time.

I do not care for the size bonus that much. 6 contributing accounts get 300%. 18 accounts contributing the same way would get the same amount of renown in base renown alone, but would still get some bonus on top of this. 36 accounts contributing the same way would double the base renown from the 18 accounts... Here, strenght really lies in numbers. Anybody who wants to contribute is most welcome in my guild!

Thank you for the honest answers!

Maybe this is the solution 'we' should be shooting for? Increase to Size Bonus. Be able to add more people to the smaller guilds without fear of loosing out on the bonus. One reoccuring thing in this thread, is small do not want to recruit - mostly because they are on the very edge of loosing out on size bonus they currently have. Increase that range and that fear is gone. More productive members means more renown, more friends, and any plateau is pushed further out.

[Hendrik]

Keep in mind that a guild consists of only ships, buffs and guild chat.

WOW!

No wonder you are having such problems with your Guild.

Thank you for making it crystal clear where your problems are.

[Gremmlynn]

Umm, OK. Was that the correct response to large guilds before?

No? I didn't think so.

It was absolutely correct when referring to players leaving of their own will. It was where players were being forcibly removed from the guilds they wanted to be in due to game mechanics where the problem was.

I have yet to see even one person post that they really would prefer to be in a small guild, but feel compelled by the system to join a large guild in order to have faster access to buffs. I have seen several people complain that they have trouble retaining players in their guilds now that those players have options they find better. It seems to me, these players were more interested in simply being in a guild that would take them than they were in being in a small guild in the first place.

[Gremmlynn]

Renown is deducted from a guild when people leave it.

Yes. But this is a one time occurrence. Not something that persists for 2 weeks. There is no longer 2 weeks of higher decay from people leaving.

[Gremmlynn]

Gremmlynn, ok, I perhaps have to clear this out a little. We get less bonus due to the active account hit for a certain period of time. So we have proportionally more decay to battle or correctly said we battle the same decay with less bonus as would the real guild size suggest. So it gets harder to battle decay. Now your world ok again?

Well, the statement at least makes sense now.

[Dandonk]

It was absolutely correct when referring to players leaving of their own will. It was where players were being forcibly removed from the guilds they wanted to be in due to game mechanics where the problem was.

I have yet to see even one person post that they really would prefer to be in a small guild, but feel compelled by the system to join a large guild in order to have faster access to buffs. I have seen several people complain that they have trouble retaining players in their guilds now that those players have options they find better. It seems to me, these players were more interested in simply being in a guild that would take them than they were in being in a small guild in the first place.

The system forcing changes on people is the system forcing changes on people, whether it's done one way or the other.

[Nestroy]

And I said this type of thing MAY happen on occasion. So YOU should do what others have done from day 1, recruit more players, if you feel your guild level is that important to you. Promote YOUR guild for what it has to REALLY offer..... It's not Turbines job to mitigate self-centered gamer geek greed and or behaviors, such as the players you lsot to anohter guild. As for the renwon decay you claim to be loosing after the initial hit when they left, well the decay is static now, it has nothing to do with accounts. I know making it sound more dramatic than it is seems a good way to go but still.

Smatt, your advice to simply recruit is just plain stupid. That´s the same level of advice as "you are poor? Just earn more money".

There is only a certain player base on any server. From these, many are inactive. From the active ones, there are many already in guilds. The potential to recruit from then leaves you your familiy&friends, the newbies, the unwanted and those that do not care to join a guild. At least if you are not that one big, shiny and high-level guild to attract players from other guilds that actively want to join you.

Well, the unwanted, I think, are unwanted for something. So this is not a real reservoir to recruit from. Those that do not care to join anybody are not recruitment reservoir either. So this leaves family&friends and newbies. and with family and friends there are certain social limits for recruiting. So basically this leaves newbies. And not recruiting the spammer way or the coercing way ("I help you if you join") is long, arduous and often very frustrating when the same noobs you carefully picked up, helped, nourished and developed finally as performing vets decide to join the bigger guilds because they have the better buffs. Or give up on DDO alltogether.

[smatt]

Smatt, your advice to simply recruit is just plain stupid. That´s the same level of advice as "you are poor? Just earn more money".

There is only a certain player base on any server. From these, many are inactive. From the active ones, there are many already in guilds. The potential to recruit from then leaves you your familiy&friends, the newbies, the unwanted and those that do not care to join a guild. At least if you are not that one big, shiny and high-level guild to attract players from other guilds that actively want to join you.

Well, the unwanted, I think, are unwanted for something. So this is not a real reservoir to recruit from. Those that do not care to join anybody are not recruitment reservoir either. So this leaves family&friends and newbies. and with family and friends there are certain social limits for recruiting. So basically this leaves newbies. And not recruiting the spammer way or the coercing way ("I help you if you join") is long, arduous and often very frustrating when the same noobs you carefully picked up, helped, nourished and developed finally as performing vets decide to join the bigger guilds because they have the better buffs. Or give up on DDO alltogether.

You really do have a strange view of what guilds are really all about.

[Hendrik]

You really do have a strange view of what guilds are really all about.

Not surprising that those strage views are what is keeping them from advancing now is it.

[Dandonk]

You really do have a strange view of what guilds are really all about.

And what about the large guild leaders before?