Guild Renown Changes

[Hendrik]

If your guild is averaging more renown/account as the chart shows in comparison to Hendrik's guild, does that not mean that your guild (where people do what they wish with their limited play time) is meeting or exceeding their renown gain potential in comparison to his (very picky with mostly active veterans) guild?

Per your assertion that the argument that it's easier to mobilize a small guild really only applies to power gamer guilds, a smaller guild that is not a power gamer guild like yours would not have an easier time actualizing their renown gain potential in comparison to Hendrik's guild.

Potential Renown per account:
Actual Renown per account:
Percentage of Potential Renown Actualized: (Potential/Actual)

I think the results would be quite telling.

We are picky about who we let in because we have to make sure the new member fits our guild and our guild fit the new member. We do headhunt good people - does not matter what status they have, guilded or not. BTW, slarden has no clue what our makeup is, he is making assumptions and false ones at that. Our vet status atm is less then half and are mostly all casuals since most are family men/women and/or have careers. The age of our members range from 9 to 55.

It does not matter what activity level they have, they just need to be a good fit and a good person. It is our members that make us who we are, not our guild level.

Cuts down on the dbaggery, drama, and keeps harmony in the guild.

When slarden has actually had to overcome 130k decay a day, then he can comment on the difficulties of trying to overcome that.

[Gremmlynn]

Something I really would love to see on any server - and that being part of the licence agreement as well:

Any guild not having any activity for let´s say, one month (not even a single login of any member) shoud face a very hefty decay penalty until the guild finally reaches lv. Zero. Upon reaching zero renown, with the next hit of decay the guild automatically should get dissolved or marked for deleting with the next server clean-up.

This would make room for other guilds on the server and perhaps even would help with ship buffs repopulating after server down times when the database does not have to check through virtual thousands of dead guilds for repopulation as well.

At least this would give renown decay any understandable purpose.

I didn't realize there was a limit on how many guilds a server could have.

Personally, I don't see the point of this with the instanced nature of the game. If nobody logs in, an instance isn't created for that guilds ship and the server never has to load it. The reason for the delay after server downtime is the number of active guild members that all log in at the same time overwhelming the system.

Though if Turbine finds inactive guilds negatively affecting their systems I would hope they would use a system that relies simply on time to solve it, not some deleveling mechanic that would likely exasperate the problem they are trying to solve.

[ferrite]

Well another guild just made 80 on Orien.

Yawn.

Here's a fun fact. In the time since this thread was created, over 5 billion inches, or 80,000 miles of beard hair has been grown, shaved off, then regrown on planet Earth.

Chop-chop guys..

After 130 pages and over 2,500 posts, if Turbine can't manage to figure out a solution yet then maybe they should just pack it up and go home.

[slarden]

Under the old system it was much easier for smaller guilds to recruit from large guilds. Due to the decay per account, guilds would start to lose either their most active members (and their renown gain, thus falling backwards) or least active members (discouraging people with below threshold renown gain/play times from logging in at all). Taking the most active members from large guilds was rather damaging to those guilds especially since the more casual members of the large guilds won't get invited to the higher level mature guilds if they fell below threshold renown gain.

Under the new system even the more casual members of the small guild would still be considered (be it a mentorship or sponser program) for an invite to the higher level mature guilds DESPITE their renown gain.

But it is not working that way right now. Guilds are still wanting to protect their brand so they remain picky.

This is because no matter what the system encourages/promotes, most mature guilds are still going to be selective and veterans that play regulary will always be more appealing than new and casual players.

[slarden]

We are picky about who we let in because we have to make sure the new member fits our guild and our guild fit the new member. We do headhunt good people - does not matter what status they have, guilded or not. BTW, slarden has no clue what our makeup is, he is making assumptions and false ones at that. Our vet status atm is less then half and are mostly all casuals since most are family men/women and/or have careers. The age of our members range from 9 to 55.

It does not matter what activity level they have, they just need to be a good fit and a good person. It is our members that make us who we are, not our guild level.

Cuts down on the dbaggery, drama, and keeps harmony in the guild.

When slarden has actually had to overcome 130k decay a day, then he can comment on the difficulties of trying to overcome that.

If the #s and information you provided are accurate, your decay would have topped at 89k per day for a level 80 guild with 79 people. I completely understand the difficulty of overcoming that because my guild will have rougly the same decay/player that your guild had and thus will experience the exact same problem you encountered unless we are significantly more active than your guild. Decay is difficult and frustrating for members of any guild that can't move forward. However, this is not and never was a problem that only impacted large guilds.

I've run with people from your guild plenty of times. I've never encountered anyone but vets from your guild but I certainly don't know everyone in your guild. The ones I've run with like to run fast, know what they are doing and I've seen them get irritated with people that aren't at the same level. This is very similar to many of the other high level large guilds on sarlona - and small ones for that matter. I certainly don't want to stereotype your guild based on my experience, but it is my experience. It's certainly not a criticism because alot of vets are like this.

Your high daily renown generation would seem to indicate a rather experieinced crew.

[Hendrik]

Well another guild just made 80 on Orien.

Yawn.

Here's a fun fact. In the time since this thread was created, over 5 billion inches, or 80,000 miles of beard hair has been grown, shaved off, then regrown on planet Earth.

Chop-chop guys..

After 130 pages and over 2,500 posts, if Turbine can't manage to figure out a solution yet then maybe they should just pack it up and go home.

Or it could be just as simple as Turbine has the metrics and seen the real data and discovered that this is a non-issue about very small guilds and advancement.

[Arnez]

Or it could be that the popular guys won? Oh well, such is life.

[Nestroy]

At least I am sure of one thing: As soon as Neverwinter hits the open beta (or finally goes live) all these discussions in here will become moot. And the missing bug fixes will become moot. And the whole thing about DDO will become moot - and gather dust. And finally after about 6 years in total DDO will meet the end of any MMO - fading into oblivion.

I wonder, though, if the devs currently not doing any bug fixes / new renown systems / better gameplay mechanics are redirected to something called DDO2. Or if the owners of DDO / Turbine just want to make the max money they still can until closing in November 2013 and good bye all...

[slarden]

Well I decided to sign up for the new D&D MMO and participate in the beta the next three weekends.

Although I really enjoy DDO, I think ultimately this guild change was a developer preference and it's not likely to get much better for small guilds - possibly even worse. There were many ways this change could have been implemented without putting small guilds in such a bad position, but instead we have the system we currently have today.

While I think it's unlikely the new D&D game will end DDO, I am interested in checking out the new game as an alternative. My guild leader that quit DDO over this guild change also signed up with me. We are face-to-face friends.

I think it's great that DDO is helping out large guilds, but I can see that as time goes on more people will move to large guilds and participate in guild-only runs. This means less people to group with and makes it even more unlikely that DDO will do anything for tiny guilds as we will be an even bigger minority than we are today. While expanding the guild isn't something I am completely against, I don't wish to force it. I don't wish to recruit from other guilds and it's rare I run across anyone that is unguilded. I am tired of having to choose between soloing/zerging to get enough renown or moving backwards.

So anyhow, I am curious to see if I have any in-game disadvantages for choosing to group with a small circle of friends in the new D&D MMO. It will be a nice improvement if I don't have to play really fast to keep my guild from moving backwards.

[Nestroy]

Well I decided to sign up for the new D&D MMO and participate in the beta the next three weekends.

Although I really enjoy DDO, I think ultimately this guild change was a developer preference and it's not likely to get much better for small guilds - possibly even worse. There were many ways this change could have been implemented without putting small guilds in such a bad position, but instead we have the system we currently have today.

While I think it's unlikely the new D&D game will end DDO, I am interested in checking out the new game as an alternative. My guild leader that quit DDO over this guild change also signed up with me. We are face-to-face friends.

I think it's great that DDO is helping out large guilds, but I can see that as time goes on more people will move to large guilds and participate in guild-only runs. This means less people to group with and makes it even more unlikely that DDO will do anything for tiny guilds as we will be an even bigger minority than we are today. While expanding the guild isn't something I am completely against, I don't wish to force it. I don't wish to recruit from other guilds and it's rare I run across anyone that is unguilded. I am tired of having to choose between soloing/zerging to get enough renown or moving backwards.

So anyhow, I am curious to see if I have any in-game disadvantages for choosing to group with a small circle of friends in the new D&D MMO. It will be a nice improvement if I don't have to play really fast to keep my guild from moving backwards.

+1/2

Neverwinter will not be the only reason why DDO will fade into oblivion. This is the course of things for any MMO - there will be a time nobody still plays the game, having a huge fanbase or not. Otherwise Ultma Online would still be flourishing. But Neverwinter might be a big nail in the coffin of DDO. There is a big D&D fanbase. And many of these love the FR. Neverwinter is directly setted into the FR. In DDO you have to grind through Eberron, not the greatest of WotC / d20 / D&D worlds, to say the best.

So Neverwinter will gnaw on the player base, no doubt. And if Neverwinter is not greatly bugridden and has a bs combat and game play system, there will be many players of DDO flocking into Neverwinter.

But, and there you may be perfectly right, Slarden, the devs of DDO did not do their homework. They made the FR / Eveningstar campaign setting (a high level setting, instead of a lowbie one) but there is no lowbie campaign FR setting. Insteadof the 100th creature companion they should have done the 1000th bug fix to finally finish the product. They should have reworked several mechanics (namely loot, renown, and generally rethinking the everything-uber system) and should have made the game fit for competition. Did they do? They do their best, but generally speaking: No.

So I personally deduct from this that there has been a decission, perhaps even forced on Turbine due to licencing agreements we all do not know, to slowly let DDO fade and to make the most money still out of it as long as possible.

But if the devs do not work on a DDO2 (and seen the latest staff cuts, this is somewhat out of the pictue I think) there will be no DDO in about 2-3 years to come. And meanwhile we will pay as much as they can prey on us for a game still not working the way many of us want it to play.

Well, Slarden, perhaps we will meet on the beta weekends, though. I will take a close look on Neverwinter as well. Best case I found my new D&D MMO. Worst case they copy all that went wrong in DDO and redo everything that is working here to the worse.

[Blue100000005]

At least I am sure of one thing: As soon as Neverwinter hits the open beta (or finally goes live) all these discussions in here will become moot. And the missing bug fixes will become moot. And the whole thing about DDO will become moot - and gather dust. And finally after about 6 years in total DDO will meet the end of any MMO - fading into oblivion.

I wonder, though, if the devs currently not doing any bug fixes / new renown systems / better gameplay mechanics are redirected to something called DDO2. Or if the owners of DDO / Turbine just want to make the max money they still can until closing in November 2013 and good bye all...

More doom and gloom for DDO?

i think it will be around longer...

[slarden]

+1/2

Neverwinter will not be the only reason why DDO will fade into oblivion. This is the course of things for any MMO - there will be a time nobody still plays the game, having a huge fanbase or not. Otherwise Ultma Online would still be flourishing. But Neverwinter might be a big nail in the coffin of DDO. There is a big D&D fanbase. And many of these love the FR. Neverwinter is directly setted into the FR. In DDO you have to grind through Eberron, not the greatest of WotC / d20 / D&D worlds, to say the best.

So Neverwinter will gnaw on the player base, no doubt. And if Neverwinter is not greatly bugridden and has a bs combat and game play system, there will be many players of DDO flocking into Neverwinter.

But, and there you may be perfectly right, Slarden, the devs of DDO did not do their homework. They made the FR / Eveningstar campaign setting (a high level setting, instead of a lowbie one) but there is no lowbie campaign FR setting. Insteadof the 100th creature companion they should have done the 1000th bug fix to finally finish the product. They should have reworked several mechanics (namely loot, renown, and generally rethinking the everything-uber system) and should have made the game fit for competition. Did they do? They do their best, but generally speaking: No.

So I personally deduct from this that there has been a decission, perhaps even forced on Turbine due to licencing agreements we all do not know, to slowly let DDO fade and to make the most money still out of it as long as possible.

But if the devs do not work on a DDO2 (and seen the latest staff cuts, this is somewhat out of the pictue I think) there will be no DDO in about 2-3 years to come. And meanwhile we will pay as much as they can prey on us for a game still not working the way many of us want it to play.

Well, Slarden, perhaps we will meet on the beta weekends, though. I will take a close look on Neverwinter as well. Best case I found my new D&D MMO. Worst case they copy all that went wrong in DDO and redo everything that is working here to the worse.

I don't think DDO is going to fade, but I am sure they will get less new players looking for a D&D MMO. I am sure they will get some DDO folks as well.

For me, I am not quitting DDO even though I cancelled my VIP. But it will be fun to try out a new game and not have to worry about decay. Whatever the guild system is, I won't have the baggage of building up the guild for 2 years only to have it made pointless by a change that highly favors large guilds.

Just keep in mind you may not even like the game. For me it will be nice to have my face to face friend questing with me again in the forgotten realms. It's not been quite the same since he quit the game in October because of the guild change.

[Charononus]

With PW's massive P2W history (they make turbine look like a sub company with no cash shop) and the fact that it's 4e, I don't think NW will have the effect you think it will.

[Hendrik]

With PW's massive P2W history (they make turbine look like a sub company with no cash shop) and the fact that it's 4e, I don't think NW will have the effect you think it will.

Just another title in a long line of ones that have been proclaimed the Doom of DDO.

This will have the very same effect. Nothing.

The person you quoted will still be here, or back, in DDO once that launches proclaiming the hate for DDO and waiting for the next title that will fail to be the Doom of DDO.

I mean, "Control Wizard'?!? Really? Go have fun with that and your "Damage Fighter".

[Nestroy]

With PW's massive P2W history (they make turbine look like a sub company with no cash shop) and the fact that it's 4e, I don't think NW will have the effect you think it will.

Well, Turbine is on a good way to copy PW, don´t they?

I mean, what else shall I think about using XP chrystals to get to Lv. 16 in a breeze?

Sad that since WotC took over the D&D systems (and Hasbro took over WotC) they only go for the money. I mean, I know that everybody has to live off something and it is necessary for games to bring in the bucks or else they get killed without remorse, but as soon as quality suffers because of $$$ alone and games turn into severe rip-offs...

I never ever will touch 4e in pen&paper. I stick with 3.5e. 4e simply was done by guys not even remotely connected to the game itself. I do not play magic the gathering in FR.

I will none the less take a look on Neverwinter. This does not mean I will leave DDO. This means I will try to get away from things that are nerfing or that are nerfed. I go for a playing experience, not for a pay2win rip-off. If this means leaving Neverwinter within hours, be it so.

And I am still doing my battle in here for a better renown system.

By the way - any MMO one day or the other gets hit by fading into oblivion. Technically, DDO is 8 years old in the core (1st decisions on programming) and 6 years old for the released game. If DDO survives as long as UO, I would be happy. Still, I would love to see a DDO 2 coming up, based in the FR, for low level quests. And a better guild system!!!

[smatt]

I never ever will touch 4e in pen&paper. I stick with 3.5e. 4e simply was done by guys not even remotely connected to the game itself. I do not play magic the gathering in FR.

Even 3.5 with it 50 books etc etc etc... Is a joke to be honest....

[Nestroy]

Even 3.5 with it 50 books etc etc etc... Is a joke to be honest....

I had my troubles with 3e too, and 3.5e just minimized some of the worst blunders. I am still of the opinion that AD&D 2.5 was a very well rounded system, albeit somewhat complex. With 3e and 3.5e I always liked the idea of an open gaming license. But you are perfectly right, books, books, books. But at least you could play with just 3 books: Player´s, Dungeon Master´s and Monster Manual. There were no trading cards and no need to buy new books big time (except perhaps the FR resourcebook).

What really gave me the rest for 4e was when I saw the trading cards 1st time.

[Tshober]

As I've said before, changing the fixed account multiplier from 20 to 10 does nothing to change the reason for their change and has the side benefit of allowing small guilds that are stuck to move forward. While it's not a perfect solution, I think setting the account multiplier to 10 is a better temporary solution than setting the account multiplier to 20 so that all guilds get some relief.

The fact that large guilds argue against this has nothing to do with inclusiveness, but rather exclusiveness. .

This statement is untrue. Large guilds are not against this. Many members of large guilds have posted here that they are all for reducing decay even more, which is exactly what you proposed. Perhaps a few posters from large guilds are, but there is no evidence that large guilds in general are aginst it. You seem to be desperate to make this into large versus small debate when it is not. How many times do I have to say it? DID you not get it the first 50 times? Reducing decay even more would be a good thing!!!!

Yeesh. I am really getting tired of this.

[Artos_Fabril]

I had my troubles with 3e too, and 3.5e just minimized some of the worst blunders. I am still of the opinion that AD&D 2.5 was a very well rounded system, albeit somewhat complex. With 3e and 3.5e I always liked the idea of an open gaming license. But you are perfectly right, books, books, books. But at least you could play with just 3 books: Player´s, Dungeon Master´s and Monster Manual. There were no trading cards and no need to buy new books big time (except perhaps the FR resourcebook).

What really gave me the rest for 4e was when I saw the trading cards 1st time.

As long as we're continuing this off-topic digression, what ever made you think you needed a monster manual to play D&D? As a DM, you already have all the tools you need to run a combat: What the party's stats are, what your story tells you they should be fighting, and the ability to gauge whether the players are having fun. (If you're not having fun running the game, do something else. A book isn't going to help.)

If your players want to fight a dragon, and your story has a dragon they should be fighting, get them there, make the fight exciting, and move on with the story. Unless you're playing a tournament game, no one will care what the monster's stats are as long as they're having fun.

[Nestroy]

As long as we're continuing this off-topic digression, what ever made you think you needed a monster manual to play D&D? As a DM, you already have all the tools you need to run a combat: What the party's stats are, what your story tells you they should be fighting, and the ability to gauge whether the players are having fun. (If you're not having fun running the game, do something else. A book isn't going to help.)

If your players want to fight a dragon, and your story has a dragon they should be fighting, get them there, make the fight exciting, and move on with the story. Unless you're playing a tournament game, no one will care what the monster's stats are as long as they're having fun.

Ok, let´s still continue this off side thread here. I personally do not even use any book if gamemastering in the right mood and as long as there is any agreement on how the system works. A set of mainly either d20 or d100 is fully sufficient for everything. But that is going really OT now. Please let´s stick back to 3.5e and if you adhere to the core rules there you need the 3 books, even the MM (for stats). Let´s settle with that, ok?

---

Now, back to the topic, guilds and renown definitively are DDO genuine, so the dev are not bound by any rules to still have this D&D named here. So the battle continues for a renown (decay) system that fits big and small alike.