Guild Renown Changes

[Viisari]

Small guilds do not pug, the players in the guild do.

My small guild has pugged plenty of times so this can be said to be absolutely false.

A closed guild of a few close friend doesn't contribute to the wider social game, but in many cases I am quite sure that the players in that guild do contribute in many cases quite significantly.

"A closed guild" what does that even mean? That they only run with themselves? That they don't recruit? They don't pug?

What if that "closed guild" puts up a pug group for TR'ing, the group has three people from the said guild. Some poor newbie joins and actually tries his best to keep up instead of *****ing and dropping the instant something goes wrong.. Now this group doesn't actually even mind that too much and teaches him a few new tricks. Is that group not contributing something back to the community?

A closed guild of close friends had nothing to offer anyone outside that guild. This is not an opinion, it physically can't, those friends would be friends even without the guild and no one else gets to participate in the guild.

Why can it not do so? I just gave you an example of a small guild that mostly runs with its own guildies helping a newbie.

A guild that is recruiting, or a larger guilds made up of players who have no connection before becoming part of the guild both fulfil a social role within the game.

I think you need to define this whole social thing you're speaking about and define it very specifically. While you're at it define what "a closed guild" means in the first place. Many small guilds pug far more than large guilds in my experience because they have to. They don't have the manpower to just give a shout in guild chat and have two full raid groups in a minute.

This small guild does however start a shroud group every three days accepting anyone in. They've a very solid base for easy completions and they ask if anyone needs any advice on what to do in the raid. How is that not contributing to the community? Meanwhile a large guild will just do it with their own people.

Every example I've given has actually happened in the game, some by me, some by others, some by players in small guilds and some by players in large guilds.

In the light of my personal experience what you've said here has no basis on what happens on the servers at all.

[Kennerd]

I belong to a very large guild that is new player friendly. A huge percentage of it's membership is active but we are unable to level. The reason? Renoun decay, renoun decay to the tune of several hundred thousand a day. When there is an event the guild not only does not level but it loses levels. There is nothing balanced about this, pure and simple the renoun decay is at least 50% too high on large guilds. It's disenhearting for an active large guild to be making a huge effort to level and rather than leveling they lose a level. It also discourages new players being welcomed into a guild because they are the most likely to go idle adding size without adding renoun.
My suggestions would be to reduce the guild decay rate by at least 50%, remove or reduce the renoun penalty for kicking idle players and if a player is leaving a guild on good terms there should be no renoun penalty a player should have the choice of whether or not they take renoun with them as they leave.

[ninjadwarf_uk]

My small guild has pugged plenty of times so this can be said to be absolutely false.

No it hasn't, your guild doesn't play the game, it doesn't have any characters it is simply the grouping together of the players within it.


A guild creates a framework for easy communication and a common identity for players. If you and your friend would still be running together and play the same without the guild then the guild itself doesn't add any value.

However if like me you wouldn't know many of the people in your guild without the existence of the guild then the guild itself has added value.

If you're new to the game and join a guild where you get lots of useful advise and make friends because they are in the same guild then the guild itself has added value.

[Viisari]

No it hasn't, your guild doesn't play the game, it doesn't have any characters it is simply the grouping together of the players within it.

???

A guild creates a framework for easy communication and a common identity for players. If you and your friend would still be running together and play the same without the guild then the guild itself doesn't add any value.

However if like me you wouldn't know many of the people in your guild without the existence of the guild then the guild itself has added value.

Funny how you immediately contradict yourself.

It's not once or twice I've heard someone say "Oh yeah Mitis Mors, those guys are on our autoaccept list!" That means that people are in fact recognizing our guild and not merely the players which in turn means that our guild has some kind of a value in peoples minds. It was the same thing in my old guild which was smaller still.

You were saying what again?

[DocBenway]

A guild creates a framework for easy communication and a common identity for players. If you and your friend would still be running together and play the same without the guild then the guild itself doesn't add any value.

To YOU

Your values are not my values, your guild is not my guild, your misconceptions about small guilds and this "closed" stuff are your own.

My guild was founded BEFORE renown as a "framework for easy communication and a common identity for players" who would, given the option, group with and help each other above anything else but not in any way exclusively.

Any addendum to "framework for easy communication and a common identity for players" is subjective, varies by individual, and not something you can regulate in a way that would be beneficial to the game's health.

Your right to define a Guild ends at the white space before the first letter of my guild charter.

[katz]

Reasonable points until your last sentence - that last sentence was really mischaracterizing what we are doing.

you were talking about exploring merging with other guilds. this implies to me that you are giving up and admitting defeat when it's not warranted. sorry if i have mischaracterized you and your guild.

When we are TR'ing around level 1 and are suffering from reduced rewown drops, it is real hard to earn 10,348 renown when 2 of us play only a few hours per day and rest play much less. If renown is reduced by say 40%, our TRs need to earn the equivalent of 16.66 k of renown. If we level at the end of the day, we are definitely going to drop a level the next day and get caught in the treadmill. It's workable - we already discussed how we can plan around the level gains and basically solved the issue during the test by staying up real late because we were caught by surprise. I don't see why the extra grief is needed for advancing one level. We have 0 chance of advancing to another level on the same day.

ok, yeah. i'll give ya, at 1st, there are no renown drops. but the second you hit real content, there are plenty. we get MORE renown in our guild when someone TRs than when they are high level.


no, the extra grief isn't needed. but it isn't really that big a deal to me, either. for the record, i am totally for changing that particular negative to not take effect at the first level gained. it will reduce the load on extremely small extremely casual guilds.

Yeah I play the game for fun obviously, but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a level playing field. We are @ 69, but when the 2 primary generators of renown take a 2-3 week break as we do sometimes we lose 150-200k renown during that period.

THAT particular problem existed the second they put renown decay in and has nothing to do with the current change. also... been there done that. only time we've lost a level to date was when my husband and i took a week off the game to travel while guild was in the mid 50s.

[theslimshady]

I do not want to be 1/1000 and someone on a list to invite because they happen to be on. I'd rather be 1/4 (We have 21 Accounts but Life Happens) and be asked how that contract went, or if "Suzy got her first tooth." It is a welcoming feeling and does not restrict me from doing anything in game, nor does it restrict anyone from asking a guildy of mine or myself to do something. We like to know each other, not just have a name in brackets in common.

I thought your generalization unfair and hope this might provide some inside perspective as to why my guild is a family. A family that isn't a detriment, but I like to think benefits the game since I think they are awesome people.

yet you do the same thing in this generaliztion my guild is 200 members at the 1000-toon cap and i consider em all my family so in this case my family is just bigger then yours . My wife is co leader and my whole guild was there when our child was born and she couldnt play they are there for us when the baby goes off like a siren in the middle of play and we have to stop and they surely understand not logging on do to real life issue

[Cordovan]

Stop with the fighting. You're making the Halloween Ghost of Happiness cry...it's all right to have opinions that differ from others, no need to attack someone over them. Also, ignoring other people can work wonders.

Let's try to get this thread back on track and focus on feedback about the changes, and/or your constructive criticism/compliments about DDO's guild system.

[Tshober]

Stop with the fighting. You're making the Halloween Ghost of Happiness cry...it's all right to have opinions that differ from others, no need to attack someone over them. Also, ignoring other people can work wonders.

Let's try to get this thread back on track and focus on feedback about the changes, and/or your constructive criticism/compliments about DDO's guild system.

Thanks for trying to get things back on track. It went way off on a tangent there. I like commenting, but there has not been much of anything worth commenting on for awhile. Just a lot of bickering.

[DocBenway]

yet you do the same thing in this generaliztion my guild is 200 members at the 1000-toon cap and i consider em all my family so in this case my family is just bigger then yours . My wife is co leader and my whole guild was there when our child was born and she couldnt play they are there for us when the baby goes off like a siren in the middle of play and we have to stop and they surely understand not logging on do to real life issue

And that's the point I am trying to make.

Not that anyone's definition of guild is wrong, it is that there are as many definitions of guild as there are players. Anyone else's guild does not hinder/help in your own guild's failure/success, nor should anyone wish to restrict other guild's progress.

[Ivan_Milic]

Nvm,didnt think about something.

[searcher15]

Just a random cut in:

I don't like the decay system based on guild size, because it induces "boot the inactive slackers" behaviour. I hope it will be replaced with something better, like the proposed decay by total level.

[akash]

Please give small higher level guilds a reason to stay small. Otherwise they will start poaching members from lower level guilds to become large guilds. I fear this will completely ruin the PUG/LFM scenario.

[Gremmlynn]

Wow, I haven't read this much bollocks being posted on this forum in a while.

You sure got a nice way to negate people who play with their friends or families and so on. Saying that people with small guilds are 'non-factors' in the game is idiotic at best and simply untrue.

If they are playing with their friends and families they are not playing with me or the rest of the community and thus non-factors to us. Sorry, but I have a hard time caring how well the system goes for any guild that wouldn't let me in anyway, be it because it's a one player guild, a friends and family guild or a leet kiddies only guild.

[Dandonk]

If they are playing with their friends and families they are not playing with me or the rest of the community and thus non-factors to us. Sorry, but I have a hard time caring how well the system goes for any guild that wouldn't let me in anyway, be it because it's a one player guild, a friends and family guild or a leet kiddies only guild.

Yes, because when people don't play the way you like, they're mean and deserve to be punished. I understand completely.

[Gremmlynn]

Firstly I apologise to anyone who felt I was attacking them personally, I was not commenting on people, individual members of any guild and how they behave, nor am I saying any individuals are a hindrance to the game.

Firstly the reason to join a guild (not just in DDO but a guild as the original defined concept) is to find like minded people to work with, so if you are in a guild of 6 people then you're primary interaction will be with just 6 people.

Therefore I say that tiny guilds are a hindrance because it creates small closed communities rather than large open communities. If you are in a 6 man guild and spending most of your time pugging then why be in such a small guild? Why not join a larger one, as that is what your interaction pattern indicates is better suited to you?

There is no reason why people shouldn't play in smaller groups or gangs, however I feel that the rewards (levels) should be easier to obtain the more benefit the guild brings to the game socially. (Again the guild, not the individuals within the guild) and a larger guild will bring together more players and give them a support base and so being larger should make levelling easier, not harder. In addition to this I see no reason why small guilds should get additional boosts to allow them to level as fast as large guilds because they only support the few in the group, who chances are were already friends / family etc. before they guilded up and so they don't add any social benefit to the larger community. (And again to be clear I am talking about the guild as an entity / mechanism, not the people within the guild)

Ah, I think I understand what you meant by hindrance now and can agree with you that a small guild can be a hindrance by taking it's members and any support they would provide to a larger guild away from that larger guild.

[Gremmlynn]

False. A single unguilded player adds to the social structure of the game.

Yes they do, just as much as the only member of a one player guild does. So, how much does that "guild" add to the social structure?

[Gremmlynn]

I have a somewhat different view. The smaller the guild, the more likely it is to fall apart and dissolve. People leave the game. It is a fact of MMO life. If you have a small guild, all it takes is a for a few key people to leave the game and the guild can easily collapse and dissolve. For the same reason, any large or medium sized guild that does not constantly recruit new members will dwindle and eventually collapse.

In my experience the same is true of large guilds. The main reason I'm a proponent of incentives for large guilds is my observation that this game, and any other MMO I've played, has a shortage of "key people" and I don't see it as healthy for the game to give incentives for them to all congregate in small "key people" and very active only groups.

Large guilds that do keep recruiting have a different problem. They are more likely to split because of the diverse interests of all of their members. But splits do not threaten the survival of the guild as long as the splits are handled without massive drama. As long as they keep recruiting they can easily replace those who split off. Often, those who split off will even come back if their new guild does not go so well. At least that is how it works for my very large and very open guild. We have been going for 3 years now, open recruiting all the way. Not even a hint of a collapse.

Split offs are often a symptom of having an overabundance of "key people" and can actually be healthy for the game.

We may be a product of the old decay system though. Practically no established guild on my server, other than mine, will accept a casual/social player so those that don't leave DDO entirely often find a home in my guild.

Yes, likely. Though even in the pre-guild level days there wasn't a whole lot of reason to have anyone but the reliable, pretty much daily players in one's guild. There just wasn't a whole lot of reason not to.

[slarden]

Yes they do, just as much as the only member of a one player guild does. So, how much does that "guild" add to the social structure?

Plenty, there are channels, pugs and general chat all available and used by large guilds, medium guilds and small guilds.

[Gremmlynn]

I totally disagree with this. Smaller guilds are more often willing to PUG out spots on their groups and raids, giving others a chance to join in on their events, this having a much larger impact on the game then say.. having some newb get sucked into some mega-guild where they are lost among their own guild tag.

As opposed to simply inviting someone to the guild so they can join in all the events. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, give him a spot on your boat and he eats for as long as he behaves himself.

Sorry but, both have their place in this game, and both have a worth, neither is better or worse then the other, and I am quite offended to have people tell me I am less valuable to the game because I opted to run with a tight knit guild of friends, who group with me. TR with me, and we all know each other, and are willing to help each other out. While we accept new members we don't spam invite, and everyone in my guild is a person, not a name with a renown number attached to it.

Sorry, but you are less valuable than the person who goes the extra mile to make the game more friendly to a larger group of players. But then so am I as I'm not the type who enjoys spending my game time organizing several different types of activities for several groups of players at the same time. Those are the people that are valuable to the game and to Turbine and those are the types of people I expect Turbine to design their guild system to both assist and honor.

Me, I just accept my less valuable status and help those types of people as much as my own selfish nature allows.