Guild Renown Changes

[slarden]

Last year on the first day of Mabar we lost 1/3 of a level. About the same on the 2nd day. After that it settled down. By the end of Mabar we had lost very close to a full level. CC was worse.

Usually they do a 10% renown bonus the weekend before Mabar or CC. It helps but it is not nearly enough for large guilds to offset the loss from the event. When you are losing 250K+ per day it adds up fast. Any little problem and you are really penalized if you are in a large guild. When they had the glitch with the ddo.com DNS resolution we lost half a level because many of our players could not log in for a weekend but decay kept on truckin.

Yeah I recognize that is an issue with the old system The larger the guild, the higher the (decay/rewown needed for next level) ratio gets and thus for periods where people play less like Mabar - large guilds suffer more relative to small guilds. For our small guild we are about 300k over the minimum thanks to some extra effort from guildies last week. If we earn no renown at all during Mabar we still don't lose a level. However, a larger guild that generated no renown for 3 weeks would potentially lose 3-4 levels depending on the size and guild level, possibly more if the guild was very high level.

A 10% boost for a week for a guild that is treading water won't even cover the renown the lost in one day during Mabar for a large guild.

[slarden]

Oh I agree. I was referencing this post:
http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=482

While I accept the possibility in theory... I have serious doubts that they exist. It was used as part of a good example of simple math we appeared to not be understanding. I believe at that time you did point out that 1000 account guilds were "a myth."

Are you still beating this dead horse? I already acknowledged several times that I knew a 1000 person guild did not exist. I was showing the range within the allowable boundaries of 1 to 1000. Since the decay is fixed, the math works the same for a guild of 200 as well and I showed that math.

I have no doubts - a 1000 account guild does not exist - we know 1000 character guilds exist but nobody has really put out a poll to find the largest guild by account as far as I know. The math still works with the actual account values from various large guilds.

[noinfo]

The devs want to know our feelings? We post them.

Sorry you don't like them.... but, well, I support everything I've said.

I don't consider a 'guild' of 6 people to be a guild, I consider it a pug.

I do not think it is fair they should advance even close to a large guild.... however, I do not think they should ever be stone-walled either.

In my mind - it's just not a guild.

It's like that level 100 guild, that exploited the guild event. With 1 guy. I'm sorry.... It's just not a guild.

Sure you are entitled to your opinion but don't think that others who disagree will also remain silent.

While I believe that prior to this large guilds were getting the short end of the stick, large guilds are not the be all and end all either.

Being in a large group does not mean you are going to get support, or help or whatever else you think they are automatically going to get by having that membership, often those smaller groups provide a tighter circle of support. Finding people to run with? Channels, LFM etc. have been around since day one. Being in a large guild and advertising a run and having people join that you don't know is absolutely no different to pugging.

Sure the upper end of the guild levels are dominated by small guilds and that is normally because it is easier to get a small group of likeminded individuals working toward a common cause. Sure they get a small guild bonus but that would need to be far more significant than it is currently to make that difference. From a real renown perspective people will look at small guilds with a high level and know that most people there will know what they are doing. Large guilds it is often hit and miss (most times this is not an issue but if you are talking real renown then it holds true.)

Just remember while it is your opinion and you are entitled to it over small guilds it is just as easy for someone to come back and say that large guilds are not guilds they are just people who accepted an invite and wear the same label.

Find the guild size that is right for you.

[Gremmlynn]

What you, or anybody else does not have the right is to tell guilds who are still affected by the renown decay issue, that we have no right to give our opinion that these changes did nothing to address the issues that we STILL have to deal with the decay system.
You may not agree with our philosophy on what a guild is That does NOT mean you get to dictate on whether or not we are allowed to participate in the system we have supported for 6 years.

The only one's around here with the ability to dictate anything are those who make the decisions at Turbine. Everyone else is simply giving their opinion. Feel free to disagree with those opinions. Just as others will feel free to disagree with yours.

[Gremmlynn]

I respectfully disagree. I see no real basis for that opinion. Absolute statements like that don't really stand up in a world that is mostly grey.

The basis is simple logic. If you see a flaw in it I would appreciate it being pointed out.

[DocBenway]

By the same logic:

The people in large guilds is not the same thing as the large guilds. While the people in large guilds may temporarily help someone looking for a PUG group, so would any other random group of players. The fact that they are in a large guild makes no difference in that situation, unless at the end of the PUG a guild invite is offered.

Unless that large guild has a stated "save X spots for pugs" policy, the fact the people in the guild may pug in no way makes the guild itself an asset to the community as a whole as they would be doing that anyway.

See?

The logic of opinion is just opinion.

I would like to know what a guild is, if not its membership? If that membership as a whole, regardless of size, is an asset or detriment to the community then that is what they are. They are an asset or a detriment, the only difference is numbers of individual assets or detriments under the same guild tag umbrella.

[Thayion516]

Wow! Man what happen to this thread to get it so derailed?

I dont care about semantics. I dont care about subjectivity. She said, She said. All that is irreverent to almost everyone iv talked to.

What the Bottom Line is this: The Old Renown system forced us to kick 155 casual members (most of which were good peeps) of our guild over the last year to get our decay under control so we can start leveling again. Thats a Hard Number, no subjectivity there. And we have also placed a No Casual Recruiting policy. No subjectivity there either.

Casual/New Players were restricting our advancement. Period.

^^ THIS is NOT how a MMO should function.

We want advancement with new players and casual friends. The system should be Player Friendly, NOT Player Restrictive.

I feel that decay should be in place. It does serve a purpose that i can see in game. But the old system was built badly and skewed Players Vs Play Time Vs Advancement. The decay was over the top for most guilds, with no way to fix it other then kick many people to get decay under control.

Iv spoken to most all my officers in my guild and a few other guild leaders on Ghallanda, and id say 17 out of 20 are in favor of:

1) Keeping some form of decay. But make it manageable. Most favored idea was Ship + Amenities Cost Renown, higher the level of amenity = more renown cost. That way the GL and Officers can control the bleed.

This optional natural decay would totally remove BOTH Size and Level decay formulas. And would be 100% a Choice to buy/not buy amenities.

^^^IM VERY MUCH IN FAVOR OF THIS!^^^

2) Finish the upper levels of the guild system for Amenities or distribute them better. Add some more amenities.

3) Cap the time a inactive player costs renown on a kick. Like after 90 days they cost nothing to kick. BUT increase the kick penalty to 75% or so for any Active members. This will prevent mass kicks.

These 3 things would GREATLY improve DDO's Guild System.

On a side note: i would LOVE! to see a small Apartment/Crewmens Quarters Instance (per toon, not account, not shared) on the top end ship so i can put like a Treasure Chest (20 Slots), Weapons Rack (holds 40 weapons), a Scroll Rack (holds 20 x100 stacks), a Armor Rack (20 armor slots) ect, ect, for additional storage. Turbine could sell the storage on the DDO store and make some $$ on it to boot. Id pay 500TP for a Weapons Rack on my guild ship!

[slarden]

Duplicate post - sorry

[slarden]

The basis is simple logic. If you see a flaw in it I would appreciate it being pointed out.

The flaws are simple. You are making assumptions about human behavior which by itself if illogical. People are complex and diverse. The number of possible scenarios is beyond what could be imagined. People are making decisions about what to do and not going to stick to your very narrow view of what they will do.

There is absolutely no basis to draw the conclusions you have about members of small guilds and their benefit to the DDO community. I get tells from people from large guilds that I've run with asking me for help with quests I know well and i help them out when I can. That was just one thing that wasn't factored into this small guild analysis..

I am really shocked that a discussion about guild renown has turned into an opportunity to bash small guilds for some of you. What is the point? Is it because the math won't support your conclusion so now you've resorted to just making a case that small guilds have no place in DDO?

I am sorry but I find this whole way of thinking about small guilds just wrong. Perhaps this sheds light on why some of us small guilds want to group with less people and avoid this kind of drama and negative commentary from random people we don't know. Turbine, please let those of us in small guilds enjoy the game our way. Thank you.

[Chaos000]

Are you still beating this dead horse? I already acknowledged several times that I knew a 1000 person guild did not exist. I was showing the range within the allowable boundaries of 1 to 1000. Since the decay is fixed, the math works the same for a guild of 200 as well and I showed that math.

I have no doubts - a 1000 account guild does not exist - we know 1000 character guilds exist but nobody has really put out a poll to find the largest guild by account as far as I know. The math still works with the actual account values from various large guilds.

Because nobody has really put out a poll to find the largest guild by account, when using math to show actual account values, the numbers you are using to represent a large guild is a generalization of the average size of a large guild.

The generalization that was being used for the math assumes that guilds consisting of 1000 accounts - later amended to 200+ accounts - is not that uncommon. If the percentage of small guilds that are elitist is so small that it shouldn't lead to any generalizations, using uncommon account values to represent large guilds is equally unfair and unwarranted.

You "should" be comparing the current largest guild (with an actual account value) that achieved the max guild level of 100 and comparing that to the smallest guild that achieved the max guild level of 100 because the minimum renown per account argument can then be realistically weighed against the guild size bonus.

My "belief" is that small guilds (at lvl 100) come out ahead with the guild size bonus with this comparison because my "experience" is that while I've encountered small guilds at lvl 100, I have "never" encountered a large guild at lvl 100. Therefore my conclusion is that large guilds at lvl 100 "could" exist but do not currently. So when I come across an example using "large guilds of 200+ accounts" I am assuming it can only be a comparison of two not very active guilds.

[Tshober]

By the same logic:

The people in large guilds is not the same thing as the large guilds. While the people in large guilds may temporarily help someone looking for a PUG group, so would any other random group of players. The fact that they are in a large guild makes no difference in that situation, unless at the end of the PUG a guild invite is offered.

Unless that large guild has a stated "save X spots for pugs" policy, the fact the people in the guild may pug in no way makes the guild itself an asset to the community as a whole as they would be doing that anyway.

See?

The logic of opinion is just opinion.

I would like to know what a guild is, if not its membership? If that membership as a whole, regardless of size, is an asset or detriment to the community then that is what they are. They are an asset or a detriment, the only difference is numbers of individual assets or detriments under the same guild tag umbrella.

What is a country? A city? An army? A club? An organization? A community? A corporation? A family?

All of these things are groups of people but they are also entities in their own right. And these entities are not just arbitrary groupings of individuals. The entities themselves have goals and take actions that are separate and aside from their individual members. Many people have trouble separating the individuals from the entities they are a part of. When I was trying to explain that it is logically flawed to rank guilds on renown by first dividing renown by the number of players, many people could not see the logical flaw because they could not separate the guild from the players who belong to it. They wanted to compare players and not compare guilds.

A guild is not merely an arbitrary collection of people any more than a country or a corporation is. The guild itself has goals and takes actions that are not merely the sum of all the actions and goals of the players who are in the guild. It is the same with countries and corporations and any other entity you can name that is a recognized organization made up of people.

[slarden]

Wow! Man what happen to this thread to get it so derailed?

I dont care about semantics. I dont care about subjectivity. She said, She said. All that is irreverent to almost everyone iv talked to.

What the Bottom Line is this: The Old Renown system forced us to kick 155 casual members (most of which were good peeps) of our guild over the last year to get our decay under control so we can start leveling again. Thats a Hard Number, no subjectivity there. And we have also placed a No Casual Recruiting policy. No subjectivity there either.

Casual/New Players were restricting our advancement. Period.

^^ THIS is NOT how a MMO should function.

We want advancement with new players and casual friends. The system should be Player Friendly, NOT Player Restrictive.

I feel that decay should be in place. It does serve a purpose that i can see in game. But the old system was built badly and skewed Players Vs Play Time Vs Advancement. The decay was over the top for most guilds, with no way to fix it other then kick many people to get decay under control.

Iv spoken to most all my officers in my guild and a few other guild leaders on Ghallanda, and id say 17 out of 20 are in favor of:

1) Keeping some form of decay. But make it manageable. Most favored idea was Ship + Amenities Cost Renown, higher the level of amenity = more renown cost. That way the GL and Officers can control the bleed.

This optional natural decay would totally remove BOTH Size and Level decay formulas. And would be 100% a Choice to buy/not buy amenities.

^^^IM VERY MUCH IN FAVOR OF THIS!^^^

2) Finish the upper levels of the guild system for Amenities or distribute them better. Add some more amenities.

3) Cap the time a inactive player costs renown on a kick. Like after 90 days they cost nothing to kick. BUT increase the kick penalty to 75% or so for any Active members. This will prevent mass kicks.

These 3 things would GREATLY improve DDO's Guild System.

On a side note: i would LOVE! to see a small Apartment/Crewmens Quarters Instance (per toon, not account, not shared) on the top end ship so i can put like a Treasure Chest (20 Slots), Weapons Rack (holds 40 weapons), a Scroll Rack (holds 20 x100 stacks), a Armor Rack (20 armor slots) ect, ect, for additional storage. Turbine could sell the storage on the DDO store and make some $$ on it to boot. Id pay 500TP for a Weapons Rack on my guild ship!

With regards to #3, my understanding is that a guild doesn't lose any renown for kicking someone that is inactive for more than a month. This is why most large guilds kick those that are inactive after a month. I could be wrong, but this is my understanding.

The inactives that were kicked do count towards your decay formula for some time after that - but I am not sure on the exact amount of time. This last point was under the old system and that doens't really matter under the new system.

[Chaos000]

At no point did I say I was referring to you

Thanks for the clarification. Your response to my post used a directed comment towards me so I was confused as to what I posted to give that impression.

Agreed. Everyone's entitled to their opinion so long as the opinion is not laced with blunt comments intended to demean the opposing argument. People can express their philosophy on what a guild is as a basis for their opinion, kind of the purpose of this forum as it relates to guild decay. Only the developers can dictate how to proceed.

[DocBenway]

A guild is not merely an arbitrary collection of people any more than a country or a corporation is. The guild itself has goals and takes actions that are not merely the sum of all the actions and goals of the players who are in the guild. It is the same with countries and corporations and any other entity you can name that is a recognized grouping of people.

This sounds good, in my opinion, but anything this thread has proven is that you cannot define a guild in a way that meets everyone's expectations.

The whole point of the post you're replying to was that a guild is a guild (comprised of and defined by its members). The size of it does not matter one bit except within the context of personal prejudices. I just replaced small with large in someone else's text-block.

[slarden]

Because nobody has really put out a poll to find the largest guild by account, when using math to show actual account values, the numbers you are using to represent a large guild is a generalization of the average size of a large guild.

The generalization that was being used for the math assumes that guilds consisting of 1000 accounts - later amended to 200+ accounts - is not that uncommon. If the percentage of small guilds that are elitist is so small that it shouldn't lead to any generalizations, using uncommon account values to represent large guilds is equally unfair and unwarranted.

You "should" be comparing the current largest guild (with an actual account value) that achieved the max guild level of 100 and comparing that to the smallest guild that achieved the max guild level of 100 because the minimum renown per account argument can then be realistically weighed against the guild size bonus.

My "belief" is that small guilds (at lvl 100) come out ahead with the guild size bonus with this comparison because my "experience" is that while I've encountered small guilds at lvl 100, I have "never" encountered a large guild at lvl 100. Therefore my conclusion is that large guilds at lvl 100 "could" exist but do not currently. So when I come across an example using "large guilds of 200+ accounts" I am assuming it can only be a comparison of two not very active guilds.

I showed one example with the theoretical maximum because someone else used the theoretical maximum in their post shortly before mine. All my other examples used 100 or 200 accounts. You are using this to discredit the math, but the math was right on and whether you use 100 or 200 in the example, the requirements of small guilds are much higher on a per account basis than large guids.

Your point about level 100 guilds is valid and I think everyone agrees with it. It's not possible for a guild of 200 to reach level 100, but it's also not possible for 99% of most small guilds to ever reach 100 and most will never hit 50. whether a guild is large or small reaching level 90+ requires high playing time and taking renown whenever possible of all members. Most small guilds don't have that level of dedication either. If there was a large population of hard core players the 200 member 100 level guild would exist, but those folks are not the norm and no guid will ever find 200 of those folks to make a hardcore large guild. By the way several guild leaders have stated their guid has 200+ accounts to that is not speculative.

it isn't about guild size, it is about hardcore players that are very dedicated to this hobby. I accepted that our small guild could never reach 100 or even 90 or maybe even 80 for that matter no matter how long we worked at it. This is because of our playing time per account and not because of our size.

[Thayion516]

With regards to #3, my understanding is that a guild doesn't lose any renown for kicking someone that is inactive for more than a month. This is why most large guilds kick those that are inactive after a month. I could be wrong, but this is my understanding.

The inactives that were kicked do count towards your decay formula for some time after that - but I am not sure on the exact amount of time. This last point was under the old system and that doens't really matter under the new system.

On a Kick they get counted as a departure with a % loss upon severance from the roster. Can't remember if its a Favorable departure at 10% loss or a Unfavorable at 25% but there is a % of that toon's renown lost upon kick.

Recent departures are all counted as Active on the Decay for 14 days after.

Inactives still on roster are not counted as Decay after 30 days. Hence they sit on roster forever cuz there is a Double penalty for kicking them.

.... lol .. what a horrible complex system.

The new formula is much better but obviouly not a permenant solution.

[DocBenway]

...

Inactives still on roster are not counted as Decay after 45 days. Hence they sit on roster forever cuz there is a Double penalty for kicking them...

It is(was) 30 days. When the Last Online listing changes from 4 weeks 1 day to 1 month, they are no longer counted in Modified Account Size.

[Tshober]

With regards to #3, my understanding is that a guild doesn't lose any renown for kicking someone that is inactive for more than a month. This is why most large guilds kick those that are inactive after a month. I could be wrong, but this is my understanding.
.

This is incorrect. Wait a month, a year, a decade, it costs you just as much to kick them.

[Thayion516]

It is(was) 30 days. When the Last Online listing changes from 4 weeks 1 day to 1 month, they are no longer counted in Modified Account Size.

Ben is right .. i edited my post to reflect.

[slarden]

On a Kick they get counted as a departure with a % loss upon severance from the roster. Can't remember if its a Favorable departure at 10% loss or a Unfavorable at 25% but there is a % of that toon's renown lost upon kick.

Recent departures are all counted as Active on the Decay for 14 days after.

Inactives still on roster are not counted as Decay after 30 days. Hence they sit on roster forever cuz there is a Double penalty for kicking them.

.... lol .. what a horrible complex system.

The new formula is much better but obviouly not a permenant solution.

Thank you for the detailed explanation That part of the system hasn't been anything that impacted us.