Guild Renown Changes

[Chaos000]

Then why are you against turning it off? Shouldn't take much work, I think.

Current system with decay: Ranking system
Current system without decay: Leveling system

Unless there's a reason for players to continue buying renown potions after their guilds have reached max level, changing the system to no longer include decay is akin to Turbine shooting themselves in the foot. There's a benefit to players continually pumping money into the system. More profits = paychecks for employees.

Small guilds are actually by far the most guilds out there, if I remember Vanshilar's count right.

I find it more realistic to believe that the total number of players in guild sizes 10+ would grossly outnumber the total number of players in guild sizes 10 or less.

One mega large guild is likely to encompass a large total of small guilds. We have to take into account the sum total of players affected over the number of groups affected.

[Dandonk]

Current system with decay: Ranking system
Current system without decay: Leveling system

Unless there's a reason for players to continue buying renown potions after their guilds have reached max level, changing the system to no longer include decay is akin to Turbine shooting themselves in the foot. There's a benefit to players continually pumping money into the system. More profits = paychecks for employees.

But with more small guilds up at higher levels, more TP spent on buying airships.

I find it more realistic to believe that the total number of players in guild sizes 10+ would grossly outnumber the total number of players in guild sizes 10 or less.

One mega large guild is likely to encompass a large total of small guilds. We have to take into account the sum total of players affected over the number of groups affected.

True, as far as it goes.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...21#post4782021

"Out of those 9845 guilds, 9475 had 150 or fewer characters (which I call "small"), 321 had between 151 and 500 characters ("medium"), and 49 had 501 or more characters ("large"). My size points are fairly arbitrary. Obviously I can only see character amounts (from MyDDO) and not actual account amounts, but it should be fairly obvious that there's a correlation between character amount and account amount."


There will have to be 193 times as many characters in the large guilds as there are in the small guilds. I'm not sure this is realistic.

[Artos_Fabril]

But with more small guilds up at higher levels, more TP spent on buying airships.

The differense is that Astral Shard sales (and note: the prices went up significantly with the change from diamonds to shards) for ships are one-time purchases, it's not like the ship wears out, and at max level all amenities will be available via plat, so those gold seal amenity sale would see a drop-off as well.

There is probably a way to make this work without making decay a roadblock to progress, but removing decay and making no other changes would be a short-term gain and long-term loss for Turbine.

True, as far as it goes.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...21#post4782021

"Out of those 9845 guilds, 9475 had 150 or fewer characters (which I call "small"), 321 had between 151 and 500 characters ("medium"), and 49 had 501 or more characters ("large"). My size points are fairly arbitrary. Obviously I can only see character amounts (from MyDDO) and not actual account amounts, but it should be fairly obvious that there's a correlation between character amount and account amount."


There will have to be 193 times as many characters in the large guilds as there are in the small guilds. I'm not sure this is realistic.

Vanshilar was also intelectually honest enough to note that the designation of 150 or fewer characters as "small" was totally arbitrary. For all of those guilds to have fewer than 10 accounts, each player would need to have 15 characters in the guild. In this rare case, Vanshilar didn't post his spreadsheets, and (let's be honest) I'm not motivated or invested enough in this to redo that work, but if you drop the threshhold for "small" to 90 characters, assuming an average of 9 characters per account in a small guild, in order to limit it only to guilds with fewer than 10 accounts, the numbers might well come up differently. (also, all of the guilds in the "Medium" category, except those with an average of more than 16 guilded characters per account benefited from the decay reduction.)

While small and medium guilds account for the majority of DDO players, players in guilds of fewer than 10 account are a much smaller subset. Even for guilds of 11 accounts, decay was reduced by ~9%, with the reduction increasing per account. The percentage decrease is equal to 10/n, where n is the number of accounts in the guild.

[slarden]

The problem with going by character count on my ddo is that it's highly inaccurate. It includes characters that have been long inactive and sometimes not even in the guild. The character count for our guild isn't even close.

A huge number of the people I run into are in guilds of 10 or less. I think it's a significant population and probably a larger percentage if you look at VIPs at least based on my experience. I am sure the devs know the #s and I don' think they were a factor in the current system we have.

One other thing to note because it keeps coming up. There is no basis to assume that people in large guilds are less active and/or more casual than people in small guilds. Those comparisons only work when using level 90+ small guilds as examples which make up far less than 1% of all the small guilds. Most small guilds are less than level 50.

Guild elixirs lol. Turbine's only chance to keep selling those are that people buying don't understand the system. If you understand the system and how rigged it is against small guilds, you would realize how foolish it is to buy those. I will use up what I have and won't buy any more.

As for ships being a one-time purchase. There are 3 total ships to buy and new guilds are forming all the time. It's a recurring revenue stream if small guilds are supported and encouraged. Under the current system the level 55 ship is the last purchase for most small guilds.

[slarden]

Current system with decay: Ranking system
Current system without decay: Leveling system

Unless there's a reason for players to continue buying renown potions after their guilds have reached max level, changing the system to no longer include decay is akin to Turbine shooting themselves in the foot. There's a benefit to players continually pumping money into the system. More profits = paychecks for employees.




I find it more realistic to believe that the total number of players in guild sizes 10+ would grossly outnumber the total number of players in guild sizes 10 or less.

One mega large guild is likely to encompass a large total of small guilds. We have to take into account the sum total of players affected over the number of groups affected.

The current system as it is a leveling system for large guilds and a distorted ranking system for small guilds. It doesn't work as a ranking system under the current model at all - not even close.

Only the devs know the #s, but for epic level content I don't believe it's insignificant.

[Artos_Fabril]

One other thing to note because it keeps coming up. There is no basis to assume that people in large guilds are less active and/or more casual than people in small guilds. Those comparisons only work when using level 90+ small guilds as examples which make up far less than 1% of all the small guilds. Most small guilds are less than level 50.

This from someone who's signature seems to claim that large guilds of 200 or more active accounts are the norm for large guilds? (I am a member a large guild that sat at or near the character cap before MotU, and now contains about 800 characters and about 125 accounts. I am also in a small guild of just RL friends on a different server. It has 5 accounts and 38 characters.) If we take Vanshilar's numbers, but draw the line at 80 characters assuming a generous average of 8 guilded characters per account, I strongly suspect that we will see that the vast majority of guilds (and players) experienced a reduction in decay under the new system. The minimum reduction in decay, for an 11-account guild, is about 9.1%

Guild elixirs lol. Turbine's only chance to keep selling those are that people buying don't understand the system. If you understand the system and how rigged it is against small guilds, you would realize how foolish it is to buy those. I will use up what I have and won't buy any more.

Guild elixir bonus is multiplied by the small guild bonus, this seems to strongly favor small guilds, and is part of the reason that optimized 6-person hyper-active guilds were able to advance so quickly under the old system. The fact that you feel the entire decay system is rigged against small guilds, does not make it a fact that the entire decay system is rigged against small guilds. For instance, If I am the only renown collector for my friends-only 5-account guild, and I run a major renown pot, a single heroic deeds will cover decay up to level 36. A single tales of victory will cover decay up to level 44. If the renown multiplier from the elixirs was added to the small guild bonus, instead of multiplied by it, you might have a valid point. If instead, you claimed that the leveling system itself was rigged against small guilds, you might also have a point. That was certainly Vanshilar's assessment, which had little if anything to do with decay itself.

As for ships being a one-time purchase. There are 3 total ships to buy and new guilds are forming all the time. It's a recurring revenue stream if small guilds are supported and encouraged. Under the current system the level 55 ship is the last purchase for most small guilds.

Since we don't have estimates on the number of guilds that purchase the "premium" ships versus the plat ships currently, and are even less able to make predictions about the number of premium versus plat ships that will be purchased if all guilds see consistent level increases, in my estimation it is more likely that guilds (especially small guilds, who split the cost among fewer people) will hold off on spending TP for ships they expect to grow out of. Maybe I'm way off on that, given the number of holiday boxes people are buying, but we really don't have enough data to make any sort of predictive analysis, and it's unlikely that turbine has that data (yet) either.

[slarden]

This from someone who's signature seems to claim that large guilds of 200 or more active accounts are the norm for large guilds? (I am a member a large guild that sat at or near the character cap before MotU, and now contains about 800 characters and about 125 accounts. I am also in a small guild of just RL friends on a different server. It has 5 accounts and 38 characters.) If we take Vanshilar's numbers, but draw the line at 80 characters assuming a generous average of 8 guilded characters per account, I strongly suspect that we will see that the vast majority of guilds (and players) experienced a reduction in decay under the new system. The minimum reduction in decay, for an 11-account guild, is about 9.1%

Guild elixir bonus is multiplied by the small guild bonus, this seems to strongly favor small guilds, and is part of the reason that optimized 6-person hyper-active guilds were able to advance so quickly under the old system. The fact that you feel the entire decay system is rigged against small guilds, does not make it a fact that the entire decay system is rigged against small guilds. For instance, If I am the only renown collector for my friends-only 5-account guild, and I run a major renown pot, a single heroic deeds will cover decay up to level 36. A single tales of victory will cover decay up to level 44. If the renown multiplier from the elixirs was added to the small guild bonus, instead of multiplied by it, you might have a valid point. If instead, you claimed that the leveling system itself was rigged against small guilds, you might also have a point. That was certainly Vanshilar's assessment, which had little if anything to do with decay itself.


Since we don't have estimates on the number of guilds that purchase the "premium" ships versus the plat ships currently, and are even less able to make predictions about the number of premium versus plat ships that will be purchased if all guilds see consistent level increases, in my estimation it is more likely that guilds (especially small guilds, who split the cost among fewer people) will hold off on spending TP for ships they expect to grow out of. Maybe I'm way off on that, given the number of holiday boxes people are buying, but we really don't have enough data to make any sort of predictive analysis, and it's unlikely that turbine has that data (yet) either.

The devs know the #s. You do not, but your assertions do not match what I see on Sarlona.

I have friends in a guild of 300 accounts. They were stuck at level 60 and have been able to move to level 68 under the new systrem. They will have no trouble advancing to 100 and keeping it. I am happy for them. These guilds do exist despite your comment above. I have another friend in a small guild that is stuck at level 52. They are still stuck at level 52 and if they ever make 53 I doubt they would keep it due to the increased renown ransack penalty. The system needs to be changed.

The systerm is clearly rigged against people in small guilds. A small guild may need 8x or 9x or 10x more renown/person/day just to cover some artbitrary decay #. Why should a person in a small guild receive an excessive penalty simply due to the size of their guild? It makes no sense and it needs to be changed. The leveling aspect is fine, but it makes no sense to take away more earned renown from a player in a small guild.

Guild elixirs don't help. For a small guild, all they do is get you to a level you are stuck at faster. It's a fool's game.

[Chaos000]

The systerm is clearly rigged against people in small guilds. A small guild may need 8x or 9x or 10x more renown/person/day just to cover some artbitrary decay #. Why should a person in a small guild receive an excessive penalty simply due to the size of their guild? It makes no sense and it needs to be changed. The leveling aspect is fine, but it makes no sense to take away more earned renown from a player in a small guild.

The system is clearly rigged against a lack of activity as clearly evidence by a decline in rank. Rank is measure in levels. It is not a leveling aspect it is a ranking aspect.

In the old system decay is based on size and not level. Adding a member would increase decay, removing a member would decrease the decay. A player's worth is now directly tied to their level of activity.

A guild of 6 could reach max rank this is not a theoretical impossibility as there are real examples of this.

In the new system decay is based on level and not size. Adding or removing a member would not affect decay.

A guild with at least 6 active players could reach max rank. Adding a player regardless of their level of activity (1 valor a month?) is a bonus and will not count against the guild as a whole.

It is more fair to say that the system is clearly rigged against any guild that do not have at least 6 active players.

[Dandonk]

It is more fair to say that the system is clearly rigged against any guild that do not have at least 6 active players.

I don't see it like this, not solely.

Sure it rewards activity. But a 100 account guild needs to be a LOT less active, on average, than a 10 man guild - just to combat decay.

[slarden]

The system is clearly rigged against a lack of activity as clearly evidence by a decline in rank. Rank is measure in levels. It is not a leveling aspect it is a ranking aspect.

In the old system decay is based on size and not level. Adding a member would increase decay, removing a member would decrease the decay. A player's worth is now directly tied to their level of activity.

A guild of 6 could reach max rank this is not a theoretical impossibility as there are real examples of this.

In the new system decay is based on level and not size. Adding or removing a member would not affect decay.

A guild with at least 6 active players could reach max rank. Adding a player regardless of their level of activity (1 valor a month?) is a bonus and will not count against the guild as a whole.

It is more fair to say that the system is clearly rigged against any guild that do not have at least 6 active players.

A player's worth is not tied to activity. A player from a small guild has 10x more of their renown taken away than someone just as active in a large guild.

We used to have a ranking system - it no longer works.

The level 100 6 person guild example doesn't work. It represents far less than 1% of guilds.

The issue is that people in small guilds have more of their renown taken away than people in large guilds.

[Chaos000]

A player's worth is not tied to activity.

Perhaps not now but it definitely was before. When adding a player increased decay and removing that player decreased decay, then if the player could not gain more than their personal decay, they were removed for the benefit of the guild.

I do agree that a players worth *should not* be tied to activity. I find it disingenuous to believe that a players worth wasn't tied to guild renown gain under the old system.

A player from a small guild has 10x more of their renown taken away than someone just as active in a large guild.

Yes, a player from a smaller guild could have 10x more of their renown taken away than someone just as active in a larger guild when you assess the math based on the individual as opposed to the group as a whole.

A player from a less active guild could have 10x more of their renown taken away than someone just as active in a more active guild that is equal in size. It's not a guild size issue.

We used to have a ranking system - it no longer works.

If a theoretical guild of 500 at lvl 100, had all their renown gaining players switch to a different server for a couple months and this would result in a loss of ranks due to a decrease in activity... I'd say the system is working as intended. If decay was no longer a factor for large guilds, a decline in rank would not even be a possibility.

The level 100 6 person guild example doesn't work. It represents far less than 1% of guilds.

The level 100 6 person guild doesn't have to represent any percentage of the guilds. The exception disproves the rule. A guild of any size now only need the equivalent renown gain of 6 highly active players in order to reach level 100.

The issue is that people in small guilds have more of their renown taken away than people in large guilds.

The issue is that people in smaller guilds have more of their renown taken away than people in larger guilds.

For example:
A tiny guild of 1 have more of their renown taken away than people of a tiny guild of 10.
A small guild of 11 have more of their renown taken away than people in a small guild of 25.
A medium guild of 26 have more of their renown taken away than people in a medium guild of 50.
A large guild of 51 have more of their renown taken away than people in a large guild of 500.

I know this is a loaded question but am I wrong in my assessment?

[Nestroy]

(...)If a theoretical guild of 500 at lvl 100, had all their renown gaining players switch to a different server for a couple months and this would result in a loss of ranks due to a decrease in activity... I'd say the system is working as intended. If decay was no longer a factor for large guilds, a decline in rank would not even be a possibility.(...)

There is the problem, really. For a lv. 100 guild to fall below any significant level it takes time. You need 1.5m renown to get to lv. 100 from lv. 99. With the current decay you loose about 29k / day @ lv. 99. So it takes the same guild about 50 days to loose enough renown to get from near-to lv. 100 down to lv. 98. Then renown decay changes again, gets less. So for any of these high-up guilds to loose in level significantly it takes not months, but years!!! So renown decay in the current system is not an option to weed out inactivie guilds. It´s only an option to annoy small guilds.

[Chaos000]

So for any of these high-up guilds to lose in level significantly it takes not months, but years!!!

So what I'm hearing is that the renown decay should not decrease when a guild declines in rank?

[Dandonk]

So what I'm hearing is that the renown decay should not decrease when a guild declines in rank?

What I was hearing is that decay is so minor for large guilds that it may as well not even exist. So why does it exist for small guilds, when it obviously isn't a problem for Turbine that at least some guilds do not suffer from any meaningful decay?

[Chaos000]

What I was hearing is that decay is so minor for large guilds that it may as well not even exist. So why does it exist for small guilds, when it obviously isn't a problem for Turbine that at least some guilds do not suffer from any meaningful decay?

How large does a guild have to be that decay is so minor that it may as well not even exist? (51? 100? 200? 500? they're all classified as large)

I find this to be a purely subjective statement. Two guilds of equal size, one of whom have a higher number of consistent renown gaining players (I would prefer to use "active" but don't want to be bogged down with semantics). Decay hits both guilds equally but the guild with a lower number of consistently renown gaining players will be affected by decay more. = less players meeting a higher burden

Decay only increases for smaller guilds if you assume that guild decay is distributed among each member equally. It takes a large number of "I play an hour every month" player to make up the equivalent renown gain of a "I play every day renown farming" player Larger guilds are only advantaged if we assume that a "higher number" of players are gaining "some" renown with no additional penalty.

Are we saying that in the current system (if it's to remain a ranked system) casual players should also merit an increase in decay for the guild even if some will end up counting against the guild increasing their burden? or a casual players renown gain should not "count" because the player no longer adds a burden to the guild?

[Dandonk]

How large does a guild have to be that decay is so minor that it may as well not even exist? (51? 100? 200? 500? they're all classified as large)

Even a 50 account guild has a decay/account that's a third of a 10-man guild. That's an extreme bonus, and it gets worse (or better, depending on your take) from there.

I find this to be a purely subjective statement. Two guilds of equal size, one of whom have a higher number of consistent renown gaining players (I would prefer to use "active" but don't want to be bogged down with semantics). Decay hits both guilds equally but the guild with a lower number of consistently renown gaining players will be affected by decay more. = less players meeting a higher burden

Decay only increases for smaller guilds if you assume that guild decay is distributed among each member equally. It takes a large number of "I play an hour every month" player to make up the equivalent renown gain of a "I play every day renown farming" player Larger guilds are only advantaged if we assume that a "higher number" of players are gaining "some" renown with no additional penalty.

So it's OK to be casual in a large guild, but not a small?

Are we saying that in the current system (if it's to remain a ranked system) casual players should also merit an increase in decay for the guild even if some will end up counting against the guild increasing their burden? or a casual players renown gain should not "count" because the player no longer adds a burden to the guild?

I don't really know what you mean here.

What I'm saying is that Turbine has gone away from decay being a core mechanic of their system. Therefore, why not do away with it entirely?

[Chaos000]

Even a 50 account guild has a decay/account that's a third of a 10-man guild. That's an extreme bonus, and it gets worse (or better, depending on your take) from there.

A 500 account guild has a decay/account that is more than a third less than a 51 man guild. Funny thing is they are both defined as large guilds. Decay/guild exactly the same at each rank.

So it's OK to be casual in a large guild, but not a small?

It's ok to be casual in a small guild. In fact regardless of your activity you will always bring value to any guild you join. Guilds that will now be able to reach the highest rank always had the renown gain to match a smaller guild able to reach the highest rank.

[Dalsheel]

there is the problem, really. For a lv. 100 guild to fall below any significant level it takes time. You need 1.5m renown to get to lv. 100 from lv. 99. With the current decay you loose about 29k / day @ lv. 99. So it takes the same guild about 50 days to loose enough renown to get from near-to lv. 100 down to lv. 98. Then renown decay changes again, gets less. so for any of these high-up guilds to loose in level significantly it takes not months, but years!!! so renown decay in the current system is not an option to weed out inactivie guilds. It´s only an option to annoy small guilds.

+1

[Dandonk]

A 500 account guild has a decay/account that is more than a third less than a 51 man guild. Funny thing is they are both defined as large guilds. Decay/guild exactly the same at each rank.

But decay/player is immensely larger for small guilds.

It's ok to be casual in a small guild. In fact regardless of your activity you will always bring value to any guild you join. Guilds that will now be able to reach the highest rank always had the renown gain to match a smaller guild able to reach the highest rank.

Wut?

A casual player will be a problem, renown-wise, in a small guild in a way he'll never be in a large guild.

But it seems your "solution" is to force guilds to change. I don't think that is a good solution, though - forcing people to play in ways they may not want to. There ought to be room for all kinds of players and guilds - just like the original system goals.

[Chaos000]

But decay/player is immensely larger for small guilds

Decay/player in a ranked system is immensely larger for guilds with a smaller number of players that are active. Guilds of all sizes (Small, Medium, Large) all face this and it is not exclusive to small guilds.

A casual player will be a problem, renown-wise, in a small guild in a way he'll never be in a large guild.

A casual player "was" a problem in the old system because removing them decreased decay and in some cases increased the guild size bonus.

Larger guilds tend to not have a guild size bonus so I concede that your statement is true.

In the new system, the only way a casual player would be a problem is if the increase in the guild size bonus gained by removing them exceeded their renown gain. Guilds that do not have a guild size bonus will not have the minimum activity requirement to be of worth that the guild size bonus does. However, you'll be happy to know that at no point will the act of removing a player decrease decay.

My "solution" is to identify the issue and suggest feasible ideas to make it worth ($) the effort for Turbine to consider the change.

If changing the ranking system to a leveling system will increase sales and sustain demand for renown potions to guilds at cap... it makes sense to me.