Guild Renown Changes

[Postumus]

They do not appear worse off that large guilds, they ARE worse off. The difference in renown earning potential between my 16 account guild and the 100+ account guilds is staggering and the small guild bonus on renown earned is not even a drop in the bucket in comparison.

Did your guild lose a level? Does your guild need to earn more renown than before? Did anything change for your guild?

Answers: No. No. No.

It sounds like you are upset that larger guilds can now get to 100 faster than your guild. Why would that bother you? How does that affect your guild in any way?

[FranOhmsford]

I appreciate that the devs are trying to please a very vocal portion of the player base, but this was not the way to do it.

OK I admit I've been vocal about the guild renown problems HOWEVER:

My Guild on Cannith has NEVER had more than 40 members {accounts} at one time - We went over 30 only recently just for a bunch of the new recruits to disappear as always {Meaning that I've had to boot inactives and we're back down to 21}.

This is NOT the change I was looking for - This change does absolutely nothing to help my small guild - We're not under 11 accounts so don't get massive bonuses to renown earned either!
We're in exactly the same position we were in before ONLY now it's the Large {well known} guilds that will take all the new players {with no penalty}.
The tiny guilds will carry on as before - We all know they have no issues with levelling anyway.
It's the Small Guilds that are still in the brown stuff.

There's a number of changes the devs could make:

1. Small Guild Max Size upped to 50 {or even 100}.
2. Renown Drops {Realistic ones} added to Slayers, Crafting, Overlevelling etc.
3. Increased Drops of Impressive Trophies and Leg Vics on Elite at Level Content.
4. Remove Renown Penalty for booting Inactives {2 or Even 3 Months required rather than 1 to become Inactive}.
ETC.

But they instead go for the quick fix - This is gonna end in tears!

[Susalona]

This sounds more like envy than identifying an actual problem for small guilds. There is nothing preventing small guilds from recruiting more people if what you want to do is race up to 100.

This is the exact same thing people were saying to members of large, struggling guilds a week ago. Telling them to change their playstyle to suit the guild system, which rewarded smaller guilds. Lots of people hated that idea, so the system got changed to this. Now I am getting told the exact same thing and I am just about as happy about it as those people were last week. I hate it, and if you don't see the inequality of this system then it is because you don't want to.

My guild will NEVER be significantly larger that it is now, no matter the the guild system, because we are a group of friends that know each other well and that is something you just can't get with a larger guild. I don't think we should be punished for that any more that people last week thought they should be punished for having many casual members.

[susiedupfer]

Fot listening, for trying something fast.

[Bart_D]

Looking at post #17 on page 1... does this mean that in a 1000-account guild, each account will only have to earn 68 renown per day to maintain level 100? It will be enough to get there too, though it will obviously be much faster if they earn more.

If that's what it means, guild level will become just as much a function of size as of activity. If you want a higher guild level, just recruit someone anyone. How lame is that?

I might be misunderstanding something obvious, but making decay independent of guild size does not seem like a good change. Then I think it might be better to look at the way guild size is calculated. I don't think i have a perfect solution, but it should be possile to do in a way that does not require people who play little to earn as much favor as those playing a lot. I'm not sure 'renown per hour per account' should replace 'renown per account' but it might be possible to consider the amount of time online in a sensible way. Maybe let an account's contribution to guild size be a sum of Sqr(Hours Logged In) for a number of days, maybe with most recent days weighing more than previous days? There are lots of ways to do this.

[Psyker]

I love the idea of making decay not be affected by the number of players in a guild. The next move I would like to see is inactive players being kicked from a guild not costing the guild renown. Maybe make a mechanic that checks to see the players last log in, and if they had not logged in for however many days is considered to be inactive (maybe 60) then the guild does not lose renown for removing the player. Or maybe they don't lose the renown at first but that player will have an option to "leave on bad terms" when they next login (maybe have that option expire after a month or two after they have been removed).

The big key is I hate to see guilds trying to make decisions about whether or not to remove inactive players based on the effect it will have on their renown.

[rdasca]

Obviously this is only the first step in fixing an ongoing problem, intentionally or not, when airships where introduced it changed how guilds where formed and maintained.

The old style of renown decay is without a doubt unfair to causal guilds, this is a fact that one can argue if they choose to do so; however, calling the sun the moon does not change the fact it is still the sun.

Reducing the decay factor is fine in and by itself does not do enough to address the underlying problem, people are people and base human nature people want to feel like they are progressing, in fact that is the sole reason Turbine has a product to sell, if people did not progress in this game, i.e. levels, loot, better toons, then there would be zero players. So people want their guild level to move forward, at a rate comparable to others putting in similar effort.

If this is the only change that is made (permanent or not) then it is a very bad idea and one that will lead to a lot more hard feelings then there already was over this issue. All it will do is create mass recruiting guilds much worse than anything we have seen before now. Look at the numbers, the number of people in small to medium guild is far greater than those in large guilds.

Some will say “well large guilds work at it to” or “so what small guilds will get there sooner or later” while this is true would you play a game that you leveled your toons 2 times or 10 times faster only if you where in a guild of 100 people or more and if you where in a guild of 5 you never leveled past 12? Not the same? Maybe not but the sentiment is the same.

Bottom line, this is a right first step, next step either do away with decay and only penalize for kicking people out of guilds, say 100% or come up with a way to level the playing field completely.

[Silverleafeon]

Interesting.
Don't quite understand the numbers but overall this looks like a good thing.
Looks like there were two multipliers and now there is just one.

Hmm...have to ask Thalzur to figure this out for me.

Just wondering, our very small guild has 6 accounts, 3 with members that bring in renown,
and 3 accounts just designed to bring our rooster up to 6, since the renown was much better
with 6 activate accounts instead of 3 or 4.

With this possibly new system, can we drop those 3 blank accounts?

http://ddowiki.com/page/Guild_Renown..._decay_formula

Edit, looks like this is a decay adjustment, and the six account is done for
the Guild renown bonus which is entirely separate.
So we stick with our 6 accounts.

[mondo]

Is bringing up a guilds name not against the rules, why is ok to keep bringing up this guild without worry of repercusion?

Just wondering I know I would be offended if someone said "we dont want Fine Antique Leg Wear style of guild advancing to level 100" just saying.

[Tshober]

They do not appear worse off that large guilds, they ARE worse off. The difference in renown earning potential between my 16 account guild and the 100+ account guilds is staggering and the small guild bonus on renown earned is not even a drop in the bucket in comparison.

I don't see how you can say you are any worse off than you were before. You are still working your way steadily toward level 100 and now, with this change, you will get there a bit faster than you would have before.

To be all distraught over the possibility that someone else might get there first because they have more members is, well, I am trying to think of a nice term for it. If it truly bothers you that much that you might not get to the top level as fast as a bigger guild, then you could always recruit more members. You know, join the inclusive crowd. If you don't want to be more inclusive and you prefer a small guild then, again, you have nothing to complain about because you still get to enjoy the benefit of not having to have all those unwanted guild mates and the small guild renown bonus benefit and you still get to level 100 eventually as well. I don't see what you could possibly complain about.

[Silverleafeon]

Oh, by the way, I have friends in large guilds although I am in a very small guild.
I am happy for them.

Let us see what will happen...

[Tshober]

My guild will NEVER be significantly larger that it is now, no matter the the guild system, because we are a group of friends that know each other well and that is something you just can't get with a larger guild. I don't think we should be punished for that any more that people last week thought they should be punished for having many casual members.

No, there is a big difference. The people who were complaining about the system before this change were complaining that their guild could NEVER get to the higher levels. There is a huge, gigantic difference between leveling up slowly and never leveling up at all. Also, the old system strongly encouraged all guilds to exclude casual/social players so that DDO's social environment as a whole was harmed. That has been greatly reduced with this change. Now guilds are no longer rewarded for excluding casual/social players and for not inviting new players into their membership and the overall social environment should benefit from that. So, in summary, the two complaints are not at all equivalent.

[theslimshady]

To all whom have not suffered the pain a large guild has suffered for the past 2 years of decay and the idea of large korthos style army taken over you really dont know what you are talking about .
First off the most common mistake is that the cap is 1000 toons not accounts and i know few to no people who play only one toon.
Second i am co leader of the largest highest level guild across the servers as far as i know and i have never recruitted in korthos or even asked people to join my guild ever .
Third being called lazy non raiding spammer and the 1000s of names we have been called in a almost daily bulling {and from the same people that pillfer my players when they need to fill there ranks} is like stuff wars start over.
This change for my guild will mean a daily net gain of renown earned instead of bleeding certain days of the week and having to endoar any more of this little uber guilds ridicule

so in closing thank you ddo it is like a early christmas present that now me and my guild can look forward to the mabar and winterfest this year instead of dreading the decay ---------- leader For loot and Glory

[chrisdinus7]

If this is the solution, they might as well remove guild levels altogether. Decay will now only be significant for small guilds or extremely casual guilds. What is the point? Just make everyone guild level 100 and be done with it. Don't make us spam invites to random people we have no intention of playing with to level a guild.

[Talonaise]

I will add my thanks to the devs for exploring this issue. As a member of a large guild who has a mix of hard core and casual players, it seems this will help us.

I look forward to seeing how it goes this week.

I am not sure what the issue is if 1 guild reaches 100 or 1000. Honestly, the advantages are not that great to hit the top. But it will be nice to see forward progress again. The system as it was just did not work.

[Tshober]

We know there's some players who have likely spent as much or more time thinking about these things as we have individually. Feel free to discuss pros and cons, such as whether or not 1000 player guilds reaching and staying at level 100 is a problem that needs solving.

First, thanks so much for making this change!

With all due respect, there are no 1000 player guilds. The current guild cap is a 1000 member or 1000 character cap, not an account or player cap. Few players have just one character. Many have lots of alts. So in reality the larger guilds are typically a few hundred players/accounts.

I don't like having all guilds sitting at 100 eventually with nothing else to accomplish. I would like see the guild levels extended so all guilds will be able to continually progress. I made such a suggestion here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=385226 a few months ago.

[t0r012]

This was a relatively simple change we could try make without bringing down a server, today instead of months from now. We're still happy to hear ways to manage guilds of different sizes reasonably while also not motivating guilds to kick players.

We know there's some players who have likely spent as much or more time thinking about these things as we have individually. Feel free to discuss pros and cons, such as whether or not 1000 player guilds reaching and staying at level 100 is a problem that needs solving.

As to the Red section above

I'm curious as to the phrasing of this statement.
To me this indicates that you are attempting to use renown as a means of "managing" guild sizes.
Yet that stated purpose does/has not been apparent to me as the actual goal of renown decay.

I had been going under the assumption, deduced from the way renown decay is implemented, that decay was provided as an incentive for guilds to keep majority and or large portions of their members active, engaged and playing. Just as the ships and amenities were rewards for accomplishing those goals.
This seemed logical to me as it is in turbines best interest to have in place a system where guilds are rewarded for promoting activity within their guild as it generates more screen time and thus more possible revenue opportunities.

---
as for the second part about feedback on level 100 guilds of 1000 players I am all in favor of it, IF and only if it is handled in such a way that encourages more active players to generate more revenue for turbine keep this game that I love running.

-----

I am sorry but I see these changes as a loss of focus of the original goal of the renown decay system. Yes this is still based on an assumption I have made about the decay system which may be completely inaccurate.

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"I feel I have to kick my friends from the guild because they don't play enough" should not really factor near as much in to the decision to change the decay formula as many think it should.

first - it is a choice of the guild leader to prioritize benefits of guild size over friendship. If a 30 sonic resist shrine is more important than having your buddy in the guild well how much of a friend are they really?

which leads me to point two

if said friend is not active and playing enough for a guilds liking , is not the guild at least partially responsible for not engaging said player?

on to point 3
is it really the end of the world if a semi active or low activity player does get removed from a their friends guild? it is not as if removing said player from the guild will prevent them from playing with their friend in the future. It is not as if that friend is banished from DDO or even prevented from running with their former guild mates. How does turbine gain from a semi active friend not getting removed from a guild anymore than if the player is removed.
++
Side note
the "i don't want to have to kick my friends" has to me always sounded as a means of someone justifying their decision to remove people from a guild to assuage their guilt.
+++

Wow this post has gotten larger than I anticipated so let me see if I can summarize my thoughts.
I don't mind seeing renown decay changes IF it means a stronger game with a larger more active playerbase.
please do not just capitulate to the vocal forum-goers who just want moar without the sacrifice and or effort to earn the rewards.

lastly if I am completely off base with my assumption about the renown decay systems original intention of being a means to motivate guilds to keep their players active , dear silver flame, please let me know now so I don't make anymore of a fool of myself.

[Jay203]

please leave us solo guilds out of this

[Beethoven]

They do not appear worse off that large guilds, they ARE worse off. The difference in renown earning potential between my 16 account guild and the 100+ account guilds is staggering and the small guild bonus on renown earned is not even a drop in the bucket in comparison.

That's assuming DDO's playerbase consists almost exclusively of automatons devoid of an own personality, who habitually make their homes among hundreds and thousands of strangers instead of preferring a privacy of being with only family and friends (or like-minded individuals).

Blind inviting guilds have sprung up ever since DDO exists and they all fallen apart within months; not because they were killed by any system but because you cannot simply through several hundred strangers into one community and expect they will life happily ever after.

Vets frequently fled those guilds within a couple months because the whole guild started feel like a pug. New(er) players often complained about the lack of support from their guild (beyond ship buffs) and when making own connections and friends among other players they too drifted away.

Those large guilds that persisted usually grew large over time. Those large(-ish) guilds that actually lasted were those guilds who gradually gave the one or other new member a try, kept their doors open for (casual) family members such as the wife/hubby/cousin/sister or even children of existing members and those friends who only wanted to give DDO a try every now and then. All large guilds I know have a significantly higher turn-around in members then their smaller counterparts.

Small guilds still can achieve and maintain high levels and frequently enjoy the advantage of being more tight knit and thus also have less turn around. Guilds who grew large through blind invites are going to fall apart within months like they always did. No one is getting punished. The only ones to ever got punished were those who allowed their spouses who only played twice a week to join their guild or who allowed their kids to join but then only let them play a couple hours a week.

[Tshober]

As to the Red on to point 3
is it really the end of the world if a semi active or low activity player does get removed from a their friends guild? it is not as if removing said player from the guild will prevent them from playing with their friend in the future. It is not as if that friend is banished from DDO or even prevented from running with their former guild mates.

If casual/social players are made to feel unwelcome in DDO's guilds, it just makes it more likely they will leave DDO for a gaming environment that is more tolerant of their chosen playstyle. Virtually no other MMO has a guild decay system like DDO had before this recent change.

lastly if I am completely off base with my assumption about the renown decay systems original intention of being a means to motivate guilds to keep their players active , dear silver flame, please let me know now so I don't make anymore of a fool of myself.

The best way to get people to play more is to make them feel welcome in the game and give them the freedom to play the game the way they want to play it. The guild decay system failed miserably on both of those counts.