Guild Renown Changes

[Vargouille]

Taking that away is like saying small guilds have to recruit, what if we dont want too? I like the other change, but give us back our small guild bonus

Small guild bonuses weren't touched. If you are saying you were getting them Sunday but aren't any more, there's a bug.

[Gremmlynn]

The inequities are that the system is far more rewarding to larger guilds. A six-person guild receives 4x renown, so each person accomplishes what 4 people can do. That means that they are functionally equivalent to a 24 person guild. A guild with more than 24 active people in it will gain renown at a faster rate than a six-person guild, and it will increase significantly when you get up to 100 or 200 people in your guild.

That's the problem-- with flat-rate renown decay, the bonus small guilds receive can't begin to keep up with the amount large guilds earn. The bonus small guilds receive needs to be increased for the system to be fair to them.

Why does anyone have to keep up with anyone else? It can't be to be more attractive to new recruits, as that seems to be something a 6 member guild has no interest in doing or they would have more than 6 members already? So, what other reason does anyone have to give a rotten fig about another guild's advancement?

The only thing I can think of is they no longer feel they get an advantage by only surrounding themselves with the leetest, most hardcore group of players around. Basically the system no longer rewards them for avoiding the unwashed masses.

Personally, if this change means a larger number of less active players have a greater opportunity to play with the more active players that make guilds functional systems, I could care less why those more active players want them around. Symbiosis is wonderful, the more active players get faster guild levels from recruiting wider and the less active players get active guildies to play with from being recruited. Everything else is just fluff.

[WilliamBraveheart]

So far I love this change we are no longer fighting just to maintain our level and are actually beginning to slowly climb. We have a very large guild and had quit recruiting. if these changes stay we will again begin to recruit.

[madmaxhunter]

Yet Over Raided was able to reach level 100 because the guild leader and officers set up an environment where despite the lack of available playtime, members could be productive when they do have time to log in. The proof for how to level a guild is staring detractors in the face -- yet all they can reply with are snarky comments without ever addressing the substance of what I say, and continue claiming that they have no option but to boot all those poor casuals.

People who complain about the renown system meaning they have to boot casuals have learned exactly the wrong lesson about the system's social dynamics, showing that their priority is on fishing around the player base for active players (i.e. easy to get in and then easy to boot if the player isn't on often enough for the guild leader's liking), rather than improving on the players in the guild so that they will naturally want to log in (and then the renown will naturally flow from their playing the game). In short, the system was fundamentally about maximizing gains (encourage members to log in by making the guild a fun place to be) to get from the mid levels to the high levels, while these people focused on making it into being about minimizing losses (booting the members that are deemed to not be gaining enough renown, and then complaining that "the system" is making them do it).

That Turbine would cave in to demagoguery instead of well-documented reasoning is somewhat disappointing. The arguments are continually debunked and I've repeatedly shown that they exaggerate claims about their own guild to try to sway the forum community. Let this sink in for a moment. I've shown multiple times that what people claim about their own guild to complain about decay is in fact false. It's perhaps not surprising that these people then resort to histrionics such as claiming that the renown system makes them kill their close, personal friends, yet these are the arguments that Turbine chooses to pay attention to.

If Turbine were interested in getting players "hooked" on the game and wanting to play it more (and spend money on the game as a corollary), incentive systems such as the guild renown system should be designed around benefiting guilds that are successful at encouraging members to log in and play, that spends the time to invest in each player in the guild. The change to renown decay instead encourages guilds to simply induct as many members as possible and treat players as faceless drones in the hive for renown, without regard to the individual player. Many players say the reason why they stick with the game is because of the people they meet and the relationships that they form, and this change discourages this time investment to the detriment of the gaming community.

Great job stereotyping the complainers. Level 100, you did it! Good for you. Your guild may be casual, but I'd have to think you are very efficient. Group together, speed run the high level raids/quests, profit. Unfortunately, not all guilds are equiped like yours. My guild has 10 players, stretching across the spectrum of levels. We don't all get to play together, and we are of different levels of game expertise. Some will log-on and play one quest, one that may take him an hour to finish, one which experienced zergers can do in 3 minutes.

You can toss in all the stats you want. I don't care about any of that. This is a GAME, get it? I don't want to have to play like you to be 100. I don't care about hitting 100 tbh. I just want a level of return for our investment, be it slower than the "super" guilds, but some progress.

People have worried about spammer guilds returning. Really? You think there are that many new players coming into the game right now?

The best suggestion I've made (and seen) is that guild levels should go to 500, so you "super" guilds can still prattle on about your superiority. Turbine can give you announcements at every 25 levels telling the world how you are the best. Maybe even give you a mauve bat and a neon glowing guild name above your heads.

[whiteline]

Ok Here I go

We have a level 63 Guild that is Medium sized (45) now as I have been booting players, Booting player?, oh Gosh!. But I think there has to be a limit of when a player is inactive and Over 1 year to me is ample time so all non actives 1 year + are going.
Now you say what about the 25% loss of Renown and I say what about the extra guild renown I now get after 14 days when my medium size drops from 45 to 35 (and yes I know if I hadnt booted them I could have been at 35 right now but NOW I can recruit 10 more active players to make 45 again without worrying that the 10 I booted could possibly pop on so say hello and make me a 55 thus taking away my Medium guild size)
So as far as im concerned this move is a GOOD one as it save me having to just send a toon out to farm renown to keep the guild at the same level.
I would also point out that our guild was originaly orientated at the casual player so that they could have the same facilities as other guilds but as it grew it became harder and harder to keep up the guild level.
I personaly would like to go back to the time before we had airships anyway as how many times do you hear "Just buffing then OMW" and it would also solve everyones problem in one go.
NO AIRSHIP=NO RENOWN=NO MOANS=NO HEADACHES
Oh and those that dont know how to get to Merdia when in a raid group with no airship YOU USE A TAXI from The Sub

you boot them for being inactive for a year but what if they are deploied over sea's or fighting a war

[madmaxhunter]

you boot them for being inactive for a year but what if they are deploied over sea's or fighting a war

Yeah, or they coulda been abducted by aliens! Put in stasis and then returned 14 months later thinking that it was only the next day.

(I'm a U.S. Army vet btw. Soldiers know when they are about to be deployed and can let the guild know, fail that would probably have informed the guild of their military responsibilities and possibility of sudden deployment.)

[Gremmlynn]

So, you're just using the old "don't like it then play a different way" argument towards the other side. Large guilds are impersonal-- you never really get to know more than a handful of people nearly as well as you would in a smaller guild. For that reason, I much prefer being in a smaller guild. Just like it was BS for Turbine to punish large guilds then, it's equally unfair for them to punish small guilds now. Can we never have balance?

I miss where this change punishes small guilds. How did anything change for the worse for anyone?

[taurolyon]

My situation:
Figures, I get handed the reins to my guild about 2 months ago (after my initial guild leader got carried off by ewoks, and my predicessor got seduced by fuzzy pandas ), then 1 month ago, I booted about 40-50 characters that were inactive > 6 months, some up to a year. Thus reducing my overall account size from ~58 to ~28 after the 2 weeks of the guild penalty box. My active guild level stayed around 15-16 throughout. Alas, still stuck at 73.

My Opinion:
I think you're probably over-thinking a system that was over-complicated to begin with.

My initial thought was to completely nix the decay system (honestly, what's the harm with capped out guilds, provided they worked for it?), but this isn't feasible, as it takes funds away from the store, and removes an "unclimbable mountain" (even if you cap, you can't stay there, if you don't stay active).

I originally posted on this last year, suggesting a "ratcheting" guild level achievement system whereas when a guild manages to attain levels in multiples of 10 (10, 20, ... 100), they would not be afflicted by decay to the point causing them to lose this particular level. This address the "unclimbable mountain" scenario and gives your guild mini-goals, and if needs-be safety nets if activity drops.

[Drona]

Wow! What a simple but clever solution for this problem - removing account size from the formula.

So basically, the guild (lvl 81) which I am in - the decay has gone

from : 1275.458 * (MAX(111,10)+10) = 154330.41 / day
to: 1275.458 * (MAX(NULL,10)+10) = 25509.16 / day

This is easily manageable and puts no pressure on casual gamers in our guild.

Thank you very much! A master stroke indeed.

[theslimshady]

so why not take xp from inactive /parked and capped toons too so they buy xp pots again a really useless argument if someone wants to dress up in pumpkinheads and dance in the streets they should not be punished in any way because thats how they play and there guild should not either i mean to hit 100 levels you still need to hit 40 million renown and thats with out any decay . if this system was on xp i can promise you there would be a mass exodus however we must read about how fair it is

[Ebuddy]

Great job stereotyping the complainers. Level 100, you did it! Good for you. Your guild may be casual, but I'd have to think you are very efficient. Group together, speed run the high level raids/quests, profit. Unfortunately, not all guilds are equiped like yours. My guild has 10 players, stretching across the spectrum of levels. We don't all get to play together, and we are of different levels of game expertise. Some will log-on and play one quest, one that may take him an hour to finish, one which experienced zergers can do in 3 minutes.

You can toss in all the stats you want. I don't care about any of that. This is a GAME, get it? I don't want to have to play like you to be 100. I don't care about hitting 100 tbh. I just want a level of return for our investment, be it slower than the "super" guilds, but some progress.

People have worried about spammer guilds returning. Really? You think there are that many new players coming into the game right now?

The best suggestion I've made (and seen) is that guild levels should go to 500, so you "super" guilds can still prattle on about your superiority. Turbine can give you announcements at every 25 levels telling the world how you are the best. Maybe even give you a mauve bat and a neon glowing guild name above your heads.

+1 Rep for this.

Too bad I already had to leave my guild of great people. I joined another guild of great people that didn't worry as much abour renown and I'll be darned if I'm going to ditch them. Too little, to late (imho). I applaud the devs for trying to take some action but it's really just a band aid (or lipstick on a pig, depending upon your perspective). I never understood what the specific, measureable objective of guild housing was (in Turbine's eyes) but perhpas if they shared it, this pretty astute player base could have given them something better to start with in the first place.

[Dawnsfire]

you boot them for being inactive for a year but what if they are deploied over sea's or fighting a war

On our guild forums we have a section where folks can drop a quick message if something like that can passed on. If worse comes to worse, drop your guild leader a quick in game mail. None of this is rocket science. . .

[wayreth602]

Small guild bonuses weren't touched. If you are saying you were getting them Sunday but aren't any more, there's a bug.

Small guild bonuses still work as of a few minutes ago. After your post I went in and ran Haverdasher on a lowbie. I got small guild bonuses on a kill and a heroic deed. This is on Cannith if it makes a difference.

[djl]

I miss where this change punishes small guilds. How did anything change for the worse for anyone?

Because small guilds get significantly less renown/week now than large guilds. If everyone in a large guild with 100 active players earns a measly 2k renown a day, the guild will get 200k renown. It would be a struggle for a 6-man guild to amass that much in a day.

[JOTMON]

The inequities are that the system is far more rewarding to larger guilds. A six-person guild receives 4x renown, so each person accomplishes what 4 people can do. That means that they are functionally equivalent to a 24 person guild. A guild with more than 24 active people in it will gain renown at a faster rate than a six-person guild, and it will increase significantly when you get up to 100 or 200 people in your guild.

That's the problem-- with flat-rate renown decay, the bonus small guilds receive can't begin to keep up with the amount large guilds earn. The bonus small guilds receive needs to be increased for the system to be fair to them.

Problem is much more convoluted.

a 6 man guild is likely a group of similar minded and similar time playing group of people., can run quests anytime together, and pickup 6 people from channels to put a raid together.

a 14 person guild has 2 people sitting out of a 12 man raid, so they do something else... or you break down into smaller groups and run different stuff.

a 80 person guild has some people TR'ing , some in different time zones, some raiding , some levelling, more casual players, the population becomes much more diverse.

From what I see Endgame raids take me more time to organize and run and drop less renown than zerging low level stuff, events dont drop renown at all so grinding events is harmful to guild renown. Renown does not really scale with difficulty, I still see Tales of Valor for running FR Epic Elites and from a renown prespective is is no better than running Korthos. Epic Raids should be dropping much more significant renown rewards.


I think the renown system needs to be more individually oriented.
Guild size is irrelivent renown is by player whether it is a 10 person guild or 1000 person guild.
Each person receives a renown goal when they log in. something like 25 renown/Guild level.
Decay should apply only for active players that enter a quest not those that log in and dont even run anything. Inactivity should apply 24 hours after you have logged out not 4 weeks later.
Limit guild renown loss by player, no player should be able to lose more renown than they have ever earned.
If a player drops below their required contribution amount they can no longer access the boat without invitation.
Locked out player can be invited by another guildie at the cost of reactiviating the boats daily decay for that person(can log in/out on the boat but if they exit the boat they cannot reenter without invitation or achieving their personal daily renown requirement).

Caclulate guild level decay based on entire guilds days earned renown(tally of all active guildies) vs total required for day to determaine a net guild growth or decay.
Active members that did not reach their individual goal for the day lose ship access and no longer count towards the next days guild daily decay(unless reinvited back onto the boat then they are reactivated for another day).

Apply achievement benchmarks
- player achieves 1 million Guild Renown gets a 25% reduction in personal decay.
- player achieves 2 million Guild Renown gets a 50% reduction in personal decay
- player achieves 5 million Guild Renown player no longer generates decay(automatically awarded daily quota).
Only applies to renown earned while in that specific guild, leave the guild and you lose your benchmarks.
Quit a guild lose 50% of your renown the remaining 50% gets applied to your new guild. quit again lose 50% again.
that way reforms, merges are not a lose lose situation.

Something like this I think would go a longer way towards balanced guild activity.
Players that don't generate renown are readily identified since they have to ask for ship invite or have the opportunity to go farm renown to achieve their requirement.
Guild size is irrelivent as the renown is based on individual requirements.

[Theolin]

I do believe that no matter what is done someone will always have it easier and someone will always have it more difficult.

I do not think this is an exception to the rule.

They are stuck between hurting one group over an other (rock & hard place).

I also think there is no solution that does not cause a set of groups more strife over other groups.

Therefore best they can do is try to not have more groups on the harm side then on the benefit side. So if we are lucky the benefit side has more than 50% of the population in it.

And for those complaining about the harm to the small guilds .... From what I have seen several of them are that way on purpose to take advantage of the way renown works (And I know some left large guilds and formed small guilds for just this reason, for that group I have no sympathy) - its just like the flavor of the month builds - sooner or later they change the game and we get to adapt.

[wayreth602]

Because small guilds get significantly less renown/week now than large guilds. If everyone in a large guild with 100 active players earns a measly 2k renown a day, the guild will get 200k renown. It would be a struggle for a 6-man guild to amass that much in a day.

I am a small guild leader with six or so accounts in our guild. Only two are really active. Those accounts can get at best 4K to 11K with a five hour day of play(at level). So it is true small guilds can't compete with the big guilds on reknown earning.

On the other side, we keep our guild small by choice and choose who we want in the guild.

We have only kicked one out of the guild, and that was after she told us it hurt her wrists too much to play (though she plays another MMO...lazy combat).

This change helps large guilds and does little for small guilds(but they may choose to remain small). But at least the Devs listened and are trying to help.

It is a wash as to what we will see happen with new players. With that caveat, I saw new recruiting on Cannith earlier with it being a blind invitation. If this is good or bad, we shall see.

Maybe Cordavan should add guild charters back into the lottos for a while and let new people win them and see what they think about guilds and running them.

[Tshober]

Problem is much more convoluted.

a 6 man guild is likely a group of similar minded and similar time playing group of people., can run quests anytime together, and pickup 6 people from channels to put a raid together.

a 14 person guild has 2 people sitting out of a 12 man raid, so they do something else... or you break down into smaller groups and run different stuff.

a 80 person guild has some people TR'ing , some in different time zones, some raiding , some levelling, more casual players, the population becomes much more diverse.

Yes, the problem is far more convoluted than the forum "mathematitions" try to portray it. Large guilds are not simply scaled up small guilds. They are a completely different animal. And all that diversity is why the old decay system did not allow them to progress as well as the smaller guilds, even though extremely simplistic math indicates that they should have.

The rest of your post is about how you suggest it might be solved and I tried to follow all of what your were sugesting but you were suggesting so much change to so many things all at once that, fankly, I could not keep track of all of the effects it might generate. So I am afraid I can't really say whether I lthink it would work or not. All I can say is it seemed complex.

[Ivan_Milic]

So a guild with lets say 3 people who play off and on a little every day, has no chance of reaching level 100 unless they specifically set out with pots, to gain as much renown as possible? Average in a day of playing i might get 6000 renown, maybe, that was with small guild bonus. Taking that away is like saying small guilds have to recruit, what if we dont want too? I like the other change, but give us back our small guild bonus, as it stands without it i may get 2000 renown in a day of playing. Combine that with the maybe 2000 the other two ppl get, 6000 renown is going to be canceled out by decay pretty fast.

But I agree with the general thinking no decay is preferred.

They just changed decay to be based on lvl of guild,you still have small and medium guild bonuses.

[guardianx2009]

It is nice to see renown being addressed, but I would've liked to see the following change instead:


#1 Change renown to be a function of activity, not a function of chests looted:

In general, DDO activities include:
- Favor Farming
- Loot/ingredient farming
- flagging for quest
- Running quests for xp.
- Explorer areas, Mabar/Cove events.

Current system punishes players that do anything above level for any purpose. It shouldn't be this way. Running quests above level to help other guildies farm/flag is still an ACTIVITY. Running challenges for ingredients is still an ACTIVITY. Doing favor runs is still an ACTIVITY. Guilds should not be punished for doing such activities.

Getting renown from chests should be a BONUS, not the main source of earning renown. Currently the renown system only rewards the following activity: Running quests at level or below level. But this is true only because the end rewards and chests actually drop best renown. And best renown comes from quests with most chests: Farming irestone over and over for renown is not fun.

Earning renown should be a function of activity (time), not a function of loot. It should come naturally just for being active and doing quests for whatever reason, regardless of difficulty.

Suggestion:
1. Grant renown reward upon quest completion (regardless of level) based on estimated quest duration:
Short Quests: ~100 renown
Medium quests: ~250 renown
Long Quests: ~500 renown
Raids: 1000 renown
2. Grant renown for completing optionals. (Maybe ~50-100 renown per optional)
3. Add % bonus for being 2 levels below quest difficulty.
4. Increase renown earned for kills

#2 Remove penalty for kickin inactive toons
Guilds should be allowed to maintain their roster without being punished 25% renown and incurring renown penalty for it.

#3 Remove penalty for leaving on good terms
Why should guilds be punished for guildies that leave on good terms? The punishment of losing a guildie is enough already.

#4 Adjust DECAY MULTIPLIER table
Removing the account modifier may be a bit drastic, I would've rather seen the MULTIPLIER was adjusted down a bit (say, maybe 10-25%) for levels 50+. This way guilds of all sizes benefit from reduced decay.