Guild Renown Changes

[DocBenway]

6 Active Account decay = 10,022 or 1,671 per Account <- Add in that Guild Renown is earned at 300% so now becomes 557

10 Active Account decay = 12,527 or 1,253 per Account <- Add in that Guild Renown is earned at 240% so now becomes 522


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Basically any guild that was under the 10 Active Member mark was hit with more in the case above the 6 member guild would now be required to pull in approx. 140 more renown a day to stay even. While the 123 Active Account Guild now has a reduced amount per account by approx 575 to stay even.

If you bring this out to level 100 the 6 active member Guild still only needs to earn 6x the amount as a 123 active account.

See this?
The renown system is widely misunderstood. We are 26 pages into this thread and here is an intelligent poster with a well thought out post that still does not know about the hard coded minimum that I've been harping about for 8 months now.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=362736

Whatever the final resulting system is, it needs to be well documented in an easy to reference area.

[slarden]

While I realize that your 150x as a Large guild comment is more an emotional than factual I thought I would take a moment to point out it is not as big a gap as that, but it is not a small gap either.

I'll use my Level 71 123 Active Accounts

Under the Old System

123 Active Account decay = 83,304 or 678 per Active Account

6 Active Account decay = 10,022 or 1,671 per Account <- Add in that Guild Renown is earned at 300% so now becomes 557

10 Active Account decay = 12,527 or 1,253 per Account <- Add in that Guild Renown is earned at 240% so now becomes 522

Under the Temporary change
123 Active Account decay = 12,527 or 102 per Active Account

6 Active Account decay = 12,527 or 4,176 per Account <- Add in that Guild Renown is earned at 300% so now becomes 695
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Basically any guild that was under the 10 Active Member mark was hit with more in the case above the 6 member guild would now be required to pull in approx. 140 more renown a day to stay even. While the 123 Active Account Guild now has a reduced amount per account by approx 575 to stay even.

If you bring this out to level 100 the 6 active member Guild still only needs to earn 6x the amount as a 123 active account.

It could be argued that more ants build a nest faster...
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However, what is almost always not discussed is "How Active are members". While my Guild does have 123 Active Accounts, not all 123 accounts are active every day, some are weekend warriors, others have one or two nights/days they can play all depending on the Shift they have been assigned. Some are military and are deployed for a few weeks at a time to even a month or more.

Larger guilds generally have a larger ratio of these types of players then the smaller ones.

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I do applaud Turbine for actually taking what I see as a FIRST step towards balancing the renown system. This however, should not be their last step. In the short term this will allow some of the static level guilds to possibly get out of the rut of gaining and losing a level.

But I hardly see the <10 Active member guilds as being hurt significantly as most of these guilds are powered by Very Active members and the extra 140 renown per day per person is not as big a deal as some make it out to be.

Showing math is not emotional it is factual. The old decay was based on a min of 10 and then added 10 to that so the minimum was really 20 which is why your math is off. But even with your math off it shows how much more guild renown a small guild requires. Our guild of 6 has 2 active members, 2 casual players that play maybe 5-6 hours per month and 2 that log in once in a while. If someone is truly inactive their account doesn't count against decay anyhow.

Thank you for your response, but again I think if they keep the current system in place, they need to remove decay entirely. If not, just revert to the old system which was at least equitable.

[slarden]

Your argument is under the assumption that a guild of 200 accounts will all log in as frequently on a per day basis as the guild with 2 accounts. Assuming the members of the 2 account guild log in every single day and each member of the guild of 200 accounts log in once a month how much is the disparity between the two after you assign the bonuses a small guild receives?

There is no such assumption. Small guilds and large guilds have those issues. You falsely assume this only happens with large guilds.

You have to make ridiculous assumptions for your logic to work and even then the system is unfair.

[Tshober]

See this?
The renown system is widely misunderstood. We are 26 pages into this thread and here is an intelligent poster with a well thought out post that still does not know about the hard coded minimum that I've been harping about for 8 months now.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=362736

Whatever the final resulting system is, it needs to be well documented in an easy to reference area.

Yes, and several seem to be unaware of the 1000 character hard cap on guild size as well and the effects that has on large guilds.

[jaedom]

This is great news as leader of a casual guild this means less stress on our usual players to maintain decay. ))

[Enoach]

Showing math is not emotional it is factual. The old decay was based on a min of 10 and then added 10 to that so the minimum was really 20 which is why your math is off. But even with your math off it shows how much more guild renown a small guild requires. Our guild of 6 has 2 active members, 2 casual players that play maybe 5-6 hours per month and 2 that log in once in a while. If someone is truly inactive their account doesn't count against decay anyhow.

Thank you for your response, but again I think if they keep the current system in place, they need to remove decay entirely. If not, just revert to the old system which was at least equitable.

But you didn't show math you showed your emotional state by using 150x per Active member, while I was showing its more like 6x. And if my math was incorrect because there is a hard coded minimum, than in reality the <10 member guilds didn't get hit under the new system with extra renown, but it also didn't help them either.

The point I was attempting to make is that this should only be the first step and more is still needed. But we can't get to this what MORE is needed if we keep waving our emotions around as facts.

I agree that there is something wrong with the decay system, part of what I see as a problem is that it is a daily decay, while most of the rest of Guild activity runs on Monthly (such as inactivity).

One thought I've had is to keep the calculations to the Old system, but instead of making it daily make the decay monthly. This would then use an average monthly active account measurement. The initial flaw I see is the Guild Leaving/Kick effect on active account measurement and how that should play in. But it could be taken care of by using the average of the Daily Active Account.

Of course this might be simplier if renown was just reduced to 1/30th.

[Chaos000]

You have to make ridiculous assumptions for your logic to work and even then the system is unfair.

Is there any guilds out there currently with 1000 characters with 200+ active accounts? (and by active you meant logged in at least once in a given month)

In this scenario you're using your guild as an example with 6 active accounts (within the same judging criteria "active" meaning logged in at least once in a given month)

I don't know of any 1000 character guilds out there with that level of activity that reasonably resembles the guild you're comparing your guild against. (screenshot or it didn't happen? )

The old system is flawed because it punishes casual players by counting them as active accounts if they log in at least once in a given month. Because larger guilds tend to have more casual players they were punished more severely for allowing them to remain in guild and the old system was unfair. I do believe the solution would be to give higher than the existing bonuses to smaller guilds to allow level progression where under the old system would merely allow them to maintain their level.

[Chaos000]

One thought I've had is to keep the calculations to the Old system, but instead of making it daily make the decay monthly. This would then use an average monthly active account measurement. The initial flaw I see is the Guild Leaving/Kick effect on active account measurement and how that should play in. But it could be taken care of by using the average of the Daily Active Account.

There's some merit in this idea.

[slarden]

But you didn't show math you showed your emotional state by using 150x per Active member, while I was showing its more like 6x. And if my math was incorrect because there is a hard coded minimum, than in reality the <10 member guilds didn't get hit under the new system with extra renown, but it also didn't help them either.

The point I was attempting to make is that this should only be the first step and more is still needed. But we can't get to this what MORE is needed if we keep waving our emotions around as facts.

I agree that there is something wrong with the decay system, part of what I see as a problem is that it is a daily decay, while most of the rest of Guild activity runs on Monthly (such as inactivity).

One thought I've had is to keep the calculations to the Old system, but instead of making it daily make the decay monthly. This would then use an average monthly active account measurement. The initial flaw I see is the Guild Leaving/Kick effect on active account measurement and how that should play in. But it could be taken care of by using the average of the Daily Active Account.

Of course this might be simplier if renown was just reduced to 1/30th.

The 150x math was absolutely correct comparing a guild with 6 accounts vs. the theoretical maximum of 1000. There was no emotion - it was simple math. I realize a 1000 account guild is highly improbable but it shows the range of possible distortion available in the game. Even with 200 it's quite dramatic.

If you look back at the other posts - those are driven by math and not emotion. Math requires no emotion actually.

I would like to see them keep the old system and reduce decay by 50%. If a guild is moving in place they should be able to move forward. I am also fine with just eliminating decay altogether. As a small guild, when one member take s a break our renown moves backwards.

I woui

[slarden]

Is there any guilds out there currently with 1000 characters with 200+ active accounts? (and by active you meant logged in at least once in a given month)

In this scenario you're using your guild as an example with 6 active accounts (within the same judging criteria "active" meaning logged in at least once in a given month)

I don't know of any 1000 character guilds out there with that level of activity that reasonably resembles the guild you're comparing your guild against. (screenshot or it didn't happen? )

The old system is flawed because it punishes casual players by counting them as active accounts if they log in at least once in a given month. Because larger guilds tend to have more casual players they were punished more severely for allowing them to remain in guild and the old system was unfair. I do believe the solution would be to give higher than the existing bonuses to smaller guilds to allow level progression where under the old system would merely allow them to maintain their level.

Fair enough, but the new system is such an over-correction that is much more unbalanced than the old system. I see large guilds advancing faster than my small guild and I see large guilds staying in place- that was before the change. If our small guild had an advantage it was only that we knew each other well and we felt the benefits of things like taking renown as an end reward and using guild elixirs at times.

[blkcat1028]

Your argument is under the assumption that a guild of 200 accounts will all log in as frequently on a per day basis as the guild with 2 accounts. Assuming the members of the 2 account guild log in every single day and each member of the guild of 200 accounts log in once a month how much is the disparity between the two after you assign the bonuses a small guild receives?

Well, if every member of a 200 man guild logged in once a month that would = 200 days of play/ monthly.

If every member of a 2 man guild logged in everyday a month the would be 60 days of play/ monthly. Add in the small guild bonus of 180%, that would work out to roughly 168 days of play/ monthly.

Even in this extreme example the small guild is still ~15% behind.

The question I have is how many 200 member guilds out there that have a 3% activity level? I know of a few (at least) 2 man guilds.

[Chaos000]

Well, if every member of a 200 man guild logged in once a month that would = 200 days of play/ monthly.

If every member of a 2 man guild logged in everyday a month the would be 60 days of play/ monthly. Add in the small guild bonus of 180%, that would work out to roughly 168 days of play/ monthly.

Even in this extreme example the small guild is still ~15% behind.

I don't have any issue if the developers chose to give 2 man guilds a 15% boost or reduce their decay by 15%.

[EllisDee37]

Yeah, with a tweaking of the small bonus -- starting out much larger than 300% and maybe the bonus finally tapers off at 100 accounts instead of 50 -- this decay correction is probably a solid fix.

As a leader of a 22-account level 65 guild I'm not particularly bummed that now I'm on the short end of the stick, since we have been reaping the rewards of being on the favored side of the equation the last couple months. But I do chuckle, thinking of that old joke with the punchline:

"This all sounds great! But what happens Tuesday?"
"Tuesday is your day in the barrel."

[Tshober]

I have said many times before that I don't have any problem if the small guild bonuses are increased (within reason) to keep small and tiny guilds viable. It is unfortunate that some of them refuse to recognize the overwhelming good that has already been done and are actively advocating undoing it. Any significant reduction in renown decay is goodness. The change that has already been made removed the barriers to advancement for many guilds and significantly reduced the incentives to shun casual/social players. The last thing that should be done is to undo all that progress and go back to the old anti-social decay system. Instead we should build on it and work on ways to make the benefits extend to even tiny guilds that have not been helped yet. Increasing the small guild bonuses is one pretty simple and effective way to accomplish that.

[Claransa]

Greetings! We are putting forth modifications currently trying out some temporary adjustments to the Guild Renown system and monitoring the outcome and feedback this week. The intent is to address concerns from guilds and guild leaders regarding the impact of optimizing guild size in order to gain or maintain guild levels. We’ll be making additional balance changes that we think you and your guildmates will appreciate, but for now we have applied the changes without downtime. As of today, you will notice two changes to your renown rates:

1. Renown decay no longer takes guild size into account. This should ease the pressure for guild leaders to “kick” members from the guild to offset daily renown decay rates. Renown decay now only takes a guild’s level into consideration rather than its size.
2. Renown ransack has been increased. Previously when a guild earned levels in a day, it would gradually reduce the renown drop rates. We’ve increased the rate so that a guild can only earn roughly 3 levels in a single day. This should prevent large guilds from completely dominating the field in terms of levels per-day.

There are some balance Pros and Cons to this method, but we’d like guilds to give us feedback about their experiences using the new settings this week. If players like the settings, or feel it is workable with minor tweaks, then we are ready to keep them! If players find the changes make matters worse, then we are scheduled to revert them. So this week, we encourage guild leaders/members to use this thread to give us feedback about how the changes are impacting your guild leveling dynamics. Important feedback for us is points where frustration has eased (or increased). Thanks for your participation as we work to improve our guild leveling system!

Just thought i'd put this out there, I've recently (last few months) expanded my horizons by playing another MMO (zomg yes i said that). Thing is I've had my fun on this other MMO and wouldn't mind getting back to playing some DDO. Thing is I know that if I come back to DDO my guild's renown decay will go up and I'm really just wanting to play DDO, part time.

The point being, you should just get rid of renown decay altogether it causes some potentially returning players to stay away.

[slarden]

I have said many times before that I don't have any problem if the small guild bonuses are increased (within reason) to keep small and tiny guilds viable. It is unfortunate that some of them refuse to recognize the overwhelming good that has already been done and are actively advocating undoing it. Any significant reduction in renown decay is goodness. The change that has already been made removed the barriers to advancement for many guilds and significantly reduced the incentives to shun casual/social players. The last thing that should be done is to undo all that progress and go back to the old anti-social decay system. Instead we should build on it and work on ways to make the benefits extend to even tiny guilds that have not been helped yet. Increasing the small guild bonuses is one pretty simple and effective way to accomplish that.

DDO effectively elminated decay as an issue for large guilds at all. Why not just get rid of it all together.

I would not be in favor of implementing the new system until a change is made that allows small guilds to level as well. It is not "good" to implement a system that favors only large guilds. Going with the old system and reducing decay is also an easy fix and more equitable. The problem with the new system is that it is not equitable and makes leveling hard only for small guilds.

The assumption that small guilds have all active player and no casual players is just flat out wrong.

[eris2323]

Fair? Leaving the new system is anything but fair. Requiring small guild members to earn 1500 renown per day to make up for decay while large 1000 member guilds only need 10 renown to cover decay is not any fair any way it is measured.

There are several possible solutions:

1) Reduce the amount of decay by 50% across the board to start and see how that works. I noticed many casual guilds leveling during the build your guild event that proves even a small change will make a difference. This encourages playing the game but doesn't require active players to earn so much renown to make up for inactive players.
2) The curve is very steep as guilds level up with decay getting higher at each level. Flatten the curve so reaching high levels is more reasonable for guilds with casual players. If they want to make the curve steeper, do it at level 85 so that 85 to 100 is about bragging rights and not better buffs
3) Just get rid of decay altogether and let guilds get to 100 like people level to 25 with their characters.

Another solution would be to recruit, and get away from that magic number of 'exploit the guild system with 6-12 accounts' that everyone has been using for a year, or more, now. Give some new players a home. Teach them the ropes.

Why Turbine gives such a huge bonus to small guilds is beyond me. They should be rewarding those who engage their players.

[eris2323]

On a related note....

Dear Turbine.

Please remove the guild 'leaderboards' entirely.

I am interested in playing a PVE game, and not a PVP game. And some seem to think the guiild system is a competition, instead of players finding and making their own homes.

I am not here to PVP.

Please remove guild leaderboards entirely. I don't care about joe schmoes guilds.

[Tshober]

Just thought i'd put this out there, I've recently (last few months) expanded my horizons by playing another MMO (zomg yes i said that). Thing is I've had my fun on this other MMO and wouldn't mind getting back to playing some DDO. Thing is I know that if I come back to DDO my guild's renown decay will go up and I'm really just wanting to play DDO, part time.

The point being, you should just get rid of renown decay altogether it causes some potentially returning players to stay away.

I have great news for you! With the most recent change that was made to the renown decay formula, your returning to DDO would NOT add any renown decay at all to your guild. Yay! The caveat to that is the change is temporary and the devs are currently evaluating the results and player feedback to decide whether to keep it or not.

[Tshober]

DDO effectively elminated decay as an issue for large guilds at all. Why not just get rid of it all together.

I'm good with that. I have been advocating for exactly that change for many months. But, realistically, I am uncertain it will happen. With no decay at all, how would the DDO store sell renown pots?