Guild Renown Changes

[Gremmlynn]

I will grant you that there are some people who feel they must make everything into a competition.

Yes and they make driving down the highway soooo interesting. At least in DDO they are less likely to get you killed as permanently.

[Gremmlynn]

I also don't understand why some people have such a great need to get to level 100, it's just a number and it provides basically no benefits. By level 70 you have basically everything important, by level 85 you have the last ship and after that you can't really argue that you want more stuff.

At that point wanting to gain more levels is just about stroking your personal ego. And hey, that's exactly what the old system was designed to be about at those levels only it was specifically built in a way that you'd really have to work for that ego boost.

That's just fine to me, if everyone could just progress to the max level given enough time the levels would become meaningless, they'd be just another time sink like all the rest.

Actually, the last real perk comes at 93. What they do with the levels past that, I think most really don't care.

[curiouspilot]

I am not sure why people insist on dragging politics into a game, but you have it exactly backwards. Tiny and small guilds can't possibly compete with larger guilds in renown earning power so renown decay, essentially a huge tax on renown earned, and small guild bonuses, subsidies, are introduced to "level the field" so that the smaller guilds can compete with the larger guilds. The larger the guild, the higher the renown tax rate they must pay daily. The smaller the guild, the more they are subsidised with renown bonuses. These are very much socialist/communist like policies.

As far as rewarding individuals who work harder, that would make some sense if the system were actually a player leveling system, but it is not. It is a guild leveling system. If you are going to rank guilds by renown, then the only way that makes sense to compare them is by total renown earned. If you instead use renown divided by number of players then you are no longer ranking guilds, you are ranking players.

For example, if you were going to rank countries in military power, would you take the total militay expenditures divided by polulation? Of course not, you would just use total military expenditures to rank them. If you were going to rank countries in economic power would you use GDP divided by population? Of course not, you would just use plain old GDP to rank them. That is because, in both cases, you are ranking countries, not the people in the countries. It is the same with guilds. If you want to rank guilds on renown then you can't divide by the numbers of players because then you would be ranking the players, not the guilds. The proper way to rank guilds on renown is by total renown earned by each GUILD.

If you saw the word "capitalism", you'd know I was talking about economics, not politics.

Renown tax is applied to both large guilds and small guilds. If it's a guild size of 6, it's levelMultiplier*(10+10), if it's a guild size of 300, it's levelMultiplier*(300+10), it seems fine to me, so I don't really know what you're saying here, if anything, I'd say that smaller guilds of 10 or less has to take that extra guild size up to 10, which is probably not necessary.

Now the small guild bonuses isn't an advantage over large guilds, it's there to help small guilds to advance, like those few handicap parking spots in a parking lot, because they're at such a disadvantage, otherwise it would take forever to level the guild, not to mention to keep up with the enormous renown gaining power of large guilds.

Look at this example. Let's say there are two guilds competing with each other on renown gain, both are level 60, which has a levelMultiplier of 226.8. Guild A has 300 members while guild B has 6. If each member of guild A earn 1000 renown per day, then it's 300,000 renown total, while taking a 226.8*(300+10)=70308 renown decay hit, so that nets 229692 renown increase in the end. Now to keep up with that, each member of guild B has to earn (229692+(226.8*(10+10)))/(6*4)=9759.5, which means each member of guild B has to work roughly 9 to 10 times(9759.5 vs 1000) harder than each member of guild A, factored in the 300% small guild bonuses. This shows how much workload there is to put on each member of a small guild, and if they can pull it off, then they really deserve it, after all, it's easier to find 100 members who could play an hour a day, than to find 10 members who could play ten hours a day, or ten times more efficient.

The reason why it's not a player leveling system is because individuals who play more are already rewarded, by getting loot from chests, end rewards, etc. So since individuals are taken care of, now we move on to rewarding players in groups, or another term if I may, teamwork. That's why there're airship buffs and the need to work on renown, because it's a direct score of how much a group has worked together. If you think it's only fair to compare them by total renown earned, then it's too easy to achieve higher guild level. As I have presented earlier, it's harder for small guild members to compete with large guild members, and they have to either spend more time, or get better at the game, therefore completing quests much faster, that's why most high level guild members are very good players, completing quests in minutes rather than hours, and therefore they deserve to be in a high level guild because of how efficient they are and how much they contribute in renown gain, individually.

If this system is permanently implemented, there could be two effects. First, it widens the gap in renown gaining speed between a large guild and a small guild. Let's say renown decay is now only 226.8*10=2268, 300,000-2268=297732, divide that number by 24, it equals 12405, that means each small guild member has to work about 25% harder than before, which also means about 12 times harder than a large guild member. If each small guild member plays four hours a day to match that earlier, now that person has to spend five hours instead. This is an indirect punishment to small guilds. Second, large guild will get to level 100 easily, and there could be little to no distinction between a good player and an average player, since there will be many level 100 guilds out there, so a newbie who just joined the guild could appear to be a good player, but he's not. I personally like to know how good a player is, by looking at his guild level as a general indication.

Lastly, you can't use neither military power nor economic power here as examples. Those two only represent partial prospects of what a country can offer, while guild level/renown represents a guild's total advancement. You could, however, rank companies for example, if a company has fewer workers or executives to make more profit than a larger company which has more employees, then overall it'll be ranked as a better company, because it's efficient, and worthy of investment.

Whether or not you or others agree with me, I don't feel like discussing this no more because I think I've explained myself clear enough. I'll see you guys in game.

[Viisari]

Actually, the last real perk comes at 93. What they do with the levels past that, I think most really don't care.

Are you telling me, with a straight face, that getting 5% xp bonus instead of 4% xp bonus is "a real perk"? While leveling a legend character that translates to something like 10k extra xp if you can keep it up all the time (which you can't).

No, of course you're not telling me that. Because that would be ridiculous.

[Tshober]

Lastly, you can't use neither military power nor economic power here as examples. Those two only represent partial prospects of what a country can offer, while guild level/renown represents a guild's total advancement. You could, however, rank companies for example, if a company has fewer workers or executives to make more profit than a larger company which has more employees, then overall it'll be ranked as a better company, because it's efficient, and worthy of investment.

Your company example might make some sense if the small guilds actually earned more renown (profit in your example) than the large guilds. But in reality they earn far, far less. When companies make their annual reports for investors and shareholders, do they report their profits AFTER dividing by their number of employees? Of course they don't. They report plain old total profits. To divide profits by the number of employees would be silly when you are comparing companies. Dividing guild renown by number of players when comparing guilds is just as silly.

[Viisari]

Your company example might make some sense if the small guilds actually earned more renown (profit in your example) than the large guilds. But in reality they earn far, far less.

And in reality large companies also have far, far larger expenses. So in the end, their actual net profit can be low or might even be negative.

Kinda like with guild renown, large guilds have much, much lower net renown gain because they're not efficient.

You're thinking too much about this whole dividing with the number of players business, it's merely a method to make it easier to understand how much actual renown is being pulled when the size of the guild is noted. And you cannot pretend that it's not relevant, as guild renown stands, it' very relevant.

So no, it's not silly at all, you just misunderstand the purpose behind it.

[Tshober]

Renown tax is applied to both large guilds and small guilds. If it's a guild size of 6, it's levelMultiplier*(10+10), if it's a guild size of 300, it's levelMultiplier*(300+10), it seems fine to me, so I don't really know what you're saying here, if anything, I'd say that smaller guilds of 10 or less has to take that extra guild size up to 10, which is probably not necessary.

Let's use your preferred analogy of companies here. If company A is taxed at a rate of 20 (10+10) and company B is taxed at a rate of 310 (300+10), clearly the tax is far, far heavier on company B. Remember, we are talking about companies (guilds) here and not about employees (players). Obviously, to anyone who isn't biased to the point of blindness, the larger guilds are being taxed at a far higher rate than the smaller guilds. That is done on purpose to help level the playing field because the smaller guilds simply can't compete with the larger guilds when it comes to earning renown. The only way smaller guilds can get ahead is if the larger guilds are taxed (decay) far more heavily and the smaller guilds are subsidised (bonuses) heavily as well.

[Tshober]

So no, it's not silly at all, you just misunderstand the purpose behind it.

The purpose of it is very clear. The purpose is to give advantage to smaller guilds to offset the superior ability of larger guilds to earn renown.

[Viisari]

Let's use your preferred analogy of companies here. If company A is taxed at a rate of 20 (10+10) and company B is taxed at a rate of 310 (300+10), clearly the tax is far, far heavier on company B. Remember, we are talking about companies (guilds) here and not about employees (players). Obviously, to anyone who isn't biased to the point of blindness, the larger guilds are being taxed at a far higher rate than the smaller guilds. That is done on purpose to help level the playing field because the smaller guilds simply can't compete with the larger guilds when it comes to earning renown. The only way smaller guilds can get ahead is if the larger guilds are taxed (decay) far more heavily and the smaller guilds are subsidised (bonuses) heavily as well.

Large corporations often have tons of bureaucracy, stupidly thought out projects, general inefficiency, bored/stupid management etc etc, it's not just merely taxes that shoots the expenses through the roof for large corporations.

But these comparisons are silly anyway, guilds are not corporations and the developers said that they wanted all guilds to be on somewhat equal footing. That is why large guilds have larger renown decay, no amount of real world comparisons is going to invalidate the reasoning behind it no matter how you wish it.

The purpose of it is very clear. The purpose is to give advantage to smaller guilds to offset the superior ability of larger guilds to earn renown.

With how the renown system currently works it's perfectly reasonable to compare how much base renown each player is pulling in their respective guilds because that is what actually matters in this system. Now if it was some other system it might not matter and you might have a point, but in this system it is very relevant. And this comparison shows us that the players in small high level guilds are pulling much more renown than players in large guilds.

The absolute number of renown gained by each is irrelevant because they've different amounts of decay. This also means that the net renown gain for these small guilds is higher than for the large guilds, so we can in fact say that the small guilds have the superior renown gathering ability. And it's not because of the system, large guilds could do it too if they wished to.

[Tshober]

But these comparisons are silly anyway, guilds are not corporations and the developers said that they wanted all guilds to be on somewhat equal footing. That is why large guilds have larger renown decay, no amount of real world comparisons is going to invalidate the reasoning behind it no matter how you wish it.

I was not the one who said that removing renown decay was analagous to communism and having renown decay was analagous to capitalism. I merely pointed out the incredible backwards logic in that comparison.

[Tshober]

With how the renown system currently works it's perfectly reasonable to compare how much base renown each player is pulling in their respective guilds because that is what actually matters in this system. Now if it was some other system it might not matter and you might have a point, but in this system it is very relevant. And this comparison shows us that the players in small high level guilds are pulling much more renown than players in large guilds.

And it is perfectly reasonable to point out the logical flaws in that system. This is after all a thread to help find a potential replacement system.

[Viisari]

And it is perfectly reasonable to point out the logical flaws in that system. This is after all a thread to help find a potential replacement system.

The only flaws in the system were in some of the numbers, the logic behind is sound. You might dislike it but you can't really go claiming it illogical when it is not so. None of your comparisons work because they assume that the system was designed to do something it was clearly not designed to do.

The design was:

• Make early levels very easy to get, up to level 60 or so
• Make high levels very difficult to get, after level 65 or so renown decay starts kicking in more and more heavily, you will also note that going from level 75 to level 100 you have to more than double your current renown pool
• Make by far the majority of anything useful easy to get, last truly significant ship buff is the Altar of Devastation at guild level 70
• Make the playing field about even for all guilds regardless of size, high activity among all members is rewarded, size is not rewarded

The system reaches most of these goals reasonably well and in the light of these goals there's nothing illogical about anything it does. I've said it before and I will now repeat it again: the system wasn't perfect, but unless these goals have changed then any imbalance could've been fixed with just tweaking the numbers.

But if these goals have changed then we do need a new system. What was proposed in the opening post of this thread was not a good system unless the new design is to favor large guilds above everything else.

[Cernunan]

And it is perfectly reasonable to point out the logical flaws in that system. This is after all a thread to help find a potential replacement system.

Well, the truth is the system gives such high powered rewards and perks there has to be a steep price involved in acquiring said perks, that is why some of us see no problem with a rich, complex system of guild renown. You are earning some very potent rewards for your investment of time. Those perks should not just be given for free just because you have huge quantity of people vs quality of people.
And the entire point of those in favor of the original system would be, mostly huge casual guilds EASILY have access to 98% of ship buffs, and they have access to them MUCH quicker than more efficient active guilds.

The more I see people against the old system, the more I see people just wanting everything for free without the price of substantial activity, the more I believe the entire system should be scrapped.

I can tell you though, the casual player base would be hurt much more from the removal of all amenities and buffs from the ships. My guildies would not be too hampered in a post ship buff game. We got along just fine before the ships, and most good players will get along just fine without them.

[Viisari]

I can tell you though, the casual player base would be hurt much more from the removal of all amenities and buffs from the ships. My guildies would not be too hampered in a post ship buff game. We got along just fine before the ships, and most good players will get along just fine without them.

Personally I'd love it if they removed all resistance and stat buffs from ships, they're silly, waste time and make especially the early levels extremely easy.

Keep the convenience items like teleporters, crafting altars, mail boxes, auction houses etc and add some more of them. It'd be perfect.

[Tshober]

The only flaws in the system were in some of the numbers, the logic behind is sound. You might dislike it but you can't really go claiming it illogical when it is not so. None of your comparisons work because they assume that the system was designed to do something it was clearly not designed to do.

The design was:

• Make early levels very easy to get, up to level 60 or so
• Make high levels very difficult to get, after level 65 or so renown decay starts kicking in more and more heavily, you will also note that going from level 75 to level 100 you have to more than double your current renown pool
• Make by far the majority of anything useful easy to get, last truly significant ship buff is the Altar of Devastation at guild level 70
• Make the playing field about even for all guilds regardless of size, high activity among all members is rewarded, size is not rewarded

The system reaches most of these goals reasonably well and in the light of these goals there's nothing illogical about anything it does. I've said it before and I will now repeat it again: the system wasn't perfect, but unless these goals have changed then any imbalance could've been fixed with just tweaking the numbers.

But if these goals have changed then we do need a new system. What was proposed in the opening post of this thread was not a good system unless the new design is to favor large guilds above everything else.

I don't feel constrained by your rules. I take it as a full review of the system. If you wish to limit yourself, that's fine with me.

[eris2323]

It is amazing how long an argument can go on with just a couple of people out of the thousands of players playing.

It might be a good idea to take this moment to remember that by about a 10:1 margin, the vast majority of guild leaders polled dislike the system.

If a couple of forum-ites like to argue, let's all keep that in mind. 10. to. 1.

[Viisari]

I don't feel constrained by your rules. I take it as a full review of the system. If you wish to limit yourself, that's fine with me.

Huh?

If the system is designed with some specific goals in mind and it achieves those goals you cannot call it illogical on those grounds.

What you can disagree with are the goals set when the system was designed.

I take it you don't often design things?

It is amazing how long an argument can go on with just a couple of people out of the thousands of players playing.

It might be a good idea to take this moment to remember that by about a 10:1 margin, the vast majority of guild leaders polled dislike the system.

If a couple of forum-ites like to argue, let's all keep that in mind. 10. to. 1.

Yes and the people in that poll are a tiny fraction of all players so it doesn't mean much either.

And even if it was all the players it is still meaningless because it only asked them their opinion of the system, it didn't poll if they wanted the whole thing gone or did they just wish to see it balanced more.

I've yet to see anyone argue in this thread that we should absolutely leave the current system as it is. Specifics are important in a discussion like this, and you have none of those, merely a blank yes/no/blargh.

[eris2323]

Huh?

Yes and the people in that poll are a tiny fraction of all players so it doesn't mean much either.

And even if it was all the players it is still meaningless because it only asked them their opinion of the system, it didn't poll if they wanted the whole thing gone or did they just wish to see it balanced more.

I've yet to see anyone argue in this thread that we should absolutely leave the current system as it is. Specifics are important in a discussion like this, and you have none of those, merely a blank yes/no/blargh.

Yes, I get it - you want a competition amongst guilds, you want decay re-instated, and you want guild leaders to have to choose between casual players, and renown.

90% of the forumites polled disagree with you and dislike the system.

Less than 10% of the forumites polled were happy with the system.

I'm not really here to argue with the 10%, I'm only waiting to hear about the other changes turbine has in store with guild renown - it is nice to know they are considering changes to help our casual and new players.

However, keeping the argument going like you have been is keeping the thread in the new topics page - and I keep hoping to hear from a dev, and all I get is players arguing again.

You have no numbers to prove differently - so until you manage to show any, I think we'll trust that 90% of the guild leaders polled hate the system, and think it should change.

[slarden]

example with the following assumptions
- guilds start at minimum of level 60
- 30 days in the month
- large guild gets 50 renown per heroic deed and small guild gets 120 per heroic deed with 4 person small guild bonus

UNDER THE OLD SYSTEM

Level 60 guild with 4 accounts trying to get to level 61 in one month
-Needs to earn 9.45 heroic deeds per account per day to cover renown loss
-Needs to earn 47.58 heroic deeds per account per day to level to 61

Level 60 guild with 200 accounts trying to get to level 61 in one month
- Needs to earn 4.76 heroic deeds per account per day to cover renown loss
- Needs to earn 6.60 heroic deeds per account per day to level to 61

UNDER THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

Level 60 guild with 4 people trying to get to level 61 in one month
-Needs to earn 9.45 heroic deeds per account per day to cover renown loss
-Needs to earn 47.58 heroic deeds per account per day to level to 61

Level 60 guild with 200 accounts trying to get to level 61 in one month
- Needs to earn less than 1/2 of a heroic deed per account per day to cover renown loss
- Needs to earn 2.28 heroic deeds per account per day to level to 61 (this is less than 5% of what the 4 person guild must generate)

This example doesn't include the new renown reduction under the new system that will occur when a guild gains 1 level which I think will cause many small guilds to get caught in an infinite non-leveling loop unless they plan around it.

The mythology is that the old system favored small guilds. The math backs up that small guilds have always had to work harder to earn levels than large guilds. Under the new system this gap would get ridiculous and almost make small guilds obsolete. This is not right.

What about the money spent on guild elixirs to level our guild that is now obsolete? Will that be refunded?

After thinking it about it more I think the right thing for Turbine to do is lower the level requirement of amenities and the largest ship. If a level 60 guild can get the biggest ship and all the key buffs by 60 (30 resists and +2 stat shrines) I don't think there would be so much contention about guild level. Let 60-100 being about bragging rights since most people don't really care anyhow.

Imagine how many astral diamonds would be purchased the month that Turbine did that Most guilds will never get to 85 under the old system. I am not sure whether that was the intent or not, but it is the reality.

[eris2323]

The poll was about whether people like the cujrrent system. It isn't about the new system which I dislike much more than the old system because it renders small guilds obsolete. There are many people in small guilds that have no idea about the new system because they are still struggling to get to 50 which has always been easy for large guilds. Read the post above this one - there are some numbers for you that show how bad the new system is.

I saw no polls that had over 100 guild leaders responding that said they hated the new system, and the vast majority of responses I saw to the changes were positive.

Except for 1 or two people.... who really, really, really like to argue.