Guild Renown Changes

[Tshober]

This is a legitimate beef - I actually wondered why this was there in the change but I could see it being very easy for a larger guild to zoom through the lower-mid-levels (no real impact at the higher levels due to the amount needed per level). I think this should be changed such that the reduced gain is after the second level in a day but hits a bit harder. Thus if you go form 50-51 no prob but 50-51-52 you start getting pinched.

That seems reasonable. I also think the small and tiny guilds probably need an increase in the small guild bonuses too, to keep them viable and advancing. The change has already helped guilds with more than 10 players, the small guilds should get some help too.

[Enoach]

And small guilds also have casual gamers and less active gamers. Decay is most certainly the problem here and it is an even bigger problem for small guilds. Our guild has 5 real life friends with only 2 of us being active more than 1-2 days per week. We have also added some extra people that specifically asked to join our guild.

Why not just let small guilds have the same advantages as big gulids. Like big guilds some will lever quicker than others while some will still not move forward much.

I see no reason to make it easier for large guilds and make it harder for small guilds by keeping everything the same for small guilds while adding the new guild reward reduction for 3 days after gaining 1 level.

I disagree that Large Guilds have less of an issue with decay than Small ones. The line is not that easily drawn, this issue is the activity level and the expected activity level. As I pointed out in my observations of my guilds progress the 20ish actual accounts needed to earn 5ish times their own decay goal to hold the Guilds Total Daily. And these 20ish accounts while active were not that active during the period of time this 'change' was in play. So based on 3ish days - my guild did not benefit from the change as we are considered a Large Guild. But I also pointed that the case period was also not a good statistical sample as it missed out on 4/5 of my guilds "Active" players being able to contribute.

I do agree that the system needs to be dealt with in such a way that Size is not the factor on decay

[Eladrin]

It is in fact worse than before because now when we gain a level we get a temporary nerf on our renown rewards in chests/end rewards. This will almost ensure that our small guild will lose a level as we need massive renown to cover decay relative to large guilds. When we go down a level and start getting renown normally we will gain a level - our renown will be nerfed and we will lose a level

This isn't actually new - we've always had a reduction in renown drops after you've gained a level in a day. In the experiment we did increase the magnitude of the value to reduce the maximum number of levels that could possibly be gained in a single day (from 7 to 3), but it was rarely hit past the lower guild levels.

[Viisari]

At 110 renown daily (or 1 quests worth) taken out for 1 month comes out to 3300 a month or approx 30 quests.

Eh, what quests are you running? Run through demonweb once and you'll get that much from just the end rewards if you're lucky.

The renown decay is so low that three people who play 3 hours every day could cover it just by themselves. And you have another 97+ people pulling renown in addition to that.

Do your guild members run quests over level a lot or something? If your guild truly is so casual that you cannot cover a renown decay that would be covered by just two or three of my guildies alone without any small guild bonuses I'm thinking we might need two different kinds of renown systems completely...

[Spoonwelder]

With regards to your big guild hitting a wall and the impact of casual gamers. The issue exists for small and large guilds alike, but only small guilds have such a high rewown requirement to level.

I get your argument though I think your numbers are skewed. The whole argument for the change was that the 200 account active guild didn't really exist(or were so few as to be a non-factor). Most if not all were maybe 200 accounts but only 25% of those still active. Even adjusting for that your numbers would still show a disparity between a large and small guild.

Again though the point I made is still valid - did the change make a small guild worse off.....not in actuality - only in comparison. Your numbers show that exact fact.

[Enoach]

Eh, what quests are you running? Run through demonweb once and you'll get that much from just the end rewards if you're lucky.

The renown decay is so low that three people who play 3 hours every day could cover it just by themselves. And you have another 97+ people pulling renown in addition to that.

Do your guild members run quests over level a lot or something? If your guild truly is so casual that you cannot cover a renown decay that would be covered by just two or three of my guildies alone without any small guild bonuses I'm thinking we might need two different kinds of renown systems completely...

Thank you for your numbers, please understand not everyone can have the activity that you are producing. And no we don't run Over level, we have a small core of 5 to 8 of use that regularly run Epic Elite content but due to our RL schedules can usually get only 1 to 2 EEs in a night as we don't run the short ones, we run the longer ones the 30 minute to 1 hour type, all optional areas as we are questers using this as a form of entertainment. Keep in mind that not all guilds have their membership running the 20+ content, but instead are running the sub level 10 content. Be it Alt-itus, or slow leveling, or constant TRng at 20 for "The Plan" perfect build. My guild is open to all of these playstyles.

Again my observations was based on my guilds progress for that time period, which for my guild proved the 3ish days at the reduced renown decay still produced the same results, these three days being Weekdays and not weekends where 4/5 of our guild is more active, but still not so active as to be able to dedicate 4 to 8 hours of game time for the entire weekend. And your premise is based on your experience of earning renown. Both valid and both based off of different observations against the system.

Please also keep in mind that we also were hit with reduced renown drop-age every time we crossed from 70 to 71. Which occurs every day for my guild and has for the last 3 months.

[Tshober]

Do your guild members run quests over level a lot or something?

I can't speak for his guild but for mine, yes, some probably do. Some probably run lots of solo or come and go slayers too because it does not require the time commitments that quests/partys require. Some run lots of challenges. A small number spend much of their online time roleplaying in the public zones and little time questing. More don't log in at all that day because they are, you know, casual. What did you think casual/social meant?

[fco-karatekid]

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...we've always had a reduction in renown drops after you've gained a level in a day. In the experiment we did increase the magnitude of the value to reduce the maximum number of levels that could possibly be gained in a single day (from 7 to 3)...

So I have a guild of 1 now that the kids quit playing, so I've not really much of a dog in the hunt; but why such a completely arbitrary mechanic? If a guild runs the content, why arbitrarily prevent their success? It is this kind of silly mechanic that makes MMO's feel like their purpose is player griefing.

[Tiamas]

This isn't actually new - we've always had a reduction in renown drops after you've gained a level in a day. In the experiment we did increase the magnitude of the value to reduce the maximum number of levels that could possibly be gained in a single day (from 7 to 3), but it was rarely hit past the lower guild levels.

That cut in renown after a level up felt quite big. Basically our guild is going 94/95 each day for like a month now. Before your change we basically worked our way up so each day we made it a bit further into 95. And this only with like 3-4 really active people during that time. Then you changed it and at the same time a lot of guildies started playing a bit more again so we had easily 6-8 really actives a day. You would expect our level to go easily into 95 and stay there. But we were still flipping between 94 and 95 each day, basically 0 progress here. So I looked a bit closer to my renown numbers, could be really bad luck but some numbers here that felt really wrong. (Numbers after we hit 95 on that day, so the renown cut was active):

• 5 full wizking hard runs with lvl 14 toons. We split up so I had the loot of 1 tower and the 3 endchests. Combined renown of chests and kills over those 5 runs: ~460 (with small guildbonus, we are getting around 100% extra so basically 230)
• F2P lordsmarch plazaa chain elite, lvl 14 toon, combined renown from chests and endrewards: 900 (again 450 without guild bonus, 3 heroics 2 valors)

As I said, could be bad luck, but I hardly see any renown drops in chests or endrewards once we gained a level. So basically that cut seems a bit too harsh. I suggest no cut in renown drops for the first level gained at that day, its very annoying in the highlevel area.

[Viisari]

What did you think casual/social meant?

Well to be honest casual is a very loose definition and can mean almost anything. For example if someone was a powergamer in the past but only plays very casually these days? His playstyle will be vastly different from someone who's never gotten past level 14 but has made a bazillion alts.

Even a person who has always been playing very casually is capable of pulling thousands of renown within a few hours if they know what they're doing and get a bit lucky.

A social player can mean a number things too, a roleplayer who spends his time in a tavern talking with people won't generate any renown, but a social player could just as well mean someone who doesn't really play unless there's a guild party up and going which can generate lots and lots of renown depending on what is being run.

So it's not about not knowing what the words mean but rather that they are very loose definitions for playstyles.

I mean my guild is at level 95 yet some of our players would currently fit the word "casual" pretty well.

[Tshober]

So it's not about not knowing what the words mean but rather that they are very loose definitions for playstyles.

I totally agree that those terms can mean very different things to different people and even in different contexts. In the context of our discussions about renown decay, when I say someone is a casual/social player, I mean they are someone who's play-style is such that on average they earn less renown than they would have cost in decay under the old decay system.

[Dirac]

This isn't actually new - we've always had a reduction in renown drops after you've gained a level in a day. In the experiment we did increase the magnitude of the value to reduce the maximum number of levels that could possibly be gained in a single day (from 7 to 3), but it was rarely hit past the lower guild levels.

Eladrin, thanks again for dropping by with the info.

I suggest when you put in a new test, simply remove decay instead of just removing the guild size bonus. Doing that helps the large guilds, but it does not help small guilds that are stuck at lower levels.

Maybe that is not the final system, but that should be the next thing to try.

[PsychoBlonde]

Based on what I'm reading, most of the advantage that a small guild has now will be eliminated. It will be to a guild's advantage to have as many members as possible even if they aren't extremely active. A guild with 1000 semi active members now has the huge advantage that a 6 person guild had previously. Or perhaps I'm missing something.

Even if this is true, I don't see the problem. Should you want to join a guild in order to play with people you like? Large guilds are much harder to manage and maintain. They shouldn't be getting penalized on top of that.

Personally, I think that once you hit level 100 on a guild, your renown should freeze and you should stop getting decay altogether. It'd be nice if there were other milestones, like 25, 50, and 75.

It would also be nice if it were possible to merge 2 guilds and the larger guild gained like 30% of the renown that the smaller guild had, so if you have a very small guild and the members decide they'd like to have more guildies to hang out with, they can find another small guild (or a large one) and decide to merge. Maybe even allow a guild rename at that time (with a "merge certificate" or something).

What really irks me is that the last few levels require huge massive gobs of renown but you get NOTHING for achieving most of them, whereas at the lower levels you're getting something pretty much every time you gain a level. If it's vastly more effort to accomplish, shouldn't you GET something for it? The way it is currently, it'd be like your last 5 levels giving you no hp, no saves, no sp, no new spells, no special abilities, no enhancement points, and taking 10x as much XP. What the heck.

[slarden]

This isn't actually new - we've always had a reduction in renown drops after you've gained a level in a day. In the experiment we did increase the magnitude of the value to reduce the maximum number of levels that could possibly be gained in a single day (from 7 to 3), but it was rarely hit past the lower guild levels.

Thank you for the response. I've never noticed a renown reduction like I had during the test. I suppose it could have been bad luck, but it seemed worse to me. In our case we only gained a single level which is the most we could ever gain in a day.

[slarden]

I disagree that Large Guilds have less of an issue with decay than Small ones. The line is not that easily drawn, this issue is the activity level and the expected activity level. As I pointed out in my observations of my guilds progress the 20ish actual accounts needed to earn 5ish times their own decay goal to hold the Guilds Total Daily. And these 20ish accounts while active were not that active during the period of time this 'change' was in play. So based on 3ish days - my guild did not benefit from the change as we are considered a Large Guild. But I also pointed that the case period was also not a good statistical sample as it missed out on 4/5 of my guilds "Active" players being able to contribute.

I do agree that the system needs to be dealt with in such a way that Size is not the factor on decay

You are assuming that small guilds have highly active players. That is true in some cases but not many. In fact most guilds never even hit 50. Many give up and join a large guild because they can't ever make progress.

[Enoach]

You are assuming that small guilds have highly active players. That is true in some cases but not many. In fact most guilds never even hit 50. Many give up and join a large guild because they can't ever make progress.

I think you need to re-read. I said the lines are not that easy to draw between Large and Small as it is based more on Activity.

I totally agree if the % of active accounts for Large and small are the same, the Larger guilds will generate more. However, if you consider for a moment a large guild that has the same number of active accounts per night as a small guild, than the numbers slant towards the smaller guild in that they earn renown at 2.4 to 3 times the amount per account than the larger guild even though for that same day they had the same number of accounts actively gaining renown. In this case the break even point would be that a large guild needs 2.4 to 3 times the people active to equal the same renown, or for simplicity 5 to 6 active accounts for a small guilds 2. However, under the decay system in both cases the active accounts for that day are responsible for the entire guilds decay amount. So yes you can average out on a per account basis, and larger guilds have more to spread that too, but in truth the number it is actually spread to for both large and small is the number that was actually active that day.



The Activity Level is the problem. It has been obscured by Guild Size and has caused a polarization on that issue which is preventing many to engage the real issue. The real issue is what "Activity Level is Turbine using to determine average renown gains" 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours a day average?

[Tshober]

The Activity Level is the problem. It has been obscured by Guild Size and has caused a polarization on that issue which is preventing many to engage the real issue. The real issue is what "Activity Level is Turbine using to determine average renown gains" 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours a day average?

I agree that small versus large is not the real issue and I have been saying that for many months now. Unfortunately some people just can't get past that and that makes it hard to have a real discussion. Some people I think genuinely believe they are being disadvantaged because they are in a small guild and just can't see beyond that to the real issue. But I think some other people who really know better are deliberately trying to make it into a debate about small versus large because they know they can't win the debate if it is not about small versus large.

[Tshober]

Tshober it is in fact the folks in large guilds saying they are disadvantaged. Most of those folks are proposing helping large guilds and giving no benefit to small guilds. If you read the messages some people clearly state they don't care about small guilds because they can just recruit and get bigger.

Under the old decay system, ALL guilds that accepted casual/social players in significant numbers were disadvantaged. Under the new system, small guilds that accept casual/social players remain disadvantaged. That still needs to be addressed and remedied. There are several ways to do that. I have recommended increasing the small guild bonuses to keep tiny and small guilds advancing and leveling up like everyone else. Another option would be to eliminate decay entirely. Or you could even do both.

[Tshober]

Then why not simply say so instead of trying to dance around and trying to make the system sound like it had completely failed to meet the goals set for it?

Because prior to that post you had not put out a list of carefully worded "goals" that would have forced us back to the old decay system if we accepted them. I reject your rules as flawed. I reject the old decay system as flawed.

I will reject any guild leveling system that divides the DDO playerbase into groups based on play-style and then proceeds to discriminate against one or more of those groups with a reward system that is anything more than cosmetic. Such systems ruin the social environment of the game and encourage/reward anti-social behavior on the part of guilds. A guild leveling system should encourage cooperation and helping others and socializing, not competition. If there is to be guild competitions, they should be separate from leveling, and the rewards should be temporary or cosmetic, and particiption in them should be voluntary.

You are free to reject my rules, as I have rejected yours. But at least we both know where we stand.

[Cordovan]

We've now re-enabled our temporary adjustments to guild renown, as specified in the first post in this thread:

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.

These changes are anticipated to remain in-game through at least Update 16. We are continuing to look into a bug which may be causing additional decay issues, and will have more information about that when we can. Thank you!