Guild Renown Changes

[slarden]

Large and small guilds never will be equal.

* I surround myself with but my three closest friends I will be subjected to less noise and drama than if I surround myself with 200 people.
* A guild consisting exclusively of 3 hardcores will have a significantly easier time establishing a server rep as hardcore guild than if the same 3 hardcores join a guild of 197 casuals.
* It is significantly easier to keep track of the needs (in, say, terms of loot) of 3 people than it is to keep track (and decide upon) the needs of 200.
* Finally, take 200 people and you get 400 opinions. Meanwhile, 3 like-minded individuals will be far less likely to have a large number of conflicting opinions on pretty much every issue.

I am not saying small guilds shouldn't get a little something, but lets not pretend there is no advantage of small guilds outside of guild level. We will never achieve a perfect equality between small and large guilds. The goal, I think, is keep both options as viable as possible.

Agreed from the persepective of leveling up. I don't agree with regards to a decay penalty because not all small guilds will be hardcores and they shouldn't be penalized because less than 1% of small guilds are hardcore. Penalizing small guilds with a high decay tax does not make sense.

[Missing_Minds]

We're all for new ideas and brainstorming solutions (truly, really, not just tossing buzzwords). This particular idea is problematic, because it promotes kicking players from your guild to reduce decay, which is where we were before and a situation we want to avoid.

Have you considered auto granted renown for quest completion? I agree with the theory of decay, but the correlation of staying known vs. gaining more people knowing about you is different. This part is not in game.

What I see is... sport athletes for example (I'm going to avoid Kardashians). In game we have renown rewards, which really seem to represent highlighted and/or amazing plays. But nothing for being consistent with playing.
If you don't get to work you don't gain renown, but if you do go to work you keep the renown and avoid decay.
You do amazing work, you gain even more renown.

Player "work" is questing. I would say a player should earn some values for quests completions guaranteed. 100 for Casual, 200 for normal, 350 for hard, 500 for elite. There should be penalties to this value based on character levels vs quest levels much like XP. There should also be first time bonus granted like quest XP, but I don't think it should follow bravery bonus.

Adventure region I do not see as "work", but more like "school" where the individuals are going out and learning to better themselves. Now maybe they'll make some form of a "discovery" that gets in the paper. Hence renown out of chests in such regions.

If you do implement guaranteed quest renown, I'd lower the max renown a guild can earn in a day as well.


Additionally, I would not allow decay to hit a guild for a day or two after they level. The constant bounce at certain points (guild size to guild level) is **** annoying. This would allow the guild to solidify their position while not spamming people that they keep hitting that level over and over.


Update the current collectable collectors.
1) converted to barter windows
2) have turn ins not only for "items" (as we currently have) but also "renown".

[danotmano1998]

Ideas that are more likely to work out are ones that feel fair, promote playing together with people you like and have fun with, and where the system itself isn't promoting who you play with. We don't want to promote any particular guild size. And we don't want incentives for kicking players you enjoy playing with, or for players who might like to come and hang out or play occasionally to feel like they are hurting their guild or harming their friends in any way. If these goals seem wrong, we're willing to hear ideas on that too. This isn't an exhaustive list, but current thinking is leaning us strongly towards including these goals.

You've nailed the goals, IMO. Nicely done. +1

[Thayion516]

At size 6, it acts as roughly 24 people, all other things being equal. At 5 it is 18 and a half people, at 4 it is 13.6, at 3, it is roughly 9 people, etc.
At size 7 is acts like 27 people, at 8 its 29.6, at 9 we have the average gathering capacity of 32 people.
The bonuses don't stop there and getting into medium bonuses, an actual 32 people, gather like 47 people.

So when it evens the field, it doesn't count evening the next field between medium and large either. Everybody plays catch-up and those under 6 are decayed for more people than the bonus adds to the count. All other gathering factors being equal.

This tells me that the Guild Bonus helps alot. When 9 people gather like 32, I see no problem.

Small Guilds and Large guilds will never be equal cuz it is Personal Preference to be in either. Especially after the renown decay has been dramatically reduced as it is currently. So it is not Turbines charge to justify what you choose or build a system that is one vs the other.

All Guilds can Advance. All are now Inclusive instead of Exclusive.

And Slarden, You yourself have admitted to never being in anything other then a small guild and never had to deal with any of the issues that plagued the old decay system. So honestly you have no clue what a High Decay Tax is. Try 80K a day at lv 65. I see 6-10 man guilds all day long on Ghallanda, many of which are 80 or 90 levels. Heck i talked to 2 of them last night and they are not seeing any issues what so ever. Matter of fact, Armada Suprema (8 peeps i think) said they are anticipating lv 100 within 2 weeks if the formula stays current.

So again.. I see no problem with Small Guilds. They get a massive bonus.

[Dandonk]

Small Guilds and Large guilds will never be equal cuz it is Personal Preference to be in either. Especially after the renown decay has been dramatically reduced as it is currently. So it is not Turbines charge to justify what you choose or build a system that is one vs the other.

I agree that it should be a personal choice. With the new system, large guilds get a huge advantage. This is not treating guilds equally.

All Guilds can Advance. All are now Inclusive instead of Exclusive.

No. All large guilds can advance. Small guilds with a sizeable percentage of casual players cannot.

I see 6-10 man guilds all day long on Ghallanda, many of which are 80 or 90 levels. Heck i talked to 2 of them last night and they are not seeing any issues what so ever. Matter of fact, Armada Suprema (8 peeps i think) said they are anticipating lv 100 within 2 weeks if the formula stays current.

Small guilds at high level tend to be there because they're focused, and do not have many casual players. Those who DO have a fair amount of casual players do not advance.

So again.. I see no problem with Small Guilds. They get a massive bonus.

No, we get a bonus to make us able to keep up with large guilds in levelling. Well, that was the case before, anyway. Now, the bonus will need to be seriously increased in order for that still to be the case.*


* I don't think increasing the small guild bonus is necessarily the way to go.

[Cernunan]

I see 6-10 man guilds all day long on Ghallanda, many of which are 80 or 90 levels. Heck i talked to 2 of them last night and they are not seeing any issues what so ever. Matter of fact, Armada Suprema (8 peeps i think) said they are anticipating lv 100 within 2 weeks if the formula stays current.

Huh?

Of the 12 THOUSAND guilds on Ghallanda right now, 10 are in the lvl 90 range.

3 are large guilds( Ravensguard, CC and GRR)
3 are medium (DI,SA,UE)
The other 4 are small.

Armada Suprema is lvl 81. They will not be 100 in 2 weeks unless they are exploiting.

[DocBenway]

This tells me that the Guild Bonus helps alot. When 9 people gather like 32, I see no problem.

Except 32 are gathering as 47, and 1 is gathering as 3 and a half. So, what I was replying to:

If all things were equal, this would be true.

However, they are not equal. The SGB (Small Guild Bonus) easily offsets the base 20 size in the equation. It is the SGB that 'helps' small casual guilds.

Implies inequality being one sided, and that may be the case for 50% of the numbers below the hard coded minimum decay size. As soon as you hit 5 it is not equal, and when the number equalized to gets a bonus of its own, it's not equal.

The point is not that the bonus is right or wrong, it's that it fails as an equalizer in 50% or more test cases.

[Thayion516]

Well i admit there are only a few in lv 90+ .. but i see lv 80+ alot. And thats what the guy from AS told me while we were chatting thru some quests earlier this week. /shrug.

Either way. I think the current system is fune. Small gets a bonus. Med/Large gets peeps. All are able to advance.

[Cyr]

We're all for new ideas and brainstorming solutions (truly, really, not just tossing buzzwords). This particular idea is problematic, because it promotes kicking players from your guild to reduce decay, which is where we were before and a situation we want to avoid.

We are certainly still considering other changes and have never said that the current changes being tested were considered any kind of final solution. We'd love to have more ideas to consider.

Ideas that are more likely to work out are ones that feel fair, promote playing together with people you like and have fun with, and where the system itself isn't promoting who you play with. We don't want to promote any particular guild size. And we don't want incentives for kicking players you enjoy playing with, or for players who might like to come and hang out or play occasionally to feel like they are hurting their guild or harming their friends in any way. If these goals seem wrong, we're willing to hear ideas on that too. This isn't an exhaustive list, but current thinking is leaning us strongly towards including these goals.

Decay is meaningless under the static decay formula you guys have tested out for certain sized guilds. However, those guilds are mid to large sized guilds.

More people means more renown now. And it really is a case where the extra renown for small guilds/med guilds is much less important then the pure renown gaining potential of the larger guilds. Without a per person check on this and no scaling renown gain all the way upto max guild size the answer is now just big guild for the win.

What I find astonishing is you guys seem to not realize (now) that this situation is just as disruptive if not more to existing guild structures and purely guilding based upon social aspects than a system which encouraged people to kick members who did not generate enough renown/day.

What is more disruptive to people's guilding choices?

• "Hey Jim we are trying to make the push to level 85 for the big ship. We are going to boot you from guild until we hit that mark because you only log on for an hour each week to say hi to people. Just yell at us and we will invite you to ship and party and all as always and you will be back in the guild the moment we hit our goal." - What my guild did to reach 85 fyi and it was not a great situation, but it was driven by the decay formula.
• Jim logs on to find that he is the only person in his guild left with an MotD saying "Join Super Guild XXX everyone went there". His guild simply is gone. No one enjoys the guild anymore. Not Jim or players like him who did not log on much and not those players who logged on alot either.

[Tshober]

Decay is meaningless under the static decay formula you guys have tested out for certain sized guilds. However, those guilds are mid to large sized guilds.

More people means more renown now. And it really is a case where the extra renown for small guilds/med guilds is much less important then the pure renown gaining potential of the larger guilds. Without a per person check on this and no scaling renown gain all the way upto max guild size the answer is now just big guild for the win.

What I find astonishing is you guys seem to not realize (now) that this situation is just as disruptive if not more to existing guild structures and purely guilding based upon social aspects than a system which encouraged people to kick members who did not generate enough renown/day.

What is more disruptive to people's guilding choices?

• "Hey Jim we are trying to make the push to level 85 for the big ship. We are going to boot you from guild until we hit that mark because you only log on for an hour each week to say hi to people. Just yell at us and we will invite you to ship and party and all as always and you will be back in the guild the moment we hit our goal." - What my guild did to reach 85 fyi and it was not a great situation, but it was driven by the decay formula.
• Jim logs on to find that he is the only person in his guild left with an MotD saying "Join Super Guild XXX everyone went there". His guild simply is gone. No one enjoys the guild anymore. Not Jim or players like him who did not log on much and not those players who logged on alot either.

So what you are saying is, even if all guilds can advance and eventually reach the highest levels, everyone will still choose to jump to the guilds that are likely to get there first? If that is the case, how could you EVER structure a guild leveling system that would satisfy your criteria of not disrupting guild choices? It seems to me you are essentially arguing that guild levels are so important to all players that the only guild leveling system that would be able to avoid disrupting guild choices would be one with no guild levels at all.

Your guild may have given the casual players a "warning" and invited them back after reaching a specific goal, but many did not do either. Many just booted Jim and that was that. That is the difference between the old decay system and the new one. Under the new one, everyone has a choice and it is purely voluntary. No one is forced out and shunned, with no choice. If people really like being in small, close knit guilds of like-minded people, then they can and they will be able to level up too. But if they are actually not as like-minded as we were led to believe, then some of them might well jump ship to guilds that are leveling up faster. But that hardly means Jim must do the same. If he really truly desires to be in a small guild of like-minded people, he is free to seek out those people and join them, and when they form a guild they will be able to level up.

Under the old decay system, after being booted, Jim would find himself in a guild environment that did not want him because any guild he desired to join would lose renown every day by inviting him, and they knew it and he knew it too. Think about that for a minute. What a sad, anti-social environment that makes for. Under the new decay system the devs are now testing, JIm and every other unguilded player, will be in demand. Guilds will seek Jim out and want him to join them. He will be welcomed into most guilds that he might desire to join because he will make a positive (if small) contribution to their leveling up efforts. See the difference?


People decide what guild to join based on many criteria. In a game like DDO that has guild levels, guild level is one of those criteria. Different people will weight guild level differently. For some it will be very important and for others it will be not very important. Short of eliminating guild levels entirely, I don't see how that will change. But if everyone has a voluntary choice, and no one is forced out or shunned, and all guilds are viable and can level up, then I don't see how people can complain overly much.

[Missing_Minds]

What is more disruptive to people's guilding choices?

• "Hey Jim we are trying to make the push to level 85 for the big ship. We are going to boot you from guild until we hit that mark because you only log on for an hour each week to say hi to people. Just yell at us and we will invite you to ship and party and all as always and you will be back in the guild the moment we hit our goal." - What my guild did to reach 85 fyi and it was not a great situation, but it was driven by the decay formula.
• Jim logs on to find that he is the only person in his guild left with an MotD saying "Join Super Guild XXX everyone went there". His guild simply is gone. No one enjoys the guild anymore. Not Jim or players like him who did not log on much and not those players who logged on alot either.

Sorry, Cyr, but in both of those situations, that is driven not by the decay formula, but by player greed and desire. Your guild choose the easy route over friend and fellowship. Game mechanics was chosen over friendships. That was not a fault of Turbine.

[Chaos000]

All the math proves that small guilds have the hardest time leveling even without having a massive decay penalty that now is given only exclusively to small guilds. When you look at the guilds below level 60 they are almost always small guilds.

When you look at the guilds above level 98 they are almost always small guilds.

The other thing to consider is how many individual small guilds will it take to match the per player size of a large guild. To argue that a small number of players should progress at the same rate of a guild x times their size without an equitable amount of effort is also be something to address.

I will admit however because of how the renown bonus for small guilds work, casual players continue to be affected and this should be addressed. Changing the guild renown bonus based on size tiers may be a step in the right direction

[DocBenway]

Sorry, Cyr, but in both of those situations, that is driven not by the decay formula, but by player greed and desire. Your guild choose the easy route over friend and fellowship. Game mechanics was chosen over friendships. That was not a fault of Turbine.

I would disagree with it not being their fault. They created and imposed the mechanic.

Before June 2010, powergamers guilded with casual harbor chatters who guilded with flowersniffers who guilded with zergers. A few were groupings of folks with the exact same playstyles, but it wasn't enforced nor was there any penalty for having anyone under the Siberys rings marked with the same guildtag as you, except for possible 'guilt by association' stigma of jerks in your guild.

Before June 2010, A guild was framework for easy communication and a common identity for players. Any addendum to that was defined by the membership. After U5, it became 'counterproductive' to a powergaming playstyle to have flowersniffers dragging down your guild's 'power' by causing decay they don't 'work' to make up for. Etc.

And meant to mention earlier:

...Matter of fact, Armada Suprema (8 peeps i think) said they are anticipating lv 100 within 2 weeks if the formula stays current.

Another illustration of how misunderstood the system in. 57 pages in and still no broad understanding of the existence of the hard coded minimum 10 or how the change did NOTHING for those under that size.

Under the old formula - they decayed at size 10, under the new formula everyone decays at size 10. Nothing changed for them in the realm of decay and they are still being 'taxed' for more members than they have. If they have 11, this was the 'sweet spot' in the old system and likely lost some sweetness as far as speed vs a large guild, but wouldn't progress any faster or slower than before.

Also, to me, speed of getting there doesn't matter, as long as nothing is artificially preventing me from getting there eventually, and I have a blast along the way, getting there 'whenever' is good enough. When and how fast you get there is your business and doesn't affect my guild's success or failure. It isn't a race or contest to me.
YMMV.

[Missing_Minds]

I would disagree with it not being their fault. They created and imposed the mechanic.

By creating any mechanic it is being imposed. Trying to flower it as if it is Turbines fault gets you no where as the decision to maximize guild renown over friendships was the choice of the players, no one else.

Now, was it nice for Turbine to design it in such a manner? I don't know of any one that will say "yes, it was nice."
But clearly, the players choose greed over friendships.

[Zorth]

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

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

yah we want higher than guild 100.

You created this problem of (housing) so build on it, 100 is old! Yes a high level guild is basically a House and can be owned by the guild leader if guild rewnown is taken for granted. I Cursed the day Guild ships were ever invented.

Stop with the easy buttons and realize that guilds have ships that is a privilage and not something that should be easy buttoned. If an Easy button happens then we all have our own flying house. Be caerful what yuo ask, because if we all had our own flying house this game would lag so bad and be so unplayable that the game might die in one fell update!

[Zorth]

With no guild decay every player in the game has level 100 guild ships with one member or invite the whole server because there is no consequence.

Either way is Death to this game.

The current status quo before this thread, made sense and STOP MAKING THREADS AND CRYING ABOUT DECAY WHEN IT IS THE GUILD LEADER WHO IS TO BLAME!
It is up to the Guild leaders to manage their guilds for f sake!

[Zorth]

The current system, before this thread, works and we want higher than level 100.

[Tshober]

Sorry, Cyr, but in both of those situations, that is driven not by the decay formula, but by player greed and desire. Your guild choose the easy route over friend and fellowship. Game mechanics was chosen over friendships. That was not a fault of Turbine.

* If I give you a choice of getting punched in the face or getting kicked in the groin, whose fault is it you are in pain? Clearly you chose the result. How can I be blamed for your choice?

If a game design forces players into two bad choices, for no good reason, it is the the fault of the game designers, not the fault of the players. The old decay system forced guild leaders to choose between kicking out casual and social players, or punishing the more active players in his guild by stagnating them forever with no chance to advance. Great choice. The new decay system being tested now, opens up much better options for guilds. No longer are they forced to choose between only bad choices. Now good choices are available that were not available under the old decay system. Bottom line: the old decay system encouraged and rewarded anti-social behavior on the part of guilds, and it should not have.





* I wish I could take credit for this example, but I can't. It was posted in a much earlier thread on this subject. I liked it a lot so I have plagerized it here for you. Perhaps the original poster can reply and take credit for it.

[Thayion516]

* If I give you a choice of getting punched in the face or getting kicked in the groin, whose fault is it you are in pain? Clearly you chose the result. How can I be blamed for your choice?

If a game design forces players into two bad choices, for no good reason, it is the the fault of the game designers, not the fault of the players. The old decay system forced guild leaders to choose between kicking out casual and social players, or punishing the more active players in his guild by stagnating them forever with no chance to advance. Great choice. The new decay system being tested now, opens up much better options for guilds. No longer are they forced to choose between only bad choices. Now good choices are available that were not available under the old decay system. Bottom line: the old decay system encouraged and rewarded anti-social behavior on the part of guilds, and it should not have.

YES 100%. ^^

The old system Punished SOMEONE..... Everytime.

Give me Good CHOICES of how I interact with my friends and guildies. Instead of Shoot One or the Other.

[niehues]

This is a massive tread and i did not read all posts.. but i have being following it alot and haven't seeing any sugestion like the one i am thinking to help small guilds...

my proposal is to increase the sweet spot for guild bonus.. instead of 6 for very small do 20 for example...

not sure if this will help only small guilds but it also make sense as if u have a guild with only 6 members.. u will have a party with only guild mates once in a blue moon.. and my point of view of a very small guild is to have a chance of having some ppl online to play along with.. and 20-24 would have a little chance of having more ppl to play with u at time/lv..

We're all for new ideas and brainstorming solutions (truly, really, not just tossing buzzwords). This particular idea is problematic, because it promotes kicking players from your guild to reduce decay, which is where we were before and a situation we want to avoid.

We are certainly still considering other changes and have never said that the current changes being tested were considered any kind of final solution. We'd love to have more ideas to consider.

Ideas that are more likely to work out are ones that feel fair, promote playing together with people you like and have fun with, and where the system itself isn't promoting who you play with. We don't want to promote any particular guild size. And we don't want incentives for kicking players you enjoy playing with, or for players who might like to come and hang out or play occasionally to feel like they are hurting their guild or harming their friends in any way. If these goals seem wrong, we're willing to hear ideas on that too. This isn't an exhaustive list, but current thinking is leaning us strongly towards including these goals.