Guild Renown Changes

[Tshober]

Guilds aren't small because they are unpopular. Guilds are small because that is what the people in the guild want.

Some small guilds are small because they are unpopular and can't keep members. Some are small because most of their players have left the game. Some are small because only small guilds could get to level 100 under the old decay system. Some are small because they just started up and have not had time to recruit more members yet. Some are small because they are just one solo guy who does not want to have to deal with other people. And, as you pointed out, some are small because they prefer that type of guild. I don't know exactly how many fall into which catagories and neither do you.

[DocBenway]

DEV tracker is your friend.

There has not been any secret of how decay is done, old or new.

Formula has been posted for a very long time.

The perceived formula did not include the small size of 10 until after February this year. I posted a thread asking why the minimum size 10 existed based on my own numbers and numbers I saw in ongoing renown discussions about too much decay.

That's almost 2 full years of the mostly correct formula was posted before it got adjusted for the minimum size.

That's part of the formula Dev Tracker will not help with as they have never directly addressed why it existed. This thread is helping a lot by clearing things up, and even those who 'knew' the system learned something new in these pages.

So while not a secret, not at all publicized, put in a FAQ, made clear in a subtab of the Guild Social tab for easy access, etc.

Clarity of the system needs work too, but the system itself has to be fixed first.

[Gremmlynn]

I guess that's the difference between us, then: I don't think forcing others to play my way is good, while you do. OK. I don't think we have much more to talk about, then.

How are you being forced to play any way? Given incentives to, sure. But guild leveling has always been and, until guilds start earning renown simply by existing, will always be that way.

The whole guild leveling system is such a small part of what guilds are, I can't see how anyone can feel forced to play in any way by it. On the other hand, it does give incentives to those willing to bring all the things a guild provides to those who don't have them.

To me it looks like Turbine realized that their original "play more and get a few small perks" idea back fired and caused those who wanted the extra perks to take away everything that guilds give from those who didn't play more. So now it seems they are trying a subtler, "recruit more and get a few small perks" system that will, hopefully, get people to choose to play more by improving the environment they play in. Some likely will, but at least those who can't, or simply won't, aren't being demoted to PUGing and general chat.

[Gremmlynn]

Completely agree with you!!! I have a small guild and would like to keep it that way. We have a core group of end game content players and just because we are a small guild we get no help on the decay system because of the new one being placed into the system is rediculius, if they are going to give the advantage to the bigger guilds that just sit out in the harbor or korthos recruiting new players just to build their ranks and guild size. How is that fair to the guilds that's actually take the time to run with players, and make them an addition to there guild???? Because you see that happening with a lot of the guilds on Sarlona, people in guilds that are notorious for it, and we all know who they are. Literally just sit in Korthos and The Harbor and spam gen chat saying send us a tell to join our guild. Increasing their guild size and getting the lesser decay amount.
So how I ask is giving advantages to larger guilds helpful? It's not if it gives advantages to large guilds like that... Funny thing is about those guilds, the guild mates don't even know the other players in that guild. Case in point 3 players join my pug a while back. Got to the quest and all 3 typed in "Wow, look guys we are all in the same guild, that's cool!!" lol I mean really? Anyways enough of me ranting, what do I know, I've only been playing this game for lil over half a decade

But, all in all. Make it balanced, weigh the pros and cons and you should give a renown penalty for too many new account joins to a guild, because I can see a lot of invites happening if this new renown effect comes into play... No more than 1-2 new player additions to a guild per day, if not just 1. Because, all larger guilds will get the advantage because they will be abusing the system. And the lil guys will point blank be getting the short end of the draw. Because, of an unfair advantage and the unwillingness to go an troll for new players and blind invite them to their guilds...

Overall, this will pretty much be the end of small guilds. The decay and the renown effect for level gained will pretty much make it impossible to level... Us smaller guilds have always worked harder for guild levels and now we are being penalized... This is unfair!!!!

Witchies

(also, sorry again for ranting, I'm a girl! I am allowed!!! Lol)

I'm still trying to figure out how one guild can gain any sort of advantage over another guild in this game or how small guilds could have ever gained levels if they no longer can, but whatever...

Think of it this way, now not only the lazy guilds will have a reason to recruit the unskilled masses so maybe the average skill level of the community will go up from this. I know it certainly wasn't when anyone with skill refused to associate with anyone that couldn't prove themselves as skilled.

[Gremmlynn]

And you are probably one of those guilds that spam invites to new players buffing your account size for the guild lol

You make it sound like giving players a home a bad thing. If I'm a player looking for a guild, a guild spamming invites is infinitely preferable to one that isn't interested in inviting me. It could be good and I stay, it could be bad and I leave, but at least there is a chance I end up happy.

[Gaunt1995]

The only thing i want to say about large guild renown changes is keep it permanent, theres just too many reasons, by example, its likely hard on your guildies to see the renown they worked hard for is likely lost..

[Gremmlynn]

I would agree that Turbine is sending the message that they prefer big guilds with the test system changes, but I don't think this really a winning strategy for DDO. Assessing a much larger decay penalty on players in small guilds doesn't really accomplish anything for the game and it certainly does nothing to prevent large guilds from dumping their players. I think it completely ignores the fact that many casual players are members or even leaders of small guilds.

All it will do is create bad will and encourage people to increase guild size whether they want to or not. Why take the fun out of the game for people to force a certain way of playing?

More likely a matter of them just wanting to take away any mechanical reason for guilds to kick members without much regard for anything else. Frankly, I think they are probably trying to figure out a way of helping small guilds that doesn't give anyone a reason to shed less active members to take advantage of it.

Personally I'm liking the test system as I believe all players are better off in well run guilds and that only a small percentage of the player base is capable of running guilds well.

[theslimshady]

All it will do is create bad will and encourage people to increase guild size whether they want to or not. Why take the fun out of the game for people to force a certain way of playing?

lol this statement is why it needed to be changed my large guild that was caped out for toons was bleeding renown so for me to have progressed forward i would have had to kick members and change my guild and we have always been a large guild

[Tshober]

Assessing a much larger decay penalty on players in small guilds doesn't really accomplish anything for the game and it certainly does nothing to prevent large guilds from dumping their players.

The new decay system takes away all incentives for large guids, or any guilds for that matter, to dump their players. The old decay system rewarded large guilds for dumping their more casual players. The new decay system does not. The new system NEVER rewards kicking members, and only punishes it. Why on Earth would large guilds dump their players under the new decay system, when all that does is hurt their guild? This is the most ridiculous argument. It makes no logical sense at all, and yet it keeps getting brought up.

[Dandonk]

How are you being forced to play any way? Given incentives to, sure. But guild leveling has always been and, until guilds start earning renown simply by existing, will always be that way.

The whole guild leveling system is such a small part of what guilds are, I can't see how anyone can feel forced to play in any way by it. On the other hand, it does give incentives to those willing to bring all the things a guild provides to those who don't have them.

To me it looks like Turbine realized that their original "play more and get a few small perks" idea back fired and caused those who wanted the extra perks to take away everything that guilds give from those who didn't play more. So now it seems they are trying a subtler, "recruit more and get a few small perks" system that will, hopefully, get people to choose to play more by improving the environment they play in. Some likely will, but at least those who can't, or simply won't, aren't being demoted to PUGing and general chat.

Give large enough incentives, and it's the same as being forced: "Play this way, or pay the consequences!"

Some of us like the guilds we have. We do not appreciate the rules being changed at this late date so that we suddenly get (relative to others) worse off.

Once again: I don't mind large guilds with casuals being helped out. I just wish small guilds with casuals would get the same courtesy.

[Tshober]

If a large guild was booting people when they were at level 65 because they hit a wall there, what is going to keep them from booting players at level 80 when they hit the wall there? .

If you have to ask that question, it means you don't really understand the difference between the old decay system and the new one. Under the old decay system, kicking out casual/social players helped your guild level up because it reduced the amount of daily decay your guild would incur. Under the new decay system, reducing the number of accounts in your guild, regardless of whether they are casual or not, does not change the daily decay amount at all. Under the new, kicking DOES NOT HELP ever, it only hurts. So what is keeping them from booting players is the fact that most guild leaders are smart enough to know that, under the new system, booting members will only hurt their guild and not help it at all.

[theslimshady]

i agree i dont want small guilds to suffer but this attack large guilds like we we should bleed out is just mean
we i mean my guild has dealt with this since the astral diamond contest we won on lammnia before the ships was launched on the live servers and have very seldomly complained
no other guilds every put any real numbers on the posts at all ever and i have tried on mutiply occasions
i find every chart on ddo and wiki never equal anywhere near my daily renown decay off by as much as 50k sometimes
there is speculation about how large guilds are nothing but brawling choas internally and that no leader can control it which i know first hand is false
as a large guild i have never nor any of my officers blind invited any one ever
there is no acessable log at all so who knows if ever peice of renown is even calculated
this years mabar festival was the first since decay started we could enjoy without bleeding out a level which always dampers that time of year

so to end this rant with real numbers

for loot and glory
modified account size 201
level 74 current renown 20909485
throu this whole experiment we gained 824114k renown
under old system decay would have been about 137k a day
959000 a week decay
2 weeks 1.918.000 decay -824114 means during mabar cycle
we would have lost 1.094.000

[slarden]

Enoach's point is valid that the small guld bonus should be part of the equation. If you multiply # of players * guild bonus it gets you to the effective renown earning power of a guild

Here is a slight tweak that takes this into account. This is based on the old system. In all cases the decay is less than or equal to what is proposed in the test system:



For guilds with 90 or more accounts this would match the test method
For guilds with <90 accounts, they would see a reduction in decay such that decay is reduced by ~ 80% for all guilds. In all cases they would get less decay than the test method.

Here is the impact for some various guild sizes. The # in parenthes takes into account the guild bonus and the reduction in renown required by the guild. The proposed system column is what I am proposing as an alternative to the test system. The test system based benefits solely on size - bigger is better.



If the guild bonus curve is flattened so that all guilds size 1-12 get a 200% bonus rather than bell curve centered around 6 members, the decay chart would like this:



Again the goal of this would be to help out small casual guilds that stand in place get the same type of benefit large casual guilds received, but all guilds would benefit relative to the old system. The key is evening out the punitive decay aspect of the guild system and not the leveling aspect.

I am not sure if the devs will even see this, but if they do I hope they consider this system or something similar as an alternative that recognizes that small casual guilds also need some help. I believe small guilds have a place in ddo and am hopeful Turbine believes that also.

It would be great if they lowered ship and amenity requirements by 15-20 levels as well since that is what most people care about more than the level itself.

Even if you ignore the last column in these charts I think it shows just how much more renown each person in a small guild must earn relative to a large guild under the test system to cover their individual decay penalty. At th end of the day decay is a penalty on the people in the guild. There are many ways this system can be corrrected quickly so that the system is fair to all, this is one relatively easy way. A quick change to the decay table and a small math change to the decay formula.

I hope Turbine considers this option or some of the options presented by others so that small gulds are given the same consideration with regards to decay as large guilds. Decay is not just a large guld problem.

Thank you to the devs for looking into this problem. I hope you can empathisize with those of us that spent years building our small guild. It's good for DDO to have healthy and happy small, medium and large guilds. Please don't punish 99%+ of small guilds because of the success of the top 1% of small guilds.

[Tshober]

Those guilds can still get to 85 instead of getting stalled @ 80 by booting casuals and replacing those folks with more active people.

Your math is pretty poor. If they can find additional active players that want to join, then they would be much better off keeping their casual players and adding the new actives on top of them.

[eris2323]

Your math is pretty poor. If they can find additional active players that want to join, then they would be much better off keeping their casual players and adding the new actives on top of them.

He also makes assumptions, then tries to pass them off as fact.

On a totally unrelated note, I hope the devs announce if the test will stay, or any other changes they have made today...

Especially the announcement part... would like to know if it's safe to allow new people to join us again....

[Tshober]

As many have pointed out, that doesn't work for the large guilds at the 1000 character limit. Their only option is to boot casuals and replace those folks with more active people if they are stuck at a specific level. That is true with the old and new system because if activity(renown) isn't greater than decay, replacement of casuals is the only option to move forward according to the people in large guilds.

Wow, just wow. A guild that large would have to be pretty much 100% extremely casual to stall at all, under the new decay system. For 99.9% of all guilds that are ever likely to exist, this will never be an issue. Let's stick to realistic scenarios, please.

[Gremmlynn]

Give large enough incentives, and it's the same as being forced: "Play this way, or pay the consequences!"

Some of us like the guilds we have. We do not appreciate the rules being changed at this late date so that we suddenly get (relative to others) worse off.

Once again: I don't mind large guilds with casuals being helped out. I just wish small guilds with casuals would get the same courtesy.

Well, I can see your point as you are no longer better off (relative to) the hoard of casual players that couldn't find a guild that didn't kick them out that this change was made to help out. They do appreciate the rules being changed but wonder why it took so long.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to make small guilds with casuals better off without making small guilds without casuals better off than large guilds with them and putting us right back where we were. With nearly all the large guilds jettisoning the unneeded baggage of their casual player base to become lean, mean leveling machines and those that don't losing many of the core active players that make them functional to the guilds that do.

[Gremmlynn]

Wow, just wow. A guild that large would have to be pretty much 100% extremely casual to stall at all, under the new decay system. For 99.9% of all guilds that are ever likely to exist, this will never be an issue. Let's stick to realistic scenarios, please.

For 100% of all functional and 99.9% of all dysfunctional (i.e. those without a core of active players to build around, though at that size there might be enough casuals for the guild to actually function) guilds of that size this would be the case.

[slarden]

Wow, just wow. A guild that large would have to be pretty much 100% extremely casual to stall at all, under the new decay system. For 99.9% of all guilds that are ever likely to exist, this will never be an issue. Let's stick to realistic scenarios, please.

If a large guild was stalling at level 60 under the old system they will now stall at level 93 all other things remaining equal. They are only required to generate 1/10 the renown. At level 93 the decay is 10x higher than level 60 so they will still stall at that point unless they generate more renown/account than they were previously at level 60. A large guild that stalled at 54 will stall around 84.

Most small gulds will still never make it to 60.

[Standal]

Well, I can see your point as you are no longer better off (relative to) the hoard of casual players that couldn't find a guild that didn't kick them out that this change was made to help out. They do appreciate the rules being changed but wonder why it took so long.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to make small guilds with casuals better off without making small guilds without casuals better off than large guilds with them and putting us right back where we were. With nearly all the large guilds jettisoning the unneeded baggage of their casual player base to become lean, mean leveling machines and those that don't losing many of the core active players that make them functional to the guilds that do.

This is really pretty simple in concept. Continue to have renown decay that doesn't doesn't account for guild size. Keep the renown/level the same.

Modify the small guild bonus to a guild renown modifier that applies to all guilds. The new guild bonus will choose an active account size as nominal and any guild at that size will have zero modifier. As your active account size moves away from the standard, you get either a greater or lesser guild size modifier.

The psychological aspects of this may be a little rough on some guild sizes, since small guild will be getting some very large bonuses to make their renown/account equal to large guilds. To make this work fairly, a small guild of 20 players would receive 10x the renown per award that a largue guild of 200 players got.

I assume that this is why the original system worked the way it did. It looks ridiculous to have a small guild bonus of 10x. To prevent that they scaled renown up by account. If you assume that all DDO guilds will have a normal distribution of account activity, the old system was very fair and well designed. The problem was DDO guilds do not have a normal activity distribution and guilds quickly started optimizing their size for the renown system.