Guild Renown Changes

[Naramsin]

I confess, I have not read the thread in its entirety but I pop in periodically to check up on the current state of affairs, as I am anxious to find out whether the present system will remain.

I thought I was up to speed until I read this:

My additional feedbacks after trying to come up with a fairer system:
3. Having any hidden rules/mechanism/complicated formula leads to more unfairness. For example, a person be extremely active for 7 days out of a month always hitting the renown ransack and getting reduced renown without knowing it. While another person can play every four days almost never hitting the reduced renown rate.

Wait, what? Is there a per-player ransack/max renown contribution? Or are you referencing the guild-wide ransack that occurs when the guild picks up a level, or ransack of the contents of individual chests? (Or am I just out of the loop and this is merely a response to suggestions made my others?)

As someone who makes a concerted effort to pick up the slack when guildmates take breaks from DDO, I'd like to know if I happen to be shooting myself in the foot or getting diminished returns.

[Faxe]

I confess, I have not read the thread in its entirety but I pop in periodically to check up on the current state of affairs, as I am anxious to find out whether the present system will remain.

I thought I was up to speed until I read this:


Wait, what? Is there a per-player ransack/max renown contribution? Or are you referencing the guild-wide ransack that occurs when the guild picks up a level, or ransack of the contents of individual chests? (Or am I just out of the loop and this is merely a response to suggestions made my others?)

As someone who makes a concerted effort to pick up the slack when guildmates take breaks from DDO, I'd like to know if I happen to be shooting myself in the foot or getting diminished returns.

As far as I can tell, you are unlikely to hit any limit or notice getting heroics instead of impressives.

It's not just when the guild levels up, ransacked of contents or chests. It is also based on your guild level plus some random limits. Is it really random? Or is it also account and character based?

but the hidden rules are there. It's not designed to reduce farming. I am sure of it. HEhe

[Cleazy]

It looks like im gonna have to make a new guild and invite every single toon i can have... Im gonna do my best to max it out to 1k members... I dont care if they play at all really... Ill take the same hit as guilds that actually work to get to lvl 100.. lol... Thanks for giving terrible guilds, like the one im making now, so much power and advantage... with 1k toons in this guild.. even if they get 100 renoun a day each.. thats 100k a day... awesome... Takes me a while to get that in my real guild ... Cant wait to exploit this... then when im done.. ill kick everyone little by little.. and itll just be me a few friends from my real guild... Thanks turbine.. Thats an awesome idea.. yes my small guild gets the small guild bonus.. but im not able to get like 100k to 1mill or more in renoun a day, even if they are playing 24/7 and opening chests every few seconds... I guess you should just get rid of guilds.. and guild ranks and give anyone who starts a new guild, lvl 100 buffs... Cause thats pretty much whats going to happen now.. Its a race now to suck up all the guildless toons people can, all day long.. ill be sitting in korthos begging for guildies for the next few weeks.. Then if i get enough ill only get 3 lvls a day.. oh well.. we wil be at lvl 100 in little over a month.. not bad... Actually im not gonna do that.. Cause thats pathetic... But I could and i know that im not the only one that thinks like that... lol... Good job breaking the guild system... The race is on... Got to max out your guilds asap.... Gratz to the noob guilds.. you deserve it... (well not really). . But you get it anyways.. lol

[Tshober]

It looks like im gonna have to make a new guild and invite every single toon i can have... Im gonna do my best to max it out to 1k members... I dont care if they play at all really... Ill take the same hit as guilds that actually work to get to lvl 100.. lol... Thanks for giving terrible guilds, like the one im making now, so much power and advantage... with 1k toons in this guild.. even if they get 100 renoun a day each.. thats 100k a day... awesome... Takes me a while to get that in my real guild ... Cant wait to exploit this... then when im done.. ill kick everyone little by little.. and itll just be me a few friends from my real guild... Thanks turbine.. Thats an awesome idea.. yes my small guild gets the small guild bonus.. but im not able to get like 100k to 1mill or more in renoun a day, even if they are playing 24/7 and opening chests every few seconds... I guess you should just get rid of guilds.. and guild ranks and give anyone who starts a new guild, lvl 100 buffs... Cause thats pretty much whats going to happen now.. Its a race now to suck up all the guildless toons people can, all day long.. ill be sitting in korthos begging for guildies for the next few weeks.. Then if i get enough ill only get 3 lvls a day.. oh well.. we wil be at lvl 100 in little over a month.. not bad... Actually im not gonna do that.. Cause thats pathetic... But I could and i know that im not the only one that thinks like that... lol... Good job breaking the guild system... The race is on... Got to max out your guilds asap.... Gratz to the noob guilds.. you deserve it... (well not really). . But you get it anyways.. lol

Good luck with that.

Since what you describe was exactly the fastest way to get to level 100 under the old decay system, I guess nothing has changed for you. Only difference is you will have to wait until level 100 to start kicking them now. Pathetic is right. But at least when you kick them now, they will be able to join other guilds whose leaders are not abusive and pathetic, and still get to 100. I'm sure that takes most of the fun out of kicking them for you, so I can certainly understand why you are complaining.

[slarden]

Good luck with that.

Since what you describe was exactly the fastest way to get to level 100 under the old decay system, I guess nothing has changed for you. Only difference is you will have to wait until level 100 to start kicking them now. Pathetic is right. But at least when you kick them now, they will be able to join other guilds whose leaders are not abusive and pathetic, and still get to 100. I'm sure that takes most of the fun out of kicking them for you, so I can certainly understand why you are complaining.

I think you missed this part that he wrote:

Actually im not gonna do that.. Cause thats pathetic... But I could and i know that im not the only one that thinks like that... lol

His point is very valid that we are changing the system so that large gulds don't dump casual players and nothing changed- there is still an incentive to dump players - except a much larger incentive because the upward track is so easy now with a large number of members whether they are temporary or permanent.

I noticed you took a very harsh tone with this person that was joking but you didn't have any issue with all the people in large guilds that wanted to know whether the change was permanent to decide whether or not to dump casuals.

The only true way to resolve the issue is to lower decay across the board.

[Tshober]

His point is very valid that we are changing the system so that large gulds don't dump casual players and nothing changed- there is still an incentive to dump players - except a much larger incentive because the upward track is so easy now with a large number of members whether they are temporary or permanent.

There is NO INCENTIVE at all to kick out any players under the new system. NONE AT ALL. There is only incentive to invite them. Kicking them gets you nothing but renown loss. Under the new system, the ONLY reason to kick members after they have helped you gain levels is pure spite. Yes, I do treat people like that harshly.

Now, under the old, system there was incentive to kick out members after they had helped you level up to mid-levels because kicking them allowed you to continue on up to the higher levels. But there is no such incentive in the new system. If you kick them in the new system, it is for purely spiteful reasons. People who advocate such behavior richly deserve our scorn.

His point is only valid in the minds of people who are incredibly self-centered.

[Tshober]

There is no additional decay for adding players so when booting players under the new system you only lose a small fraction of the rewnown they earned. If you are forced to add people to grow and later want to remove those people, you still end up with a net gain vs. doing nothing.

So what? It would be a bigger net gain to keep them and not boot them. The system rewards doing the right thing more than it rewards doing the wrong thing. What more can you ask of it?

The bottom line is the old decay system encouraged and rewarded kicking out casual/social players. The new decay system eliminates that incentive for most players and guilds. Instead, the new system rewards inclusion and inviting people, and only punishes kicking them.

[Thayion516]

Slarden. Quite frankly you are wrong. You have posted MANY times and I assume read this whole thread 10 times.

There was a mathematical reason to KICK all 150 people we did in my guild. Period. To increase our level, the MATH (you know 2+2?=4?) said the casual players were detrimental to the actives. PERIOD.

Under the new system the members playtime is irreverent to Kick/Not Kick. It is Purely Level Based. The MATH does not place casual players in guilds at a disservice to themselves or the guild they are in.

If ANY Guild Leadership chooses to exclude players and level slower (but still leveling), that is there choice. Likewise, ANY Leadership that chooses to to get help leveling by including recruitment, that is soley their choice also. The Renown Needed/Decay per Level does not change either way. it is now a Constant.

You yourself said you never had to deal with this situation because your in a 2 active man guild, and your inexperience shows.

I have never met a guild leader with any guild in game that is spiteful enough to recruite/kick cycle to level a guild. I've heard of such, but then i hear it folded, they never last. I'm sure there is a VERY small % of people that would practice such bad leadership, however I trust that DDO would not make game mechanics based on less then 1% of the player base.

The new system is Inclusive and Builds Guilds. Good Guilds = a Better DDO.

[eris2323]

Dooooooooooooooooooooooom?

I dunno, I think not... sounds like a lot of johnny fearmongers

Devs.... thousands upon thousands of active AND casual players are thanking you right now...

Just one or two still complaining, on and on and on, a guild of 2...

But we'd all love to know if this is permanent now

[Tshober]

Adding a player and then removing under the new system always results in net renown gain.

Again, so what? Adding a player and NOT removing them always results in an even bigger net renown gain.

The new system has its rewards in the right place. The old system was the one that rewarded kicking. The new one only rewards inviting and only punishes kicking. You have made no logically valid argument to refute that. All you have done is argue that someone who wants to abuse people badly enough can do so, despite the punishement that the system inflicts on them for it. That is true under any system. Heck, under the old system they were actually rewarded for it.

[Thayion516]

The same exact situation still exists with casuals in small guilds that existed in the old system because the decay probelm was not addressed for small guilds.

You yourself said you booted people to gain levels. Like most large guilds you probably randomly recruited and then selectively dropped players. That same incentive still exists to randomly recruit and selectively dismiss people from guilds. However it will be for slightly different reasons.

You refer to my guild as a 2-person guild because we have 6 less active people. Why aren't people in a small guild allowed to be casual? We are not excluding anyone, we are including people that are a good fit for our guild. Guilds shouldn't be forced to grow artifically - this should not be a numbers game.

You have no facts to base any assumptions on the way we have recruited over the years. So don't assume.

And the Devs disagree with you on the system being the same. And yes, numbers optimization is important to many.

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

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

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

[slarden]

You have no facts to base any assumptions on the way we have recruited over the years. So don't assume.

And the Devs disagree with you on the system being the same. And yes, numbers optimization is important to many.

No I don't know how you recruited, all I know if you dropped 150 people. That does tell me quite a bit.

Yes I understand that the developer comments show a belief that the proposed solution was the answer even as the testing was just beginning. I think they had an opportunity to turn this into a win for all guilds and Turbine instead of just promoting the "Bigger is better" approach.

It's ultimately Turbine's call and although I am expressing my opinions, this is only a game that I am not forced to play. They have been losing alot of customers. It's amazing to me that they would make a change here that was so one-sided when there were so many options to help out everyone without a downside.

And nobody still raised a single reason why reducing decay for small guilds would cause players to be booted. It's a non-sensical argument.

[Dallanin]

I play in a 2 player guild with modified guild size 6. We mostly TR together looting boxes and taking renown end rewards. I just made a quick calculation and noticed that at this pace we'll be at life 11 before reaching guild level 63. This was calculated without taking decay into account so it is possible that we'll get completionist before 3 % Experience Shrine.

Not that I'm complaining or anything. Quite a long road ahead but I still prefer to play in this guild. I just wanted to share this observation.
Right now we are at life 5, guild level 51, using greater tome of learning and cannith exp and renown potions.

[Tshober]

If you want a smaller group of compatible people, one viable option is to offer a test period. If it works out they stay - if not they get booted and you still gain renown. This is not abuse, it's a way for a small guild to grow without being forced to keep incompatible players. As long as it's clear up front, there is nothing wrong with this. It's the way fraternities, corporations and even social groups work.

Having a group of compatible players is important to many guilds.

Okay, fine. I don't see what point you are trying to make here. Are you saying that because you want to kick someone as part of a trial that your desire to kick them is somehow due to incentives in the decay system? Sorry, but your example here makes no sense at all to me.

This argument started when you claimed, incorrectly, that the new decay system still has "an incentive to dump players". What does this have to do with that? There is no incentive in the new decay system to kick members, ever. The new decay system will always punish kicking versus not kicking, and will always reward inviting versus kicking or not inviting. Nothing you can make up will change that. The situations you describe are irrelevent to what the incentives are in the decay system. You describe incentives to kick that do NOT come from the decay system but come purely from players' preferences. Those are irrelevlent to the subject of what the decay system rewards or does not reward.

If you want to convince me, or the devs, or anyone at all, then come up with an example where the new decay system actually rewards kicking someone versus not kicking them. Show a situation where you gain renown by kicking someone versus not kicking them. You can't, of course, because there are no such situations.

[eris2323]

I've shown many - others have also pointed it out. Taking on a player temporarily and then kicking them out under the test system will always result in a net renown gain for a guild. A guild at the 1000 character limit still has an incentive to boot less active players and replace those players with more active players.

You want this system "as is" with no accomodation made for small guilds, yet you and others are unable to show how lowering decay for small gulds will result in small guilds booting players. It won't. Lowering decay across the board will ease the pressure on guilds to worry about the play time of casual players.

The new system requires small guilds to have highly active players to cover the decay tax. Large guilds are free to operate as they wish and will eventually get to 100 with no effort, no need to take renown as an end reward and no need for guild elixirs. Large guilds can still get to 100 faster by replacing inactive players with more active players and I am sure some will do that. Small guilds can grow faster by adding players willing to join and then trimming the herd periodically. I am sure some small guilds will do that.

I believe Turbine looked at large guilds and the top tier small guilds when making this change. I wish they would look at metrics for all small guilds and not just those that are on the leader boards. My expectations are very low that any change will be made for smll guilds.

Turbine had an opportunity to implement a system with lowered decay for all guilds that would have greatly benefited all guilds.

Perhaps the devs are quite happy with the speed a guild of 2 is levelling, and there is no need for change.

Perhaps....

If a guild of 2 can keep up with my large guild, because Turbine artificially is helping them gain renown, I call shenanigans.

Unfair advantage, to anyone who simply wants to dual-box a 'guild'.

I would never reward such anti-social behaviour.

A kick in the face to all large guilds.

A personal insult, no less... especially after the YEARS large guilds had to suffer on the old system that favoured small guilds....

[Tshober]

You want this system "as is" with no accomodation made for small guilds, yet you and others are unable to show how lowering decay for small gulds will result in small guilds booting players. It won't. Lowering decay across the board will ease the pressure on guilds to worry about the play time of casual players.
.

I made no such claim. In fact, I am in favor of reducing the decay for all guilds, including tiny guilds like yours, and I have stated as much many times in this thread. The examples you gave were irrelevent to the decay systems under discussion. I think you are just confused. And I am beginning to doubt that there is any value in continuing this discussion with you. I hope that you and the other tiny guilds eventully get some decay relief.

[Thayion516]

As I've stated many times, decay is a penalty to each player in a small guild. There is no reason to penalize those in small guilds. It accomplishes absolutely nothing.

According to DDOwiki:

Very Small
Guild Renown Bonus Small

Modified Guild Size Multiplier
1 150%
2 180%
3 210%
4 240%
5 270%
6 300%
7 285%
8 270%
9 255%
10 240%


So unless your definition of penalty includes a very large Renown Bonus Multiplier.... I don't see it.

[Tshober]

There is no confusion, the math is very simple and straight forward. Under the new system, when you recruit a member and then later remove the member - the guild still gains net renown since there is no incremental increase in decay. Since there is no decay added when adding new members, the only #s that matter are the total renown earned and renown lost when the player was booted. Since the renown lost is a fraction of what was earned it's a net gain for the gulid. Sure you lose a little renown, but you still gained overall and that little renown lost is likely worth the exchange if you get someone that is more active (if you are trying to level faster) or a better fit for the guild (if you want the right people in your guild).
.

If there is no confusion then the only possible explaination is purposeful ignoring of the facts. You completely ignore the fact that if you don't remove the member you gain MORE renown than if you remove them. Anyone can "win" an argument if they ignore facts. The new system rewards you for keeping the member with more renown and punishes you for kicking them with loss of renown. Those are simple and obvious facts. If you choose to ignore them then there can be no useful discussion of this subject.

[slarden]

According to DDOwiki:

Very Small
Guild Renown Bonus Small

Modified Guild Size Multiplier
1 150%
2 180%
3 210%
4 240%
5 270%
6 300%
7 285%
8 270%
9 255%
10 240%


So unless your definition of penalty includes a very large Renown Bonus Multiplier.... I don't see it.

A guild of 8 gets 25x more decay / account and has to earn 25x more renown/account to level up compared to a guild of 200 . With the small guild bonus a guild of 8 still gets 9.25x more decay / account and has to earn 9.25x more renown/ account to level up. I don't mind the extra requirements to level up since there is no time variable there, but decay is a puntiive decay that is applied to members daily. That means casual players in a small guild of 8 are hurting their guild if they can't cover their decay tax. This is the same situation that occurred in large guilds.

The punitive decay tax should be modified for players in small guilds.

[Artos_Fabril]

A guild of 8 gets 25x more decay / account and has to earn 25x more renown/account to level up compared to a guild of 200 . With the small guild bonus a guild of 8 still gets 9.25x more decay / account and has to earn 9.25x more renown/ account to level up. I don't mind the extra requirements to level up since there is no time variable there, but decay is a puntiive decay that is applied to members daily. That means casual players in a small guild of 8 are hurting their guild if they can't cover their decay tax. This is the same situation that occurred in large guilds.

The punitive decay tax should be modified for players in small guilds.

Many hands make light the work.

If you're arguing that all guilds should progress at the same speed, why not remove renown altogether and just grant upgrades based on the number of days that the guild has existed?

Full disclosure: I play primarily in a large "family" guild on Khyber. It has ~100 "active" accounts, although there are rarely more than 25 people logged at a time on weekends or peak times, and usually 10 or fewer at any other time. Under the old system, this guild was pretty much stuck at 70. Since the test system was introduced, it has shot up to a whopping...72. I also play in a small guild of friends on another server. None of us log in there much, I rarely play there unless they're on, and they log in at most twice a week. That guild sits at 26, where there is no decay, and maybe hits 27 if we're all on for a weekend, before falling again during the week.

I have no illusions that these guilds should progress at the same rate. I don't think that's realistic, but it seems to be what you're advocating for in the "small casual guild that logs on more when more of them are around, and less when fewer of them are around" being able to advance to the upper guild tiers.

Much earlier in the thread, I proposed a system that would reward players for being active and taking renown, but not punish them for periods of inactivity, or for players who just log in to say hi and remind everyone they're still alive. Here it is again:

Calculate decay based on the old formula without the "min10+10" line. For this formula, count as "inactive" any player who did not earn at least 1 point of renown since renown decay was last calculated.

Now this would prevent double renown hits when servers come down, because only those people who were on and earning renown between when the servers came up and went back down would be active, and it seems like a much fairer system to me. It would also have the effect of makign it more difficult for a 1-2 person guild to log in "phantom" accounts to artificially raise their size to 6 to increase their renown gain by 120% they would have to, at a minimum, log those accounts in once a day and kill an orange named mob to get that bonus. It wouldn't affect the real optimizers anyway, since they built their small guilds around having 6 active people taking as much renown as possible every day.