Guild Renown Changes

[jhadden30]

For the record, I quit more than one guild when it decided levels were worth more than integrity.

Isn't that all that matters? Guilds of all sizes weren't progressing at the desired rate so they changed it so mostly larger guilds have the advantage of gaining as many levels as they can in as short amount of time as possible. Meanwhile my make believe guild is hoping to gain another level by 2013.

[Impaqt]

My understanding is the entire reason for this change was so that large guilds would not boot casuals. Many on this thread said they booted casuals to gain levels. One person said they booted 150 and showed the math of how it benefited his guild.

So it did happen. I argued that I Believe they were booting inactives and not casual players, but others said large guilds were booting casuals. I never did so you will have to take it up with the people on this thread that said this. Others said they would boot casuals if Turbine didn't make this change permanent.

I never for one minute believed that people had the tools to know who was casual and who wasn't, but other people from large guilds disagree with that.

I believe the premise that people will start booting casuals if small guilds a reduction in decay is a severely flawed idea. It's interesting how when I concede the point that large guilds were booting casuals, there is still an argument lol.

whats worse for the game?

Large guilds booting people because they dont contribute enough to the renown gain


or

large guilds giving up on renown because its a broken system.


personally, I think they BOTH contributed to the current experiment.

[Gremmlynn]

My understanding is the entire reason for this change was so that large guilds would not boot casuals. Many on this thread said they booted casuals to gain levels. One person said they booted 150 and showed the math of how it benefited his guild.

So it did happen. I argued that I Believe they were booting inactives and not casual players, but others said large guilds were booting casuals. I never did so you will have to take it up with the people on this thread that said this. Others said they would boot casuals if Turbine didn't make this change permanent.

I never for one minute believed that people had the tools to know who was casual and who wasn't, but other people from large guilds disagree with that.

I believe the premise that people will start booting casuals if small guilds a reduction in decay is a severely flawed idea. It's interesting how when I concede the point that large guilds were booting casuals, there is still an argument lol.

No, booting inactives would be mostly pointless.

As for having the tools, just set a target-say one week for the first cut, 5 days for the second-3 days for the third. Require all characters to be logged in within that time period and boot any that exceed it. One couldn't determine exactly how much renown was earned by whom. But once a guild got small enough it wasn't tough to figure out who was joining groups for quests and who might be spending all their time in the PvP pits or whatever as most guilds with enough members to do so tend to group together. Avoiding the unreliable PuG scene one of the main reasons to be in a guild after all.

[jhadden30]

Here's a solution: why not just dissolve guild levels and sizes and just let everyone pay for ships and buffs with turbine points or platinum or even favor for the matter? That would stop making it a gigantic competition and bragging rights showdown. This way we could all get back to playing and having fun which is what we're supposed to be doing in the first place.

[Gremmlynn]

Isn't that all that matters? Guilds of all sizes weren't progressing at the desired rate so they changed it so mostly larger guilds have the advantage of gaining as many levels as they can in as short amount of time as possible. Meanwhile my make believe guild is hoping to gain another level by 2013.

No they changed it so that for those guilds in which guild levels were all that mattered the solution was more positive to the player base overall than it had been. While feeling "forced" to recruit may not be any better than feeling "forced" to kick, I can assure you being invited to a guild is generally superior to being kicked from one.

As for your guild, when did you hope to gain a level by before this change?

[jhadden30]

No, booting inactives would be mostly pointless.

As for having the tools, just set a target-say one week for the first cut, 5 days for the second-3 days for the third. Require all characters to be logged in within that time period and boot any that exceed it. One couldn't determine exactly how much renown was earned by whom. But once a guild got small enough it wasn't tough to figure out who was joining groups for quests and who might be spending all their time in the PvP pits or whatever as most guilds with enough members to do so tend to group together. Avoiding the unreliable PuG scene one of the main reasons to be in a guild after all.

But doesn't this logic still stiff the casual players that everyone is trying to convince me that I am so much against?

[Gremmlynn]

Here's a solution: why not just dissolve guild levels and sizes and just let everyone pay for ships and buffs with turbine points or platinum or even favor for the matter? That would stop making it a gigantic competition and bragging rights showdown. This way we could all get back to playing and having fun which is what we're supposed to be doing in the first place.

Works for me.

[jhadden30]

No they changed it so that for those guilds in which guild levels were all that mattered the solution was more positive to the player base overall than it had been. While feeling "forced" to recruit may not be any better than feeling "forced" to kick, I can assure you being invited to a guild is generally superior to being kicked from one.

As for your guild, when did you hope to gain a level by before this change?

At the exact same rate that we now. Decay is still a factor in small guilds but is virtually meaningless to larger groups.

[jhadden30]

Works for me.

Good, we've reached a point of agreement. Now all we have to do is convince others.

[yawumpus]

I dont see anyone claiming the system currently being tested doesnt favor large guilds. Its blatantly clear that it does....

It was also blatant that the previous system favored small guilds.

It also SHOULD be clear than theres a LOT more to being in a guild than its level and ship.

a guild that recruits like crazy, hits 100, then boots everyone is NOT going to be very popular.....

if you have guildies leaving your "Small" guild because large guilds can level faster right now, they were not very good guildies to begin with..

It was hardly "blatant" that the old system favored small guilds. It certainly blatantly favored guilds [much] larger than 50. Using 50 as your example "large guild" ignores some curious effects about "blatantly favoring large guilds".

Under the old system, after 50 members you would always gain reknown faster with a larger guild all the way up to 1000 members (assuming all guildies are equal). The catch was finding guildies who at least maintain the guild's average reknown income. Large guilds would often whine that they added a ton of pikers and that it impossible for them to collect reknown; the smaller guilds should just spam the harbor if they wanted guild levels. Using a 50 member guild as "large" is hiding the obvious advantage 100-1000 member guilds had.

Under the old system, large guilds would shoot up to until decay got somewhat large. Guilds smaller than 50 members slowly get a slight advantage after relentless scrounging reknown just to get to levels handed to spamming guilds on a silver platter. Even then, smaller guilds were facing higher decay per member (remember that bit about "total members + 10" when total members isn't all that much larger than 10 it really starts to hurt).

The old system favored huge guilds (casual or not) and reknown-obsessed guilds of size around 12. The fact that a huge guild need not care what its members are doing and still maintain its ranking on the first page of the guild ranking is not "blatant favoring". Somehow 10k+ small guilds have been "blatantly favored" for years and not made it to those levels.

[Gremmlynn]

But doesn't this logic still stiff the casual players that everyone is trying to convince me that I am so much against?

That was the old system. Under the new system, even if a casual logs in just once to earn 5 kill renown that's 5 more renown than the guild had previously as it no longer costs more to keep that player on the roster. Under the old, every account on the roster added to the daily decay and any who didn't play enough to earn more than what they added was a liability.

[jhadden30]

Here's a solution: why not just dissolve guild levels and sizes and just let everyone pay for ships and buffs with turbine points or platinum or even favor for the matter? That would stop making it a gigantic competition and bragging rights showdown. This way we could all get back to playing and having fun which is what we're supposed to be doing in the first place.

Just to add to this, why are we able to buy a larger ship with platinum before we are even at a required level to use it. That's like telling a child they can hold a present on Christmas morning but they can't open it until you reach a certain age.

[theslimshady]

At the exact same rate that we now. Decay is still a factor in small guilds but is virtually meaningless to larger groups.

so this perplexed me you have no renown gaining issues outside of how fast you gained vrs other guilds

[Gremmlynn]

Just to add to this, why are we able to buy a larger ship with platinum before we are even at a required level to use it. That's like telling a child they can hold a present on Christmas morning but they can't open it until you reach a certain age.

Likely because that was the easiest way to code a "guild ship bank" that allows members to make a contribution.

[jhadden30]

so this perplexed me you have no renown gaining issues outside of how fast you gained vrs other guilds

My biggest complaint is that a small guild still has a higher amount of decay per account than a larger guild, plain and simple. Making it a calk walk for larger guilds. As I've stated earlier, this favors large guilds and says "too bad" to small groups.

[slarden]

It was hardly "blatant" that the old system favored small guilds. It certainly blatantly favored guilds [much] larger than 50. Using 50 as your example "large guild" ignores some curious effects about "blatantly favoring large guilds".

Under the old system, after 50 members you would always gain reknown faster with a larger guild all the way up to 1000 members (assuming all guildies are equal). The catch was finding guildies who at least maintain the guild's average reknown income. Large guilds would often whine that they added a ton of pikers and that it impossible for them to collect reknown; the smaller guilds should just spam the harbor if they wanted guild levels. Using a 50 member guild as "large" is hiding the obvious advantage 100-1000 member guilds had.

Under the old system, large guilds would shoot up to until decay got somewhat large. Guilds smaller than 50 members slowly get a slight advantage after relentless scrounging reknown just to get to levels handed to spamming guilds on a silver platter. Even then, smaller guilds were facing higher decay per member (remember that bit about "total members + 10" when total members isn't all that much larger than 10 it really starts to hurt).

The old system favored huge guilds (casual or not) and reknown-obsessed guilds of size around 12. The fact that a huge guild need not care what its members are doing and still maintain its ranking on the first page of the guild ranking is not "blatant favoring". Somehow 10k+ small guilds have been "blatantly favored" for years and not made it to those levels.

The argument that the system favored small guilds is based on the fact that the leader board predominantly consists of small guilds. Although this represents well under 1% of all small guilds.

The logic has the same flaw as saying that since most major league baseaball players are over 6 feet, it's easy to make it to the major leagues if you are over 6 feet. The logic doesn't work - just like it doesn't work when you use high achieving small guilds as the example of what all small guilds should be able to do easily.

The system always favored large guilds as you said, but it's not possible to get a guild of 200 active enough to cover their daily decay. Nor is it easy to motivate a large guild of 200 to take elixirs or take renown as an end reward. Nor is it easy to recruit 200 people that are highly active. That is the one common factor of all gulids on the leader board, a high level of activity/member. Why all small gulids are being penalized for this... I have no idea.

There was actually a flaw in the old system where small guilds did get less decay/account due to the way the min (acct +10) and guild renown bonus played together. I had that info in what I proposed as a solution and will try to find that and repost it. It is actually quite easy to fix that problem.

I think it's fine to lower decay, but many small guilds also get stuck at a level and somehow the casual people from those guilds have been completely ignored.

Based on comments, it appears Turbine focused on high achieving small guilds and large guilds when making this change.

[Impaqt]

It was hardly "blatant" that the old system favored small guilds. It certainly blatantly favored guilds [much] larger than 50. Using 50 as your example "large guild" ignores some curious effects about "blatantly favoring large guilds".


Under the old system, after 50 members you would always gain reknown faster with a larger guild all the way up to 1000 members (assuming all guildies are equal). The catch was finding guildies who at least maintain the guild's average reknown income. Large guilds would often whine that they added a ton of pikers and that it impossible for them to collect reknown; the smaller guilds should just spam the harbor if they wanted guild levels. Using a 50 member guild as "large" is hiding the obvious advantage 100-1000 member guilds had.

Under the old system, large guilds would shoot up to until decay got somewhat large. Guilds smaller than 50 members slowly get a slight advantage after relentless scrounging reknown just to get to levels handed to spamming guilds on a silver platter. Even then, smaller guilds were facing higher decay per member (remember that bit about "total members + 10" when total members isn't all that much larger than 10 it really starts to hurt).

The old system favored huge guilds (casual or not) and reknown-obsessed guilds of size around 12. The fact that a huge guild need not care what its members are doing and still maintain its ranking on the first page of the guild ranking is not "blatant favoring". Somehow 10k+ small guilds have been "blatantly favored" for years and not made it to those levels.

because there were so many 100+ account guilds at the top of the renown charts?

How many of your 10k+ small guilds are innactive?

[Chaos000]

if a large guild recruits like crazy to get to 100, under the current system, there is no reason to boot anyone. I don't see them dumping their player base under this new renown system, but so many people seem to be sure it will happen. The reason it happened before was the levels were unsustainable under the old renown system, but now they will be.

In order to make the system equitable there really needs to be a more non-luck-based method to gain renown in-game (just thinking out loud here… renown given as a possible end reward at quest completion? Normal: 50, Hard: 150, Elite: 500, Epic Elite: 1000)

The other item to address is that the guild size bonus should be calculated “per rate of decay” as opposed to “per month.” Raising the *sweet spot* from 6 to any other arbitrary number will not fix the issue as there is nothing preventing the creation of extra f2p accounts as placeholders (for example 2 players + 4 “fake” accounts that log in at least once a month for maximum 6 player bonus)

The more I think about it, eliminating the renown bonus based on size and replacing it for an equitable reduction of decay makes more sense. The incentive of having “placeholder” accounts to guarantee maximum renown bonus remains in the current system. (A player quad boxing I find justified… a player who has a single character on a dummy account for the sole purpose of counting as an “active” player subverts the intention of the renown bonus)

Here is another proposal: 50+ player guilds get 0 renown bonus currently so… each player = 2% of the total decay. (for example guild of a single person = 2% total decay (i.e. -98% = virtually no loss at low levels), guild of 6 = 12% total decay, guild of 25 = 50%... capping out at 100%) The benefit of recruiting more than 50 players will be the potential of a higher rate of total renown gain (in-theory) and no disincentive to stop recruiting past 50 players.

Under this proposed system... small guilds will no longer have any issue progressing to the next level and decay will only be an issue for guilds with long periods of inactivity. Yes guilds that have numbers significantly larger than 50 will *still*be favored under this system (theoretical potential will indicate that they would pump out seemingly ridiculous numbers). HOWEVER. The argument will no longer be about whether or not small guilds can progress without adding additional members. It will be whether or not guilds larger than 50 could reasonably suffer a higher decay tax without needing to boot casual players in order to progress.

[theslimshady]

My biggest complaint is that a small guild still has a higher amount of decay per account than a larger guild, plain and simple. Making it a calk walk for larger guilds. As I've stated earlier, this favors large guilds and says "too bad" to small groups.

so it has nothing to do with hitting renown walls or decaying levels or kicking inactive accounts only about how you fair against every one else and if you cant level as fast as everyone else its a doomed system seems a bit biased to me as a large guild we have never advocated fast leveling only the abilty to do so period

[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.

Yawumpus, as promised here is the chart that shows small guilds did actually get a benefit on decay/account under the old system because the math was oversimplified. This is a very simple proposal that fixes the old system with a slight change in formula and lowers decay by 80% for most guilds. For gulids 90 and above it matches the test model. For guilds below level 90 they get some benefit so the decay differences aren't so outrageous. You can see the unfair advantage small gulids got regarding decay in the first column (parentheses). The # in parentheses shows the renown required to cover decay when factoring in the small guild bonus. Large guilds were correct that decay was unfair to large guilds - nobody ever bothered to do the math to prove it.

It also recognizes that large guilds do have a harder time with renown and thus does favor those guilds slightly as it should.