Guild Renown Changes

[slarden]

Hmmm ..

DDOwiki says:

Present guild decay modifier for Lv 38 guild = 20.577000
Present Decay formula is Modifier*(10+10) = 20.577000*20 = 411 renown decay every 24hrs. .. 411.

8 person guild bonus is an additional 270%. X+X*2.70.

One Tales of Valor (150) calculates to 150+150*2.70 = 555 renown. Overcovers decay with one loot.

None of your players are getting 1 Tales of Valor or better a day on average? Between all your players?

1 Legendary Victory would cover your decay for more then a week.

Im sorry i have to ask: What are you members doing? Crafting all day?

If you were directing this to my guild you would have a point.

However, If you ever run with truly casual players, they don't rush the dungeons. They are not there to maximize xp/minute or get loot. While it may be hard for you to understand why it takes so long to get renown, it really is a function of how you play the game.

1) If you run the quests slowly you may only run one dungeon in an evening. I run with experienced people that take time and I know when I group with these folks I will probably only get one quest in the whole night. There is a lot of chat before the quest and we sometimes wait for people to see if they log on. Then the quest itself takes longer.
2) If you run quests at lower difficulties you get less renown
3) If you run quests at lower levels you get less renown
4) If you are ftp and you are grinding for xp, you will run alot of quests @ ransack for certain levels getting only 10% xp per quest because there is nothing else to run. You won't get any renown.

Again I feel compelled to point out the double standard. We made this change to help casual players - and the casual players in large guilds were helped with a massive decay reduction. This person pointed out the difficulty in getting renown which I think is a valid concern.

When someone from a small guild raises the issue, the answer is always some variation of "you should be able to do better". If activity is a prerequisite for advancing we should really go back to the old system - that was an activity based system that was fair with the exception of one minor glitch in their decay formula that is easily correctible. However, if we want to go to a progress-based system (reduced decay so players don't lose as much renown they earned) where it is easier to advance, we need to include small guilds like his in the party.

One obvious question I have is where is Turbine in all this? It seems extremely odd that they asked for one week of comments and never actually told us whether this system is permanent and/or what the plan is for the guilds of 10 or less that were completely left out and the guilds of 11-40 that got some benefit but should get more.

If you didn't really care about our comments/concerns Turbine, why did you ask? Why can't you give us an update on this issue since around 100 people form tiny/small guilds took the time to comment and there were many common concerns.

[slarden]

I actually like this idea where in guilds 20 or less has their formula for decay adjusted to the number of active accounts in the guild. To prevent abuse I do propose that once the guild exceeds 20 active, the formula remains fixed therefore there is no incentive to recruit and expanding with the intent to reduce in size at a later time.




While initially i agreed with this position, I've since amended my feelings on this. Reduction of decay is preferable to increasing small guild bonuses. Small guild bonuses are tricky, once you create a situation where bonuses favor a small guild enough that they would benefit more than a guild two or three or four times+ their size, it becomes less desireable for existing guilds to add any new players unless the new members have a level of activity that offsets the benefits a that the guild would otherwise lose by increasing in size. As a counter point, in certain cases a guild would also find themselves with more to gain by reducing their number as opposed to adding more.

It should never be a benefit to reducing in size and always be a benefit to adding more. At the same time it should *still* be viable for a guild of ANY size to progress without having to increase in size or reduce in number.

Reduction of decay to near non-existent amounts at lower levels that progresses up and caps out at a guild size of 50 meanwhile removing the bonuses entirely may be the way to go as it does away with the "ideal" guild size and allows all guilds to continue to progress.

I tend to agree that raising renown bonus is not the right answer even though it would likely be beneficial for my guild that is very proficient at farming renown when needed.

If you drew a chart that tracked three things - activity level, renown earned and decay you would find the following relationships:

1) Guilds that have the highest activity levels would benefit from the higher renown bonus and the same decay we have presently.
2) Guilds with lower activity rates would benefit some from higher guild bonsues, but decay will continue to be their biggest challenge

Thus, highly active guilds would benefit the most from an increased guild bonus. In addition, users of guild elixirs would benefit highly. The guilds most in need of help are the more casual guilds which would benefit least from an increased guild bonus. The guilds that would benefit the most from a higher guild bonus would be the guilds already on the leader boards.

I believe decay is where the adjustment should be made just like it was for large guilds. The math of the small guild bonus makes sense to me except I think they need to severely flatten the curve instead of having a peak at exactly 6 members. Perhaps a 200% bonus for levels 2-12 instead of the current bell curve centered around 6.

Turbine has not explained why we need to keep decay at all I think it makes no sense to make it a significant issue for people in small guilds and insignificant for people in large guilds. Pick your poison Turbine - activity based or progress based - just make it consistent for all guilds.

[McFlay]

One obvious question I have is where is Turbine in all this? It seems extremely odd that they asked for one week of comments and never actually told us whether this system is permanent and/or what the plan is for the guilds of 10 or less that were completely left out and the guilds of 11-40 that got some benefit but should get more.

I'll answer it for you. Turbine is busy smashing their heads against the wall at the position they dug themselves in to. Do they...

A. Leave the system as is and telling everyone who enjoys a guild on the smaller side of the spectrum to enjoy the turd sandwich.

B. Move back towards a decay system that scales by members, which apparently doesn't sit well with some guilds that are a mix of casual/hardcore gamers that enjoy their guild but can't stand the fact they might not see 100.

C. Give everyone a giant easy button so we can all have maxxed level guilds, so we can all feel special we get to grab the power up and win the game!

[smatt]

If you didn't really care about our comments/concerns Turbine, why did you ask? Why can't you give us an update on this issue since around 100 people form tiny/small guilds took the time to comment and there were many common concerns.

*Sigh... Just because they don't comment doesnt' mean they're not reading.... Or skimming... You do understand that they have other thigns to do but spend 40 hours a week replying to 1,000 threads on the forums right? I'm pretty sure they're nto done as they said, as far as tweaks on the guild renwon system. But with so many variables, tweakign it in a way that does what they want it to do without creating hugely exploitble situations is tough.

Of course threads liek this do offer them ideas... But after the same person has said the same thing 150 times.......Well......... They will stop reading...

[Dysmetria]

I actually like this idea where in guilds 20 or less has their formula for decay adjusted to the number of active accounts in the guild. To prevent abuse I do propose that once the guild exceeds 20 active, the formula remains fixed therefore there is no incentive to recruit and expanding with the intent to reduce in size at a later time.

This could still be abused. Large guilds could make a second guild with just their most active 6 or 19 or whatever members, zerg it up to 100, then add the rest of their more casual members to it, but excluding those casuals in the meantime. Meanwhile small guilds would be encouraged to kick their casuals to lower their decay rates. The kicking and excluding of casuals and new players are what the recent change addressed, so any further changes should not go back to encouraging such behavior.

As it is now, the renown system allows guilds of all sizes to benefit from adding casuals and new players to their ranks. That is as it should be. If a guild of any size wants to gain renown faster, all they have to do is recruit more members to help them do so.

[slarden]

*Sigh... Just because they don't comment doesnt' mean they're not reading.... Or skimming... You do understand that they have other thigns to do but spend 40 hours a week replying to 1,000 threads on the forums right? I'm pretty sure they're nto done as they said, as far as tweaks on the guild renwon system. But with so many variables, tweakign it in a way that does what they want it to do without creating hugely exploitble situations is tough.

Of course threads liek this do offer them ideas... But after the same person has said the same thing 150 times.......Well......... They will stop reading...

Believe me I don't want to spend any time at all posting on this topic. I rarely post and only even found this thread after my guild was hit hard by the new guild renown ransack penalty after leveling. Before that I had no idea there was even a change.

Unfortunately my posts and those of others just get buried in alot of messages so how do I know they are even getting the feedback. If they indicate they are going to address the disparity between small guild members and large guilds members I will gladly stop posting, but I don't even know if they read all the comments from small guilds. I am not the only person posting alot on this thread It's obviously a topic many people care about.

But I do understand your point.

[slarden]

This could still be abused. Large guilds could make a second guild with just their most active 6 or 19 or whatever members, zerg it up to 100, then add the rest of their more casual members to it, but excluding those casuals in the meantime. Meanwhile small guilds would be encouraged to kick their casuals to lower their decay rates. The kicking and excluding of casuals and new players are what the recent change addressed, so any further changes should not go back to encouraging such behavior.

As it is now, the renown system allows guilds of all sizes to benefit from adding casuals and new players to their ranks. That is as it should be. If a guild of any size wants to gain renown faster, all they have to do is recruit more members to help them do so.

You keep referring to small guilds kicking their casuals but wasn't this really a large guild problem? First of all I fail to see why lowering decay will cause guilds to kick casuals - it makes no sense. Small guilds tend to add people they want to add rather than through mass recruiting. They know the people before they add them to the guild.

If they were going to kick casuals they would have already done it as decay is the thing that would prevent leveling. If all of a sudden decay is lowered and the small guild is able to level, why would they decide to all of a sudden kick casuals when they didn't do it already? It makes no sense at all. This is the real fear mongering going on here.

In addition, you can't just zerg a guild up to 100 with a small group- you need 50,000,000 renown. That is a process that would take several years and if a guild could do it - they wouldn't have a problem doing it in a large guild where the decay tax is so small anyhow. 50,000,000 renown is earned much easier with 300 vs. 10 even if the other 290 folks consist of a high percentage of casuals. All you have to do is look at the large guilds of Sarlona. They have gained several levels since the change.

Anyhow I proposed a 100% penalty for kicking members that have been active in the last 90 days and no small guilds protested. The only protests were from large guilds.

Ultimately if we are are worried about guilds kicking casuals to game the system we should implement a simple full-proof method. A 100% penalty for booting a player. If a player is booted, the guild gains nothing and loses nothing. The only guilds that can lose here are small guilds that lose 100% of the renown and had a smaller guild bonus for the other members. Yet no small guilds protested this suggestion. Why? They rarely boot members. It's quite the opposite, many of these booted or disenfranchised ex-large guild members end in a small guild.

[Tshober]

You keep referring to small guilds kicking their casuals but wasn't this really a large guild problem? First of all I fail to see why lowering decay will cause guilds to kick casuals - it makes no sense. Small guilds tend to add people they want to add rather than through mass recruiting. They know the people before they add them to the guild.

If they were going to kick casuals they would have already done it as decay is the thing that would prevent leveling. If all of a sudden decay is lowered and the small guild is able to level, why would they decide to all of a sudden kick casuals when they didn't do it already? It makes no sense at all. This is the real fear mongering going on here.

In addition, you can't just zerg a guild up to 100 with a small group- you need 50,000,000 renown. That is a process that would take several years and if a guild could do it - they wouldn't have a problem doing it in a large guild where the decay tax is so small anyhow. 50,000,000 renown is earned much easier with 300 vs. 10 even if the other 290 folks consist of a high percentage of casuals. All you have to do is look at the large guilds of Sarlona. They have gained several levels since the change.

Anyhow I proposed a 100% penalty for kicking members that have been active in the last 90 days and no small guilds protested. The only protests were from large guilds.

Ultimately if we are are worried about guilds kicking casuals to game the system we should implement a simple full-proof method. A 100% penalty for booting a player. If a player is booted, the guild gains nothing and loses nothing. The only guilds that can lose here are small guilds that lose 100% of the renown and had a smaller guild bonus for the other members. Yet no small guilds protested this suggestion. Why? They rarely boot members. It's quite the opposite, many of these booted or disenfranchised ex-large guild members end in a small guild.

I agree that the incentive to boot players is just not there. You would be better off to keep them, from a renown perspective. Likewise it would make no sense for a large guild to split off to a smaller one, when the larger one would be more likely to level faster anyway. Not seeing the abuse possibility. Maybe someone could come up with an example to show how it would reward an abuser? I don't see it.

I would be okay with your 100% renown penalty for kicking players IF we are only talking about ACTIVE players. Players who have left the game should not cost guilds a huge penalty when they get rid of them. This is particularly important because the guild size cap counts all characters, even inactive ones. Alternatively, they could make it so the guild size cap does not count inactive characters.

[slarden]

I agree that the incentive to boot players is just not there. You would be better off to keep them, from a renown perspective. Likewise it would make no sense for a large guild to split off to a smaller one, when the larger one would be more likely to level faster anyway. Not seeing the abuse possibility. Maybe someone could come up with an example to show how it would reward an abuser? I don't see it.

I would be okay with your 100% renown penalty for kicking players IF we are only talking about ACTIVE players. Players who have left the game should not cost guilds a huge penalty when they get rid of them. This is particularly important because the guild size cap counts all characters, even inactive ones. Alternatively, they could make it so the guild size cap does not count inactive characters.

Yes absolutely. Only characters that were active in the last 90 days would generate the penalty. And it would be based on character activity rather than account activity. I am not sure Turbine can implement this but I assume they could since it shows right on the guild page the last login date of the character. The "account" basis seems problematic to me as guild leaders can't know all the alts and shouldn't be penalized for booting a character that was inactive even if the account was still active.

[Gremmlynn]

i think we are getting some good ideas in this thread now but i dont like this no matter what there are players that need to be booted {ie acting bad} and if anything they should have to give the guild there renown for there actions

I disagree. I don't see how a guild deserves any sort of compensation for having recruited the bad apple to begin with as it costs the guild nothing to recruit and maintain such players. While a 100% penalty would prevent exploiting players for any sort of gain. It also helps prevent petty bootings as a guilds leadership has to weigh the amount of disruption the player causes against the amount of renown doing so will cost them. In most valid cases, it would seem the bad apples would sort themselves out before this cost becomes to high.

[Gremmlynn]

Again I feel compelled to point out the double standard. We made this change to help casual players - and the casual players in large guilds were helped with a massive decay reduction. This person pointed out the difficulty in getting renown which I think is a valid concern.

This I'm going to have to disagree with. It wasn't made to make it easier for casual players to make their decay quotas. It was to remove those per player quotas and make active players no longer see casual players as nothing but unproductive mouths to feed.

[Dandonk]

This I'm going to have to disagree with. It wasn't made to make it easier for casual players to make their decay quotas. It was to remove those per player quotas and make active players no longer see casual players as nothing but unproductive mouths to feed.

But only as long as those casuals are not in small guilds.

[Gremmlynn]

I'll answer it for you. Turbine is busy smashing their heads against the wall at the position they dug themselves in to. Do they...

A. Leave the system as is and telling everyone who enjoys a guild on the smaller side of the spectrum to enjoy the turd sandwich.

B. Move back towards a decay system that scales by members, which apparently doesn't sit well with some guilds that are a mix of casual/hardcore gamers that enjoy their guild but can't stand the fact they might not see 100.

C. Give everyone a giant easy button so we can all have maxxed level guilds, so we can all feel special we get to grab the power up and win the game!

Well lets see.

A. Well if small guilds feel they are eating a turd sandwich now, then they must have always felt they were eating a turd sandwich.

B. What's the benefit to moving back to a system in which most of the player base feels they are eating a turd sandwich, just so a few "hard core" players can feel superior?

C. This is the obvious choice as making all of one's customers feel special is a good business practice.

[Son_of_the_South]

Hello Son of the South,

Please explain to me where the rant is in my post? As u should know Turbine asked guilds to give there opinion about recent changes to the guild decay system and that's simply what i did. That your and my opinion about the new system are different seems clear to me, but why call my post childish?

Its funny that u state your guild has been level 63 for a year and that now, with the recent change, your guild advanced to 65. Didn't i say that the new system took away the challenge? Here's the example of it. Good luck 'cruising' to level 66 and be sure to stay proud of it.

Because you made assumptions and assertions that some guilds are not working hard for their advancement. You cannot know this and sweeping generalisations seem childish to me but i can understand that we have different views on the matter and i do wish your guild all prosperity.

[DocBenway]

...

A. Well if small guilds feel they are eating a turd sandwich now, then they must have always felt they were eating a turd sandwich....

The taste of gourmet cuisine wasn't lingering in my mouth when I posted the still unanswered thread asking why the minimum sizes existed back in February.

[slarden]

Well lets see.

A. Well if small guilds feel they are eating a turd sandwich now, then they must have always felt they were eating a turd sandwich.

B. What's the benefit to moving back to a system in which most of the player base feels they are eating a turd sandwich, just so a few "hard core" players can feel superior?

C. This is the obvious choice as making all of one's customers feel special is a good business practice.

There are choices besides just keeping the new system and reverting to the old system. If we think it's important to reduce decay, we can also do so for guilds of 10 or less. We should also do more for guilds in the 11-30 range.

Those of us in small guilds question the motives of people that argue that guilds of 10 or less should get no decay reduction at all. This makes no sense when other guilds are getting 80%, 90%, 93.5% reductions in decay while guilds of 10 or less received no benefit. I am sure that Turbine has the data and hopefully the factor level in when they look at advancement. Obviously level 1 small guilds are going to advance very quick and could skew the #s.

[theslimshady]

I disagree. I don't see how a guild deserves any sort of compensation for having recruited the bad apple to begin with as it costs the guild nothing to recruit and maintain such players. While a 100% penalty would prevent exploiting players for any sort of gain. It also helps prevent petty bootings as a guilds leadership has to weigh the amount of disruption the player causes against the amount of renown doing so will cost them. In most valid cases, it would seem the bad apples would sort themselves out before this cost becomes to high.

well you never dealt with drunk ddoers people can be awesome then have a bit much and go nuts guild leaders need to be able to check peeps in there guild and not feel like they have to hold on to someone due to renown

[theslimshady]

Ultimately this is a game and the game needs to be fair. Many of those casuals that were booted by large guilds are now happy members of small guilds. First these folks get booted and now are they punished for choosing a small guild by getting 10x more decay than they would have received in the guild that booted them?

No decay quota was removed for guilds of 10 or less and those guilds have many casual players. Ultimately the move just makes no sense. Turbine needs to address the fairness issue.

Arguing against casual players in small guilds to not get a break is really no argument at all. It's simply trying to give large guilds an advantage and to make it easier for large guilds to recruit vets from small guilds.

how many times shall you say the same thing and try and twist the argument large guilds again dont care about you or your guild the reason so many are not reading is cause all your first ideas was about returning to that old busted system ------- the new system is helping alot of guilds on alot of servers that was dealing with issues for over a year and i must say and not to be insulting but your flooding the same thing over and over seems to be unproductive at this point

[Thayion516]

Although it may not be a great idea to add another potentially bugged or exploitable currency system to the game, it would be a better way to deal with the renown system to eliminate size/level based decay, and instead make amenities purchased directly with renown. Then guilds only pay for the benefits that they use, and they can make more meaningful choices about using renown.

YES ABSOLUTELY!! THE BEST ANSWER TO DATE!

Solves almost all problems.

I don't need mathematical formulas and bonuses dictating my moves. Arbitrary values based on someone else's logic.

Give Us Choice, and we will decide for ourselves.

[eris2323]

This argument is still going?

Before the change, we didn't see non-stop repeating messages from certain small guilds about the guild system, because the small guilds were getting the benefit.

Therefore, the system must have been acceptable to them.

Now, suddenly, all those people who formed small guilds are no longer getting the benefit, and they are either a) mad they left their large guild or b) just bitter that someone else is getting a benefit.

For 2 years, you got the benefit.

Now, everyone else in the game is benefiting.

I don't know; but at this time, the renown system looks super fantastic. One casual guild with only 4 players (who only play after work, when they are not too tired) seem to be able to capture and hold level 91, so they seem okay.

A certain other guild has gained levels as well; despite the notable handicap of only playing a few times over the weekend, with almost not guildies on the entire time. Seems like they're still doing well too, despite the numerous complaints about the renown system.

MANY large guilds are extremely happy with the system.

Some of our casual players are coming back, as we have now been able to tell them, "COME BACK FOR A DAY, RENOWN WONT HURT US ANYMORE C'MON LET'S DO A SHROUD".

And yet a couple of you still complain because your tiny group of 5 people isn't getting enough cake.

I am against making it in any way easier for solo and tiny guilds to equal the advancement of a large guild. I guess I will have to keep posting - thought the vast majority of you had realized the benefits to be had from the new system.