Guild Renown Changes

[Chaos000]

We are actually not disagreeing

Yay! For once right?

It was a ranking system with decay as the resistance mechanism. However, the system was size-neutral with the exception of one glitch which slightly favored small guilds: the # of accounts formula which was accounts + 10 and should have been accounts * (1 + guild bonus). If this formula was in place, it would have been a mathematically equal system. However, the reality is that all large guilds and most tiny/small/medium guilds had no chance of ever hitting 100 due to the high activity level requirement.

Due to the scaling of per-account decay, the mathematically equal size-neutral system imposed a decay cost for each player that could not exceed their personal decay. Guilds with a higher number of less active players suffered more than guilds with smaller numbers of less active players. The only reason why most small guilds are below the level of a typical large guild even before the change was because the large guilds had a higher number of active players that “made up the difference” of the less active players.

When the change was made, it is my understanding that the removal of per account decay was NOT so that all guilds could now be expect to be able to hit max level, but IN ORDER to reward and not penalize the retention of all players regardless of their level of activity. If decay scaled per guild level, a single player booting all guild members at max level is not likely to ever happen as decay along with renown loss per player is a deterrent to this type of action.

Its simple. Take the decay system and delete it. Let the guilds level as they may from renown. There is no need to have only a few guilds at lvl 100. That is like saying only 5 people can have a lvl 20 character. If we are putting in the time don’t steal it from us and take it based on some hokey math and rolling some bones for ideas...

This is a clear example of someone expressing a desire that the guild ranked-decay system (where only a few guilds are at lvl 100) should instead be a guild leveling system (where all guilds eventually will all be at lvl 100).

I’m actually ok with that provided there is a way to:
1) address the player base that wants a ranked system,
2) identify how to prevent griefing (example: guild leader boots everyone out but himself and a couple friends when they hit max level. No decay = no real disincentive) and
3) identify a different uses for renown gain items to make it desirable for players to continue to buy them even after guild level cap that wouldn’t involve a lot of work for Turbine. (example: Increasing the guild level cap, Guild True Resurrections to extend the time of buffs)

[Nestroy]

(...)
1) address the player base that wants a ranked system,
(...)

Actually, to cater for these players would be most easy!

Just take the absolute number in guild renown earned and here you go. I already can see some guilds breaking the 100 million barrier within months just to get to the absolute top of the crop.

Alternatively, there could be alternate stats like "fastest leveling of the week" or "most levels of the month" or anything like that. Just give some shiny stats to the masses. That´s all you need. Dole out some brilliant star shining from the guild leader boards for those guilds with special awards. Make them consume the pots to get these.

And for the rest of us, just let us level to the best buffs and that´s it. Turbine would earn enough by selling chrystal shards to the happy-go-lucky new ship owners at guild lv. 85 anyway.

[Tshober]

Actually, to cater for these players would be most easy!

Just take the absolute number in guild renown earned and here you go. I already can see some guilds breaking the 100 million barrier within months just to get to the absolute top of the crop.

Alternatively, there could be alternate stats like "fastest leveling of the week" or "most levels of the month" or anything like that. Just give some shiny stats to the masses. That´s all you need. Dole out some brilliant star shining from the guild leader boards for those guilds with special awards. Make them consume the pots to get these.

And for the rest of us, just let us level to the best buffs and that´s it. Turbine would earn enough by selling chrystal shards to the happy-go-lucky new ship owners at guild lv. 85 anyway.

I have no problems at all with these kinds of guild competitions, as long as they are:

1) Separate from guild leveling.
2) All rewards are "bragging rights" only (ie. cosemtics, temporaries/consumables, very minor conveniences).
3) Participation is completely voluntary.

[Tictman]

Alternatively, there could be alternate stats like "fastest leveling of the week" or "most levels of the month" or anything like that. Just give some shiny stats to the masses. That´s all you need. Dole out some brilliant star shining from the guild leader boards for those guilds with special awards. Make them consume the pots to get these.

Not trying to start more argument here, but why? Guild leader boards why should my guild care about this? Why is it a competition how high your guild is or how fast it levels? Just asking why we need this?

If we need decay leave it as it is now. Lets face it's better than it was at least we're losing less than we did under the old system. Yes my guild is small I know all about the more renown needed per member problem. It's not perfect but better at least.

Would it make more sense to make the renown rewards actually random. Why do I have to make a junk throw away low lvl toon to get renown. It should be exactly the same random for my lvl 24 as it is my lvL 4 throw out toon.

OK so you need to run new and higher content to keep renown coming in steady. So why in the last couple days did this happen? Toons lvl 11 to 14 running slayers in the sands I've spent a lot of time there just about to my 3k slays in both undead and Gnolls. I got lots of renown both in chests and slayers. Now I go to the Vale a place I haven't been much in this life. Ok it's higher lvl and been there not nearly as much as Sands. I only get renown for killing rares, none in chests none for slaying anything. Went back today same thing no renown to speak of. It's like I've been cut off because I got so much two days ago. Why is this, if it was random wouldn't it be spread out a bit more than just going cold like this? This happens to our guild members over and over, it's like a pattern we get a bunch then for a few days no one gets much at all. If it was random everyone wouldn't be experiencing it at the same time.

[Nestroy]

Not trying to start more argument here, but why? Guild leader boards why should my guild care about this? Why is it a competition how high your guild is or how fast it levels? Just asking why we need this?

I would not need it at all, personally. All I want is to get my guild to lv. 85 and to get the best ship available.

But there have been so many posters that bragged with decay not beeing an issue because they are soooooo good that god seems minor in comparison to them that it seems there is a need of leaderboards. And why not. Most stat gimmicks are easy to programm if you have a proper database in behind and at least basic knowledge of SQL. Hopefully the proper database holds true for Turbine, though...

Most successful games have high score lists and some even have differenciated stats. There would not be any need to have these supposed stats real time anyway. It would be satisfactory to have them refreshed once a day.

[Tictman]

But there have been so many posters that bragged with decay not beeing an issue because they are soooooo good that god seems minor in comparison to them that it seems there is a need of leaderboards.

Yea I guess I knew that answer before I asked.

Our goal is somewhat lower we'd like to make 55, we'd be happy with that. We're work'in on it!

[Dandonk]

Hello, it's me again. Yes, I'm still here. Can we please get some kind of word from Turbine?

[Chaos000]

I have no problems at all with these kinds of guild competitions, as long as they are:

1) Separate from guild leveling.
2) All rewards are "bragging rights" only (ie. cosemtics, temporaries/consumables, very minor conveniences).
3) Participation is completely voluntary.

I have no opposition either.

Old Ranking system: Not everyone is expected to hit max level, each account regardless of activity increases decay equally. Guilds that exclude or prune casual members benefit most. Due to the per-account decay, guilds of all sizes that retain their casual members gain an additional penalty per casual player due to the need to make up their difference. There is a constant demand for guild renown potions in the DDO store as it is needed to gain and maintain levels.

Current Ranking system: Not everyone is expected to hit max level, decay is no longer assessed per account and instead based on guild level. Due to the removal of the per-account decay, guilds with more players benefit most. Guilds with less than 10 members remain penalized. The demand for guild renown potions in the DDO store remains constant but now as a convenience item to gain levels faster and at higher guild levels decay will scale to require it to maintain the highest levels in a guild. Having casual members is no longer an inhibiting mechanism for the more active members to consider purchasing renown potions.

The "simple" solution of removing the decay mechanism would be a sweeping change to eliminate the guild ranking system entirely.

One could argue that for large guilds with an active base, decay is meaningless but in reality if any of their active player base starts to drop off, any guild regardless of size will find themselves declining in rank (measured by level) due to the current decay system that is currently in place.

Proposed Leveling system: Due to the removal of guild level based decay, everyone can reasonably be expected to hit max level. Due to per-account decay not entering the picture, guilds with more players benefit most. Guilds with less than 10 members will continue to be at a disadvantage comparatively but will now be able to progress in level. The demand for astral diamonds increases as players hit top tiers of guild levels and buy a bigger ship. As a tradeoff the demand for guild renown potions in the DDO store will eventually decline as more and more guilds hit the maximum level.

Could a new (no decay) leveling system could also be separate from guild ranking and participation be voluntary? What about a guild level based decay mechanism that only kicks in at the highest levels?

I think Turbine welcomes new ideas that increase the value of DDO in-store items over ideas to decrease the value of DDO in-store items. Just a thought.

[Blue100000005]

Hello, it's me again. Yes, I'm still here. Can we please get some kind of word from Turbine?

That would be nice. BTW i will never PAY for a guild xp pot so turbine is loosing money from me. I would probably pay for a diamond or 2 to get my higher level ships though provided they dont get stolen with decay.

[Nestroy]

(...)Could a new (no decay) leveling system could also be separate from guild ranking and participation be voluntary? What about a guild level based decay mechanism that only kicks in at the highest levels?
(...)

This already has been discussed in the past and in other threads. Yes, decay kicking in increasingly menacing for levels 90+ would be a great idea. The braggards still get their shot at lv. 100. Most players would be content with the best ship / buffs and as long as decay above lv. 90 remains stricktly level-based instead of account based, the braggards even need to form bigger guilds to maintain a highest possible level.

But again, this would not help Turbine to get much sales from pots as soon as the guilds start to reach the 90+ spheres. Because most guilds would be content with lv. 90 and that´s it.

I would suggest a somewhat different way to generate max profits.

1.) I would introduce pot bonus dependent on guild size. Normal renown gets a max bonus of 300% at 6 active accounts as now. Pots get a max bonus of 500 % at X accounts (one, 6, 10, whatever) for the best pots and there remains some extra bonus even into the 300s of accounts - above a base bonus of a top 50 or 100%, depending of potion strenght. E.g. the 10 account guild gets 500%, the 300 account guild still gets 120 % and a 400 account guild gets the base 100%. So small guilds buying top pots really get a big time benefit of doing so (most players play in small guilds, remember?). But even large guilds still profit hefty from using pots (up to 100%).

2.) I would introduce the lv. 100+ leaderboards. Only lv. 100 guilds can compete and have to battle a massive decay as well as other lv. 100 guilds. And there would be a monthly reset of the board for anybody to enter the fray getting a fair chance. The monthly winner gets some special commemoration in game on any server, e.g. some special gimmick like a wandering trophy standing in the ship or in the habor, stating the guild name of the last 5 guilds holding the trophy, or something like that. This should give enough incentive for the braggards to enter the competition. Pots still help...

3.) Of course the trophy would not have much further use except than being commemorative.

[marinerfan]

Maybe this has already been mentioned...I am too lazy to ready 96 pages of posts. This will probably make some people mad, saying "ahh! that's P2Win ****" but honestly, why have a problem with that if it keeps money flowing and the game running longer?

What if Turbine introduced an item to the ddostore to reduce renown decay for X number of days? It would make the super hardcore guilds happy because they'd be able to grind hard for levels rather than go from 70 -> 69 twice a day due to decay and it would bring money into turbine's coffers (assuming someone buys it..I mean people seem to buy anything they put in the store these days).

[Nestroy]

Maybe this has already been mentioned...I am too lazy to ready 96 pages of posts. This will probably make some people mad, saying "ahh! that's P2Win ****" but honestly, why have a problem with that if it keeps money flowing and the game running longer?

What if Turbine introduced an item to the ddostore to reduce renown decay for X number of days? It would make the super hardcore guilds happy because they'd be able to grind hard for levels rather than go from 70 -> 69 twice a day due to decay and it would bring money into turbine's coffers (assuming someone buys it..I mean people seem to buy anything they put in the store these days).

I think there is a small but clearly visible border between good marketing and rip-off. Having high levels of renown necessary for getting the best ship / buffs / into the trophy league (my proposal above) etc. is one thing. At least it is reachable at least in theory even for f2p / people without pots. First introducing a decay system and then selling something to remedy I name this a rip-off. And I as a VIP (not exactly the f2p customer type) would want to have my lawyer to take a very close look upon such a practice. Especially if this product is introduced now.

By the way, the system as it is now might invite a close look by a lawyer as well, due to the different handling of small vs. big guilds, especially when selling stuff to help battling decay. I will not call my lawyer, but if they did not do this already I would advise for Turbine to have the situation checked by their legal dept. I am no expert for US law but in some countries selling things like renown pots for adverting artificially implemented obstacles (e.g. guild renown decay), especially while violating the principles of equality (small guild vs. big guild decay hit) might get a very strong response from the courts.

On the other hand doing away with renown completely and then selling something to speed up leveling / something to make a guild compete with the best would simply be good marketing. Nobody is forced to buy anything, but it could greatly help.

(added later)
Alternatively there would be the possibility to give a renown bonus of about 3,000 % to small guilds of 1-6 players (and a linear bonus decrease down to about 300 players getting zero bonus thereafter) to make off for the decay hit. This would restore equality immediately. But of course this would hurt sales of pots to the point where not even small guilds are buying these because like with big guilds now this would not be necessary...

[marinerfan]

By the way, the system as it is now might invite a close look by a lawyer as well, due to the different handling of small vs. big guilds, especially when selling stuff to help battling decay. I will not call my lawyer, but if they did not do this already I would advise for Turbine to have the situation checked by their legal dept. I am no expert for US law but in some countries selling things like renown pots for adverting artificially implemented obstacles (e.g. guild renown decay), especially while violating the principles of equality (small guild vs. big guild decay hit) might get a very strong response from the courts.

I do agree the current system is frustrating. I am in a small guild on Sarlona and it's aggravating seeing certain guilds blowing past (despite the fact my friends and I usually end up carrying one or two of them through a dungeon whenever we brave the LFM panel lol) us simply because they are bigger.

I also agree that adding something to decrease decay would be a sketchy practice by Turbine, but on the other hand I'm surprised there isn't already something there to do this. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but it's an idea nonetheless

Don't get me wrong, renown decay is really annoying. My only opposition is that I don't think every guild in the game should easily reach level 90+...that seems kind of lame to me, but your proposal does make sense. There would be more spent on diamonds for all those big ship purchases and the competitive tournament would probably be fun for the hard core guilds. I bet if it was a renown-based competition they'd sell more renown pots than they do now, especially if there was a little carrot to chase after (a month of free ship buffs, a couple xp pots/character in guild, or something to that effect)

[theslimshady]

or another great idea is leave it alone now the system in its current form is the best it will be all guilds can recruit and move forward by simply adding numbers past 10 accounts

2 years of harsh decay for large guilds erased in a matter of months and small guilds dont feeled forced to stay small only if they choose to so all in all very effective

[Dandonk]

or another great idea is leave it alone now the system in its current form is the best it will be all guilds can recruit and move forward by simply adding numbers past 10 accounts

2 years of harsh decay for large guilds erased in a matter of months and small guilds dont feeled forced to stay small only if they choose to so all in all very effective

Because forcing players to play in a certain way is good... or something.

How will removing decay hurt anyone?

[Chaos000]

But again, this would not help Turbine to get much sales from pots as soon as the guilds start to reach the 90+ spheres. Because most guilds would be content with lv. 90 and that´s it.

This just means it makes sense to have decay start until just shy of the *best* ship (85?) and have a highly desired convenience buff at that tier to make it worth maintaining. You may have all buffs by level 74 but at level 85 you can purchase the best ship and by maintaining 85, increased duration shrines (for an increased plat cost) that last an extra 30 minutes. At level 90, double duration shrines that last 2 hours are available. At level 95, one stop shop amenities are available (click one shrine and talk to one person to benefit from all buffs on ship). At level 100, guild exclusive vendor is available that sells (exclusive) single use guild portal tokens for platinum.

I would introduce pot bonus dependent on guild size. Normal renown gets a max bonus of 300% at 6 active accounts as now. Pots get a max bonus of 500 % at X accounts (one, 6, 10, whatever) for the best pots and there remains some extra bonus even into the 300s of accounts - above a base bonus of a top 50 or 100%, depending of potion strength. E.g. the 10 account guild gets 500%, the 300 account guild still gets 120 % and a 400 account guild gets the base 100%. So small guilds buying top pots really get a big time benefit of doing so (most players play in small guilds, remember?). But even large guilds still profit hefty from using pots (up to 100%)

While I appreciate the idea, any bonuses dependant on size provides an incentive for guilds between tiers to adjust in size to maximize the benefit. (lowest on totem pole = kick!) I know for me personally, if I felt that I was getting less of a benefit for the same cost of turbine points I’d find other things to spend money on as it has just decreased in value in my perception (regardless of its previous value). Increased value at lower levels that decreases at higher guild levels will similarly lower its use at higher levels due to the opportunity cost.

That is exactly what happened when they changed from the old system to the current one. Renown potions were practically a requirement for guilds of all sizes that needed to gain or maintain levels. It was largely in part to casual members imposing an additional cost to guilds of all sizes. Due to the high activity level requirement, even guilds exclusive only to highly active players had no chance of ever hitting 100 without the use of renown potions. Players in a guild with a casual player base (now incapable of hitting 100 even with potions) began to start resenting having to “pick up someone else’s slack” had the option to either leave for a guild with level gain potential, or impose a mandatory renown requirement to all new and existing members, or stopped purchasing renown potions (because it wasn’t worth it) and gave up on making the effort to leveling the guild entirely.

Once casual members no longer imposed an additional cost to guilds of all sizes, larger guilds actually benefited as a byproduct of having more members. Due to size not affecting decay, guilds of any size provided they had an equal equivalent of active member activity could now all hit 100. (example: lvl 100 guilds at its current level of activity could add additional members with little to no renown gain and not still suffer a loss, any guild not at character cap only needs to increase their active base each time they hit their level threshold to gain progression) Smaller guilds that did not experience a similar reduction in decay, due to not having as many casual members prior to the change, found that themselves to be no worse off in the old system unless they chose to increase their member base past turbine’s threshold of 10+ members. As a result of this change, (I understand Slarden’s position) the value of renown potions for smaller guilds are almost cheapened for the guilds of whom the situation has not improved. Why make the effort to level (with renown potions) if the requirement is set too high? At the very least, reduction in decay for less than 10 member guilds to be equal to just shy of a guild of 11 members would be a solution. Not the best. But at least it would be better than before.

I like the leaderboard idea but I have a hunch that real time data updates may prove to be a challenge to implement if they are still struggling to get myddo to work right. I would love to be wrong on this.

[theslimshady]

Because forcing players to play in a certain way is good... or something.

How will removing decay hurt anyone?

no need to force anything and removing decay wouldnt hurt anyone i dont see where i said that
i was saying that to much time is being put into tring to overhaul a system that in its current form is very good from a standpoint of almost all guilds except under 10 members
i was saying that the system in its present form has not be as bad as the doomsayers say it is and alot of guilds are currently moving forward with open recruitment

[Chaos000]

On the other hand doing away with renown completely and then selling something to speed up leveling / something to make a guild compete with the best would simply be good marketing. Nobody is forced to buy anything, but it could greatly help.

A ranked system by nature assumes that not all guilds will be able to reach the top rank and guilds that does not maintain their level of activity will decline in rank.

If a guild with 6 hyper active players can hit lvl 100 under the old system, a guild of any size with at least 6 hyper active players can hit lvl 100 under the current system assuming the other members make up the difference of the loss of the guild renown size bonus.

Under the old system for each not-as-active player, it became less and less likely to be able to hit lvl 100. Under the new system, for each not-as-active player, the guild as a whole requires less work to hit lvl 100 unless the added player does not make up the difference of the loss of the guild renown size bonus.

If they make the ranked system into a leveling system by removing decay entirely, they should still have a mechanism to make renown still useful. Each time an account exceeds X contribution to renown at cap they recieve... (insert item here (raid timer bypass?): I think a leveling stone or a BtA +4 tome every half million renown would be awesome)

[Nestroy]

(...)While I appreciate the idea, any bonuses dependant on size provides an incentive for guilds between tiers to adjust in size to maximize the benefit. (lowest on totem pole = kick!) I know for me personally, if I felt that I was getting less of a benefit for the same cost of turbine points I’d find other things to spend money on as it has just decreased in value in my perception (regardless of its previous value). Increased value at lower levels that decreases at higher guild levels will similarly lower its use at higher levels due to the opportunity cost.

That is exactly what happened when they changed from the old system to the current one. Renown potions were practically a requirement for guilds of all sizes that needed to gain or maintain levels. It was largely in part to casual members imposing an additional cost to guilds of all sizes. Due to the high activity level requirement, even guilds exclusive only to highly active players had no chance of ever hitting 100 without the use of renown potions. Players in a guild with a casual player base (now incapable of hitting 100 even with potions) began to start resenting having to “pick up someone else’s slack” had the option to either leave for a guild with level gain potential, or impose a mandatory renown requirement to all new and existing members, or stopped purchasing renown potions (because it wasn’t worth it) and gave up on making the effort to leveling the guild entirely.

(...)

I like the leaderboard idea but I have a hunch that real time data updates may prove to be a challenge to implement if they are still struggling to get myddo to work right. I would love to be wrong on this.

First, I do not like the idea of real time leaderboards at all - too resource intensive and too costly. A daily update at 6 o´ clock in the morning EST would exactly do fine.

Regarding the bonus, I would root for more linearity and direct scaling instead of fixed levels of bonus. So for let´s say guild size 5 to 300 accounts, a bonus would start at 500 % and would slowly and linearly decrease until the bonus is zero at exactly 300 accounts reached. So any additional member just slightly decreases bonus and might add a massive surplus in renown for activity. Since decay is no issue any more, at least in my proposed system, any addition to the player pool with any median activity of the guild adds exactly what is lost by less bonus for the others. No reason to kick anybody. Examples: 5 players, 500%, 6 players 498 % , 7 players 496 %... 300 players 0%. Of course this should get balanced clearly but the decrease in bonus is minimal compared to the possible positive return of guild renown by any new member. Let´s say the base renownn done daily by a 5 person guild is about 2000 renown total or 400 / player (8 heroic deeds, not too much anyway). 500 % bonus would give 12.000 renown. Lets add a 6th player with a median 400 renown / daily. 2400 base, 498 % renown bonus, 14352 renown added daily. So any incentive to take on new members remains.

Of course, the current bonus system is somewhat less friendly here.

[Dandonk]

no need to force anything and removing decay wouldnt hurt anyone i dont see where i said that

Then why are you against turning it off? Shouldn't take much work, I think.

i was saying that to much time is being put into tring to overhaul a system that in its current form is very good from a standpoint of almost all guilds except under 10 members

Small guilds are actually by far the most guilds out there, if I remember Vanshilar's count right.

i was saying that the system in its present form has not be as bad as the doomsayers say it is and alot of guilds are currently moving forward with open recruitment

And some small guilds are reporting members leaving.

Turbine making a system so skewed as the current one is not good. Let players make they own choices about guild size, I don't think Turbine should interfere there.