Guild Renown Changes

[Blue100000005]

Is turbine not making enough money now? Why do they have to evaluate the money of the guild system? Also, i know it will never happen cause people are too stubborn and arrogant, but if EVERYONE disagrees, drop ALL the guilds and let them know we are not wasting money on it anymore. I remember when a guild was just players you knew well that would run with you, no ship or buffs needed.

[Nestroy]

Is turbine not making enough money now? Why do they have to evaluate the money of the guild system? Also, i know it will never happen cause people are too stubborn and arrogant, but if EVERYONE disagrees, drop ALL the guilds and let them know we are not wasting money on it anymore. I remember when a guild was just players you knew well that would run with you, no ship or buffs needed.

+1 for abolishing guild buffs altogether, if guilds really are supposed to be only socializing clubs.

Regarding the function of guilding, again I would propose (even counting in Turbine sales turnover) a system where the most guilds get to the best (and cost intensive) ammenities from ships as fast as possible. Proposed time for this about 2-3 years on average (1.5 with the overall use of pots). This leaves plenty of time to buy the smaller ships as well and to even further increase sales. Then thereafter, a said guild reaches the highest buffs. Not guild rank, mind you! If the ranking is abolished until the guild reaches "maturity" I would be perfectly well with that as well!

Now, for the guild reaching "seniority", "maturity" or "lv. 100" - you name it - the guild enters the "guild trophy run" - a monthly incentive scheme to further sell pots and perhaps certain ammenities like the "double the buff time"-shrine or whatever.

Not, every guild has to go something for forever and the sales of Turbine may skyrocket - DDO needs money to still flourish after all.

I would love to do the minimum count of what Turbine gets for turnover from such guilds, but I am currently under severe time constraints. But I am sure the sales would at least double to what they are now. Think of the best ships alone...

[Dandonk]

Decay/player in a ranked system is immensely larger for guilds with a smaller number of players that are active. Guilds of all sizes (Small, Medium, Large) all face this and it is not exclusive to small guilds.

True... to a point. But in a large guild, even the casuals will have a fair chance of contributing enough renown to offset their personal fraction of the decay. This gets harder and harder the smaller the guild is, and it the smaller the guild is, the higher the percentage of active players has to be.

A casual player "was" a problem in the old system because removing them decreased decay and in some cases increased the guild size bonus.

Larger guilds tend to not have a guild size bonus so I concede that your statement is true.

In the new system, the only way a casual player would be a problem is if the increase in the guild size bonus gained by removing them exceeded their renown gain. Guilds that do not have a guild size bonus will not have the minimum activity requirement to be of worth that the guild size bonus does. However, you'll be happy to know that at no point will the act of removing a player decrease decay.

And that's good - I'm happy for large guilds. But suddenly small guilds are very much worse off relatively speaking, and thus we have small guilds coming here reporting they're bleeding players.

I don't think the guild system should tell me what kind of guild to run. That was bad before, and it's bad now. In my opinion, anyway.

My "solution" is to identify the issue and suggest feasible ideas to make it worth ($) the effort for Turbine to consider the change.

If changing the ranking system to a leveling system will increase sales and sustain demand for renown potions to guilds at cap... it makes sense to me.

Only Turbine themselves will have the numbers to do that.

[Blue100000005]

Turbine.... Its like talking to a wall. No response in how many pages?

This will force small guilds to give up REAL lives, or have to fold into the faceless guilds where all you are is a renown producer and nothing more in order to get buffs.

[Chaos000]

True... to a point. But in a large guild, even the casuals will have a fair chance of contributing enough renown to offset their personal fraction of the decay. This gets harder and harder the smaller the guild is, and it the smaller the guild is, the higher the percentage of active players has to be.

We'll agree to disagree on the point. Even in a small guild, casuals are worth retaining in the guild because now they no longer have to offset their personal fraction of the decay. This would not be true if removing the player would somehow reduce the fraction of decay the other members of the guild would have to assume.

I do agree that the smaller the guild is, the higher the percentage of active players have to be in order to advance. I am all for improvement of the current system so long as there is no chance of long term gain for removing casuals.

If there was a way to *partner* or have an *alliance* between guilds (-insert percentage here- of renown gain is a bonus shared increase for both guilds at a 0 increase in decay) so long as the character total between all the guilds do not exceed character cap... solves the issue of having to recruit at all. Individual guilds, individual ships, ability to no suffer due to size.

Honestly, I have a lot of long term DDO buddies that were all part of one single guild but are now split up among small guilds (with a capped recruitment to maximize guild size bonus) because they all felt the need to hit the max rank. I would have followed some but my playstyle has no longer remained consistent due to work and wife. I think my personal record is 9 legendary victories in a day but I would still classify myself as a "casual" weekend player. I would love for all my friends to come back to one central guild again barring that they have no opposition to me making a bank toon to park in their guild as they are no longer penalized for it.

[slarden]

Perhaps not now but it definitely was before. When adding a player increased decay and removing that player decreased decay, then if the player could not gain more than their personal decay, they were removed for the benefit of the guild.

I do agree that a players worth *should not* be tied to activity. I find it disingenuous to believe that a players worth wasn't tied to guild renown gain under the old system.

Yes, a player from a smaller guild could have 10x more of their renown taken away than someone just as active in a larger guild when you assess the math based on the individual as opposed to the group as a whole.

A player from a less active guild could have 10x more of their renown taken away than someone just as active in a more active guild that is equal in size. It's not a guild size issue.

If a theoretical guild of 500 at lvl 100, had all their renown gaining players switch to a different server for a couple months and this would result in a loss of ranks due to a decrease in activity... I'd say the system is working as intended. If decay was no longer a factor for large guilds, a decline in rank would not even be a possibility.

The level 100 6 person guild doesn't have to represent any percentage of the guilds. The exception disproves the rule. A guild of any size now only need the equivalent renown gain of 6 highly active players in order to reach level 100.

A player's worth was never and will never be tied to activity level in our guild or most guild. I can see how this could be the case in a larger guild where people don't know each other well, but I never heard of any small guild that feels that way.

The problem with your argument is that guilds can't cover decay, only players can. It's ultimately a penalty on players so it's completely wrong to assess a large penalty to player A vs. player B based strictly on guild size.

Your 6 person conclusion makes no sense at all. A 200 person guild needs only moderate activity to make 100 while a 6 person guild needs extremely high activity.

The problem with your assumptions is that you assume people in small guilds are or should be more active. There is no basis to conclude that people are more/less active based on guild size. It's a fabricated argument with no basis. The fact that there are so many small guilds below level 50 demonstrates this.

[Artos_Fabril]

A player's worth was never and will never be tied to activity level in our guild or most guild. I can see how this could be the case in a larger guild where people don't know each other well, but I never heard of any small guild that feels that way.

The problem with your argument is that guilds can't cover decay, only players can. It's ultimately a penalty on players so it's completely wrong to assess a large penalty to player A vs. player B based strictly on guild size.

This is why I suggested (about 70 pages back) a model where we go back to the old decay formula, but remove the minimum cap, and only count players as active if they have earned renown since the last decay period.

That way no one is "punished" for not logging in, or not stepping into a quest or explorer area, or for having to leave before they do anything of note. That makes decay an honest per-player calculation, and means that only people who are actively earning renown are contributing to decay.

The other idea I proposed was to make amenities purchased with renown directly, so that decay reflects exactly the benefits you're getting from your ship. Giving each amenity a set number of charges would favor small guilds here, and giving them a set time would favor large guilds, and we would certainly get to argue about whichever system they implemented, so it sounds like a win/win to me.

I'd also support the complete removal of decay, but since Turbine decided to put it in, and declined to take it out, we must assume that it serves a purpose, or for some other reason will not go away.

So, slarden, accepting that we would both like to see decay removed, and assuming that won't happen, what is your suggestion for an alternative system to the one we have now. Because if you're not part of the solution... you're part of the precipitate.

[Chaos000]

The problem with your argument is that guilds can't cover decay, only players can. It's ultimately a penalty on players so it's completely wrong to assess a large penalty to player A vs. player B based strictly on guild size.

I'm assuming of course guild size is a choice? Player A chooses to to do shroud with only 3 other people. Player B chooses to do shroud with the maximum allowed. Because the size cap was dropped, Player C chooses to do shroud with double the amount of players that Player B chose. The personal fraction of damage a person in Player A's raid group required to take down Harry in part 4 is much larger than a player in Person B's group and WAY more than Player C's group. Player X that represents only 1% of the raid groups have successfully completed it with 2 players except they also happen to be on third tr's with endgame loot.

So to be fair they should scale a raid boss hp down to make it manageable to get raid completion with 4... scale up the raid boss hp based on the number of players to make it more difficult to take down in a full raid group requiring that many more DR breaking weapons... or do away with the raid boss hp because the system isn't fair...?

A 200 person guild needs only moderate activity to make 100 while a 6 person guild needs extremely high activity.

A 200 person guild with more than 6 players that have extremely high activity (or the equivalent earned by a far larger number) could not make 100 before. Any guild that did not previously earn the equivalent of a 6 person guild with an extremely high level activity prior to the change will still be unable to make 100 regardless of the number of players they may or may not have in the guild.

The problem with your assumptions is that you assume people in small guilds are or should be more active. There is no basis to conclude that people are more/less active based on guild size. It's a fabricated argument with no basis. The fact that there are so many small guilds below level 50 demonstrates this.

I don't believe that people in any guild are or should be more active. Smaller guilds will always be at a comparative disadvantage per player than larger guilds even if they both happen to be in the same size tier. A guild of 200 vs. guild of 300.

In real terms. What is too small to succeed? If 6 players could do it and 51+ could not... Are we saying that since a 6 player guild is a very small percentage they shouldn't be counted but the bar should be lowered for them as well?

[Nestroy]

(...)I don't believe that people in any guild are or should be more active. Smaller guilds will always be at a comparative disadvantage per player than larger guilds even if they both happen to be in the same size tier. A guild of 200 vs. guild of 300.
(...)

No guild would need to be at any disadvantage in a balanced system. There alyways could be calculated a formula that would satisfy any guild from 1-1000 toons. Then all the bonus would be evenly and linearly distributed and picking up any new guy in the guild would not give the guild any comparable advantage or disadvantage. Then only the activity level of the guild members would make the difference between fast and slow leveling or even shrinking due to decay.

Even if we argue that big guilds comparatively have less avtice members than some small guilds, fine. Then lets linearly distribute a bonus between 1 and 500 toons and after this any new addition is a net gain. Problem solved.

Even if we argue that this would give a one-account very active player guild a very steep advantage, fine, let´s start with 20 - 500 toons. So at least 2 accounts would be needed for max bonus (if they are VIPs). Problem solved.

Now, for everything we could find solutions. Where there is will, there is a way. But so far I do not see much way from Turbine and so I would guess there is no will?

[Gremmlynn]

No guild would need to be at any disadvantage in a balanced system. There alyways could be calculated a formula that would satisfy any guild from 1-1000 toons. Then all the bonus would be evenly and linearly distributed and picking up any new guy in the guild would not give the guild any comparable advantage or disadvantage. Then only the activity level of the guild members would make the difference between fast and slow leveling or even shrinking due to decay.

Even if we argue that big guilds comparatively have less avtice members than some small guilds, fine. Then lets linearly distribute a bonus between 1 and 500 toons and after this any new addition is a net gain. Problem solved.

Even if we argue that this would give a one-account very active player guild a very steep advantage, fine, let´s start with 20 - 500 toons. So at least 2 accounts would be needed for max bonus (if they are VIPs). Problem solved.

Now, for everything we could find solutions. Where there is will, there is a way. But so far I do not see much way from Turbine and so I would guess there is no will?

The problem is that the system either has to be set up to be balanced for any size guild or it has to be set to be balanced for any type of guild member.

Turbine started by trying to balance for guilds and, apparently, found that didn't work well for enough of their players to make it worthwhile to change it to a system balanced for players.

[slarden]

I'm assuming of course guild size is a choice? Player A chooses to to do shroud with only 3 other people. Player B chooses to do shroud with the maximum allowed. Because the size cap was dropped, Player C chooses to do shroud with double the amount of players that Player B chose. The personal fraction of damage a person in Player A's raid group required to take down Harry in part 4 is much larger than a player in Person B's group and WAY more than Player C's group. Player X that represents only 1% of the raid groups have successfully completed it with 2 players except they also happen to be on third tr's with endgame loot.

So to be fair they should scale a raid boss hp down to make it manageable to get raid completion with 4... scale up the raid boss hp based on the number of players to make it more difficult to take down in a full raid group requiring that many more DR breaking weapons... or do away with the raid boss hp because the system isn't fair...?

A 200 person guild with more than 6 players that have extremely high activity (or the equivalent earned by a far larger number) could not make 100 before. Any guild that did not previously earn the equivalent of a 6 person guild with an extremely high level activity prior to the change will still be unable to make 100 regardless of the number of players they may or may not have in the guild.

I don't believe that people in any guild are or should be more active. Smaller guilds will always be at a comparative disadvantage per player than larger guilds even if they both happen to be in the same size tier. A guild of 200 vs. guild of 300.

In real terms. What is too small to succeed? If 6 players could do it and 51+ could not... Are we saying that since a 6 player guild is a very small percentage they shouldn't be counted but the bar should be lowered for them as well?

Comparing raids and guilds doesn't really make any sense. I do agree that the smaller a guild is the bigger the disadvantage. However, only guilds of 10 or less are worse off under the new system than they were under the old system. Guilds of 11-15 gained very little benefit.

The issue is that guild level is tied to in-game rewards - ship buffs. Since the current system isn't fair they need to come up with some way besides leveling to award ship buffs so that Turbine's original vision of being size-neutral can be realized.

Guild choice is partially a choice, but the reality is most small guilds don't have the time to grow their guild nor do they want to spend their limited game time doing this. So why should a player be penalized for being a small guild? It should be perfectly acceptable for people to group with a circle of closer friends. Turbine's original vision for the guild system was allow a small guild to get the same in-game benefits that a larger guild could get. There has been no stated change to this objective although the current system itself could be viewed as a way to disourage small guilds.

[slarden]

The problem is that the system either has to be set up to be balanced for any size guild or it has to be set to be balanced for any type of guild member.

Turbine started by trying to balance for guilds and, apparently, found that didn't work well for enough of their players to make it worthwhile to change it to a system balanced for players.

The current system is much less balanced than the old system. The old system had a flaw in the decay formula that gave a slight advantage to small guilds while the current system makes it easy for a large guild to reach 100 and it's still impossible for 99%+ of small guilds to get there.

The system is awful for players in small guilds and a bonanza for players in a large guilds. Consider that many of us in small guilds have been working for 2+ years to level our guild and now the system is being changed to make it easy for a large guild to get to 100 and makes it even harder for guilds of 10 or less to hold their level by increasing the renown ransack penalty for gaining one level. Ironically this penalty was intended as a way to balance the benefits given to large guilds.

[slarden]

This is why I suggested (about 70 pages back) a model where we go back to the old decay formula, but remove the minimum cap, and only count players as active if they have earned renown since the last decay period.

That way no one is "punished" for not logging in, or not stepping into a quest or explorer area, or for having to leave before they do anything of note. That makes decay an honest per-player calculation, and means that only people who are actively earning renown are contributing to decay.

The other idea I proposed was to make amenities purchased with renown directly, so that decay reflects exactly the benefits you're getting from your ship. Giving each amenity a set number of charges would favor small guilds here, and giving them a set time would favor large guilds, and we would certainly get to argue about whichever system they implemented, so it sounds like a win/win to me.

I'd also support the complete removal of decay, but since Turbine decided to put it in, and declined to take it out, we must assume that it serves a purpose, or for some other reason will not go away.

So, slarden, accepting that we would both like to see decay removed, and assuming that won't happen, what is your suggestion for an alternative system to the one we have now. Because if you're not part of the solution... you're part of the precipitate.

I've offered several solutions in these pages which you can go back in find with math to back those up. This included a fix to the decay formula combined with a reduction of decay that gave large guilds of 90+ the exact same benefit they get under the new system while giving guilds of less than 90 a bigger benefit than they get currently. I also proposed changing the fixed decay multiplier from 20 to 10 which would give all guilds a 50% reduction in decay while continuing to give large guilds the biggest advantage.

I believe the removal of decay is an acceptable solution and since it's been completely removed as an issue for large guilds, I think the same should be done for small guilds. Discussing it is part of the solution.

Removal of decay would only allow a level 60 guild to gain 2-3 additional levels in one year. Since Turbine asked the question earlier whether large guilds getting to 100 and staying there is a problem worth fixing, I have to ask Turbine the same question regarding small guilds. They obviously realized that getting to 100 would be easy for large guilds now.

I agree with earlier comments that Turbine is concerned about the sale of guild elixirs but since a level 60 guild is only going to gain 2-3 additional levels in one-year from the removal of decay I don't see any such risk. In fact as guilds get to 55 and eventually 85 it will open up a much larger revenue stream with regards to guild ships. My guild has always used elixirs which definitely helped us move up faster, but if it's not going to get us to level 85 it's pointless to continue taking them as that is the only real benefit to do so. I also think most small guilds stop taking elixirs once they realize decay is eating up too much of their progress anyhow.

I won't purchase any additional guild elixirs under this new system that is rigged against small guilds.

[bringjoy]

As a member of a small guild I have definitely noticed this change. For the worse for us.

I took a month off from game in OCT when my husband returned from Afghanistan. Coming back to DDO in NOV we started to notice other guilds skyrocketing! Day after day on Khyber we are barraged with Guild X hit 70! etc. etc. It seemed curious to me. Later, I saw a comment on the forums about small guild renown which explained the sudden guild jumps I was witnessing.

We plug along, playing far too much, but our guild has been struggling all YEAR to go from 40 to 50. We rarely have more than 2 players active at a time, but we have many accounts that log on once or twice a month to say hello (RL friends) and then log off. Our account total in the guild is around 10-12.

I have pretty much given up on any plans that involve our guild getting beyond 50. I just hope to get the level 50 ship and try to be happy we finally made it that far.

[JOTMON]

So far I like the changes, appears to be more balanced although the renown system overall still needs some work.


We as players are making a choice to take renown as end rewards, chest rewards, use renown pots, etc...
Instead of looting to sell for plat.

I Would like to see renown and decay be associated to the player.

Have each person receive a renown goal when they first login. something like 25 renown/Guild level.

If a player drops below their required contribution amount they can no longer access the boat without invitation.(marked as an inactive guildie)
Locked out player can be invited by another guildie at the cost of reactiviating the boats daily decay for that person(can log in/out on the boat but if they exit the boat they cannot reenter without invitation or achieving their personal daily renown requirement).

Active members that did not reach their individual goal for the day lose ship access and no longer count towards the next days guild daily decay(unless reinvited back onto the boat then they are reactivated for another day).

Players that don't generate renown are readily identified since they have to ask for ship invite or have the opportunity to go farm renown to achieve their requirement or go without guildship buffs.

Quit a guild lose 50% of your renown the remaining 50% gets applied to your new guild. quit again lose 50% again.
that way reforms, merges are not a lose lose situation.

Apply achievement benchmarks
- player achieves 1 million Guild Renown gets a 25% reduction in personal decay.
- player achieves 2 million Guild Renown gets a 50% reduction in personal decay.
- player achieves 3 million Guild Renown gets a 75% reduction in personal decay.
- player achieves 4 million Guild Renown player no longer generates decay(automatically awarded daily quota).
- player achieves 5 million Guild Renown player gets a permanent guild ship portal clickie(1x/rest)...(like the ddo store version but does not get consumed on use).
Only applies to renown decay,still have to earn renown to advance a guild.

This I think would go a longer way towards balancing guild activity for active and casual players as well as adding some guild renown motivation.

~

Other issues:...
-Decay should apply only for active players that enter a quest not those that log in and dont even run anything.
-Inactivity should apply 24 hours after you have logged out not 4 weeks later.
-Epic Raids should be dropping much more significant renown rewards.. show me the bounties...
-Upgrade House P Favor to allow purchases of all available ship buffs (with appropriate favor of course) at a premium cost... a post from a while back...http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=4326558

[Chaos000]

Comparing raids and guilds doesn't really make any sense. I do agree that the smaller a guild is the bigger the disadvantage. However, only guilds of 10 or less are worse off under the new system than they were under the old system. Guilds of 11-15 gained very little benefit.

The raid comparison was to show that smaller numbers will always be at a comparative disadvantage vs. larger numbers when there is a set objective. Guilds of 11-15 gained very little benefit, I would venture to guess that if guilds of 10 or less were boosted to gain as much as a Guild of 11 we would still be having this conversation as this is not identifying the actual issue.

A small group of highly active players CAN take a smaller guild and raise it up to the highest rank of level 100. (The examples that can be presented is very likely accounting for only 1% of guilds) Regardless of the number of highly active players, guild's exceeding a certain size (while possible theoretically) COULD NOT reach the highest rank of level 100 under the system where decay was assigned per player. This was largely in part due to a high renown requirement per player and the length of time it took for an account to switch to inactive. Arguably, larger guilds with more casual players had a bigger penalty. Smaller guilds with casual players also had a similar penalty. A player that could not meet their daily renown requirement made their guild worse off by being retained.

Point being. While it was impossible before... now any guild (exceeding a certain size) could have the same number of highly active players and reach the highest rank. The unfairness is due to the activity of less active casual players still counting towards making this objective much easier for larger guilds. Smaller guilds with casual players are now no longer worse off for retaining that player. Removal of that player would no longer result in a decrease of the daily decay.

I would suggest adding a "total renown gain" counter to unlock the in-game reward of ship buffs. Decay ranking system measured by levels remains the same and "level" is only a requirement to unlock a particular ship size. Leveling is still desirable to have more places to put up ship shrines, but for smaller guilds the top ship buffs will be available much sooner and will be attainable even without spending their limited time to grow their guilds. 1% of guilds of a very small size can hit max rank so it is not impossible, and recruitment now results in advancement when "stuck" at a level.

[Nestroy]

(...)I would suggest adding a "total renown gain" counter to unlock the in-game reward of ship buffs. Decay ranking system measured by levels remains the same and "level" is only a requirement to unlock a particular ship size. Leveling is still desirable to have more places to put up ship shrines, but for smaller guilds the top ship buffs will be available much sooner and will be attainable even without spending their limited time to grow their guilds. 1% of guilds of a very small size can hit max rank so it is not impossible, and recruitment now results in advancement when "stuck" at a level.

I want to argue against your proposal:

1.) This is quite complicated to program and implement. More bugs and balance issues would arrise. And as usual there would be those that will find ways to exploit this system until Turbine would abandon it again (aka nerf). There would be much uproar in the forum due to discriminating small guilds again (not being able to get the biggest ship).
2.) Turbine wants to sell Crystals so they will want to sell more high-end ships. This would not be possible for almost all small to medium guilds, so this will directly hurt sales of Turbine. So no go.
3.) This system would not make the whole guild renown system less complex. User unfriendly for new players and a rich playground for those that want to maximize the gains.

Please, if you want to have a certain leveling system, start elsewhere. How about this?
+ No decay until any guild reaches a certain threshold of guild renown (e.g. 50,000,000). This would give all guilds the possibility to eventually get the best buffs and ships. Have levels or not, buffs / ships are bound to total renown.
+ Start leveling and decay from the threshold on. So with e.g. 50,000,001 renown on there would be decay and there would be leaderboards and levels. The higher the level, the higher decay. Now, any guild that wants to compete may compete now freely.
+ More bonus to smaller guilds, while the definition of smaller guilds has to be somewhat expanded. The current system is too contracted, a guild of 50+ accounts is small by comparrisson to reality and therefore would need to be defined as medium at best. A large guild would be 100+ accounts and 200+ accounts would be huge. The bonus needs rebalancing as well.

[Artos_Fabril]

Guild choice is partially a choice, but the reality is most small guilds don't have the time to grow their guild nor do they want to spend their limited game time doing this. So why should a player be penalized for being a small guild?

Turn it around. You've stated that there is effort required to grow a guild (particularly true if you wish to only add likeminded players). Why shouldn't this effort be rewarded? Why should players in a larger guild be penalized by not gaining renown for the time they spend growing their guild?

[Nestroy]

Turn it around. You've stated that there is effort required to grow a guild (particularly true if you wish to only add likeminded players). Why shouldn't this effort be rewarded? Why should players in a larger guild be penalized by not gaining renown for the time they spend growing their guild?

I think we all could agree that the current system did away with a great evil only to create new evils. So may I suggest that we do not concentrate on who gets penalized by any system but on how to form a system where no guild is penalized or all guilds are penalized the same, if Turbine really wants to hurt the player base...

[EllisDee37]

The chief concern is that now there is strong incentive to merge pretty much all guilds into a few super-guilds per server. I see it happening on Argo, and gotta say, not a fan.