Guild Renown Changes

[UurlockYgmeov]

Ah, for it to fit your definition of fair it must be so. Personally, I think fair is far from possible as to be fair the system would have to take into account variations in players interest, ability and availability to play and find a balance for all. I find a much more reasonable target to be reasonably passable for all to succeed with a bias towards anything that helps Turbine to succeed at their goals.

Good - we agree on the fair requirement.

The system doesn't have to take into account variations in players interests, ability and availability to play; rather it just has to allow the players and guilds 'self-determination' - the ability to choose their own and in order to do this - the guilds and players need better tools (like better information about what guilds are out there, their focuses, and the ability for guilds to give out trial guild invites to see if players will like the guild and the other guild members will like the player)

What the system needs is to be fair not only to all sizes, but all styles. To provide management and information tools for players and guilds alike.

Anything that makes the game more enjoyable will ultimately help Turbine reach their goal - and as a for-profit entity that runs a F2P game - enjoyable means more revenue.

[UurlockYgmeov]

And I proposed a change that reduced decay for small guilds by a factor of up to 10. As well as support the elimination of decay entirely (no, I don't agree that this would hurt the game as personally, I see leveling to 100 and not having to worry about it ever again as superior to a system that causes anyone any guild to remove members) or remove the whole guild level/perks nonsense completely and return guilds to the social, mutual aid organizations they were before the system was added.

I saw it and posted the charts/graphs/math.

While it is a start - it doesn't go far enough and still has inherent bias.

I also support no decay, but also am one who plans for backup kobolds. I really don't think Turbine would eliminate decay - it serves a purpose:

Decay is rather like membership dues used to pay the minstrels to fame (gild the lily) the guilds deeds far and wide by memorizing and embellishing the deeds of guild members. Also inferred but not specified are the upkeep of the guild’s ship (including but not limited to feeding the Elementals that power the ship; docking and landing fees; royalties to House Lyrandar’s for continued use of its Dragonmark for navigation; concessions (bribes) to the various business enterprises, gangs, consortiums, and various other interests needed to satisfy in order to successfully operate without incident; along with paying the Captain’s, First Mate and other (below decks (hidden)) crew’s salaries and upkeep.)

So we must also look at decay going forward (if Turbine doesn't just eliminate it - which they would already if they had any intention of doing so).

[Charononus]

Fair, is a myth as humans never see past their own biases. In uur's case he hates large guilds and wants to punish them.

[Tshober]

A 6-men guild used to be able to compete with a large guild, it's because of the small guild renown bonus and hard-work. So at 300% more renown gain, 6 accounts actually equal to 24 accounts, and each member just has to play 4 times as hard, to be able to advance nearly as quick as a guild with 100 accounts(24*4). Now with the new system, a large guild no longer has to be afraid to add more members, so a large guild with 100 accounts can easily become a huge guild with 1000 accounts such as Legends of Orien on server Orien(I don't really have grudges against the guild, I am only using it as an example), and in order for a tiny guild to keep up, each member has to play 40 times as hard, and that is nearly impossible, or close to possible for players who do not have jobs and play all day.

There are no 1000 account guilds. DDO caps guilds at 1000 characters, not accounts. And LoO has not ever changed how it recruits from the very first day it started recruiting, more than 3 years ago. We have always been inclusive of all types of players and always will be. We don't care at all about your small guild. We don't care at all that your small guild reached 100 first. We just want to play DDO and have fun and advance our guild.

The fact that your small guild could compete with a much larger guild under the old system was not really due to your guild working harder. It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses. The large guild was, in reality, earning much more renown than your small guild was, only more of it was being taken away after they had earned it in decay. Your ability to compete was a total illusion. But, more importantly, the large guild you mentioned, Legends of Orien, was not even trying to compete with you. The entire "competition" was all in your head. How can you get any satisfaction from "beating" opponents who are not even trying to compete with you and are not even aware that you are trying to compete with them? That seems like it would be a pretty hollow and unfulfilling "victory" to me.

I know there are some people who feel they must make everything into a competition. Even something that, to me, is so obviously about cooperation as guilds. I have proposed that we allow for the competition junkies by having guild competitions that do not force all guilds to compete against their will because it is tied to leveling. See the link below:

The only coherent argument I have heard so far for keeping decay (other than to make money for Turbine) is that it allows guilds to compete with each other. The problem with that, as you point out, is that many guilds are simply not interested in competing with other guilds.

[curiouspilot]

There are no 1000 account guilds. DDO caps guilds at 1000 characters, not accounts. And LoO has not ever changed how it recruits from the very first day it started recruiting, more than 3 years ago. We have always been inclusive of all types of players and always will be. We don't care at all about your small guild. We don't care at all that your small guild reached 100 first. We just want to play DDO and have fun and advance our guild.

You're right, I've mistaken account numbers to character numbers of the guild LoO, I apologize. But account sizes of LoO is still easily ten times of a lot of guilds, so this doesn't change much of anything.

The fact that your small guild could compete with a much larger guild under the old system was not really due to your guild working harder. It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses. The large guild was, in reality, earning much more renown than your small guild was, only more of it was being taken away after they had earned it in decay. Your ability to compete was a total illusion. But, more importantly, the large guild you mentioned, Legends of Orien, was not even trying to compete with you. The entire "competition" was all in your head. How can you get any satisfaction from "beating" opponents who are not even trying to compete with you and are not even aware that you are trying to compete with them? That seems like it would be a pretty hollow and unfulfilling "victory" to me.

I am not in a top end small guild like Vanshilar, so the small guild mentioned was just for example. Oh and if you'd bother to read what I quote from Vanshilar to you earlier, you'd get that large guilds really weren't in any disadvantage of gaining renown, even with that seemingly large renown decay.
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I'd like to add this bit, that no matter what I said or argued about, I don't really care so much about the outcome, be it the old or the new system, because I like this game so much that I can enjoy the game with or without ship buffs and such, but of course I wouldn't want a system to be so unfair to certain groups of players, so people would start leaving the game. The old guild renown system may not be flawless, but it's fair, imho.

[Lowz]

Fair, is a myth as humans never see past their own biases. In uur's case he hates large guilds and wants to punish them.

I disagree. from what Uurlock has posted it is clear that uurlock is not about punishing any size guild. you are completely mistaken.

[Lowz]

We just want to play DDO and have fun and advance our guild.

The fact that your small guild could compete with a much larger guild under the old system was not really due to your guild working harder. It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses. The large guild was, in reality, earning much more renown than your small guild was, only more of it was being taken away after they had earned it in decay. Your ability to compete was a total illusion. But, more importantly, the large guild you mentioned, Legends of Orien, was not even trying to compete with you. The entire "competition" was all in your head. How can you get any satisfaction from "beating" opponents who are not even trying to compete with you and are not even aware that you are trying to compete with them? That seems like it would be a pretty hollow and unfulfilling "victory" to me.

That is what everyone else wants as well.

actually - everyone was punished rather quite equally under the previous system. now it is just the smaller guilds that are being punished.

most competitions that mean anything (like golf) are entirely in ones head. that doesn't make them any less valid. comparing progress against ones peers is just plain good for understanding and improving if that is what you want.

I am not in a top end small guild like Vanshilar, so the small guild mentioned was just for example. Oh and if you'd bother to read what I quote from Vanshilar to you earlier, you'd get that large guilds really weren't in any disadvantage of gaining renown, even with that seemingly large renown decay.

most didn't read because to quote them tl:dr which means too long didn't read. They should have before replying.

[Wipey]

It was due to the larger guild being punished more by decay than your small guild, and to the small guild bonuses.

So why exactly was large build punished more ?

[Tshober]

So why exactly was large build punished more ?

Because of decay. Under the old system, decay increased for every player you added to your guild. So even though the larger guild really earned far more renown than the smaller guild did, the decay took far more away from the larger guild than it did from the smaller guild. Add small guild renown bonuses on top of that and the old system favored small guilds over large guilds. Any system where adding more players to your guild can actually reduce the amount of renown your guild earns, favors exclusion, and favors smaller guilds.

The current system does not allow players to contribute less than zero net renown to a guild and so it favors inclusion and large guilds.

[Lowz]

Because of decay. Under the old system, decay increased for every player you added to your guild. So even though the larger guild really earned far more renown than the smaller guild did, the decay took far more away from the larger guild than it did from the smaller guild. Add small guild renown bonuses on top of that and the old system favored small guilds over large guilds. Any system where adding more players to your guild can actually reduce the amount of renown your guild earns, favors exclusion, and favors smaller guilds.

The current system does not allow players to contribute less than zero net renown to a guild and so it favors inclusion and large guilds.

and the current and previous system favored large guilds. Look at the math uurlock and that other guy posted. plain as the nose on your face.

and the current system allows everyone to contribute less than zero. even it if is a miniscule amount (less than 1), it is still more than zero.

[Tshober]

I disagree. from what Uurlock has posted it is clear that uurlock is not about punishing any size guild. you are completely mistaken.

He absolutely insists that his plan MUST allow guilds to lose levels. He wants his guild to be able to advance and he insists that other guilds must be allowed to lose levels. When offered a very small change, by his own numbers, that would ensure that no guilds would lose levels, he rejected that option because he feels very strongly that guilds must be able to lose levels. Which guilds do you think those are?

His plan adds more decay for every player in your guild, which the current system does not do. Which guilds will incur the most decay under his plan?

He has been extremely evasive about why his plan must be allowed to have guilds lose levels. But those of us who see how his plan adds more decay for every player you add to your guild, can see who it is that his plan will allow to lose levels, and it won't be his small guild.

[Tshober]

and the current system allows everyone to contribute less than zero. even it if is a miniscule amount (less than 1), it is still more than zero.

What? That makes no sense. Under the current system, no player can ever earn less renown than they cost in decay. Under the old system, many players did earn less renown than they cost in decay. And that gave guilds an incentive to kick/shun such players. And that is why we have the current system and not the old system .

[eris2323]

And here we go again...

Two (?) people claiming the old system favoured large guilds, when it is clear that it did not.

Sorry, you're just wrong, and you weren't paying attention then, when the numbers favoured small guilds, were you?

Two people who don't understand the guild system or its history who have grand designs of re-designing it to favour solo and tiny guilds?

Not interested. Do your homework. And stop suggesting changes that will solely benefit you while destroying large guilds.

You're not qualified to change the system, and your suggestions have been shouted down quite a few times as harmful to the game as a whole.

And you use too much text to try to 'snowjob' it past us....

Not. Interested. Not even gonna read.

[eris2323]

And for all those who keep repeating 'the devs said, the devs said, the devs said, the devs said, the devs said...'

Might I remind you that someone high up in turbine once told us we'd be able to take 'paralyzation off that kama and put it on the longsword!!!!!'.

Devs are wrong; Devs are incorrect, and sometimes, you have to just deal with it.

I for one hope the devs are never considering adding such disgusting, anti-social features back to the game as to destroy the large guilds just so a few tiny and solo guilds can level faster.

Those who keep repeating 'vanshilar said, van said, van said, van said'

Please keep mind, this person has no access to internal stats; can not see account numbers of anyone outside his guild, can not see how many people are active today, and are basically good at taking bad, and outdated data (as myddo is broken) and making that readable and mean whatever he wants it to say.

However, doesn't change the fact he doesn't know the full details of any guild except his own, and all his numbers are suspect because myddo is broken.

[Tshober]

However, doesn't change the fact he doesn't know the full details of any guild except his own, and all his numbers are suspect because myddo is broken.

I have to concur with your assessment of myddo.com data. I took one look at the data for my guild and decided the guild data was just as horribly wrong as the account and character data are. It showed people as current officers in my guild that have not been in the guild for years, much less officers. It showed that my guild had nearly 4000 current members, even though the DDO cap is 1000 characters. Nothing that comes from myddo.com data can be trusted to tell you anything remotely truthful or accurate.

I used to say that they should just turn myddo.com off, except I would miss the lotteries, even though half of my characters that "win" the lottery were deleted years ago. But now even the myddo.com lotteries are completely broken for most accounts and have been for months. So please, just turn this loser off entirely Turbine. The data is so wrong that it is totally useless. And it actually does harm because some people don't realize that it is just garbage, and try to use it as though it were actually correct. Just turn off myddo.com please, until it can be fixed.

[eris2323]

I have to concur with your assessment of myddo.com data. I took one look at the data for my guild and decided the guild data was just as horribly wrong as the account and character data are. It showed people as current officers in my guild that have not been in the guild for years, much less officers. It showed that my guild had nearly 4000 current members, even though the DDO cap is 1000 characters. Nothing that comes from myddo.com data can be trusted to tell you anything remotely truthful or accurate.

I used to say that they should just turn myddo.com off, except I would miss the lotteries, even though half of my characters that "win" the lottery were deleted years ago. But now even the myddo.com lotteries are completely broken for most accounts and have been for months. So please, just turn this loser off entirely Turbine. The data is so wrong that it is totally useless. And it actually does harm because some people don't realize that it is just garbage, and try to use it as though were actually correct. Just turn off myddo.com please, until it can be fixed.

Yes; they should really turn off broken data sources like that - it leads to all sorts of people making all sorts of claims based on it.

When in reality - no one knows how active any guild is, unless they are in it, and have access to more information than that. For instance; you wouldn't have a clue who was unique and who was an alt, unless you were in our high council and had access to that data.

For another instance, you wouldn't have a clue how many accounts are even in the guild - just number of characters, as that is not published either.

For yet another instance - you can't see how long each player plays, and how long each is in-game, unless you are watching the guild chat 24 hours a day - and you're not in our guild, so I don't see how thats possible.

Bad data from myddo leads to bad assumptions, then people taking those bad assumptions and making it into gospel simply because they are in love with the numbers and pretty charts based on garbage data

It's all garbage.

Turn off myddo.

[Gremmlynn]

Good - we agree on the fair requirement.

The system doesn't have to take into account variations in players interests, ability and availability to play; rather it just has to allow the players and guilds 'self-determination' - the ability to choose their own and in order to do this - the guilds and players need better tools (like better information about what guilds are out there, their focuses, and the ability for guilds to give out trial guild invites to see if players will like the guild and the other guild members will like the player)

What the system needs is to be fair not only to all sizes, but all styles. To provide management and information tools for players and guilds alike.

Anything that makes the game more enjoyable will ultimately help Turbine reach their goal - and as a for-profit entity that runs a F2P game - enjoyable means more revenue.

Then the system we now have will work. As small guilds can and have succeeded by being active enough and casual players can succeed simply by either hitching their wagon to active players or getting a large enough group of other casual players (unlikely). Now small guilds of casual players may not be able to succeed, but I'm not the one insisting decay has to remain.

[Gremmlynn]

I am not in a top end small guild like Vanshilar, so the small guild mentioned was just for example. Oh and if you'd bother to read what I quote from Vanshilar to you earlier, you'd get that large guilds really weren't in any disadvantage of gaining renown, even with that seemingly large renown decay.

Only if they made it a point to either boot, or encourage casual players to quit. I laugh at the idea that a guild could encourage players to play more, as anyone who would actually want to do that would if they were able and anyone who didn't simply wouldn't. Better to let players play as much as they can or want to and design a system that lets then contribute when they do, than tell them they must play this much to break even and see them simply finding a game that fits the amount of time they are willing or able to play. Seems pretty obvious to me.

[Gremmlynn]

most competitions that mean anything (like golf) are entirely in ones head. that doesn't make them any less valid. comparing progress against ones peers is just plain good for understanding and improving if that is what you want.

Improving what in this case though? All it is is a "competition" to see who plays the most, or maybe spends the most on renown elixirs. I really don't think renown awards are going to make anyone better at opening chests faster.

[Gremmlynn]

and the current and previous system favored large guilds. Look at the math uurlock and that other guy posted. plain as the nose on your face.

No it heavily favored very active players to form into small groups in order to magnify their gains with size bonuses. It was very prejudiced against anyone for whom the game is a diversion rather than a devotion and any guild that included them as a member.