Guild Renown Changes

[~Kaang]

Instead decay should be applied at each drop based on level. One simple example of a formula would be:

[Renown]*[Guild Bonus]*Decay Multiplier + bonus (from elixirs or bonus days)

I guess I would not object to this so long as the decay factor is always > zero & does not include any guild size factor in its calculation, and the small guild bonus is not changed greatly from what it is today. This would increase the decay for large guilds a little bit but not greatly so. It is certainly better than any plan that brings back decay based on guild account size.

[TheNewSlarden]

Currently renown is computed on a variable basis and decay is computed on a fixed daily basis. The system is obviously unfair to tiny guilds and hugely favorable for large guilds.

The problem with the old and the new system is that decay and renown are computed with different methodologies. Decay should be applied on a per drop basis rather than daily The daily decay methodology causes guilds to lose progress and is also exceptionally punitive to guilds that accept players that are either slow or don't play much.

Instead decay should be applied at each drop based on level. One simple example of a formula would be:

[Renown]*[Guild Bonus]*Decay Multiplier + bonus (from elixirs or bonus days)

The decay multiplier could be something as as simple as (110 - Level)/100 with this only applying to guilds level 30 or above.

This does two things:

1) it allows all guilds to move forward
2) it rationalizes the guild bonus multiplier. Currently small guilds with high activity levels benefit greatly from the bonus while those with lower activity levels benefit less. This smooths the curve so that guild bonus doesn't give highly active guilds an enormous benefit - decay is variable based only on level
3) it provides more incentive to buy elixirs since guilds can't move backwards and the bonus would be based on actual renown drop before decay multiplier. This means that even someone in a large high level guild buying an elixir would make a significant impact as their total renown earned would go up significantly. Also it removes the disincentive to buy elixirs caused by the fact that even with an exlixir your guild can move back. Elixirs will always increase guild renown and never result in a situation where all that benefit is erased due to fixed decay.

I am sure large guilds won't like this after the system was tilted dramatically in their favor. They won't like any change at this point, but it's a much more fair system than we have now and it doesn't give any incentive to boot since each member at only positive renown. It is not possible for a person to cause a guild to move backwards by slow play or lack of playing.

This would be a very welcome change, but don't get your hopes up. It's unlikely the devs will read/acknowledge your post. Even more unlikely they will consider it. Even more unlikely they will actually implement. And even more unlikely that they care even a little bit about how bad the current guild system is for new guilds and tiny guilds.

NWO is a good game with it's pluses and minuses just like DDO, however, the guild system works much better for new players and players that prefer to be in small guilds. It's ftp if you want to give it a try. Some of my guildies have switched to NWO as their main game in large part due to the guild system, including our guild leader. I held out hope for several months, but I've given up at this point. The developer comments clearly demonstrate apathy towards the tiny guild and start-up guild viewpoint.

I would suggest either living with the system or finding another game if the guild system is an important part of your gaming experience.

[smatt]

Just checking in haven't been paying attention for a while..... They need to keep the guild renown system set to REWARD active players.... If they want to just give away the ships and ammenities to the masses... Then they should just give the biggest ships away to everybody, as well a level 100... I mean why shouldnt' the small guilds with 4 players that play 2 hours a week, have exactly the same things as the big guilds that have people that play an average of 15-25 hours a week?

[TheNewSlarden]

Just checking in haven't been paying attention for a while..... They need to keep the guild renown system set to REWARD active players.... If they want to just give away the ships and ammenities to the masses... Then they should just give the biggest ships away to everybody, as well a level 100... I mean why shouldnt' the small guilds with 4 players that play 2 hours a week, have exactly the same things as the big guilds that have people that play an average of 15-25 hours a week?

As pointed out by someone else, the current system fails because activity is variable but decay is fixed. So it can't work because only tiny guilds with excessive play time can advance at higher levels. I like the proposal to make decay variable based on drops which solves all the problems that have been mentioned in these posts.

I think it's fine to reward activity, but Turbine should keep in mind that this is going to discourage new players that want to start their own guilds. They will lose their players to other guilds that have better shiops which is only going to cost the game more players.

Decay should have been eliminated completely because all it does is cost DDO players.

[Nestroy]

As pointed out by someone else, the current system fails because activity is variable but decay is fixed. So it can't work because only tiny guilds with excessive play time can advance at higher levels. I like the proposal to make decay variable based on drops which solves all the problems that have been mentioned in these posts.

I think it's fine to reward activity, but Turbine should keep in mind that this is going to discourage new players that want to start their own guilds. They will lose their players to other guilds that have better shiops which is only going to cost the game more players.

Decay should have been eliminated completely because all it does is cost DDO players.

Well, most players I talked with that left our guild did leave because they will leave DDO all together. We lost several guildies to larger guilds when they started to actively recruit again but now most that leave do so to leave for better games. And the guild system actually is one of the reasons (less f2p-content and too much grind the other two most common reasons).

[UurlockYgmeov]

Well, most players I talked with that left our guild did leave because they will leave DDO all together. We lost several guildies to larger guilds when they started to actively recruit again but now most that leave do so to leave for better games. And the guild system actually is one of the reasons (less f2p-content and too much grind the other two most common reasons).

Was talking to guildies yesterday about this. We are trying to get a friend / guildie his completionist before he deploys back to the sandbox for his third tour next month.

Topic was ways to improve the guild system - and he used to play LOTRO allot; what we agreed upon was that DDO just copied the kinship system, and failed to implement 95% of it and failed to make it fully useful.

Not only do we need to fix decay to make it fair to all; we also need to make the guild system much more useful and robust.

I still want a house.

[Nestroy]

(...)I still want a house.

Being an UO Player from 1st Minute myself, I can fully understand your wish, really. Alas, whilst the world of UO was really big there would not be enough space in Stormreach to house all the guild houses...

[Chacka-1]

First of all I am sorry I did not read this Thread at all its just to much for me at the moment.
Even though I think I have enough information to just drop a suggestion.
I think the initial design of guild renown decay was almost perfect and I am not exaggerating here …
its just the Problem of people feeling forced to kick players from etc and that's indeed NOT good …
But why not solving this problem this way:
A player or/and the guild leader could set a player on inactive. He would be in the guild with name etc but can not be harmful to the decay status and also not be beneficial. (they dont see any renown tokens in there chests)
Maybe a idea to simple and also already someone else write it here?

[Nestroy]

First of all I am sorry I did not read this Thread at all its just to much for me at the moment.
Even though I think I have enough information to just drop a suggestion.
I think the initial design of guild renown decay was almost perfect and I am not exaggerating here …
its just the Problem of people feeling forced to kick players from etc and that's indeed NOT good …
But why not solving this problem this way:
A player or/and the guild leader could set a player on inactive. He would be in the guild with name etc but can not be harmful to the decay status and also not be beneficial. (they dont see any renown tokens in there chests)
Maybe a idea to simple and also already someone else write it here?

This already has been proposed several times, in the original rants from our large guildies as well as in this thread here. If Turbine only gave a dime for the Players and their wishes, this already would have been implemented by now.

Well, nice try and still a good idea, possibility to ever see this getting done: 0%.

[~Kaang]

First of all I am sorry I did not read this Thread at all its just to much for me at the moment.
Even though I think I have enough information to just drop a suggestion.
I think the initial design of guild renown decay was almost perfect and I am not exaggerating here …
its just the Problem of people feeling forced to kick players from etc and that's indeed NOT good …
But why not solving this problem this way:
A player or/and the guild leader could set a player on inactive. He would be in the guild with name etc but can not be harmful to the decay status and also not be beneficial. (they dont see any renown tokens in there chests)
Maybe a idea to simple and also already someone else write it here?

This is probably the most common suggestion made, after eliminating decay. There are a few problems with it. The administrative overhead for this would be prohibitive for very large guilds. Imagine trying to keep track of 1000 characters and trying to determine which ones should be what status with ZERO tools to tell you which ones earn how much renown. Guild leaders would find it far easier to just keep on shunning casual/social players and not even bother trying keep track of which ones should have what status flag. The other reason this is not a great solution is the exact same thing could be accomplished far more easily and far more accurately by having the game insure (mathematically) that no account can ever lose more renown to decay than that same account earns. This would free guild leaders from having to ever worry about a new player costing his/her guild renown and there would be no need to worry about getting any status flag set right. The proposal by Uacceptable, a few posts back, also accomplishes the same things.

[Aliss7]

If you don't allow for guild levels to drop, then you need to get rid of the guild cap and make it infinite, else you've lost one the existing metrics: guild activity.

[TheNewSlarden]

If you don't allow for guild levels to drop, then you need to get rid of the guild cap and make it infinite, else you've lost one the existing metrics: guild activity.

The activity metric was eliminated in October. It's currently easy for large guilds to advance regardless of activity level and very difficult for small guilds to advance regardless of activity level. Activity level is not nearly as relevant as guild size under the current system.

Before they make any changes to the guild cap, they need to first fix the system so it works for all guild sizes. The current system is severely broken.

[Gremmlynn]

First of all I am sorry I did not read this Thread at all its just to much for me at the moment.
Even though I think I have enough information to just drop a suggestion.
I think the initial design of guild renown decay was almost perfect and I am not exaggerating here …
its just the Problem of people feeling forced to kick players from etc and that's indeed NOT good …
But why not solving this problem this way:
A player or/and the guild leader could set a player on inactive. He would be in the guild with name etc but can not be harmful to the decay status and also not be beneficial. (they dont see any renown tokens in there chests)
Maybe a idea to simple and also already someone else write it here?

This causes a problem with "inactive" guildies feeling they have a second class status.

No, the original system was far from perfect as renown was a constant. While game activity is a variable even for most players, much less between multiple players.

[Gremmlynn]

The activity metric was eliminated in October. It's currently easy for large guilds to advance regardless of activity level and very difficult for small guilds to advance regardless of activity level. Activity level is not nearly as relevant as guild size under the current system.

Before they make any changes to the guild cap, they need to first fix the system so it works for all guild sizes. The current system is severely broken.

Not exactly true. Activity level is still the the core flaw in the system, it's just easier for larger guilds to reach the decay threshold with less active players.

Very active guilds are having little problem beating decay currently, regardless of size.

IMO, trying to rate players based on how much they play was a mistake to begin with. All that ends up doing is turning the majority of the games customer base into comparative losers, especially at the levels that were originally set. Generally, not a good way to maintain customers.

[unacceptable]

Not exactly true. Activity level is still the the core flaw in the system, it's just easier for larger guilds to reach the decay threshold with less active players.

Very active guilds are having little problem beating decay currently, regardless of size.

IMO, trying to rate players based on how much they play was a mistake to begin with. All that ends up doing is turning the majority of the games customer base into comparative losers, especially at the levels that were originally set. Generally, not a good way to maintain customers.

There is no such thing as a very active large guild. When large guilds had the same decay methodology tiny guilds have today, very few large guilds could advance past 80 and very few tiny guilds could advance past 80. With the change, very few tiny guilds can advance past 80 and all large established guilds can advance past 80. New guilds which are formed mostly by new players are doomed from the start regardless of how much they grow temporarily because once a player gets a decent amount of experience they will be recruited to a more established guild - leaving the new guilds to flounder. It seems like such a wrong decision for DDO to make - they should be trying to encourage all guilds. This game seems intent on discouraging new players from sticking with this game.

The system is really bad because static decay hits daily but renown is only earned by drops. I still believe decay should be applied as part of the guild renown dropping system so that it's proportional to activity. Then you have a true measure of activity unlike the system we have today that prevents most guilds from advancing once they reach a high enough level. It's really hard for me to understand how any game could come up with the system we have in place today.

[Gremmlynn]

There is no such thing as a very active large guild. When large guilds had the same decay methodology tiny guilds have today, very few large guilds could advance past 80 and very few tiny guilds could advance past 80. With the change, very few tiny guilds can advance past 80 and all large established guilds can advance past 80. New guilds which are formed mostly by new players are doomed from the start regardless of how much they grow temporarily because once a player gets a decent amount of experience they will be recruited to a more established guild - leaving the new guilds to flounder. It seems like such a wrong decision for DDO to make - they should be trying to encourage all guilds. This game seems intent on discouraging new players from sticking with this game.

The system is really bad because static decay hits daily but renown is only earned by drops. I still believe decay should be applied as part of the guild renown dropping system so that it's proportional to activity. Then you have a true measure of activity unlike the system we have today that prevents most guilds from advancing once they reach a high enough level. It's really hard for me to understand how any game could come up with the system we have in place today.

I'll agree that there is really no such thing as a very active large guild, but large guilds can and do sometimes have a very active element in them. Those are likely the one's that are advancing the fastest now that they are no longer being held back by the less active players. As far as tiny guilds not being able to advance, I disagree. Those with a very active element, aided by size bonus, should be advancing. As far as new guilds not having a chance, if their members like being in that guild enough, they shouldn't have trouble retaining them. If not, why should the system be set up to force those members to stay?

As far as decay goes. I still think it should do just that...go and never come back.

[UurlockYgmeov]

I stand by my proposal.

I also say the entire guild system just needs to be finished. This partial kludge of a system is just bad.

LOTRO they have guild messaging; benefits earned by guild age; and so many other things.

SOON™ish

[Gremmlynn]

I stand by my proposal.

I also say the entire guild system just needs to be finished. This partial kludge of a system is just bad.

LOTRO they have guild messaging; benefits earned by guild age; and so many other things.

SOON™ish

Soonish as they find a way to monetize those things.

[TheNewSlarden]

I'll agree that there is really no such thing as a very active large guild, but large guilds can and do sometimes have a very active element in them. Those are likely the one's that are advancing the fastest now that they are no longer being held back by the less active players. As far as tiny guilds not being able to advance, I disagree. Those with a very active element, aided by size bonus, should be advancing. As far as new guilds not having a chance, if their members like being in that guild enough, they shouldn't have trouble retaining them. If not, why should the system be set up to force those members to stay?

As far as decay goes. I still think it should do just that...go and never come back.

Your assertion about small guild advancement is an epic fail.

A 10 person level 81 guild that earned 500 renown per day per member would earn 17,000 renown per day with the bonus. That guild would lose 8,509 decay for the day. A 400 person level 81 guild that earned 500 renown per day per member would earn 200,000 renown for the day and end up with a net gain of 174,490.8 for the day. This is precisely why small guilds that were stuck before the change are still stuck, and large guilds that were stuck before the change have gained as much as 30 levels. And the guild that gained 30 levels has 400 members. The huge renown earning potential they have with the low decay/player makes advancement easy.

Now consider my small 10 person guild has only a few people that log in per day since people have jobs, kids, wives, girlfriends, etc., the daily requirement for those that log in is much higher. We had one go inactive a few days ago bringing our active guild size back to 9.

If the 400 person guild earned 20% of the small guild (20% as active) they would still gain net renown for the day while the tiny guild that is 500% more active moves back.

The only guilds that can advance at very high levels are guilds that are mostly hardcore players and very selective. Guilds like mine that don't boot players and take casual players can't advance even if some of the members are very active.

I agree with the previous idea about start-up guilds. They can't keep players because any good players are wanted by the high level guilds. Casual and new players are wanted by a tiny percentage of guilds. The only guilds that can freely take on new players are large and well established. Even so, most of those guilds don't take on new or casual players because they prefer vets.

The current system is driving away players just as the previous system did. It's time to make the system a positive for all guilds instead of a negative for the game that costs Turbine players.

[Dandonk]

The current system is driving away players just as the previous system did. It's time to make the system a positive for all guilds instead of a negative for the game that costs Turbine players.

I totally agree. But it seems small guilds just don't count at Trbine. They don't like us, and they don't want us. Well, that's nice, I guess, since they are driving small guilds out. Lucky Turbine!

I think it's sad to have a system that penalizes a social grouping choice. It was bad before when large guilds felt compelled to downsize or not advance. That problem has been solved, and I'm glad it has. Now I just want the same courtesy extended to small guilds. Please, Turbine, get rid of this obnoxious decay mechanic. It only serves to annoy and penalize players atm... I literally see no point in it now that large guilds are reaching the highest level with no problems.