Criteria for a Renown System

[Faxe]

Just suggestions for specific criteria for any new renown system. For now, I'm just going to call it the Vargouille-Vanshilar-Tshober criteria to thank Vargouille (for giving us some info), Vanshilar (for all the data collection on guild renown), and Tshober (for the initial list). Here's the current VVTF criteria:

Mandatory:
[]1. There should never be an incentive to kick a player because of the renown they earn.

Not absolutely mandatory but very desirable:
[]2. There should always be a renown incentive to invite a player to your guild.

[]3. All guilds should be able to advance and not hit a wall that totally stops them from advancing.

[]4. Guilds that earn the most renown should level up the fastest.

[]5. The speed with which guilds level up should be roughly proportional to the amount of renown they earn.

[]6. The system should feel fair.

[]7. The system should not promote any guild size.

[]8. The system should not have any hidden formula.

[]9. The system should not have decay.

[]10. There should always be an incentive to buy renown potions and airship amenities.

Ideally, any new system should pass most of these criteria.

[Sidewaysgts86]

Question- Do you feel guilds should be rewarded for consistent activity?

[Faxe]

Question- Do you feel guilds should be rewarded for consistent activity?

That's hard to say. My feeling is that the same activity should not be rewarded. But consistent activity should be

I would be happy to add/remove any criteria that is not consistent.

[Sidewaysgts86]

That's hard to say. My feeling is that the same activity should not be rewarded. But consistent activity should be

My problem is this is what I feel we currently have. I dont view it as guilds are being punished for extra members, minimal activity, etc- I view it as a system that simply rewards guilds that are active. Members who become inactive are removed from the equation, so the "rewards", or lack of, rest largely on the shoulders of the active members. If the active members are active enough, they receive increasing rewards, if theyre less active they dont get those benefits. Larger guilds require more effort than smaller guilds, and im ok with that.

BUT in all fairness- I feel inclined to state i have a very open mind. Im 100% for a guild leveling/system that "rewards consistent activity", and it seems you are as well- May i inquire as to what you feel these benefits "should be", or at least if you have any suggestions along the lines that seem fitting?

[Faxe]

My problem is this is what I feel we currently have. I dont view it as guilds are being punished for extra members, minimal activity, etc- I view it as a system that simply rewards guilds that are active. Members who become inactive are removed from the equation, so the "rewards", or lack of, rest largely on the shoulders of the active members. If the active members are active enough, they receive increasing rewards, if theyre less active they dont get those benefits. Larger guilds require more effort than smaller guilds, and im ok with that.

I think I see where you are going. It is a tricky problem that the current system ends up rewarding guilds of mostly active members. It just feels wrong for a person to play once a week to suffer the decay for the other six days. But anyone trying to find a fair solution will easily run into thorny issues such as calculating the bonus/decay for a "semi-casual" person playing 2 hours a day vs another playing for 10 hours day.

BUT in all fairness- I feel inclined to state i have a very open mind. Im 100% for a guild leveling/system that "rewards consistent activity", and it seems you are as well- May i inquire as to what you feel these benefits "should be", or at least if you have any suggestions along the lines that seem fitting?

That's interestingly keen question! And for having an open mind:
My feeling is that the guild system should almost resemble how corporations work in RL. Any newly created character can join the Big Company and starts to enjoy some of the common corporate benefits. Those ship buffs (health plans & 401k matching) and guild vendors (employee discounts) all come at some costs to the Big Company every time a member uses it. While the Big Company can provide these cheaper than the individual, it should not be free to everyone or available freely for the duration. But I could see some pitchforks if the game changes the resist shrine to 300 uses instead of unlimited uses for 7 days.

On the other hand, a newly created character can also join the Small Company and start to enjoy the same corporate benefits. I do not see why the same health/401k plans should not all be available to the Small Company when there’s a market for many Small Companies buying the benefits.

In both cases, the longer the character stayed at the same company, the more benefits the characters should get. This could be longer vacations (longer buffs) or higher 401k matching (more potent buffs). It should not matter if the character earned 10 million or barely has any renown. But it makes sense that the longer the character's been in a guild, the more bonus the character should get to the renown earned.

Renown tokens could be used as the shared cost to maintain/upgrade the ship buffs. It should just cost more to maintain the buffs for large guilds because more members will use them. Just like TP, the more you buy the more discounts you get. There should not be any artificial guild levels. The guild augment slots could just be the size of the Stone of Change placed on the ship. If a guild pays for the LARGE Stone of Change with 100 uses, then members should be able to use it to slot 100 large augment crystals whether it be over a period of days or months.

There should not be any renown races, artifical guild level to advance, bonus, decay, or guild size/activity to aim for. Since ship buffs are no longer free, the guild officers can just set the price for any ship invite for non-members. Or a generous guild can set it to 0 for everyone.

I could never see how the logic for renown as a measurement of 'fame' works. Let's see, we need lots of 'renown' and lots of plats for the vendor to even sell us these higher level ships. After we have the ship, we have to constantly fight these daily thieves who go around Stormreach spreading lies and rumors so every guild loses renown. Hey you, even though you've earned 50% of the guild's fame, kick! bye bye 'famous' hero! And Oh noes, we have the plats and diamonds, but the ship vendor is not selling ships to unknown strangers. Why not just called it "Antique Bronze Airship Tokens" that the vendor needs to build the ship instead? It may even make more sense for the tokens to be used in exchange for keeping the airship buffs because the buff vendors need them to buy their own airships too

The developer should just mirror the guild system on RL corporations with the DDO store providing some basic services for the corporations. That's it.