A call for Guild Leaders to state your support for the current renown system

[blkcat1028]

Level 67, 14 active accounts, moderately active players.

I dislike the renown system, it needs some tweaking.

[Dysmetria]

Low 70s guild (it fluctuates) with about 150 accounts, half or so of which are casual.

I have no problem with the renown or renown decay system.

I do not like the ship buffs tho, not just because the trivialize some content, but also because they can make groups wait an extra 5 minutes or so to start each quest.

[Khimberlhyte]

Leader of a level 56 guild, 7 active accounts, 5 inactive, generally only 2-3 players login during a 24 hour period. I play the most, and am probably responsible for 1/3 of the renown generated in the past year, with two other players making up most of the remainder.

I somewhat dislike the renown system.

When I started playing, it seemed to me that guilds tended to be groups of people who were there to play together, usually with similar experience levels, gaming goals, and playstyles. That has changed. You now see solo players / antisocial types joining only for ship buffs who would never have otherwise joined a guild. You see new players on a level 3 28pt build in harbor chat demanding a high level guild invite (63+ for all buffs, so at least I'm safe from /tells), and experienced players turning their noses up at anything below level 70 (large guild slots).

The disincentives to adding members hurt social aspects of the game. Extra decay, reductions to the small or medium guild bonus, and the potential loss of renown on departure all add up to limited recruitment by guilds higher than 35. Even the 1-2 semi-anonymous "harbour" guilds per server don't recruit as openly anymore, as with their 500+ members, they end up stuck around level 60. If you want to get the shiny toys, guild leaders have to be as careful reviewing applicants as an employer - there are real costs to your guild in picking someone unsuitable.

Unless you are comfortable leveling at a snails pace (I am, because I dislike recruiting under the renown system) the ideal guild applicant of today looks nothing like in the past. They will not be casuals since they will play 15+ hours per week, run at-level hard/elite/epic for maximum renown, and zerg to get as many chests in an hour as possible. They will be fully geared, and willing to take impressive trophies / legendaries instead of loot in end rewards.

It used to be that the sole criteria for an ideal guildy was that they be a fun person to play the game with, and logged on at the same time as you.

[KingOfCheese]

Inferus Sus

We were in the unique position, not long ago, of being the biggest guild, game-wide, that was level 90+. We had at the time over 800 characters (70+ accounts).

Since renown was introduced, we've been between 600-800ish characters and 60-80ish accounts. We plateaued at level 93 and have been between level 85-93 since.

It is crystal clear that, based on our size and number of accounts (not all of which are highly active players), we will not hit lvl 100 in the current system.

I think it would be difficult for any large guild to make level 100 without making renown a serious focus of their efforts.

Candid review of renown:

I'd like to not worry about or care about it all. But it does matter to some degree (who wouldn't want the best ship amenities, all other things being equal) and to some people more than others. So we can't ignore it entirely.

At our largest and highest level, the daily decay was substantial. We've decayed tens of millions of renown (over a million/week at our peak).

I wish the formulas were tweaked a little bit to make it easier to gain or hold renown for the large, active guilds.

How much does this concern me? Not much. But more than not at all.

[ferrite]

I don't mind the renown system, but I hate ship buffs.

Ship buffs are forcing players to join higher-level guilds instead of trying to raise a new one from scratch. Doing low level quests on elite is infinitely easier with the resist shrines.

This is interesting, and from a game balance perspective.. much as I don't want to I am forced to agree with you on this. Its not normal for a level 2 adventurer to be allowed +30 resist buffs, and definitely changes the balance of the game for the worse.

Solution: Keep buffs on ship (and introduce even more buffs!), however make each buff station a ML requirement to use. This would have the overall net effect of grouping higher level players together in high level guilds, and vice versa, which seems a bit more balanced and realistic to me.

The renown system is broken. I definitely am not sure how to improve it, but there have been suggestions I've seen that should be considered more fully by the devs.

Agree on this as well. I think the renown and decay system should be scrapped entirely, and any such renown should be tied to character achievement, not guild achievement, and travel with the character from guild to guild in the form of 'fame' or something similar, which a guild can capitalize on collectively. I came up with some ideas to fix awhile ago but didn't seem to generate much interest, I probably worded it badly is why, but the premise holds.

[Tshober]

The current renown decay system is probably the single worst thing about DDO. It makes for a miserable social environment where guild leaders are rewarded for filtering out casual and social players, and never inviting new players. It's just awful but it would be pretty easy to fix if they were willing to do so.

Edit: My guild is level 61 and large. We have been a guild for about 3 years. I have been the leader since it started.

[Kaytis]

I was the leader of a very old level 70 guild on Orien. We had about 25 to 30 active members at the time. Membership was a source of constant conflict. So much so that after one heated exchange, I gave up and handed leadership over to someone who had a strict "no invites unless we have known you forever" policy. We are down to 15 active members now, and are doing slightly better then treading water at 72. The active member drop is due both to attrition that occurred mostly after update 14, and due to the no recruitment policy.

For the record, I absolutely hate the reknown system. I would have loved to invite more people, some of whom I am sure would have worked out, but it was such a crapshoot that we could have ended up like a particularly famous guild on Orien that has been devastated by the loss of their most active players. They have gone from level 71 to 64 last time I checked. It's kind of sad -they were an awesome guild and very welcoming to casual and active players alike.

The system doesn't work as it is. People are not able to get into guilds early on and miss out on one of the key community aspects of the game. I would never have been invited to the guild I eventually came to lead had the reknown system been in place back then. I suspect I would not even be playing anymore...

[Mellkor]

The current renown decay system is probably the single worst thing about DDO. It makes for a miserable social environment where guild leaders are rewarded for filtering out casual and social players, and never inviting new players. It's just awful but it would be pretty easy to fix if they were willing to do so.

I would say it is the second worst thing.

First worst is the dungeon alert system. By a mile.

[Xezrak]

The current renown decay system is probably the single worst thing about DDO. It makes for a miserable social environment where guild leaders are rewarded for filtering out casual and social players, and never inviting new players. It's just awful but it would be pretty easy to fix if they were willing to do so.

Edit: My guild is level 61 and large. We have been a guild for about 3 years. I have been the leader since it started.

I agree, the way the current renown system works, it really punishes guilds who want to have both casual and active players. If you have too many casual players, they will eat into your renown and not quest enough to maintain the guild level. What eventually results is either the casual players will be kicked to maintain the guild level or many active players will leave as they seek a higher level ship etc.

It is really unfortunate because the guild system would be an fantastic way to encourage elite and casual players to mingle but the renown system actually causes the opposite, a strong divide between casual and non casual players.

[Tshober]

I would say it is the second worst thing.

First worst is the dungeon alert system. By a mile.

Heh, okay dungeon alert does suck mightily. But if I could only choose one of the two to eliminate from the face of the game, it would be renown decay. Dungeon alert sucks but it only causes me heartache once in great while. Renown decay causes heartache every single day. That may be due to my playstyle though. I am very much not a zerger.

[Hendrik]

L80 Guild, plateaued there with the same number of members, give or take a few.

About half are casual.

Yes, we would like to get the L85 Ship.

No, we do not kick casuals - but we do clean our Roster of people that no longer play. So we take a hit every few months and get it back, sometimes slowly.

No, we will NOT change our playstyle for Renown as the amenities are a BYPRODUCT of what we already have, a good guild of friends/family.

Yes, we have all the buffs we could ever want and are happy with them.

Yes, I would like some slight modifications to the system, mostly around removing members that no longer play DDO and them going to active status even after not playing for eight months.



People forget that Guildships are NOT the reason to have a Guild. Putting far to much emphasis on the Ship goodies over the people that got you there is self defeating and a source of drama. Not every Guild will or should make 100!


Yes, I support the system.

Yes, I would not mind some slight modifications.

[Eilierie]

For the record, I absolutely hate the reknown system. I would have loved to invite more people, some of whom I am sure would have worked out, but it was such a crapshoot that we could have ended up like a particularly famous guild on Orien that has been devastated by the loss of their most active players. They have gone from level 71 to 64 last time I checked. It's kind of sad -they were an awesome guild and very welcoming to casual and active players alike.

Still an awesome guild and I wouldn't use the word devastated, just a minor setback.

The "crash" had more to do with the leader having real life issues that obviously trump anything game wise, a little patience and everything would have been fine in the long run.

So we are now rebuilding with the leader back with a vengeance We are still very welcoming to casual and active players. In fact we now have an ascension process so that players may progress from the main casual guild to the "elite" raiding "sister" guild if they so desire, as well as a procedure in place for people who want to become officers.

But yeah... prolly wouldn't have had to suffer the bleeding if the renown system didn't punish the active players for keeping casual players around.

Some get it, with the large guild I can put together a group or get help most any time of day any day of the week all in guild chat - simple, easy and people I know. but yes a good channel would work in the same manner, in fact before the leader returned and the rebuilding began I relied on Panthros pack quite a bit.

[Thrudh]

I would say it is the second worst thing.

First worst is the dungeon alert system. By a mile.

90% of players rarely see dungeon alert.

Everyone is affected by guild mechanics.

And for the record, if 63 is not maintainable by all guilds, large or small, that make even a token effort to take renown rewards, then I think the system needs to be fixed.

If 63 is fairly easy to achieve and maintain, then I see no problem with the system.

My guild has been stuck in mid 70s for a LONG time, but none of us care, because we have every single amenity the guild system offers except for a sonic resist 30 shrine.
(oh noes!)

Not sure how many active players we have... around 15-20 I think... I'll have to check later.

[Chai]

Leader of a guild of 9 people. Im in the "meh" category.

Renown system needs a tweak so that decay is done away with but theres more of a penalty for kicking someone. In this fashion, people can do stuff in RL without losing guild benefits, but the leader cant level a guild using the come one come all invite system in the harbor and then kick most of the people out once they reach their goal level - as the penalty for kicking that many people would drive the guild level way down.

[Double_O]

Khyber Lvl 45
200+ members... Not removing anyone... because of penalties <-- I dont Like this the most of all
6 Daily
8+ Causal

I like the idea... not a fan of the system.. "Dislike"

[OpallNotten]

Leader of <o> Level 71
Argo
I have 6 active accounts in my Guild.

I Like the system as it is.


~Opall~

[Nummesis]

Guild leader is currently AWOL but as the defacto second in command I can say that we all HATE the current reknown system.

Officer: Cestus Dei of Kyber

[Tshober]

Leader of a guild of 9 people. Im in the "meh" category.

Renown system needs a tweak so that decay is done away with but theres more of a penalty for kicking someone. In this fashion, people can do stuff in RL without losing guild benefits, but the leader cant level a guild using the come one come all invite system in the harbor and then kick most of the people out once they reach their goal level - as the penalty for kicking that many people would drive the guild level way down.

If you are going to increase that penalty, then there needs to be some point at which the penalty stops taking effect. If someone has not logged in at all for 2 years, or even 3 months, then a guild leader should be able to remove them without penalty. At some point it is just silly to penalize the guild for making room for new people by removing people who have not logged in at all in a very, very long time. If there were no cap on the number of characters in a guild then you could keep them forever I suppose, as silly as that would be, but there is a cap and if you can never get rid of members without penalty then you will eventually reach it.

DDO is a F2P MMO. That means many people will come and try the game and leave and never return. And even DDO veterans sometimes get burned out and leave the game. That's just how MMO's work. There has to be a reasonable way to get rid of those people who have left the game without incurring a drastic penalty.

[Inouk]

Still an awesome guild and I wouldn't use the word devastated, just a minor setback.

The "crash" had more to do with the leader having real life issues that obviously trump anything game wise, a little patience and everything would have been fine in the long run.

So we are now rebuilding with the leader back with a vengeance We are still very welcoming to casual and active players. In fact we now have an ascension process so that players may progress from the main casual guild to the "elite" raiding "sister" guild if they so desire, as well as a procedure in place for people who want to become officers.

But yeah... prolly wouldn't have had to suffer the bleeding if the renown system didn't punish the active players for keeping casual players around.

Some get it, with the large guild I can put together a group or get help most any time of day any day of the week all in guild chat - simple, easy and people I know. but yes a good channel would work in the same manner, in fact before the leader returned and the rebuilding began I relied on Panthros pack quite a bit.

I still have toons in that guild, though I have moved my main toons to a guild that I found I was spending all my time with. When I first joined the guild above the leaders were really fun people to run with, but when she had to to take a break many of my favorite people ended up leaving and decay really took a toll, so I find that even with the toons I still have in the guild I rarely group with them, whereas I group with friends in my new guild every day. Even if we aren't running quests together we'll have a full group just to chat while we play sometimes. The renown decay really hurt the guild, and was largely responsible for the previous guild I was in to eventually disband. On the whole, I think it needs fixed.

[Inouk]

90% of players rarely see dungeon alert.

Everyone is affected by guild mechanics.

And for the record, if 63 is not maintainable by all guilds, large or small, that make even a token effort to take renown rewards, then I think the system needs to be fixed.

If 63 is fairly easy to achieve and maintain, then I see no problem with the system.

My guild has been stuck in mid 70s for a LONG time, but none of us care, because we have every single amenity the guild system offers except for a sonic resist 30 shrine.
(oh noes!)

Not sure how many active players we have... around 15-20 I think... I'll have to check later.

While I appreciate this viewpoint I think it neglects the real problem, which is the impact the decay system has on the social aspects of guilds. The fact is that many/most guilds put at least some effort into policing towards active players and away from social players, and if they don't they are penalized, and that as a result people feel that reknown grinding becomes a job, and when the game feels like a job people leave.

It's bad enough that I felt like I couldn't encourage one of my best friends to play because I wasn't sure I could get him to play regularly enough to be part of my guild at the time. They had a strick policy of active players only and kicked inactive toons weekly, and I couldn't enorse him to the guild knowing that he probably wouldn't play regularly, that sucks! So the real measurement may not be whether guilds can still maintain level 63, but is the system driving away players.