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

[Chai]

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.

Kicking one person isnt the issue here. Most guilds can kick one person right now and barely notice the difference in decay, unless they were literally right on the cusp between size levels.

What the system attempts to curtail is inviting a ton of noobs from the harbor, leveling the guild quickly through lots of repetition of harbor quests, then booting 95% of those members and keeping the guild high level.

With my suggestion theres no reason for regular decay. Kick one or two people and youre fine. Yeah you deal with a penalty but with meaningful contribution it doesnt really hit the guild that hard. Kick like 25+ people in the same week, and watch the level of the guild drop.

[Alaunra2010]

I lead a medium-sized guild of roleplayers. We've been in the 47-50 range for over a year, and do not play quickly enough to get above this.

We want to benefit from guild amenities, but we don't want to kick anyone.

Ever.

DISLIKE.

--Alaunra

[Sgt_Hart]

level 53 guild, 14 total accounts, 1 inactive. Strongly dislike current system.

Will make special mention of its inflexibility, and absurd math.

[falcate]

22 accounts
level 69

I'm meh/like. It doesn't bother us since we get the important buffs. One more level would be nice for the large augment slots though.
But whats in a higher level than that? Nothing worth going into a tizzy about not having. We don't believe in looking gift horses in the mouth.

[WanderingGrump]

I lead a level 69 Guild with 18 active and 10 inactive accounts. At the moment the inactive folks are gone because of real life reasons and we keep in touch with them and they plan to remain gone until they can return and play regularly which means we don't get odd visits since that will keep the decay down. Those visits would be nice but everyone is aware of how the decay works they don't want to put things into a state where having to farm renown is work for those of us who remain active.

As for buffs sometimes I use them, sometimes I don't... I tend to carry the resources to do my own stuff so I don't miss them if they run out I can wand whip etc for specific things.

I wish there were better tools for managing the guild. like grouping toons by account, showing how much renown loss you'd get for kicking someone (not that I really want to get rid of anyone at this point). A circular mail tool for guild only would be nice too on occasion.

The current decay system is really poor for social aspects of the game. Due to the sheer numbers we limit just how many people we invite in an effort to curb that decay from the increasingly casual player. I like casual players and in fact I am more and more becoming one to make sure I enjoy the game. The trouble is I know if I let folks come and go a lot more easily the decay would really kill our levels and I don't want to see that happen.

It would be nice to see the guild system be looked at again and updated. Lord knows Turbine seems bent on changing so much of the system in the last few updates so why not change this one too?

[WASNTME]

Level 57 9 Accounts 5 Active 4 Inactive

About 20 Names haven't logged in anywere from 1 year 7 months and 8 months.

Don't want to take the Renown Point Hit deleting the 20 names.

We had 8 members that were in a couple of the larger guilds; about 7 months ago they had to make a choice bring all their toons the that guild or leave. Black Knight's of Templar have one Guild Policy: It is your money and your time so enjoy it... Everyone of those players apoligized before leaving, the renown hit was very painful. 3 of them returned after a couple of weeks... their renown points didn't but thats ok.

Not a fan of the cuurent system

[HunterjWizzard]

Level 31 guild, 6 or 7 accounts, ALL HATRED ALL THE TIME for renown decay(count that at a 'dislike' for the current renown system).

To the point where I have instructed my guild to stop retrieving renown from chests or taking it as quest rewards as we are refusing to use the renown system until they remove renown decay.

[BurnerD]

I wonder how people would feel if we had XP decay on our characters? I guess the main goal of any game is to acheive something, whether it be a a group or as an indvidual. Watching something you worked for as a group bleed away is not fun.

I guess the question is from a accomplishment perspective why stop at 100? Maybe the perks stop at 100, but from a straight brag rights perspective why not allow guild to continue to level? or you could add different perks but space them out more. Buffs are buffs, but better travel options... different guild housing, guild badges on you charcters... that would be neat stuff. Guild level 500? you get a castle...

Now if members leave or are dismissed then some type of penalty should occur...... or if an entire guild is inactive for an extended time....

[9Crows]

lvl 61 guild 85 actives acct ... i strongly dislike current system since it encourages large guilds not to take a chance on new players which decreases fun ...

[Cryohazard]

Lvl 80, 14 Accounts.

In general, I think the ship/shipbuff system is a great way to promote activity within a guild. Its a decent reward system for guilds that work together to reach goals. It could use a bit of fine-tuning to make it really worthwhile. Renown drops (5/50/150/500/1000 increments) and frequency (more in higher-lvl content) are fine as is.

That being said...I would like to take all my math-heavy excel sheets full of renown logs, decay trackers, account multipliers, and guild projections and stuff it down the throat of the dingbat <or other descriptive noun> that came up with the Decay system, and then hand him over to all the pitchfork-wielding long-time casual players who have been booted from guilds across the servers

In summation: The system isn't quite good enough for "Meh" (mainly because of decay) so I'll call it: "Bleh"

[Drakesan]

Oh, and I got my guild leader's thoughts on the system:

"i'd rather slide down a 4325352352345235 foot razor blade using my (edited) as a brake than even pretend to show support for that foul, disease ridden cesspool of turbine code"

Not sure... but I will go ahead and throw that one into the dislike section....

[Tshober]

I wonder how people would feel if we had XP decay on our characters? I guess the main goal of any game is to acheive something, whether it be a a group or as an indvidual. Watching something you worked for as a group bleed away is not fun.

I guess the question is from a accomplishment perspective why stop at 100? Maybe the perks stop at 100, but from a straight brag rights perspective why not allow guild to continue to level? or you could add different perks but space them out more. Buffs are buffs, but better travel options... different guild housing, guild badges on you charcters... that would be neat stuff. Guild level 500? you get a castle...

Now if members leave or are dismissed then some type of penalty should occur...... or if an entire guild is inactive for an extended time....

You mean something like this? http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=385226

[Tshober]

What the system attempts to curtail is inviting a ton of noobs from the harbor, leveling the guild quickly through lots of repetition of harbor quests, then booting 95% of those members and keeping the guild high level.

If the current system was meant to curtail that then it does an incredibly poor job of it. That is exactly the fastest way to get a high level guild with the current system.

With my suggestion theres no reason for regular decay. Kick one or two people and youre fine. Yeah you deal with a penalty but with meaningful contribution it doesnt really hit the guild that hard. Kick like 25+ people in the same week, and watch the level of the guild drop.

Okay, I did not realize you were also advocating eliminating regular decay. I must have missed that in your first post. I am not so adamantly opposed then, if you also eliminate regular decay to make up for the larger penalty for kicking.

[Gremmlynn]

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.

I'd be all for this and put the penalty for booting at 100% of what they earned unless they have been inactive for an unreasonable period, say 3 months.

[LOOON375]

Level 66 on Argo. I am not the leader, but can speak for us.

6 accounts with 3 that are active.

We are 3 real life friends of 30+years.

For the most part, we are casual players with myself having the most playtime.

Renown decay has been a non issue for us to this point. With the exception of the times we hit a new level on an off day. On a good weekend, we can earn more than enough renown to offset ANY decay over the course of each level.

We are always moving forward, but slowly forward.

With all the doom about decay on the forums, we never even thought we would get close to 50, let alone be working towards 70.

Im sure if I was in a large guild, I would hate it. But as it sits for our guild, it's a non issue.

[phillymiket]

I am leader of a solo guild lv 36 (6 accounts).

All the characters I play, however, are now in a new guild that I'm not leader of lv 58 (11 accounts)

I also have a few toons symbolically in a guild due to friendships. lv 57? (50ish accounts? )

Was also recently in a large guild that was at 70 or so when it was disbanded.

The system clearly favors the 11 account guild.

We are rising without effort.

The lv 57 guild I'm symbolically in is moving at a glacial pace.
The 70 guild was stuck in place before it was destroyed.
The solo guild was advancing pretty good.

I don't like the system because there is such a vast difference between the guild structure and the results.

IMO most things in DDO should be set up to be "gamed" for best results.
However, great care should be used when the social structure is affected and guild renown does affect the social structure of the game.

I feel a guildies worth should be measured by how much you like to play with them not how many points they put on the board.

I don't like that fact that I won't log on the characters I have symbolically in a guild to keep in touch and say hello to old friends because I know I will cause them decay.

I don't like the fact that even if I really liked someone I would be very reluctant to recruit them into current guild due to going past some magic sweet spot of account size.

On the other hand I think much to much of a big deal is made out it this on these forums.
I think guilds that don't move or move very slow at lv 60 or below suffer mostly from members not playing the game more than a impossible system.

Long story long, I don't like the system but find it tolerable.

PS -

I think the system should be carefully tweeked for more balance between guild size and decay and also have some kind of "casual" member status (call it an Associate member).

An Associate has limited benefit (can only use crew member hookpoints but no buffs or guild augments, for example) but also has limited impact on decay.

Guilds could use this as a trial status for new members and also casual players could take this status so they can keep in touch and play every now and again without great impact on the guild structure.

People could also have alt accounts set as Associates.

(there would need to be a minimum time you must stay an Associate to avoid exploiting)
.

[Tshober]

Guilds could use this as a trial status for new members and also casual players could take this status so they can keep in touch and play every now and again without great impact on the guild structure..

I see this suggestion a lot and I have problems with it. My main objection is: Why would guild leaders bother to go to all the effort to keep a list of who is casual and who is not and make sure the flag is set properly all the time, when it is much easier to never invite any casuals/socials or new players at all and never have to worry about it? Imagine trying to keep all that straight with 1000 members! I don't see this as really removing the incentive to filter out casual/social players.

My other objection is: Why put all the onus on the guild leaders to keep track of all that stuff when the game itself could do a much better job of it automatically? Simply ensuring that no player causes more decay than they earn in renown each day would accomplish the same thing far more effeciently and accurately, with no need for flags and no work by guilds or guild leaders at all.

[Hendrik]

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.

Respectfully disagree.

That is not a 'system' problem, that is a 'person' problem. That Guild was putting more emphasis on the Ship vs the player/person. That is not how it should work, IMO - but each Guild to his/her own.

It is NOT the Ship that makes the Guild, but the PEOPLE in the Guild that make it what it is. I read that many have it all backwards....

[Narmolanya]

I am a leader of a Level 70 guild on Khyber with 9 active accounts. We are all casual players these days.

I despise the guild renown system. I dislike it not because there is renown decay but instead that it is random. I can spend two minutes at level 2 in Ringleader and get an Impressive Trophy or I can spend a lot longer in an Amarath quest and get the same. This is so frustrating to me as I run quests to get the renown I can care less about loot.

I have not logged in for a week but and going to play a few hours tonight. Cant wait to log in and find out how much renown we have lost. Makes me wonder if I was gone for a month or two if I would even bother coming back.

[HunkyDane]

Easy to see the majority is against the guild renown system, almost everyone I asked about it in game dislike it as well.

But when did you last see a developer or other official turbine message regarding guild renown.

Would love to hear some official tidings:

Guild Renown is WAI, and is not going to changed
Guild Renown is not WAI, but we don't know what to do instead
Guild Renown is WAI, but we're open for suggestions to improve it.
Guild Renown is due an upgrade, time and money pending

Just want to hear SOMETHING official.

I have played a lot of MMOs

DAoC, EVE, EQ, EQ2, WoW, AoC, Vanguard, UO, CoH, CoV, SWTOR, Matrix Online

And nowhere have I seen a guild system more disfunctional (yea yea my opinion) then DDO

I have even had friends leave DDO, with guild renown being a major detrimental. And I would certainly not include the guild renown system in any attempt to lure friends to play DDO.