The guild Renown decay system should be dropped from Dungeons and Dragons Online. I also think that the Renown lost for those that leave or are removed from a guild also needs to be removed. I understand some of the arguments for both of these systems; however, I believe more unforeseen and unintended issues have arisen with the Renown loss systems.
Simply put, the Renown loss and decay system not only punishes the players guild if they do not reach a minimum level of daily Renown gathering, but it also puts an unfair burden on the other players of the guild to try to “pick up their slack”.
If you are not familiar with the guild Renown and daily decay systems, you can reference the details at the link below.
http://ddowiki.com/page/Guild_Renown
The problems that have arisen with this system have strained friendships, guild participation, and has even led members of my guild to leave the guild and Dungeons and Dragons Online completely.
I am the leader of the Disciples of the Apocalypse guild on Sarlona. We are a founders guild that strives to be a casual, no drama adult gaming guild. Our members range from college students to parents of college students. We have no playing requirements and we play all of the content in the game. This allows for a wide variety of players and different playing styles.
We have members who play 6 or 8 hours a day to some that play 8 hours a month. The more frequent player has to make up the Renown that the less frequent player costs the guild. The system breeds resentment and frustration. For those who can not play as often, there is a keen understanding that they are dragging the guild down because of decay, causing feelings of guilt and alienation. The rest of the players, falling between the two extremes, bear the burden of both sides.
Dungeons and Dragons Online players should never be punished for not playing the game. Period.
We should not be penalized for having real life commitments. The game should fit into our lives, our online friends welcoming us in to play, regardless of our level of time commitment.
Our guild has recently begun struggling with instituting rules or policies to address these problems. The only solution seems to be booting player from the guild if they do not reach a certain minimum play time along with mandating players to take Renown for rewards.
I am disturbed and frustrated that this game even has me considering booting a good friend from the guild because they can’t play as much as DDO says they should. My friends with new babies, sick families, college finals, or any other thing going on should not be penalized for being responsible adults!
This system also penalizes both guilds and players who have characters in multiple guilds. That players’ decay burden is doubled, tripled, or more, which requires the members from multiple guilds to “pick up the slack”.
I think the Renown decay and loss when people leave a guild were added as a noble effort to stop some griefing. However, in effect, it has caused griefing to everyone in the game that belongs to a guild instead.
Guild Renown for a guild should work the same way as XP for players: when you earn it, you should keep it. What would happen if you introduced this mechanic to the players XP? What if players lost XP at a certain rate per day? There would be a revolt. There would be a mass exodus from the game, and it would be justified. Why is it not the same for guild Renown?
Please, Turbine, remove Guild Decay and Renown Loss when players leave a guild or are removed. It is an unnecessary mechanic that has caused much more harm than good. It is constantly straining the relationships of the entire player base. This has caused many good players to leave guilds and the game completely. Let’s put an end to it. I love DDO but this Renown loss and decay is causing way too much drama.
Until Turbine changes these rules, you all better be taking that Renown with every reward! I don’t want to hear you’re broke, or you could use an item, or you like +3 Tomes. If your choices are a +3 Time or some Heroic Deeds, you better take those deeds… /sigh
Please remove Renown loss and decay from Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Play smarter, not harder!
~Karranor
PS: A couple of my officers have some great insight on this. I will post their thoughts below as this has been a touchy and rough subject in an otherwise great gaming experience. Please post your own thoughts about the guild Renown decay mechanics below. You can also comment on the DDO Forum post or both. :) http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=4156221#post4156221
~Ashrine Atemple, Officer and Founding member of Disciples of the Apocalypse
1) RolePlay.
In the concept of roleplay, a person who achieves prestige does not necessarily lose that prestige because they become dormant or stagnant. Legendary heroes that complete a task should not lose face in D&D because they choose to retire. Often times their characters live on in new campaigns, adventures, or situations. I can see the ebb and flow of doing “great things” and doing “bad things”, and that causing a negative reknown. But removing as a result of dormancy is like saying “What have you done for me lately”. It would almost be similar to causing a player to lose levels personally because they don’t play every day.2) Functionality
The relative result of the renown decay is a double-edged sword. If you want to be able to do all the game has, you must have a large guild that power plays. However, it must be filled with only very active players, because should you have friends that cannot play regularly, the guild’s daily efforts are simply spent maintaining status, not increasing it.3) Rewards
The character to character interactions in this game are meant to be fluid and full-bodied in terms of experience. However, this function only serves to promote power-gaming guilds and entice those in lower playtime guilds to leave and form up with a larger gaming contingent. As a result, the renown of the lesser guild dwindles slowly due to disbanding.4) Penalties
In an MMO gaming structure, penalties need to be a part of the game. However, in many cases, loss of gear and levels are usually the worst, and commonly result in the guild breaking up or people losing interest. When it comes to renown, it is the opposite. At this stage, many are choosing rewards OTHER than renown just because it is depressing to be stagnant due to losing renown because friends can’t play much (school, life, etc.). That shouldn’t be a penalty.In the root of a game that is intended to give each person a value, promote grouping and roleplay, and limit the standard broken concepts that have caused other games to fold, it seems that the mechanics of decay and renown “loss” are not where they would effectively improve the game experience. Rather it appears to hinder it. I would propose assigning the valor earned to the guild itself (as the “Name” of the guild is that which is gaining renown, not necessarily the person/character). Perhaps to slow the increase down a touch the renown would be a little bit less frequently obtained, but that is just a matter of how fast you would like to have people level 100. It will probably always be a “race” to see who can get there first, but guild ties shouldn’t be based on whether or not we can level together or not.
~Neopreist, Officer of Disciples of the Apocalypse
The renown decay system as it exists today is actually penalizing and promoting the deconstruction of guilds. More significantly, it is negatively affecting real-life relationships between players and friends. Our guild, The Disciples of the Apocalypse (DOA) on the Sarlona server, consists of players from the mid-twenties through mid-forties. Most of us are working professionals with families, and we have several husband and wife teams, as well as “real life” friends and relatives in guild. Many of us have supported, and been highly entertained by DDO since release. Our guild supports casual adult play where having fun, teaching the game, developing friendships, and “real life” comes first. Our guild went through a very productive growth spurt when the renown system was introduced, as did so many others, and we progressed at a good pace. We currently are ranked at level 62, and have been here for 2-3 months.
Several of our friends who learned to play DDO in our guild decided they would like to have characters in a more raid intensive and quick paced guild, while keeping some characters in DOA to be able to run more casually with friends. This is now providing serious issues as most of their time is spent earning renown in the raiding guild, with a very small fraction of their time being spent in DOA running casually. As they only log on once or twice a week for a single quest, their passive accounts are actually adding significant decay penalties. We have spoken to these guild members about the issue in an attempt to resolve the stagnation problem, but in doing so, tension and ill-will have resulted.
We also have several members that play almost every day. As we have not progressed people feel as though they are in someway being penalized, and the stagnation of renown progress is leading to frustration. No matter how many renown rewards they take, there is no progress. Real life means that many of us will go through periods where we can only log on to play two or three times per month. Should we ask these members to leave the guild so the rest of us can progress through the renown system? Turbine states on their web page, “… Turbine is known for…fostering powerful online gaming communities.” (http://www.turbine.com/studio.html). Our guild is experiencing renown decay accomplishing the exact opposite of fostering community. I suspect we are not the only ones.
Turbine also states “Today, Turbine continues to uphold its motto “Powered By Our Fans” through continued support and expansion of all its online worlds.” We know Turbine supports its product, and continues to provide entertaining and dynamic expansions. It is our sincere hope that they also support the fans, and that players voices are heard and the message comprehended. A game mechanic is not worth losing friends over. We ask, as a community, that renown decay be removed from the game.
The renown decay system is costing DDO money, I’d guess. Without the guild I’m in my wife & I probably would have stopped playing (good eggs, all of them – they make it worth doing the time-consuming grinding needed to do this game).
If the guild breaks up? We’d likely stop coming on DDO and go do other things. So DDO staff has to ask themselves;
“Considering most people don’t bother to give reasons for not continuing a service, how many people leave DDO for this exact reason – costing DDO money they may have invested into the game?”
Remember, you have to determine the percentage of lost sales based on a extrapolation from how many people (like me complain). I’m guessing that DDO doesn’t bother doing surveys/ questionnaires so that numbert is exponential.
Good point. I tried to give the renown decay system its fair shake. Through the last year though it has caused more trouble and issues then it is worth.