A simple and fair fix for the patron system woes.

[Lee]

<DIV> <DIV> <DIV>Currently if a patron leaves a guild, all current patrons are forever penalised. Their previous contribution is now lower than if the leaver didn't join in the first place. You have annoyed people by <STRONG><U>Permanently </U></STRONG>penalising them for their efforts, this is bad, very bad, people are voting with their feet.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-------------------------</DIV> <DIV>FIX:</DIV> <DIV>- Status of guild is the average of the highest status player on each Account in the guild (i.e. twinks will not be counted).</DIV> <DIV>- So, if someone leaves who has high status, the guild level goes down.</DIV> <DIV>- So, if someone leaves who has low status the guild level goes up.</DIV> <DIV>- If less than 12 guild members then average uses 12 as the divisor, this stops tiny guilds levelling really fast.</DIV> <DIV>- If more then 36 members then average uses the best 36 members, allowing giant guild to compete.</DIV> <DIV>- If a player joins a new guild his contribution starts from zero. He keeps his personal status.</DIV> <DIV>-------------------------</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>- To soften the blow to any guilds that might initially lose levels, the change could be sweetened by doubling everyones status or something similar.</DIV> <DIV>- It's not perfect but it's simple and inifinitely better than the current system, and fair to everyone. </DIV></DIV></DIV>

[Dyeana]

<DIV>Not sure if that is a good fix or not.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Trouble is, large guilds reduce the number of patrons to 12 and level up the guild, with a negative of creating a "clique" group which alienates the other guild members who would like to contribute for status and the items which can be purchased with status.  The guild then supports the "clique" group in completing writs and quests to raise guild status since those are the only points which count.  This in turn screws the non-patron members of the guild since they are no longer on equal footing with other members of a guild.  You tend to level slower, get accesses later or recieve mimimal assistance in completing heritage which the common member would like to aquire to improve their characters.   The parton system as it currently stands is not far to all members of a guild due to the way it must be administered to raise guild levels.  This in turn also causes many of the problems where one member leaving affects the guild level drastically, and other problems you noted.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I think a better way would be to have the minimum number, but have a writ produce the same amount exp for the guild irregardless of if there is 12 or 50 patrons doing writs for a guild.  There might be other ways to place folks on a equal footing and keep from having 1 player departing making so much difference or at least presenting a good solution to be able to replace a departing members.   Possibly even allow non-patron members to retain status points which can readily applied to the guild for a departing member, instead of forcing a member to leave a guild and join another to make his/her points viable for guild status once more.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Not sure there was a reason to penalize larger guilds, or just that Developers envisioned a large number of small 12 person guilds vice large guilds like the one we had in Beta with over a thousand members.  The super large guild creates problems of scale for which the guild functions lag out badly.   </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Dye</DIV>