can a TESTER please explain how the new Patron Change Works...

[SavinDwa]

<DIV>I tried asking this question in the long thread on the subject and haven't seen anything.  people continue to argue about how it should work and whtrher SOE made a mistake or made a great change and NONE OF THEM have a clue how the thing works.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My characters on test are all crafters and I don't have a guild where I'm an officier so I can't test this for myself.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Can someone tell me how the change works?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) Does it even allow us to depatron a player? or does it only allow you to remove a player from the guild and not have an impact on status? </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) If a patron is removed from a guild can they be added back?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>... someone please explain how it works, and put an end to these somewhat pointless discussions.  OK, I admit theya re not pointless since there is some good brainstorming going on... but they would have a lot more value if they were based on what SOE did rather than arguing of what might be or could be .</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>HELP!!! </DIV>

[WuphonsReach]

It works exactly as stated. There are no restrictions or trade-offs. De-patroning does not lose status or levels, and you can re-patron as often as you want.IOW... it's ripe for abuse.

[Kreegan]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> WuphonsReach wrote:<BR>It works exactly as stated. There are no restrictions or trade-offs. De-patroning does not lose status or levels, and you can re-patron as often as you want.<BR><BR>IOW... it's ripe for abuse.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Expect this to change before hitting live.

[Shailen]

<DIV>Yeah, within about 30 minutes of these update notes getting posted there were probably 6-10 posts from our members with ideas for how to exploit this.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I personally can think of probably half a dozen ways to take a guild with 30+ people and get level 30 in no time.  Heck, if you have lots of people with alts, you could do it probably in a matter of a few days adding some temp members to the guild.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I REALLY hope SOE keeps this on test for at least a few weeks to let people try it out and see exactly how much easier it is.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I do agree the old system was hard, and some change was needed, but as this is, it makes it trivial.  Some middle ground please SOE.</DIV>

[SavinDwa]

<P>hmm ...  Let me just make sure I understand this.</P> <P>after live #12 on test you can depatron a player with no impact on the guild's status points and you have reduced the patron count by 1.  You could then add the person back 10 minutes later with no penalty.  is this correct?</P> <P>this does seem pretty open to exploit.  I was hoping to here that they at least put some time restrictions iin.  for instance, if you depatron a player you cannot make them a patron again for 3 months -- or something like that.    Well... its probably a good changee for guilds that don't want to cheat and just have things happen like someone leaving the game all together (we had one -- got sent to iraq).</P>

[Bookbunny]

If you remove a Patron and then add them again does it remember their contribution from before?  Or does their counter start at 0 even though the guild kept the xp?

[WuphonsReach]

Eva was doing the test, I was just sorta paying attention while we were looking for bugs with other things. Maybe she'll chime in a bit later. By the time Test came up last night it was extremely late for a lot of us.Removing the patron flag from someone resulted on no loss of guild status or level. That I know for sure was tested.

[Sleet_Levanter]

<P>Is there any more information on this available?  I see another thread regarding this subject, but I would like to stick to observable facts rather than speculations and arguments over what should be.  I am hoping that I will get details on what SOE has actually done with the patron status change from here.  I understand that there is no loss of GSP when a patron is depatroned.  What else is there to know?  Can a member be depatroned and repatroned at will with no loss of GSP at any time?  Is there a change to the rate at which GSP are accumulated (other than the established divisors) when patron status is changed?</P> <P> </P> <P>Thank you for your comments on this.</P>

[WuphonsReach]

Nothing complicated... you can patron someone, they turn in the status items or finish the HQ or finish a writ, then de-patron them as often as you want. Their standing will constantly reset to zero, but the guild level will not change downwards. The amount contributed to the standing is just as if they were made a patron (uses the existing patron count).Needless to say, since this is Test, we're not touching existing patrons. But any non-patrons, we're quite willing to play "flip the patron flag" for when they finish HQs or are ready to turn in the new status items.

[Ethelwo]

well I guess this system could be exploited, but how far can it go: guild L30, woot. The whole idea of having guild status is just another set of useless choirs anyways. So many folks have left guilds and or left the game it becomes next to impossible for many guilds to hold levels much less get them. I applaud the effort by SOE to lighten up at least on guilds. Now they need to recognize that expansion time is only 2.5 months away and they need to lighten up in ebon clusters and start putting in more loot over L50. I don't know about you but at L37 you can easily get a drop for L40s gear. this needs to be ironed out before the expansion releases to allow for a smoother transition. why stiffle everyone L50 with constant L40 gear right up to the release.

[Imri]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ethelwolf wrote:<BR>why stiffle everyone L50 with constant L40 gear right up to the release. <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>There is already, but the problem is that the gear you need level 48-50 to even wear is worse than the level 40 crafted gear and some drops.<BR>

[Evadne]

You can patron, depatron at will with no danger to the status or level of the guild. The depatronned loses their count--and does not get it back when repatronned. I do NOT expect this to go live as it is. Right now Fhir has only depatronned a couple of long standing people who quit but had done a significant amount of status work. We have no intention of using the patron on off toggle to max our guild xp for every writ/heritage we do. ~Eva <div></div>

[Ebeta]

<DIV>Was there any change to the over 12 patron penalty that anyone has tested?  Is it still the same that each person over 12 causes less status to be earned with the cap at 26 I think it was?</DIV>

[dejahtho]

i won't be wanting to lose all my personal SP in favor of letting someone complete a heritage quest for guild SP.  i've worked pretty hard for my SP, and want to use it for items like clothes and a horse.  if i'm de-patroned i won't be able to.  <div></div>

[Serindyl]

Abuse could be eliminated by setting the maximum heritage count to 36 per guild, the current max for number of patrons (by efficiency, that is).  A new guild tab could list the achievements of the guild and enumerate the number of each heritage quest, writ, and guild status loot completed, or found.  No limit need be placed on the writs, for how tedious would that be for a guild officer to continually patron/de-patron people every hour, or half hour?  A lock-out timer could be placed on when a person could become a patron again to remove even that possiblity.

[KindredHeart]

<DIV>On live - the amount of status earned by the guild is:  the amount of status earned for the task divided by the number of patrons.  If you have fewer than 12 patrons there is an additional penalty factor applied to the math (the calculation still divides the amount of status earned for the task by 12 even if you have 3 patrons).  Otherwise it remains as mentioned above.  I won't go into a debate about the ideal number of patrons - as that has been more than covered in other threads on the forum.  However, I will say that if you want to get the maximum contribution per individual to your overall guild level then you have to stick with 12 patrons.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From the look of things though, you are worrying about it for no good reason.  Within a few weeks all guilds will be guild level 30 thanks to the patch currently on test.  We can only hope it won't go to live - in it's current form or any other form.  But it doesn't make much sense to think that they had their programmers work on the changes we are seeing on test right now unless it was their original plan to eventually put them on live as well.  We can only hope that the community outcry is enough to cause them to wake up and realize they are making their oh so wonderful guild status/level system a completely meaningless joke.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV><p>Message Edited by KindredHeart on <span class=date_text>07-18-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:01 PM</span>

[beylanu]

<span><blockquote><hr>Serindyl wrote:<div></div>Abuse could be eliminated by setting the maximum heritage count to 36 per guild, the current max for number of patrons (by efficiency, that is).  A new guild tab could list the achievements of the guild and enumerate the number of each heritage quest, writ, and guild status loot completed, or found.  No limit need be placed on the writs, for how tedious would that be for a guild officer to continually patron/de-patron people every hour, or half hour?  A lock-out timer could be placed on when a person could become a patron again to remove even that possiblity.<hr></blockquote>I am so opposed to this idea, I can't even count ways.  No offense. I don't want a system where a GL tells a patron NOT to finish something, cuz that's not the best heritage to do.  Essentially you'd get a system where only the BEST heritages would get done, up to 36.  Is that what you really want? I just don't think that you can fix a fundamentally bad system, by slapping on timers, max counts, special flags, or some other algebraic devices to limit its exploitability.  Scrap the bad system, implement a new simpler system that is more forgiving and let's stop making the managing of guilds into a big excel spreadsheet.</span><div></div>

[Kizee]

<P>I am still waiting for a responce saying they are taking the patron changes out of the patch this week. I am staring to get worried because I haven't seen any Dev. responce to this issue yet. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>If they let this go live as is then they have really lost thier "vision" on where they are going with this game.</P> <P>It is pretty comical having people suggest that the nerf Herritage quest status rewards to eliminate exploiting...  Ummm so doing a second stupid half arshed change to fix the first stupid half arshed change is good idea? :p</P> <P>How about they take the "If it's not broke then don't fix it" approch and leave the patron system as it is.</P>

[Serindyl]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> beylanu wrote:<BR><SPAN><BR>I am so opposed to this idea, I can't even count ways.  No offense.<BR><BR>I don't want a system where a GL tells a patron NOT to finish something, cuz that's not the best heritage to do.  Essentially you'd get a system where only the BEST heritages would get done, up to 36.  Is that what you really want?<BR><BR>I just don't think that you can fix a fundamentally bad system, by slapping on timers, max counts, special flags, or some other algebraic devices to limit its exploitability.  <BR><BR>Scrap the bad system, implement a new simpler system that is more forgiving and let's stop making the managing of guilds into a big excel spreadsheet.<BR></SPAN> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>I meant to say 36 per heritage quest per guild, so if there are currently 22 heritage quests, each can be done 36 times.  I do agree the current system could benefit from a reinvestigation, but I also like that a patron could leave without impacting the guild, so I do not want to lose that change to come.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A simpler system?  I would suggest allowing anyone, whether a patron or not to contribute to the guild by doing a heritage quest.  (People like to feel they have contributed, and a heritage quest is time consuming enough and already limited to once per character.)  Set the value of the heritage quest at "x" and have it divided by the number of active player accounts in the guild (to not factor in alts).  Writs could be set to value "y", no matter what level the patron is, for a heritage quest is always the same relative difficulty at every level, and the number of patrons could be limited to "z".</DIV>

[Shailen]

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Kizee wrote:<BR> <P>I am still waiting for a responce saying they are taking the patron changes out of the patch this week. I am staring to get worried because I haven't seen any Dev. responce to this issue yet. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>If they let this go live as is then they have really lost thier "vision" on where they are going with this game.</P> <P>It is pretty comical having people suggest that the nerf Herritage quest status rewards to eliminate exploiting...  Ummm so doing a second stupid half arshed change to fix the first stupid half arshed change is good idea? :p</P> <P>How about they take the "If it's not broke then don't fix it" approch and leave the patron system as it is.</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Moorgard did respond to this in the giant thread on the topic.  You can use the dev tracker to find it in that mess.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Basically what he said is that they hear the calls to look at this as exploitable, and that its just one of the possible solutions, they have 2-3 more that they are looking at as well, and that they have it on test to see how they pan out.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From the sound of that I'd assume it doesn't go live until they test that and some of their alternate possibilities.  A week on test just isn't enough to see what the long term impact of this will be.  Also if they move this to live and it is a problem, it would ruin any chance they have to later install a middle of the road solution.  As this is basically the simplest of all solutions.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My personal thought is that if we see this, it will be in August some time.<BR></DIV>

[bloa]

This is a good change for small guilds who have lost a lot of players due to RL or whatever.  For instance my guild lost many patrons due to inactivity and in order to keep a clean roster we removed them losing their patron status.

[Kizee]

<P>Hrm.. I read that whole thread... I must have missed his responce. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P> </P> <P><BR> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> bloads wrote:<BR>This is a good change for small guilds who have lost a lot of players due to RL or whatever.  For instance my guild lost many patrons due to inactivity and in order to keep a clean roster we removed them losing their patron status. <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Can't get much smaller than the guild I am in and everybody thinks its a dumb idea... it really trivializes the whole guild ranking. With this change the bigger guilds will all be level 30 in couple days while the smaller guilds still struggle.</P> <P>You can't really blame anybody but yourself for removing the patrons that were inactive... you do realize that even when the accounts inactive you still retain the status right? Granted that leveling the guild will be a tad slower but sometimes that better than losing alot of status when you remove someone.<BR></P>

[Desulto]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> dejahthors wrote:<BR>i won't be wanting to lose all my personal SP in favor of letting someone complete a heritage quest for guild SP.  i've worked pretty hard for my SP, and want to use it for items like clothes and a horse.  if i'm de-patroned i won't be able to.  <BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>You don't lose your personal status.  You just don't have any contributed status.  You can still use your status points for purchases...just like any non-patron can if they've earned some.  They even go with you to a new guild should you leave the one you're in.  Once you are a member of the new guild, you can spend them freely.  AFAIK, the only time you can't use personal status earned is if you aren't in a guild and the only way to lose personal status is to purchase something that requires it.  (EDIT: just wanted to make sure you knew I realize you probably already know that, but some people might've gotten confused by your post, so I went overboard with the explanation)</P> <P>I reserve the right to be proven wrong, however. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <p>Message Edited by Desultory on <span class=date_text>07-19-2005</span> <span class=time_text>12:21 AM</span>