Comparing the Guild Status Systems on LIVE versus TEST

[SavinDwa]

<DIV>LIVE ... refers to the Guild Status system that is currently operating on the live servers<BR>TEST ... refers to the Guild Status system that is currently operating on the test servers</DIV> <DIV><BR>This is a comparison of the Guild Status System on Live versus the system currently on Test.  It does not try and state which is right or wrong, merely points out the differences and the impact of the changes.  As far as I know it is factually correct.  If you think I have made an error then please carefully explain where and I will change this post to reflect your information.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Formula for calculating the guild status generated by an individual activity such as a writ or a heritage quest.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Live formula:</STRONG>  To calculate the amount of guild status generated you take the personal status generated by an activity and divide this by the number of Patrons in the guild or by 12 if the number of patrons is less than 12.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Patron is a fancy name for a mechanism that allows you to state which characters will be part of the team that contributes towards guild status.  It is a tool to allow a guild to have players who do not play that much, or are inactive currently, or just hate doing quests be part of the guild without hurting the guilds ability to gain guild status.  You can convert a character to patron status with no penalty, except to increase the Divisor.  You can convert patron characters to non-patron status with no penalty if they have been a patron for more than a week and with a small penalty if they have been a patron for less than a week.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Test Formula</STRONG>:  To calculate the amount of guild status generated you take the personal status generated by an activity and divide it by the number of unique accounts in the guild or by 6 if the number of unique accounts is less than 6.  The divisor can not exceed 24 even if the number of unique accounts exceeds 24.  The unique accounts in a guild are calculated ignoring a player’s alts in the guild.  So if a player has 4 characters in the guild then it counts as 1 unique account, if a player only has one character in a guild then it still counts as 1 unique account.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><STRONG>Differences between LIVE and TEST:  <BR></STRONG></DIV> <DIV>1) The LIVE system gives the guild control over who counts towards the divisor and can contribute towards the guild status.  The TEST system gives the guild very little control, if you are in the guild you count towards the divisor total.  The only solution for a guild that has members not contributing their fair share of the guild status is to expel the character from the guild or live with the fact that they are having a negative impact.  The negative impact of such players is very small in large guilds since their is now a maximum number of the divisor, 24.<BR></DIV> <DIV>2) The LIVE system does not distinguish between alts and main characters.  In many guilds it is likely that a player only had one active character as a Patron.  In the TEST system a player can gain status with all of their alts without penalty to the divisor count.  In the LIVE system they could achieve the same result by carefully managing which character is a Patron, but this is an added burden to the guild leaders.<BR></DIV> <DIV>3) The LIVE system has no maximum to the number of patrons that can count towards the divisor.  In the TEST system no matter how many unique accounts you have the divisor will not exceed 24.<BR></DIV> <DIV>4) The LIVE system has a minimum divisor of 12.  The TEST system has a minimum divisor of 6.  The impact of this change varies widely with the size and format of the guild and their current Patron approach.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Have I missed any major difference between the systems?<BR></DIV>

[SavinDwa]

<DIV>Here is my opinion on the change:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) Removing the Patron System.  This change adds nothing, it just removes a feature that allows a guild to have players who are inactive or hate doing quests, or don't play much from slowing the guilds ability to gain guild status.  There is nothing stopping a guild from making every players a patron in the LIVE system.  I personally can't see any reason to remove the feature.  At best it will do nothing and worst it will encourage guilds to kick out players who do not contribute guild status at the rate of the core players in the guild.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Using unique accounts versus characters when calculating the divisor in the formula.  This is probably a good change, it allows a player to freely swap between alts without the guild having to change Patron Status or hurting the guilds ability to gain guild status.  It would lead to less micro management of the patrons.  In the LIVE system over 90% of the changes in patron status has to do with alts.  This change would mean that changes in patron status would now only occur if a player was forced to live the game for a while, or was unable to play as much, or suddenly was able to play more.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3) Minimum number of the divisor reduced from 12 to 6.  This change only benefits very small guilds that have less than 12 active accounts.  Assuming that SOE thinks these guilds were being unfairly treated then this is a good change.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>4) Maximum value of divisor ha been changed from unlimited to 24.  This really only impacts very large guilds, probably those with over 40-50 unique accounts.  For those guilds that have 40-60 accounjts it means they are not really impacted by losing the patron system.  For those with over 60 accounts it probably means they can gain status quicker -- but bet their are very few with over 60 unique accounts.  This is a good change if SOE believes that very large guilds were being unfairly treated in the LIVE system.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Most guilds are in the small to mid sized range.  I suspect that most are happy with change #2 (using unique accounts rather than characters).  They are not effected by change #4.  Unless they have less than 12 active accounts they are not impacted by #3.  But I suspect that most of the guilds will be impacted by losing #1 the ability to control who counts towards the guild status system and who does not.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For those that hate the patron system and are guild leaders maybe SOE could add a button called "Patron All".  For those who are in guilds and have not been made a Patron by their guild leaders -- join another guild or meet your guilds requirements for being made a patron.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>From my point of view, why can't leave the Patron system in and still make changes #2, #3 and #4?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I think that would make almost everyone happy.  The only people unhappy would be those that are not patron's in their guild and would like to FORCE the guild leaders to make them a patron.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[SavinDwa]

<DIV>My GUESS about why the changes were made by SOE:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) using unique accounts versus characters.  This was done to address the issue of freely moving between alts without impacting your guilds ability to gain status.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2) Dropping the minimum Divisor from 12 to 6.  This was done because of change #1 above and SOE's guess that most players have 2 characters in a guild.  I don't think they really understood the real impact.  Having said that it will help the very small guilds which is fine.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>3)  Doing away with the Patron system.... hmm ... I have no idea why they did this .. but maybe they think the only reason people were having some charcaters as patrons and others not was because of alts and when they made change #1 they felt the patron system no longer had a use??</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>4) Setting the maximum divisor to 24.  Not really sure why they did this?  perhaps they felt their should be an advantageb to very large guilds?  But if that was true there would be a much better solution and the advantage should be gradual.  For instance, each unique account up to 20 counts as a full share,  from unique account 21 through 40 they are less than a full share using where 21 is 95%, 22 is 90%, 23 is 85% etc.  Unqiue accounts over 40 have no impact on the divisor.</DIV>

[Rene]

<DIV>Well stated Savin... Unfortunately now with the combat changes pushed to test, and peoples attention being focused elsewhere, I am betting much of the healthy discussion on this issue is going to go away.  I am still surprised that no Devs chimed in to give a insight into why this change was made after it became apparent that quite a few folks had a problem with it.  This kind of poor communication just gives ammunition to SOE bashers and discourages people who feel good about the overall state of the game.  Oh well.. I am just crossing my fingers that at some point the very valid issues and questions ( such as those you raised) will be noticed and at least acknowledged if not addressed.</DIV>

[SavinDwa]

<P>I assume that most people believe that I have accurately stated the changes between the LIVE guild system and the TEST guild system.</P> <P>I know from reading a huge number of posts that many believe that the TEST guild status system is a good change.  But, assuming my post is accurate it would seem that the change will hurt a significant number of players.  So perhaps someone that believes that the system that is on TEST is a huge improvement can explain why my concerns are invalid?</P>

[Ildarus]

<P>Rene, no Dev has responded because just like SavinDwarf said, if you read most of the posts there are more positive than negative responses to the change. A lot of the negatives are from the same people that just start new threads. These forums are not the majority of players as a matter of fact they are the minority. They may be the more hardcore players but none the less the minority in number.</P> <P>SavinDwarf, I think you have laid this out fairly well. I am one that is for the change and here is why. We are a guild of 95 players and at this time we have 31 patrons. Every patron has contributed something. Some more than others. We want all our guild members to feel like they are doing their part to help the guild grow so we do not want to turn people down if they want to be a patron. Thus the reason why we have 31 patrons. Under the new system instead of having the 31 be the divisor the max that we will have is 24. I have two alts on the verge of completing Dwarven Work Boots and now once the change goes into place I can finish those quests with them and have it help the guild and they will not have to be made patrons.</P> <DIV>How I could see this hurting individual players is because of the guilds that believe they need to do what ever will get them to the next level the fastest and under the system on test they would have to get rid of any "dead wieght" to make that happen. These type of guilds will cut any players who are not contributing to the growth of the guilds level by doing writs or HQ's. All I have to say to that is shame on them and the player they kicked is probably better off finding a new guild. </DIV><p>Message Edited by Ildarus on <span class=date_text>08-08-2005</span> <span class=time_text>02:02 PM</span>

[SavinDwa]

<DIV>lldarus,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My guild has not actively recruited in over 3 years and we are not just going to boot people, most of us have been freiends outside the game for over 6-7 years.  We are one if those guilds that have players playing in many games, three of them owned by SOE.  This change will significantly reduce the speed at which we gain guild status points.  We currently have maybe 10 hardcore EQ2 players (accounts) -- by hardcore I mean over 25 hours a week and only playing EQ2.  We have another 20-30 accounts that play less frequently for a number of reasons such as real life, or they are also playing other games where we have guilds (some of them owned by SOE by the way).  I would guess that the average playing time of these additional accounts is about 5-10 hours a week if I assume we will boot the totally inactive accounts.  So this change will increase our divisor from 12 to 24 and probably only increase our guild status output by 10-15%.  So the net result is we will gain guild levels about 40% slower than before.   If we booted the occassional players we would reduce our divisor from 12 to 10 and increase out status output by about 5% (alts). </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So .. what is good about the change?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1) Basing the divisor on accounts rather than chracaters is good.  It allows up to play alts freely with no penalty and without swapping patrons.</DIV> <DIV>2) Putting a cap of 24 on the divisor helps large guilds and [perhaps means that mid sized guilds are not so worried that the patron system is going away since they had more than 24 patrons anyway.   If the larger guilds were being treated unfairly then great .. make the change.</DIV> <DIV>3) The minimum divisor has been reduced from 12 to 6 .. a huge advantage to tiny/small guilds ... more pwoer to them .</DIV> <DIV>4) Removing the patron system (or the ability to select accounts/characters that do not count towards the divisor or gain statys points) is the removal of a feature that helps many guilds -- like mine.  So why remove this?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My suggestion would be to change from character based to account based, to put a cap on the number of the divisor (24), reduce the minmum divisor to 6 AND still allow player to flag accounts (and hence all of the characters) as being non-patron status.  For those that wish to patron everyone then great .. you can do it.  But for those where that hurts then we still have the option.  I would however suggest that the status of an account can only be changed from patron to non-patron and back again once every 30 days to avoid exploits.  This allows players to take a leave of absence without being booted from the guild.  It should also be noted that some players prefer to craft and at the moment have no equivalent to heritatage quests and some player just plain hate quests... it should be there choice and the guild system should allow for this.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>BTW, right now our numbe of hours played is down further as about 7 of our players are in the beta and testing about 20 hours a week.  This would be a great example of where we could have just depatroned them for 30-45 days until it releases.  </DIV><p>Message Edited by SavinDwarf on <span class=date_text>08-08-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:25 PM</span>