Proposal - Rebalance Prestige

[brettwjohnson]

Overall I'm really enjoying PC2... While there are some things I think could be improved, I find there is one aspect of them game that is simply "broken"... Namely how Prestige works...

It's bad enough that the developers have had to resort to 3 "deus ex machina" (i.e., contrived plot devices) events to try to balance it (a) lose half of all prestige b) lose half of all prestige c) lose all prestige down to a fixed number).

I think a serious re-look at how Prestige works is needed...

One of the developer's stated that it's tough to balance prestige because too little (especially for new players) quickly creates untenable situations, while more experienced players accumulate massive amounts (hence the "deus ex machina" events).

The underlying root cause for this is very simple - Prestige is being used for too many things
a) green reinforcements during scenario
b) elite reinforcements during scenario
c) green reinforcements between scenarios
d) elite reinforcements between scenarios
e) over-strength
f) upgrades
g) special event spends

A serious proposal to try to fix this:
1) Make green reinforcements during scenario FREE
2) Make elite reinforcements between scenarios FREE
3) Hugely reduce earned prestige (like 20% of what we currently get)
4) Consider adding additional opportunities to spend prestige (e.g., optional hero buys or even make the automatic hero you get after each scenario an optional buy)

By eliminating the need to spend prestige for "scenario survival" (i.e., buy green reinforcements during scenario) or "campaign survival" (i.e., buy elite reinforcements between scenarios), prestige can be calibrated to the need to 1) upgrade units 2) ove-rstrength for key scenarios 3) preserve some key unit expertise during a scenario via elite reinforcements.

[NightPhoenix]

I have already often given the suggestion to allow people to adjust prestige gain by a simple slider - so you can get more or less prestige however you want. This can increase/decrease the difficulty for you without having to also opt for enemy supersoldiers at the 4th and 5th difficulty level. This i think will solve all those problems.

With this post i once again re-state that i think this is a good idea to implement, though by this time what little hope i had of such a slider being implemented has all but vanished....

You know what they say: hope is often just delayed disappoinment.

[dalfrede]

I have already often given the suggestion to allow people to adjust prestige gain by a simple slider -
With this post i once again re-state that i think this is a good idea to implement, though by this time what little hope i had of such a slider being implemented has all but vanished....

The Mod Manager was only released this month. There are a number of promised features that have not yet been implemented.

I expect the slider adjustments for prestige, enemy strength et al as in PzC1 to appear in PzC2.
It may take a while, but there have been improvements with every DLC, so as long as the game is selling, I think they will continue to improve it.

[kverdon]

I’m not sure what to do with prestige except to just ignore it. The prestige sinks and limits are so easy to circumvent if you invest in a “Prestige Reserve Bank” that you can easily cash in should you need it that it makes them pointless. The slider option seems the best bet.

[ESPADATXI]

The issue of prestige is important and obviously could be better. There is a lot of talk about PZ1 here but people need to understand that it needs to evolve and it doesn't seem like a valid reference. PZC 1 is another “era” (a few years in computer science is a lot) and what doesn’t make sense is backwards. In the middle of both games is Batlle's Order which is also from Slitherine, and there the command point system ensures that although it accumulates a lot of prestige the number of ground units and air units you can deploy is limited (while in PZ2 the slots are joint). In any case, having a bar to fix the prestige as in PZ1 (and also in Pazner General 1!) Seems good to me, but the system of commander points that separates the ground slots from the air ones seems to me a step forward by the Order of Battle which has now been set back and must also be claimed.

[impossible]

i think it is impossible to balance prestige. you end up with tons in a long campaign and have problems in short ones. to add insult to injury you are contrained by prestige if you dont capture enemy units and have hundreds of thousands if you have a scavenger+envelopment+overwhelming attack hero combo in the AO series.

for example i cannot complete the kursk 1943 campaign because despite starting the baltics scenario with 16k prestige and not using elite replacements since korsun on generalissimus despite capturing as many units as possible with trophies of war selected while in AO1940 i end the campaign with 80k playing difficulty level 4 with david & goliath on.

[NightPhoenix]

The Mod Manager was only released this month. There are a number of promised features that have not yet been implemented.

I expect the slider adjustments for prestige, enemy strength et al as in PzC1 to appear in PzC2.
It may take a while, but there have been improvements with every DLC, so as long as the game is selling, I think they will continue to improve it.

I'll believe it when i see it. Or when the developer undeniably confirms it will be implemented at a specific date (like next dlc). I also have not seen any "improvements" to the game since the release - the game might have been tweaked a little, some "new" objectives added in the DLC's and some additional random challenges while playing the campaign that i quite frankly wouldn't pay 1 cent for. It's very obvious the designers don't care about the suggestions people put out. As they implement strange stuff like: your units always retreat when in combat challenge. Seriously, has there been anybody in the world asking for this? But something actually practical and useful that multiple people have been asking for, and could help balance the game quite a bit (as lets be fair the prestige economy in this game is messed up).....nope.

[dalfrede]

. . . It's very obvious the designers don't care about the suggestions people put out. . .

1) I am a retired design engineer, so I am a bit more understanding of the difficulties associated with developing new products than most.
2) In the Beta I redid the map of California, and 70% of my changes made it into the final scenario.
One other Beta tester modified some maps a well.
3) The publisher released the game before it was 'finished', once the game has been released incremental changes make more sense than trying large changes that may break something.
4) A number of players will/would be happier waiting a year or two before trying the game as it may have the features they are looking for running by then.
5) The Devs/Publisher [different people] may have different priorities than individual players.
Unreal Engine is a resource hog, improving performance has been an issue that may not be apparent to the observer.
6) Every design has trade offs, and the Devs often make them different than you or I would.

[Scrapulous]

I agree with all of dalfrede's points. I'd like to add two of my own.

First, your argument assumes that what is delivered is the same thing as what the design intended. This is not always the case. It is often impossible to design software with a clear idea of how all the parts will interact. So the design evolves over time. A big part of that evolution is feedback from the players, because after years of working on a product, your own perception of its merits and demerits gets distorted. So feedback from actual users is required to correct that distortion. This is why betas are popular - but even then, there is often not enough time to incorporate all of the beta feedback into the product before release. Whether you have seen it or not, there have been changes in the game since it was released.

Second, your argument assumes that delivering features is the sole concern of a developer after release. This is not true. There are many competing priorities, like preserving and increasing the stability of the game, gathering feedback on recent features, and of course the other business of the studio, including planning and building future products.

Features don't just appear like a goose laying a golden egg. They have to be designed, documented, built, tested, ideally design reviewed, and then deployed. Each of those steps takes time and input from the people who perform the other steps.

[NightPhoenix]

I agree with all of dalfrede's points. I'd like to add two of my own.

First, your argument assumes that what is delivered is the same thing as what the design intended. This is not always the case. It is often impossible to design software with a clear idea of how all the parts will interact. So the design evolves over time. A big part of that evolution is feedback from the players, because after years of working on a product, your own perception of its merits and demerits gets distorted. So feedback from actual users is required to correct that distortion. This is why betas are popular - but even then, there is often not enough time to incorporate all of the beta feedback into the product before release. Whether you have seen it or not, there have been changes in the game since it was released.

Second, your argument assumes that delivering features is the sole concern of a developer after release. This is not true. There are many competing priorities, like preserving and increasing the stability of the game, gathering feedback on recent features, and of course the other business of the studio, including planning and building future products.

Features don't just appear like a goose laying a golden egg. They have to be designed, documented, built, tested, ideally design reviewed, and then deployed. Each of those steps takes time and input from the people who perform the other steps.

I'll just respond to both of your post this way then.

First of all, i never said any of those things aren't true, i understand the devs have priorities etc etc etc.
To dalfrede:
In response to
1) Okey, sweet!
2) Also nice, but not really related to what i posted. We're talking post production additions, real meaningful additions besides more missions and not fixes or tweaks or an extra challenge mode. - I'm also curious what kind of changes those were - map changes in terms of map + unit tweaking pre-release really isn't what im talking about here.
3) Releasing a game before it's "finished" is a pretty bad habit a lot of developers have these days. I thought i bought a finished game? - Would've been nice if they said it was an Early Access, but that didn't really happen. Not sure how a slider to adjust prestige for yourself is a large change that may break something, but okey. I'm not saying it's easy to implement just so we're clear.....
4) Not related to my post.
5) I haven't really seen any improvements on that front - since the game still eats my CPU and memory like a hog like it did from the start. I know they've been working on that sure, and i'm not saying they are doing nothing, just i haven't seen any of that improvement, but maybe it was actually worse than it is now. All im saying is that they have strange priorities - like implementing challenges of which i wonder who actually cares, whereas they could be working on fixing actual problems like the prestige economy in this game.
6) Yes, if the devs decided that it is by design that players end up with gazillions of prestige, and players can't fix this problem in any way themselves except by boosting enemy strength then there really isn't any problem with the game at all, thats a different design indeed.

Now to Scrapulous:
Yes, but the beta is over - we have a published game that people paid money for - now people have been saying that things are a messed up with prestige - this is feedback from the users, it's been there for quite some time. I know it's not a priority - it might not be their concern at all, doesn't seem to be - but i never said it was. I just said i don't think it will be implemented. Unless they confirm it will be. If they have implementing whacky challenges is more important than allowing people to play a balanced game - good for them, but i think that's the wrong priority.

Yes they don't just appear - why do people always assume that people with critique think this stuff appears out of thin air? - Sorry for saying this but frankly im really tired of repeating myself over and over again - I know it takes time, effort, work etc. to implement features. Yes i know it might not be their priority. Yes they are a business and have other more pressing things to do. Yes it doesn't make them any money to do this - and yet they choose to do trivial stuff like extra challenges or personality traits over something that i think is more important to playability for everyone.

[panzeh]

The only thing I think the game needs for prestige is something other than auxiliary force as a way to sink it- i'd like to see one-time-use gainable traits, call them "remedial training" or bonuses or whatever, that you pay prestige for. Not out and out heroes, but little things, paying for a unit to have phased movement for a battle or whatever, letting players make use of the extra prestige once the core is full.

[scott_mathieson]

ok my tuppence worth

prestige cant be fixed in any real way it will never be flexible enough to work for the range of players and levels you will always have some players running out and some having too much.

add to these the varying ways you can play this game, if you set the prestige so it is still a challenge to have enough when you wander the battlefield collecting equipment anyone not playing that style will struggle.

t me its fairly redundant, i feel there are better ways to enforce limits on what you can do to make the game more of a challenge and pretty much all can be done with some self restraint on the players part.

[Tassadar]

t me its fairly redundant, i feel there are better ways to enforce limits on what you can do to make the game more of a challenge and pretty much all can be done with some self restraint on the players part.

I highly recommend this. I'm having tons of fun with a Retrograde campaign that enforces extra rules about the amounts of units I can get based on approximate historical production figures or another one where I only use captured/gift units. Such restrictions do not have to be as extreme, but as long as the player is open to use different types of units, not just the stat best ones, the game really opens up to different types of fun experiences and prestige is just a negligible factor.

That being said, a simple percentage slider for prestige gained would be ideal.

[panzeh]

ok my tuppence worth

prestige cant be fixed in any real way it will never be flexible enough to work for the range of players and levels you will always have some players running out and some having too much.

add to these the varying ways you can play this game, if you set the prestige so it is still a challenge to have enough when you wander the battlefield collecting equipment anyone not playing that style will struggle.

t me its fairly redundant, i feel there are better ways to enforce limits on what you can do to make the game more of a challenge and pretty much all can be done with some self restraint on the players part.

I do think prestige balancing is the kind of thing best done with carrots rather than sticks.

[SineMora]

All this talk about sliders is bizarre; what would introducing them do to alleviate the problem with excess prestige? If you understand game mechanics, you'll drown in prestige on Generalissimus as well, so increasing the penalty to 80% by means of a slider while dodging the AI's accuracy bonus solves nothing, and that won't change as long as so many sources of prestige remain completely unaffected by any penalties. Said penalties aren't consistent either, as while the penalty from the difficulty setting is applied to block prestige and passive prestige per turn, Rommel mode only affects the latter, and of course neither of them applies to captured units, flags, VHs etc.

As a simple fix, tie Rommel mode to block prestige as well and the difficulty modifier to all sources of prestige; if you think this is too harsh, then leave flags and VHs as they are (which would be necessary anyway to not have Liberator become hilariously useless). This would not magically solve the problem with prestige bloat, but it would curb the worst excesses unless you're rolling with Trophies (and if you are you chose your bloat; I'd prefer to see Trophies changed to have no effect on prestige at all, but that is sadly unlikely to ever happen). Most players stick to Major and Colonel anyway and so would not be penalised by this change (Major would actually become even easier). Then you can throw in a prestige slider and start thinking about changing game mechanics in the long run.

[dalfrede]

All this talk about sliders is bizarre; . . .

I consider the sliders very useful to keep the game interesting over time.
Although the Prestige Slider the least useful.
Enemy Strength Slider is more useful as it allows incremental difficulty increase as a means of improving ones play.
The Manstein +5 is a big step, building up to that would work better for me.

The present 'Difficultly Level' system is misleading since Prestige is the one factor being adjusted.
This forces adjustment of playing style and the use of 'Trophies of War' with the capture of equipment.
While this is not a problem of it's self, it should not be the only option.

Colonel > General > Field Marshall , covers Prestige challenges but leaves Enemy Strength and Accuracy Challenges unaddressed.

Reducing Turns has game issues that makes it not usable without game mechanic fixing.

[scott_mathieson]

would it fix it for everyone ifwe had the means to manually change our prestige at any time?

[SineMora]

would it fix it for everyone ifwe had the means to manually change our prestige at any time?

Indeed, imagine if there were a console command one could use

I consider the sliders very useful to keep the game interesting over time...

That is a separate issue, though. I'd love to be able to customize enemy strength as well, but it'd do little to resolve the issue with prestige bloat; I found Manstein to be challenging for many reasons, but prestige was not one them -- quite the opposite, in fact.

Edit: Non, my armoured train

[Edmon]

First I would just like to clarify that this is just my personal opinion, but my opinion comes from my experiences playing this game at a high level and the fact that I actually do have a degree in game design.

Prestige is not the real "balance" issue with this game, having tons of prestige or hardly any is a symptom and not the actual cause. I actually thought the game was remarkably well balanced on generalissimus until I learned about and started exploiting the Power 4.

(Note: Power 4 are in order of importance: Flexible Command, Deadly Grasp, Permeter Control and Master of Blitz).

The real issue is encirclement and if you can exploit it or not. Encirclement is more powerful than heroes, more powerful than any other strategy, more powerful than the entire traits system. If you had a negative trait that denied your ability to encircle the enemy in exchange for 40 points, enough to buy everything from the positive side, it is actually questionable in my opinion if that would be worth the trade.

Here is an example, imagine you have a tank and the enemy has a tank. They are totally identical and do 0.5 damage on the attack.

Example 1, without Encirclement:
Turn 1: I attack the enemy tank for 5 damage and I likely take about 2.5 in return. I have 7.5 strength and he has 5.
Turn 2: Now he attacks me, I take 2 damage or so and he takes 2.5 or there abouts. So now I am 5.5 strength and he is down to 2.5
Turn 3: Next phase, I near kill him, I end probably on about 4 strength or so he will be likely to be around 1 health.
Turn 4: A.I. either suicides, does nothing or most likely repairs dragging this fight out forever. Lets assume he doesn't repair though.
Turn 5: It's taken me 5 turns to kill the enemy tank and I took 6 damage (3 turns are mine, if he doesn't suicide between or choose to repair, which he can do at any time).

End result: 6 damage, 5 turns used. Cost of engagement 60% value of the tank. This is if he chooses not to repair, if he does this battle could go on literally forever until one of us runs out of prestige.

Example 2, with Encirclement and grip:
Turn 1: I split my tank into 2 bits and surround the enemy with the 2 bits. He is now encircled. End turn 1.
Turn 2: He has 6 unsuppressed strength, he hits one of my 5 strength bits for 3 damage and takes 1 in return and likely 1 suppression.
Turn 3: I keep him encircled but do not attack. I can repair the damaged part of my unit now if I wish.
Turn 4: He now has 8 suppression from grip, 1 loss and likely 1 additional suppression from his failed attack in turn 2. He is now totally disabled and can do nothing on his turn.
Turn 5: I can force him to surrender by doing 1 damage to him. I gain 80% of the value of his tank and repair 30% of the value of my own tank. I make a 50% profit and he also had no "outs" to repair or otherwise drag out the fight.

And so encirclement changes a 60% value loss into a 50% value profit at the very minimum. That's not even getting started on the fact that I also get captured units, which may or may not be worth having and deploying and that he cannot repair and so drag the fight out.

Any traits that enhance the encirclement system are going to be extremely strong, because even with just grip it's extremely strong. Even without grip, it's still very strong, you just need to use something like a cheap strat bomber or artillery to help pile the suppression on quickly so dangerous units can't fight back.

It is encirclement that I would personally change, I think with that nerfed everything else would fall into place.

Pretty much every challenge run that you see on the AAR forum relies on exploiting encirclement to the max. Tropies turns extreme prestige generation of the Power 4 into comedy cash generation but it honestly is not necessary.

But you know, this game supports all manner of challenge levels and playstyles. It has tons of options and is really great for it. Once you understand farming for prestige with encirclement though, it is extremely difficult to not be incredibly wealthy. Big encirclements do require a lot of foresight and skill to execute, so it's a question of if the issue should be addressed at all.

[scott_mathieson]

i don't think it needs nerfed because like most thing in the game its an option, i think maybe the new trait where they don' surrender could be bumped up considerably and be basis of trait build to play game as a more massacre they enemy playthrough but prestige may become a problem in the dlcs where it is assumed you will be using encirclements to get prestige, which will still be useful without the surrender.

its a really weird gaming thing where there are exploits there that we feel need nerfed and some that are fine to be left there s they are fine, and some that are left but can only be used by extreme newbs.

not saying where any of these are placed but short list to illustrate type of thing

turning fog of war of
giving more than 2 trait points at the start
making half their army surrender with trophies on
adding heroes through the console commands
using undo for rerolls

one other thing that crops up is realism, not sure how it works on level we play at but whole armies were encircled in WW2 to enforce quicker victories did Russia not lose 3 or 4 million troops in early phase of barborossa due to this. on the other hand did the germans really use much captured equipment (not counting SCW) that seems to be a weird game thing as the enemy tanks early on are really good because their failings are not attributed for.