Solving the prestige problems

[Trepko]

Hello,

Prestige balance has always been quite a challenge to the developers throughout the entire PG/PC series. What is balanced in a small campaign might not be for long runs. What is balanced for green players isn’t for hardcore ones. The play-style also has an important impact.

I might be quite a veteran of PG/PC series, I think that the actual prestige system is too easy in the AO series. For example, in my first AO run (so I totally discover the scenario and can’t “optimize” them), I play with the highest difficulty (generallissimus), with iron man mode (no “cancel move”) and with the special trait which gives a hero to every enemy units. Despite all theses settings, at the end of AO 41 I have around 150k prestige. Of course, you can guess that prestige is not a problem anymore and isn’t a parameter in my decisions at all, which removes an aspect of the game. Besides, everyone knows that when the prestige isn’t a problem, the difficulty is much lower.

Here are my thoughts about prestige balance, and I would be glad to discuss this with everyone.

First thing, I don’t think that “artificial” prestige balance would be good (prestige reset like in PC1 / GCWest42, or options like “give 75% of your prestige to buy 10 Toldi tanks”), because it’s quite frustrating for the players who tried hard to get all that prestige and then lose it all from arbitrary events.
I think that “in general”, prestige should be harder to earn.

Secondly, all the following propositions could apply to AO series, but probably not for the base game. This is not a problem I guess, as AO series already has some specific rules (ex: acquiring experience rate,…).

Finally, all the following propositions could depend of the game difficulty chosen with coefficients depending of the game difficulty.
Now, my propositions:
1: Reform the upgrade system, as it is too flexible and too cheap for now. For now, you can totally change the look of your army for almost 0 prestige. You can change 10 moutain troops to 10 paratroopers (for Crete scenario) for 0. Same thing for tanks, where you can change all PZIII to PZIV for nothing, depending on the scenario.
 For infantry units, I propose that any upgrade between infantry units should cost a fixed amount of prestige + the difference between the unit costs.
For example, to change from Moutain to Para, it would cost X + 160 – 160 = X. From Wehr to Para: X + 160 – 140 = X +20. From Para to Wehr: X + 140 – 160 = X – 20.
The X value would vary between game difficulties and could be determined by the devs after some testing. For example, X = 10 in Major difficulty and X = 100 in Generallissimus.
From a realistic/historical PoV, it can represent the cost of changing equipments of the troops. From the game PoV, it would encourage the player to carefully choose the shape of his army, and prevents him to have a 100% optimized army in every scenario.
 For other units, I propose to suppress the system where the cost is only the difference between the unit costs. It is way too cheap, and means that from AO SCW to AO45, the cost of upgrading a tank from PZ1 to Tiger II tank is only the cost of the Tiger II… totally unrealistic and way too cheap. I propose 3 possibilities. Either:
o Return to the PC1 system: cost = difference between units when the upgrade is inside a family upgrade tree (PZ IV E to PZ IV F), and full cost when you change family (PZ III to PZ IV). Easier of my proposals.
o Return to the PG system. Upgrade = full cost of the new units. Hardest of my proposal.
o Intermediary system. PG system when upgrading during a campaign, and PC1 system when upgrading between campaign. From a realistic/historical PoV, it could represent the fact that when you’re at the front, if you want new tanks you have to fully buy them, but if you wait until the end of the campaign, you can return your tanks back to German factories where upgrades are cheaper if you stay in the “family tree”. From the game PoV, it would encourage the player to stay with lower quality equipments throughout the campaign, making the lasts scenarios harder.

2: Reform the General trait which x2 all the captured equipments. From the game PoV, for costly units, the prestige gain is just too amazing. From a realistic/historical PoV, it represents the following conversation: “Good news general, we have captured 7 B1 tanks”. “Good job lieutenant ! Huh, why do we have 14 tanks in our reserves ?!”. My proposal is to lower the coeff: x1,5 is good enough I think. I know, it doesn’t solve the realistic/historical problem 

3: Reform the capturing system (in the buying menu). For now, captured equipment gives you immediately the prestige gain, and after that it is available in the buying menu. As there is totally no reason to “discard” captured equipments, I’m sure that many players have totally overwhelmed buying menu with 100000 captured units from AO SCW.
My proposal is the following : when you capture units, you get no prestige at first. You only get the unit in the buying menu. There, at any time, you can:
- Field the unit for 0 prestige (of course, you already have the unit, why should you pay for it ?)
- Sell the unit to High Command in Germany, which will buy it for a prestige amount.
The advantage of this new system is that it will force the player to choose. If you want/need prestige, you have to sell units and can’t wait to see if you need this unit later. It will also “clear” the buying menu of the player. And finally, of course, to tackle the prestige balance, you can introduce a coeff for the selling cost: for example, x1,5 of the prestige unit cost in lowest difficulty (High Command is so proud of you that it will pay much for this shiny unit !) to x0,5 in highest difficulty (when you’re in winter ‘41 in Moscow, it costs a lot of money to send back sold units to Germany and so you only get a fraction of the unit costs).

Also, introduce a specific rule for infantry. When you capture infantry, you lose prestige instead of gaining it. From a realistic/historical PoV, it represents the fact that capturing soldiers was probably quite costly for an army (you have to spend resources to watch on them, to feed them, etc…). From the game PoV, it would introduce a new mechanic where the player will try to avoid capturing infantry units, which will differ from the actual classic strategy where you always try to surround units.

Finally, aside from the prestige problem, I would like to propose a new idea. For now, you can’t capture enemy planes. Why don’t make this possible ? For example, you could capture planes when you capture the airfield where the plane is stationed during rainy days. From a realistic/historical PoV, it represents the fact that you can capture airplanes when capturing an airfield where planes are struck down during rainy days. From the game PoV, it adds a new mechanic which is always good.

4: Reform overstrentgh costs. For now, overstrentgh units cost more core slots, but not more prestige (each overstrength point costs 1/10 of the unit cost or 1/15 for an infantry unit). As overstrengthing can be extremely powerful (for tanks, 1 or 2 points of overstrength can give you the opportunity to devastate multiples units in one turn, and so it nearly doubles the efficiency of your unit), I think it should cost more. Proposal: each overstrength point costs more core slots and more prestige than a regular point. For example, coeff x1 in lowest difficulty to x2 in highest difficulty.

5: Reform replacements costs. For now, elite replacements only cost a little more than regular replacement. From the game PoV, it makes regular replacement totally useless. Making elite replacements more costly will force the player to sometimes lose some experience ! As we all know experience of your units is 75% of the victory, it will increase the challenge ! As always, coeff depends of the difficulty. For example, costs = x1,5 in lowest difficulty, or x3 in highest difficulty (Yes, experience is expensive !!)

6: Increase the unit buying costs. For now, I’m pretty sure that when we will come to AO44, we will see 10 Tiger II fielded quite easily by the players, which is unrealistic from an historical PoV, and unbalanced from the game PoV. As always, coeff depends of the difficulty. For example, base cost = x1 in lowest difficulty (with the present costs), up to x2 in highest difficulty (make the Tiger II and Maus so insanely costly that nobody will be able to field every of his tanks with them, which will be completely realistic and will represent the difficulties of the German Industry all throughout the war).

As said in introduction, the goal of the coeff is to keep the game balanced for green and veteran players. The values are of course only example to illustrate my thoughts, and would need to be tested to determine the right value.
Thank you for reading this, and of course I would be eager to hear your comments about that.

[Bee1976]

I dont think prestige is an issue.

Its a question of your personal playstyle. Playing with the power4 will grant an expierieced player always tons of prestige. Using development/overwhleming attack hero combo you will always have loads of prestige.
So the best way to make prestige important again is playing without those traits or that broken hero combo. And if yomeone is good enough to collect hundreds of thousands of prestige, up from SCW, there are a lot of challenges and negative traits to burn your prestige. So my point is:
Iy the system is changed this will affect new players way harder than the experienced ones. And well for the experienced players there a lot ways to "limit" or burn prestige if they like.

[sakura006]

Of all balancing issues PzC2 has, I think prestige is the least thing to worry about. You should always have more than enough prestige in PzC2, otherwise, game is over, and that is the least thing a player want. I remember someone in this forum once said, "Prestige is just a measurement of player's skill rather than a resource a player has to manage." If you have too much prestige, that means the current game setup is too easy for you. And to be fair, dev does give players enough option to make this game much harder to an extent that is impossible to win. If you think surrender gives you too much prestige, just take no surrender trait. If you think the game gives you too many heroes, you can change the rate of random heroes. If you think you can easily field 10 tiger 2, you can take the -10% core slot general trait. Although I don't think 10 tiger 2 is possible unless you have a lot of zero slots. But again, you can change the hero rate to 25% or even less. I can assure you, if you play this game without random heroes at highest difficulty, prestige shortage will be among top of your problems.

[Trepko]

Hello,

For information, I have neither an enveloppement hero nor an overwhelming attack one. So it is possible to have an amazing amount of prestige even without this sick combo.
I understand your PoV, but I don't like to be forced to voluntarily lower my playing level in order to have a challenge. I admit that is a personal feeling, but I prefer increasing the game difficulty to have a challenge (ex: making prestige harder to get, increasing the enemy strength,...) rather than preventing me to play at my maximum to have a challenge (ex: I have good heroes in stock but forbid myself to use them).

What do you mean by "power4" ? Do you mean combining the general trait "x2 captured equipments" + the corresponding hero so you get x4 captured equipment ? In this case, the last changelog (with AO42 release) prevents this combo by not giving you this kind of hero if you have the general trait. I think this is a good change. Besides, I'm sure that you noticed that I proposed in my post to also nerf the general trait.

I agree that the risk of changing any part of the game is to affect the new/green players more than the experienced ones. That's why I think that the coeff system eliminates this risk. New/green players won't play Generallissimus in their first game. If coeffs stay x1 until Colonel difficulty, and begin to increase only from General difficulty, it shouldn't be a problem for them.

Last thing, I think I'm far from being the best player in the world, and I think that I have a quite challenging run (First run + Generallissimus + Iron Man + hero on every enemy unit). That's why I'm surprised to manage to have such a big amount of prestige (150k) after AO41.

[Bee1976]

What do you mean by "power4" ?

Power 4 means picking 4 traits (master of blitz, perimeter control, deadly grasp and flexible command) and if you want some more neg traits of course + trophies.
That4 (5) traits make the game incredible easy. You can easily encircle mass groups of enemies, which means you wont lose much prestige due to high enemy supression and you earn tons of it by capturing.

Its like sakura006 said in my opinion: prestige is a measurement of players skills. At least in the GC

[FunPolice749]

What do you mean by "power4" ? Do you mean combining the general trait "x2 captured equipment's" + the corresponding hero so you get x4 captured equipment ? In this case, the last changelog (with AO42 release) prevents this combo by not giving you this kind of hero if you have the general trait. I think this is a good change. Besides, I'm sure that you noticed that I proposed in my post to also nerf the general trait.

It's deadly grasp, trophies of war, flexible command, and master of blitzkreig. Essentially you just split a bunch of super cheap units and encircle almost every enemy unit. Then with deadly grasp you only need to encircle them for 2-3 turns and suddenly they are fully suppressed and easy to capture. Which then leads to mountains of prestige as you capture every unit in every scenario pretty much.

In terms of changing prestige I don't think anything should be done. Prestige is a bad way to balance the game as if you ever run out of prestige that pretty much kills a run as there isn't much recourse beyond loading an old save. There are several ways to keep your prestige amount in check if you want it to be more of an issue such as with the special challenge "Europe on a Shoestring". Units are mostly balanced around the number of core slots you have as the more expensive units cost more core slots. Granted it ain't perfect but you have more decision making in how to tackle the problem.

IMO one of the greatest things of PzC2 is that you have so much control over how the game plays. If you want the game to be harder there are numerous ways to do this. Don't make the base game harder just tweak it with the tools already there until your personally happy.

[Trepko]

@sarkura
Indeed I don't think we'll be able to field 10 Tigers II, that was just an image to illustrate my thoughts.
I understand what you say, and partially agree. Indeed, I already had in mind all the solutions you mentioned, but it doesn't fully satisfy me.
=> "don't use surrender if you think that gives you too much prestige" : ok, but I like the surrender mechanic and not using it would make me miss a whole part of the game. I'd prefer keep using it, but making it less prestige rewarding
=> "don't use heroes if you think they are too powerful": ok, but I also like the hero mechanic. Heroes is one of the things that make this game a great game, that would be so sad not to use them.

I can also forbid myself to buy Tigers II if I find them too powerful... or try to win A045 with only Brückenpionere !

What I mean is that sometimes I feel that at some point, if you want to keep having a challenge, you need to skip some entire parts of the game, which is a little sad.

On the other hand, I like what you said about prestige being more a "measurement of how well you perform" rather than a ressource you have to manage turn by turn.

But you may be right, I will probably add some more challenge for A042, like the one where enemy units get bonuses each turn passing by, or when they are damaged. And hopefully see my prestige going down !

Finally, thank you all for giving me other PoV about how prestige could/should be understood

[adiekmann]

What do you mean by "power4" ?

"The Power 4" is a term coined by Edmon to describe a style/strategy of play that involves using theses four General Traits: Deadly Grasp, Trophies of War, Perimeter Control, and Master of Blitzkrieg. With these four purposed-focused traits, the player is well set up to maximize a "surround and capture" style of play that will minimize damage taken while maximizing captured equipment and prestige collected.

[sakura006]

=> "don't use heroes if you think they are too powerful": ok, but I also like the hero mechanic. Heroes is one of the things that make this game a great game, that would be so sad not to use them.

Actually this is also my complain. Personally, I think the game is too easy with heroes. Overrun, camouflage, ignore entrenchment, overwhelming attack/envelopment are mechanics changing. Either one of them could completely change how you play this game. Especially overrun and camouflage in my opinion. And there are other over powered heroes like no retaliation, zero slot, rapid fire, first strike, lethal attack etc. There are just too many heroes that could make your game much easier. And you will definitely get them even if your hero rate is only 25% (That was my experience). With these overpowered heroes, you can even play Goliath vs David (all enemy +5 strength) like a cakewalk (Yes, that was also my experience). The real issue of PzC2 is its unbalanced hero system. Players get more and more heroes, but AI doesn't. It is only a matter of time when all player's units become super soldiers unless you ban random heroes. But what's the fun if you play the game without heroes, right? The only reason I still keep my air forces is because I have two special heroes Rudel and Bar. And what is the fun without those eye candies like Me 262?

That's why I think prestige is the least problem of PzC2. Strategy is only a challenge when you can't tactically win.

[Trepko]

You're right, I might have considered the problem from the wrong point of view. High prestige value is the consequence and not the cause of some unbalanced parts of the game.
I totally agree with your hero PoV. PzC2 without heroes is not PzC2, but in the AO series, heroes are slowly killing the game.
I really wonder how the devs will handle this aspect, as if nothing is done, players will have roughly 130-140 heroes in AO45 (8 campaigns x around 17 scenarios in each campaign) or even more with the Super Hero Team General trait. This means you'll be able to field an amazing number of 35 units with 4 heroes each...

[Magni]

There is no prestige "problem". Neither is there a hero "problem". Both are generous by default and can be modified massively by changing difficulty settings, challenges etc. Having more room to customise the game and its difficulty to your personal liking is an advantage, not a drawback. Someone calling for this ability to be curtailed seems to me little more than said person having some silly notion that the way they like to customise their own experience should be the only "right" way and should be enforced upon everybody else. Which, uh, no. Just, no.

[Bee1976]

Players get more and more heroes, but AI doesn't.

Well, you can take the challenge to grant the ai more heros. But that wont help much, because not single heros are op, but hero combinations. An enemy consolidator heroed unit get smashed, i simply dont care. An enemy "first strike, consolidator, double strike and rapid fire units would be much harder to kill Or imagind a "camoflage, + movementspeed, enevelopment and overwhelming attack" enemy recon unit. That would be really scary and hard to handle.

If i remember correct Kerensky once mentioned that AO DLCs are designed with a growing hero force in mind. Thats the reason you get some (good) heros when you start a DLC without importing. You simply need some of them to beat AO i think.
Maybe some tweaks here to make the game harder or some options may help out. Like you said heros are one of the most fun parts in this game, and the lack of heros is the reason i hesitate to look forward to PC" pazific. Playing without heros sounds unfun to me.

But you cant create enemy super hero units by default. There were a lot of complaints in this forums about handling De Gaulle. Iam completly unsure how to handle this problem. I really like playing from SCW on, because its feels like a grand campaign to me. I would never ever play one DLC alone. Every playthrough i do is a complete run. But of course game gets easier the more heros you get.
No heroes feels bad, hard hero comboes on enemy units be default would be really bad for new or unexperienced players.

The best way to make the game harder is using the challenge options and more challenge options. Uphill battle, david vs. goliath and heroic showdown sounds like a funny challenge for later dlcs, but i failed that challenge combination twice in SCW so far, due to prestige problems

[Trepko]

@Magni, Oh, don't get met wrong, I'm extremely happy and grateful to the devs being able to customize the game this much.
After all, my original post was just a proposition to add one more way to customize the game experience.

I think that what is bothering me is the difference between the orginal campaign et the AO series ones. In order to have a similar challenge in the AO series compared to the original campaign, you need to add so much more difficult settings that sometimes I don't feel I'm playing PzC2 anymore.

To illustrate what I mean: in the original campaign (that I played twice), my only setting was playing in Generallissimus difficulty. However, I didn't manage to gather the 10k prestige you need in the Africa Korps path to go to the US (I only barely managed to gather the 5k prestige you need to go to the US in the Russian path). In my AO run, despite the generallissimus + iron man + hero on enemy units, I feel I'm steamrolling on the enemy without any difficulty. The reason is that there clearly is a snowballing effect in AO. While SCW was quite challenging with my settings, AO41 was really a complete cakewalk. So, as you progress through the war, it seems you need to add more and more difficulties to keep an equivalent challenge, and I wonder how my AO45 will look like if I want to enjoy it

[PaxusZero]

The point I have seen Kerensky make with a lot of these types of "problems" is: stop importing a core and start using the pre-set units/heroes in an AO. I tried that for 1942 and it was significantly different to my uber core.

[Bee1976]

The point I have seen Kerensky make with a lot of these types of "problems" is: stop importing a core and start using the pre-set units/heroes in an AO. I tried that for 1942 and it was significantly different to my uber core.

Indeed, but its named grand campaign and so i want to import. Thats part of the fun for me, building up a nice core to fight in 42 with units i commaneded already in SCW
Maybe an overall, adjustable hero limit like the hero chance may help. Like 5, 10 or 15 heros per DLC. Or more way to tune up the enemy forces. I dont know. But playing a DLC "solo" and unconnected to the others is somethign i wouldnt enjoy.
But of course thats my problem so i have to deal with it

[sakura006]

The point I have seen Kerensky make with a lot of these types of "problems" is: stop importing a core and start using the pre-set units/heroes in an AO. I tried that for 1942 and it was significantly different to my uber core.

I disagree with that. Importing cores is a big selling point of AO. Hero system is also a big selling point of PzC2. I can accept I receive less heroes, but I will never completely ban random heroes or importing cores. But as I mentioned before, it is only a matter of time when you create a super solider even if the hero chance is 25%. And a single super solider could completely change how you play this game. Imagine an Azul with overrun + ignore entrenchment + Sniper hero. He can one-shot kill any single soft target without taking return fire. To make it work, you only need one overrun hero, better if you also have ignore entrenchment. It is dev's responsibility to keep the game both fun and balanced. Players can tune the game to fit their taste, but asking players to remove a core feature of the game is not a solution.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

The point I have seen Kerensky make with a lot of these types of "problems" is: stop importing a core and start using the pre-set units/heroes in an AO. I tried that for 1942 and it was significantly different to my uber core.

IIRC what he says is that AOs are designed that they can be played individually, not forced. So with an imported core you are surely to be having a much easier time, because if they balance it with imported core (and those powerful combos, medals, heroes) in mind, it would become too hard to play without one.

[adiekmann]

The point I have seen Kerensky make with a lot of these types of "problems" is: stop importing a core and start using the pre-set units/heroes in an AO. I tried that for 1942 and it was significantly different to my uber core.

I disagree with that. Importing cores is a big selling point of AO. Hero system is also a big selling point of PzC2. I can accept I receive less heroes, but I will never completely ban random heroes or importing cores. But as I mentioned before, it is only a matter of time when you create a super solider even if the hero chance is 25%. And a single super solider could completely change how you play this game. Imagine an Azul with overrun + ignore entrenchment + Sniper hero. He can one-shot kill any single soft target without taking return fire. To make it work, you only need one overrun hero, better if you also have ignore entrenchment. It is dev's responsibility to keep the game both fun and balanced. Players can tune the game to fit their taste, but asking players to remove a core feature of the game is not a solution.

One thing that I did, is start a core in 1941 and then import THAT core into '42. It reduces the total number of heroes you have, but also allows you to have a few nice combo heroes that you begin '41 with but would otherwise not be available to you (like Rapid Fire 2x/Readiness; AT & Artillery Support; Zero Slots/Fast Deployment to name a few). It is a different experience; for one your core ends up being much smaller. Mine contains about half as many units as the one that I build from Spain. You could do the same by starting in an earlier DLC too if you wish.

[R2G2]

5: Reform replacements costs...

I agree with your suggestion on increasing Elite Replacement Prestige cost. Fortunately, this can easily be changed in the Rules.json file. I recommend 150 for deployment and 200 for in mission. This adds good strategy for replacements and Prestige management.

Also (as your mentioned), capture Prestige is a huge source of income. It would be nice to see capture Prestige included in the difficulty settings… or become a feature that we can change in our game files.

[Kerensky]

The point I have seen Kerensky make with a lot of these types of "problems" is: stop importing a core and start using the pre-set units/heroes in an AO. I tried that for 1942 and it was significantly different to my uber core.

IIRC what he says is that AOs are designed that they can be played individually, not forced. So with an imported core you are surely to be having a much easier time, because if they balance it with imported core (and those powerful combos, medals, heroes) in mind, it would become too hard to play without one.

Mhm.

From

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1652 ... ons__1942/

CONTINUE WITH YOUR OWN PANZER CORPS
Players can import their core forces that completed the previous Axis Operations 1941 campaign or use a preset core force to directly launch into the Axis Operations 1942 campaign.
While imported forces can seek additional growth and challenges through increased difficulty settings and advanced game modes, the preset force contains a moderate amount of experienced units and an assortment of heroes enough to allow any player to succeed in this new campaign.