Prestige Crunch...

[Zhivago]

I am enjoying DLC 43 and wanted to provide some feedback on my experience thus far. I am just about to start Oboyan. I began DLC with one of my core forces from DLC 42 that had 46 units and over 15,000 prestige points to spend. I upgraded most of my panzer IVGs to Tigers at the start of the first scenario. I have been playing at Colonel level from DLC 39 forward and my style of playing is fairly aggressive. I crossed the Don River in both the Kharkov and Belgorod scenarios despite instructions not to and conquered all objectives on the board in both scenarios with at least four or five turns to spare in each scenario. However, I was a bit surprised to discover that for all of my efforts there was not the same amount of prestige awarded that I had been used to. I seemed to get a decent prestige dump after Orel, but after Yakovlevo, I only got about 1800 prestige points despite capturing all objectives on the board with about six turns to spare. As such, I am about to start Oboyan and a lot of my equipment is not fully maxed up. If I am experiencing a prestige crunch playing at colonel level, I cannot imagine what playing at the higher levels must be like.

Historically speaking, the Germans were not crunched yet for equipment until later in the war, and certainly not before Kursk. Maximum German war production occurred in 1944. If the prestige crunch is something that the devs built in to DLC 43, I think it is too early to have done so. Instead of skimping on prestige, I would rather be facing larger Russian armies...Tank units that are 15 strength...20 strength infantry units, etc., instead of starving for prestige points. If it can be adjusted, I would vote for keeping a higher rate of prestige as was seen in DLC 42 for DLC 43.

[Kerensky]

Based on feedback, you can probably expect prestige numbers in DLC 1943 to double. Too many people are struggling and starving for prestige. Those that aren't have the option of Rommel modes to reduce their prestige.

[deducter]

I upgraded most of my panzer IVGs to Tigers at the start of the first scenario.

Are we really rewarding players for doing this? Is Colonel going to be balanced around the player have all Tigers and Panthers?

While I agree some increase in prestige is warranted, doubling seems like going overboard. Then everyone, even with the imported core, will just get mostly Tigers and Panthers. That hardly seems like the ideal situation. A player should not expect to have all of the best equipment, even on Colonel.

Whatever the German equipment situation, outfitting everything with Tigers and Panthers is not the way to go. There were like 200 Panthers total out of ~1,500 AFVs in the Kursk South attack hsitorically, and even fewer Tigers. Most were StuGs, Pz IIIs, and Pz IVs. Perhaps the player should get some StuG IIIGs, which is such a nice unit that it really deserves much more use.

[Kerensky]

Which is how the game currently plays out. I personally only about 2 Tigers and 3 Panthers, and the rest are Pz IVs and StuG IIIGs (I use a TON of StuG IIIGs).

Clearly that is not working out for most of our players, so an increase is called for. Anyone uncomfortable with that increase still has Rommel mode to bring their prestige in line.

This being the case, I highly doubt any unit stat changes will come with DLC 1943. Seems little point in buffing Panther and Tiger attack values if they are all people want to buy anyways. Their being somewhat undergunned will compensate for their overuse.

As opposed to rare Tigers and Panthers of high power, we'll expect to see more abundant Tigers and Panthers of existing power values.

[charonjr]

Doubling sounds a bit much to me, too.

Fielding the best equipment has its costs since those reinforcements are expensive as hell, but I am afraid that a lot of people will go for them anyway and then complain that prestige is too low despite it being largely their fault for using lots/too many units like this.

Maybe it would be good to spell it out very clearly somewhere that keeping up expensive units will be very expensive as well. Especially with the Soviet airforce playing a much more important role as I was able to experience during the first Kursk South scenario

[deducter]

I know the developers face a dilemma of sorts. On the one hand, there are people who want to play with all Tigers and Panthers. On the other hand, you have people, like myself, who want to play with a few Tigers/Panthers and mostly PzIV and StuG IIIs. If the content is balanced around having all Tigers/Panthers, then players who try to use a historical core will struggle greatly. If content is balanced around having a historical core (which seems to be how it is currently), then players will all Tigers/Panthers will generally have an easy time, especially if they have many heroes. Obviously I am biased towards encouraging players to adopt a more historical core, but that's just my opinion.

Personally I'm not too concerned about unit stats and Prestige changes etc, since those are easily moddable. Of the scenarios I've played, the content seems reasonably challenging. In conclusion: While I would prefer a smaller buff to prestige, even a large one can simply be modded by myself. Just please don't start nerfing number and quality the Russian units!

[Kerensky]

Other than a slight hiccup with the Armory scenarios where too many Soviet Aircraft are present, I don't plan to tweak Soviet strength values.

One of the worst offenses committed in the stock campaign was the overabundance of top tier Allied equipment (IS-2 and SU-100 spam) which forced the player, in turn, to only use top tier equipment in order to combat these opponents.

Even in DLC 1944 and DLC 1945, the premier Soviet tank will still be the T-34. It'll be a mix of T-34/43s and 85s at that point (like currently it is a mix of T-34/41s and 43s) but keeping these tanks around will allow our players to effectively use a good variety of equipment instead of being forced to only have King Tigers and Jagdpanthers.

For the players who play on Colonel mode and want only King Tigers and Jagdpanthers anyways, well that's entirely up to them because if they have fun doing that and crushing the AI with little or no effort, then they are entitled to have fun in that way.

[Kerensky]

So while some of our players have often wondered why old and outdated Soviet equipment keeps showing up (BT-7s, T60s, T70s, early model T-34s), this is the reason why.
These players with 100% top tier equipment that is elite and overstrength easily overruns these kinds of units. And that's fine, Panzer Corps and their DLC are a game, and bottom line the player is supposed to win in a game.

But at the highest difficulty settings, these outdated tanks with +5 strength are serious obstacles to battle, if you are using Panzer IIIs and IVs and not just Tiger spam.

I've said it before, but it's worth saying again. It's up to the player to decide which difficulty setting suits their definition of fun best.

Colonel difficulty is meant to be 'steamroll the AI no problem every time all the time' because that's what Panzer General has pretty much always been.

[charonjr]

Hmm, how about lowering the cost for the "regular" units after some time based on how long they have already been around/abundant they are. This way there would be an additional incentive for people to use tier2 equipment instead always trying to ge the best (but it still should be mentioned somewhere that this is actually the smart thing to do).

On the one hand this would lead to more realistic cores while on the other hand help with the prestige crunch.

[Kerensky]

If such a mechanism existed, it might be possible to use. How to educate players on such a system would be a serious problem, except that no such system exists.
It was decided early on that there would be One Equipment File To Rule them all (campaign, single scenario play, multiplayer) and that's just how Panzer Corps is. No matter how much anyone may want it otherwise (myself included), that is the base Panzer Corps game.

For anyone who wants cheaper Panzer IVs in DLC 1943 and onward, just drop a modded equipment file into the DLC folder and you're all set. But that's all you will get, there will be no official, coded support for a system like this.

[deducter]

If such a mechanism existed, it might be possible to use. How to educate players on such a system would be a serious problem, except that no such system exists.
It was decided early on that there would be One Equipment File To Rule them all (campaign, single scenario play, multiplayer) and that's just how Panzer Corps is. No matter how much anyone may want it otherwise (myself included), that is the base Panzer Corps game.

For anyone who wants cheaper Panzer IVs in DLC 1943 and onward, just drop a modded equipment file into the DLC folder and you're all set. But that's all you will get, there will be no official, coded support for a system like this.

Wait, you can drop equipment files into the DLC folders and this overrides the equipment file in the Data folder in the main directory for a DLC? So I've been doing this wrong this entire time? So you can create several equipment files, one for each DLC, and just drop them into the appropriate DLC? That does allow you to vary prestige costs for units as the DLCs go on...

Personally I think the prestige costs for the PzIV/StuG III are fine for single player. What I plan on doing for 1943 for my SP Rebalancing Mod is to massively increase the cost of Panthers/Tigers, but make them slightly better (slight improvement to armor/HA), although the Tigers and early Panthers will have very low fuel and ammo.

[Kerensky]

Wait, you can drop equipment files into the DLC folders and this overrides the equipment file in the Data folder in the main directory for a DLC? So I've been doing this wrong this entire time? So you can create several equipment files, one for each DLC, and just drop them into the appropriate DLC? That does allow you to vary prestige costs for units as the DLCs go on...

Personally I think the prestige costs for the PzIV/StuG III are fine for single player. What I plan on doing for 1943 for my SP Rebalancing Mod is to massively increase the cost of Panthers/Tigers, but make them slightly better (slight improvement to armor/HA), although the Tigers and early Panthers will have very low fuel and ammo.

I just tested this, and can confirm it 100%

Yes you can do this, just drop a 'equipment.pzdat' file into ANY DLC DATA directory, and ONLY that one DLC will use that equipment.pzdat.

Officially, Panzer Corps's stance is One Equipment File to Rule them All, which is why we do not do this in any official DLC release.

[deducter]

So while some of our players have often wondered why old and outdated Soviet equipment keeps showing up (BT-7s, T60s, T70s, early model T-34s), this is the reason why.
These players with 100% top tier equipment that is elite and overstrength easily overruns these kinds of units. And that's fine, Panzer Corps and their DLC are a game, and bottom line the player is supposed to win in a game.

But at the highest difficulty settings, these outdated tanks with +5 strength are serious obstacles to battle, if you are using Panzer IIIs and IVs and not just Tiger spam.

As a side comment, I'd like to point out that even without 5 extra strength points, the AI's units are plenty tough for a player using suboptimal units, even if the player has incredible tactical skill.

[Kerensky]

Yea, but you're talking about Panzer Is and Panzer IIs against T-34s.
Honestly I don't know what you expect when you take 1 and 4 HA against 10+ ground defense, lol.

[deducter]

Yea, but you're talking about Panzer Is and Panzer IIs against T-34s.
Honestly I don't know what you expect when you take 1 and 4 HA against 10+ ground defense, lol.

I couldn't resist linking this image:


That little Panzer I ambushed a buffed T-34 for 2 damage, then it hit for 1 damage. Not too shabby, huh?

[monkspider]

I think that doubling the prestige is a good idea, and even this may still even end up being too conservative. To give an example, i just started the Kursk Armory and only had 990 prestige at the end of the previous battle, I was awarded only 1000 prestige which brought me to 1990, I cheated and added 4000 prestige which was actually quadrupling my award and I still, STILL didn't have enough prestige to totally repair/overstrength all of my units, much less upgrade any of them! And this is with a fairly modest core with only two Tigers and one Panther. Granted this was a somewhat extreme example because my core had been degrading for quite a while but I think doubling prestige, from the scenarios I have played, sounds prudent, and it may even end up needing to be trebled.

[Kerensky]

That little Panzer I ambushed a buffed T-34 for 2 damage, then it hit for 1 damage. Not too shabby, huh?

The thing about prestige, our average BETA tester is WAY better than our average player, so if people are struggling in BETA, our live players will get decimated.

[Zhivago]

I upgraded most of my panzer IVGs to Tigers at the start of the first scenario.

Are we really rewarding players for doing this? Is Colonel going to be balanced around the player have all Tigers and Panthers?

While I agree some increase in prestige is warranted, doubling seems like going overboard. Then everyone, even with the imported core, will just get mostly Tigers and Panthers. That hardly seems like the ideal situation. A player should not expect to have all of the best equipment, even on Colonel.

Whatever the German equipment situation, outfitting everything with Tigers and Panthers is not the way to go. There were like 200 Panthers total out of ~1,500 AFVs in the Kursk South attack hsitorically, and even fewer Tigers. Most were StuGs, Pz IIIs, and Pz IVs. Perhaps the player should get some StuG IIIGs, which is such a nice unit that it really deserves much more use.

I have noticed that you, and several other players, have posted comments in the main forum indicating that you like playing a self-flagellation version of PC by playing at the hardest possible level, modifying units to be less powerful, or intentionally using weaker units out of some sense of historical accuracy. Just because you want to use Panzer II tanks at Kursk doesn't mean that everyone finds that style of play fun. I used the Panzer IVG for nearly all of DLC 42 as I found it had the best balance of any German armor unit and suited my needs. I have a mixture of captured tanks, but out of about 14 Panzer IVG's, I turned about eight of them into Tiger I tanks. When the Panther D came along, I upgraded most of the rest of my core to those. I am sorry that this offends you, but I have played the scenarios fair and square from 39 forward and earned the upgrades and prestige, and that is how I spent it. If you want to use 10 Panzer IIs to knock out one tank, be my guest. That's not the experience that I (or most people playing the game) want.

[Longasc]

I upgraded most of my panzer IVGs to Tigers at the start of the first scenario.

Are we really rewarding players for doing this? Is Colonel going to be balanced around the player have all Tigers and Panthers?

Yup. I think something was too easy/wrong when people can pimp their full core to FW190 and Tigers right away.

[deducter]

I accept that there are players like Zhivago who love to have the best of all units, and this doesn't offend me. You seem to be having a hard time in the DLC, which is why there's this testing process. I personally do have a reasonably challenging time with the DLC 43 core.

However, there are other beta testers who use the best of all units and steamrollers the AI, then complains that it is too easy. I am personally happy to modify the rules myself to make things harder, but then there are players who refuse to modify the rules and blame the developers for a boring product. So the issue is not as simple as it seems.

Remember the old game Contra? Even cheating to get thirty extra lives, I often couldn't beat it. Then there are people who can beat it without dying once. I understand what you're getting at, so don't take offense.