Soft Cap Calculation questions

[Imarion]

Right now the 1.20 ruleset is broken for any difficulty level equal or above colonel. Main reason being soft cap.

This is my main concern also. For any newcomer who does not know what he has to expect, it can become quite a disappointance to find a game that becomes pretty much unplayable from DLC E43 on.

I have contacted Rudankort via private message on this issue, don't yet know what to expect. If anything of interest comes up, I'll post it here.

This is a post-revival but I only started playing GC earlier this year.
And I'm indeed in this case. I could get DVs on mosts missions up to 1942 and maybe one or 2 in 1943 (not sure).
I stopped after several missions in 1943 as prestige is going down and difficulty up.

It is indeed bit disappointing.
I hope they review this with the new Sealion DLC.

Imarion

[Emoni]

Wait... so they still haven't fixed this?

[mulleto22]

Yes, this has never been fixed. Indeed, I have never heard of any of the developers on this matter again, was a little disappointed about this, too, since it would be easy to fix.

Actually, I liked the experience of going through the whole set of DLCs with having to live with the soft cap the way it is (broken). Did this on Rommel and Manstein and had a DV in every Scenario. And it totally changed the way I used to play before, using more infantry, AT and AD to save on prestige. It was possible to push the point where the softcap kicks in back until late 43, so I still collected prestige. When I finally reached the point where I needed a stronger core and met the cap, prestige dwindled fast. But it was possible even on Manstein, to get along with a not an all Tiger II force, instead using all kinds of old equipment which is cheaper to reinforce between scenarios. Also, I had to adjust playing style, using mass attack and surrender more to my advantge. I must admit though, that if I had not known the scenarios from earlier playthroughs, I would not have managed to win all DVs on Manstein, which requires an entirely different playing style compared to Rommel, and is extremely tough with the soft cap.

So, after all I am thankful I was forced to rethink a few things by the broken soft cap. And if you don't feel like doing so, just turn the soft cap off, I can well understand anyone who does so.

[tenshin111]

You'er an exceptional commander, mulleto22!

[Emoni]

God damn you're good if you handled all that! Still, yeah, this bug needs to be fixed and I say we push for a response from the devs, especially since they need to fix the screen bug on the iPad right now anyway.

[Emoni]

Yes, this has never been fixed. Indeed, I have never heard of any of the developers on this matter again, was a little disappointed about this, too, since it would be easy to fix.

Actually, I liked the experience of going through the whole set of DLCs with having to live with the soft cap the way it is (broken). Did this on Rommel and Manstein and had a DV in every Scenario. And it totally changed the way I used to play before, using more infantry, AT and AD to save on prestige. It was possible to push the point where the softcap kicks in back until late 43, so I still collected prestige. When I finally reached the point where I needed a stronger core and met the cap, prestige dwindled fast. But it was possible even on Manstein, to get along with a not an all Tiger II force, instead using all kinds of old equipment which is cheaper to reinforce between scenarios. Also, I had to adjust playing style, using mass attack and surrender more to my advantge. I must admit though, that if I had not known the scenarios from earlier playthroughs, I would not have managed to win all DVs on Manstein, which requires an entirely different playing style compared to Rommel, and is extremely tough with the soft cap.

So, after all I am thankful I was forced to rethink a few things by the broken soft cap. And if you don't feel like doing so, just turn the soft cap off, I can well understand anyone who does so.

I sent the dev you were speaking to a PM about this. For both the love of the game and the fact I paid a good amount for the grand campaign, any near game breaking bugs need to be addressed. This has gone on way too long to not be fixed or answered.

[Imarion]

Thanks, I would also really like this bug to be solved.
I posted several times on the forum during the last months with no answers.

To answer some of the remarks I read here and there:
I'm a modest casual player, I do not know all the little details on the game. I see some people can finish the game in >colonel difficulties, but colonel difficulty should be better manageable without "exploiting" all the finer rules of the game. This is the goal of those higher difficulty levels.
I know we can disable soft cap on PC by editing the config file, but I feel it is like cheating as it only bypass a (bugged) feature. I could as well use a cheatcode or edit a save game and give myself tons of prestige.
Going to previous rules (1.14), does not only remove soft cap, it also changes other rules. It is not a solution either.

Imarion

[Emoni]

Thanks, I would also really like this bug to be solved.
I posted several times on the forum during the last months with no answers.

To answer some of the remarks I read here and there:
I'm a modest casual player, I do not know all the little details on the game. I see some people can finish the game in >colonel difficulties, but colonel difficulty should be better manageable without "exploiting" all the finer rules of the game. This is the goal of those higher difficulty levels.
I know we can disable soft cap on PC by editing the config file, but I feel it is like cheating as it only bypass a (bugged) feature. I could as well use a cheatcode or edit a save game and give myself tons of prestige.
Going to previous rules (1.14), does not only remove soft cap, it also changes other rules. It is not a solution either.

Imarion

Agreed... Four damn years? :/ Come on Slitherine!

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Thanks, I would also really like this bug to be solved.
I posted several times on the forum during the last months with no answers.

To answer some of the remarks I read here and there:
I'm a modest casual player, I do not know all the little details on the game. I see some people can finish the game in >colonel difficulties, but colonel difficulty should be better manageable without "exploiting" all the finer rules of the game. This is the goal of those higher difficulty levels.
I know we can disable soft cap on PC by editing the config file, but I feel it is like cheating as it only bypass a (bugged) feature. I could as well use a cheatcode or edit a save game and give myself tons of prestige.
Going to previous rules (1.14), does not only remove soft cap, it also changes other rules. It is not a solution either.

Imarion

Agreed... Four damn years? :/ Come on Slitherine!

Soft cap wasn't added when the game first came out. It was introduced with Allied Corps (1.20).

So not quite 4 years.

- BNC

[Emoni]

Sorry, I am never great with numbers... But still a long time for no fix or response!

[Razz1]

There was an update to the code to address this in 1.24.

While there may be a debate as to whether the soft cap is too restrictive, the calculation bug was addressed.

[Imarion]

Great,
good to know.

Too bad it was not listed in the patch notes.

Imarion

[robman]

There was an update to the code to address this in 1.24.

While there may be a debate as to whether the soft cap is too restrictive, the calculation bug was addressed.

Many thanks! You guys rock.

[alkafluence]

There was an update to the code to address this in 1.24.

While there may be a debate as to whether the soft cap is too restrictive, the calculation bug was addressed.

The one where having toooooo expensive a core started to cause it to 'wrap around' and give too much prestige?

[Emoni]

There was an update to the code to address this in 1.24.

While there may be a debate as to whether the soft cap is too restrictive, the calculation bug was addressed.

Thank you! That is all I needed to hear

[RVallant]

I can understand the hate for the soft cap. I mean even if you balance the force composition and manage to get DV's all the time, prestige is probably just going to go ka-put. I guess that was the intention of the developers, but I think anything post 42 East is pretty unfavourable to most players.

[KeldorKatarn]

There was an update to the code to address this in 1.24.

While there may be a debate as to whether the soft cap is too restrictive, the calculation bug was addressed.

Has anyone of the original posters of this thread checked this and tried it out? Do the numbers match up now?

[ThvN]

There was an update to the code to address this in 1.24.

While there may be a debate as to whether the soft cap is too restrictive, the calculation bug was addressed.

Has anyone of the original posters of this thread checked this and tried it out? Do the numbers match up now?

First of all, I hope your eyes will heal, sorry to hear they have been giving you trouble.

To answer your question, no, it looks like it is still bugged. The numbers haven't changed at all, but I might have some good news as well.

To elaborate, the past two days I spent some time playing around with a custom mod to test the soft cap. Compared with my earlier test the result are the same; the prestige income ramps down way too quickly and bottoms out (at the correct percentage) at around 625pr in stead of 800pr as it should. Well, technically it reached the bottom at 619pr but that is probably due to rounding by the engine. I've attached a simple graph to show the theoretical prestige income versus the actual (bugged) prestige income.

Armed with my spreadsheet I tried some other tests, to see if I could fool the engine into emulating the correct curve. And it appears that if you put the 'MaxPrestige' setting at 1250, it will bottom out at the 800pr mark as it should. Interesting. I'm not sure what is wrong with the way the values are calculated, but there seems to be some consistency in the error. I'm going to continue testing later, but for now it seems that the soft cap in 1.24 is still buggy.

[Imarion]

Thank you for the checks.
And very sad news ...

Based on the answer from Razz1 I started the campaign from scratch.

The first time I played I ran for a DV.
This ime I play very differently and more cautiousely, and only go for a DV when losses are not too big.

I'm still in the 1939 campaign so we will see when I reach 1943.
Anyway it is sad that after all those years this issue is a bit left off.

Imarion

[KeldorKatarn]

Man if I were fully fit I'd sign an NDA and take a look at the code while rudankort is still not available.