The Prestige Problem

[Xenos]

Hello mates, I just wanted to ask: did you ever run low on prestige? I've played all AO DLC, taking every single prestige sink and spending liberally on in-battle replacements, and after the first three missions I never looked again at the prestige count. You get so much of it that it becomes a useless stat. I got like 30.000 at the end, without having Liberator or Trophies at the highest difficulty. So I wanted to discuss a couple of solutions:

1) Drastically lowering the prestige gains would be the obvious one, but I think the devs would like to keep the game accessible to all players. Still, widening the gap in gains between difficulty levels could help with the problem.
2) Some ahistorical or very controversial scenarios could be locked behind a prestige wall. Then again, the devs took some flak because of it in the original campaign. It looks fine and realistic to me (you're throwing your reputation behind dangerous changes in your nation's overall strategy), but some players don't agree.
3) Leave normal replacements as they are, but increase the cost of elite ones a lot. After all, if you keep asking for veterans just to lose them your reputation as a commander would take a big hit. This has the added benefit of making the choice meaningful, instead of just running with an all-elite army.
4) Remove the legendary and famous traits. They worsen the problem and don't really make sense to me: you pay prestige to field strong equipment from your nation's limited stockpile, but instead get prestige if you field important veterans and field commanders that are even more limited?
5) Add other ways to use prestige. Like, buying prototypes, or additional heroes, or even core slots. Just make it extremely expensive, using it as a form of prestige sink for players that manage to get huge amounts.

[dalfrede]

How is this a problem?
As a child did someone tell you that you were too beautiful?

Did you write this song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM74ngy9EIw
[Sparks - "Funny Face" (official video)]

[Xenos]

How is this a problem?
As a child did someone tell you that you were too beautiful?

Did you write this song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM74ngy9EIw
[Sparks - "Funny Face" (official video)]

Well, because a strategy game is a series of meaningful choices. If a resource gets to plentiful than the choice of spending it isn't meaningful.

[adiekmann]

If you search the forums, you'll find lots of posts/threads addressing/discussing this topic.

The short summary is this (if you don't want to look for them):

• It is there for all players of all ability levels to be able to access and have fun with the game.

• There are a multitude of ways/options that you can use to increase the difficulty in a way that suits you. You can in fact make the game so difficult that even the creator won't be able to pass it!

• They have had internal discussion over this, but in the end left it as is. No matter what proposal they were to do, there would be someone else who wouldn't like it or alienate.

That's the short of it.

[Retributarr]

I will even make it shorter 'Still!'.

Make what-ever "Game-Adjustments" that you need to do... ask 'Kerensky or Edmon' {EG : Difficulty-Level, Hero-Unit-Combinations, Initial Game Handicaps...etc.} ... until the Game is functioning as you wish or want it to!... its really not that difficult at all to do!.

[R2G2]

4) Remove the legendary and famous traits...

I agree with your suggestion on commendation heroes. There’s no need for them to have the legendary or famous traits. And there’s no option to turn it off. But I suspect someone will comment with.. “Just don’t get the hero, or you can change all the Lua files.” ...And that’s what I call a convenient option.

This might become the new meme thread, based on all the prior disagreements on this topic. Way to kick the hornets nest.

[Xenos]

If you search the forums, you'll find lots of posts/threads addressing/discussing this topic.

The short summary is this (if you don't want to look for them):

• It is there for all players of all ability levels to be able to access and have fun with the game.

• There are a multitude of ways/options that you can use to increase the difficulty in a way that suits you. You can in fact make the game so difficult that even the creator won't be able to pass it!

• They have had internal discussion over this, but in the end left it as is. No matter what proposal they were to do, there would be someone else who wouldn't like it or alienate.

That's the short of it.

But I'm not talking about difficulty, I'm talking about prestige as a resource. You can add challenge options but it has nothing to do with prestige overflowing. You'll just end up with an enormous amount of a resource you can't even throw around to counter the additional difficulty.

[adiekmann]

If you search the forums, you'll find lots of posts/threads addressing/discussing this topic.

The short summary is this (if you don't want to look for them):

• It is there for all players of all ability levels to be able to access and have fun with the game.

• There are a multitude of ways/options that you can use to increase the difficulty in a way that suits you. You can in fact make the game so difficult that even the creator won't be able to pass it!

• They have had internal discussion over this, but in the end left it as is. No matter what proposal they were to do, there would be someone else who wouldn't like it or alienate.

That's the short of it.

But I'm not talking about difficulty, I'm talking about prestige as a resource. You can add challenge options but it has nothing to do with prestige overflowing. You'll just end up with an enormous amount of a resource you can't even throw around to counter the additional difficulty.

Well, if you increase the difficulty, you increase your loses. If you increase your loses, you increase the amount of prestige you use up/need. And then the less you have...

You can also impose other "restrictions" on yourself as well. Like if you have a Overwhelming Attack + Shock Tactics/Envelopment hero combo, don't use it. Or select the option that restricts you to using only one hero per unit, or even no heroes.

Now, that being said, I do not like to play where my goal is to capture or surround everything. For me that is not fun. I want to play in a fashion were I smash and go. PC2 "Hulk Style." So I hear you, even then I am rarely yearning for more prestige.

Here is a quote from another thread from Kerensky from several months ago. I hope that helps.

Prestige is a son of a bitch to balance, because the spectrum of players is outrageous. People who play on higher difficulty than they probably should and who also don't rely on any encirclement or surrender mechanics will absolutely get annihilated no matter how much prestige I inject into the content. On the other hand, players who play with all the tricks in the bag are swimming in captured stock and also prestige.

All I can say is thank goodness prestige is not the primary driver of scenario balance, like it was in the original Grand Campaign. DLC 1944 East really fell apart badly, because of the escalation of the conflict and escalation of player unit prices. It was so bad, people on higher difficulties needed to bank prestige from previous DLC to survive 1944, which I guess is kinda historical (better performance earlier makes surviving later easier) but it just felt awful. And forget about launching directly into that DLC as a stand alone campaign.

Even so, prestige is still a hot topic in Panzer Corps 2. If you run out, you are royally screwed, because it causes a snowball effect of problems. Too weak to fight, makes too weak to capture, makes too weak to claw back, and on the vicious cycle goes.

From the giant mountain of feedback we've gotten from players playing the heck out of 2 DLC I think....

Prestige needs to be ultra generous. Running out of prestige is the worst feeling there is, because it effectively ends your ability to play.
Prestige sinks need to be more frequent, to try and offset out of control prestige inflation.

Running out of prestige is shitty, but having infinite surplus also takes away some important decision making elements of the game.

By giving it out more freely, but also throwing more frequent prestige sinks into the content, hopefully there is a health exchange economy of prestige moving throughout the campaign. Too stingy, and people hoard it and overvalue traits like Liberator. To free, and element of management is totally lost, and that causes problems with scenarios needing to ramp up difficulty in other ways to challenge overpowered player formations.

But if there are opportunities to get a lot, but also opportunities to sink a lot of it... hopefully players can stay in a healthy ~5000ish reserve range. Dropping to triple digit prestige is dangerous, and going to double digit is basically going broke. 5k is a good bank for when a really tough, causality inflicting battle comes along (Ebro).

In fact, just saying it out loud, I wonder if future DLC might try a prestige reset. A flat cost prestige sink is terrible, because players have insanely varied amounts of prestige. 5000 prestige to go access a branch is ludicrous to the player with 496 prestige saved up. It's equally utterly meaningless to the player with 15496 prestige banked. Neither player is engaging with that prestige sink in a meaningful way.

Prestige % sinks are better, because at least every player can engage with them. The broke player pays very little of their prestige for the same reward a mega rich player need to pay. It's better than a flat cost, though it still hurts the poor player quite a bit, because it keeps pressure on their prestige and keeps it low.

But a prestige reset... could be a very interesting way to level the playing field in a super long Grand Campaign environment.

Prestige reset means an event that will not add or subtract your prestige, but instead will set it to a pre-determined number. So that will REALLY help poor players get back on track and it turns a prestige penalty into a life line! And it will prevent power players from growing their prestige out of control, because it is a hard reset regardless of how skyhigh they've banked it. So it hurts rich players as much as losing a giant %, but at least now it actually helps poor players instead of continuing to crap all over them. I like this idea a lot... expect to see it in the next DLC.

People will circumnavigate it with the reserve system, but meh, more power to them if they want to play like that. Not worth crippling the reserve system and punishing every player to stop a small minority from taking advantage of the system.

[Retributarr]

But I'm not talking about difficulty, I'm talking about prestige as a resource. You can add challenge options but it has nothing to do with prestige overflowing. You'll just end up with an enormous amount of a resource you can't even throw around to counter the additional difficulty.

Get "Kerensky"... to find out if he can come up with some kind of a workable solution!... perhaps have him 'see into'... or 'check into'... something like introducing a "Flexible-'Resource'-Scaling-Application" … into the Game?... to make your horrendous overflow of 'Resources'... into a much more... 'comfortable-manageable' situation.

[Edmon]

But I'm not talking about difficulty, I'm talking about prestige as a resource. You can add challenge options but it has nothing to do with prestige overflowing. You'll just end up with an enormous amount of a resource you can't even throw around to counter the additional difficulty.

Get "Kerensky"... to find out if he can come up with some kind of a workable solution!... perhaps have him 'see into'... or 'check into'... something like introducing a "Flexible-'Resource'-Scaling-Application" … into the Game?... to make your horrendous overflow of 'Resources'... into a much more... 'comfortable-manageable' situation.

There really is no need to reduce the amount of prestige in the game, in my opinion. It helps people of all skill levels enjoy the game.

There are plenty of settings that will crank up the difficulty to the point that even the best player in the world will have trouble keeping a good bank balance.

If you turn on Ruthless and Slow Reaction, I promise you, you will be bleeding prestige as the A.I. lays into you freely and you are unable to capture anything to offset the constant losses.

If you have 400k+ prestige, your settings are obviously too easy for your skill level. Stick the fail 4 traits on and I assure you, you will be challenged into balancing your books, if you can even win a campaign at all.

.

[Xenos]

But I'm not talking about difficulty, I'm talking about prestige as a resource. You can add challenge options but it has nothing to do with prestige overflowing. You'll just end up with an enormous amount of a resource you can't even throw around to counter the additional difficulty.

Get "Kerensky"... to find out if he can come up with some kind of a workable solution!... perhaps have him 'see into'... or 'check into'... something like introducing a "Flexible-'Resource'-Scaling-Application" … into the Game?... to make your horrendous overflow of 'Resources'... into a much more... 'comfortable-manageable' situation.

There really is no need to reduce the amount of prestige in the game, in my opinion. It helps people of all skill levels enjoy the game.

There are plenty of settings that will crank up the difficulty to the point that even the best player in the world will have trouble keeping a good bank balance.

If you turn on Ruthless and Slow Reaction, I promise you, you will be bleeding prestige as the A.I. lays into you freely and you are unable to capture anything to offset the constant losses.

If you have 400k+ prestige, your settings are obviously too easy for your skill level. Stick the fail 4 traits on and I assure you, you will be challenged into balancing your books, if you can even win a campaign at all.

.

Sure, but that alters the game a lot. No counter-attack and no surrenders just take away whole portions of the ruleset. Why not just add more ways to spend prestige? Just ask what prestige actually is. It's your influence on the high command of your nation. When you get units you aren't producing them, you're using your influence to have them assigned to you instead of other fronts. So, prestige could be used to push controversial research projects, like wunderwaffen, convince the general staff to change strategy (I remember that in the first Panzer General you could spend prestige to bypass Kiev and attack Moscow early, for example), get the support of minor nations... just some ideas.

[Grondel]

currently there is only one issue i have with prestige. i can´t capture enemy equipment without making my prestige go skyhigh. especially in the DLCs capturing equipment is a good option. t26 in SCW and Char B1 in 1940 are probably the prominent once. i tend to go further. in SCW u can get a lot of decent AA guns that go for 2 core slots but have very high hard attack when turned into AT guns, like the vickers. i love using those as my AT guns. Then there is a 122mm Artillery the germans will never have. i try to capture them on sight. if u manage to get enough 152mm as well u can easily go with artillerie denied for at least 1939, maybe longer, since there won´t be anything new to get. If i do that prestige becomes irrelevant, but i don´t want that prestige. I just want that equipment to use. That combination of getting prestige for capture is kinda ruining it for me.
I have to decide if i want to play without capturing enemy equipment or live with the main resource of the game being irrelevant. yes irrelevant, i usually play on generallissimus, BUT the prestige u gain for capture is not linked to the difficulty. U get the units prestige value, no matter what difficulty u are on. Adding the difficulty-reduction to prestige gain for capture would solve my dilemma, not sure how many others have it.

[eddieballgame]

As suggested, there are numerous ways to increase the difficulty per gaining 'Prestige' if you wish.
One simple way is via the 'Rules.json' file;
at the bottom of the file you could adjust these 'Prestige' costs/bonuses.

"replenish_cost_elite_deployment" : 100,
"replenish_cost_elite_mission" : 150,
"replenish_cost_regular_deployment" : 50,
"replenish_cost_regular_mission" : 80,
"replenish_percent" : 50,
"trait_famous_prestige_income" : 20,
"trait_legendary_prestige_income" : 50,

[Snake97644]

Get "Kerensky"... to find out if he can come up with some kind of a workable solution!... perhaps have him 'see into'... or 'check into'... something like introducing a "Flexible-'Resource'-Scaling-Application" … into the Game?... to make your horrendous overflow of 'Resources'... into a much more... 'comfortable-manageable' situation.

There really is no need to reduce the amount of prestige in the game, in my opinion. It helps people of all skill levels enjoy the game.

There are plenty of settings that will crank up the difficulty to the point that even the best player in the world will have trouble keeping a good bank balance.

If you turn on Ruthless and Slow Reaction, I promise you, you will be bleeding prestige as the A.I. lays into you freely and you are unable to capture anything to offset the constant losses.

If you have 400k+ prestige, your settings are obviously too easy for your skill level. Stick the fail 4 traits on and I assure you, you will be challenged into balancing your books, if you can even win a campaign at all.

.

Sure, but that alters the game a lot. No counter-attack and no surrenders just take away whole portions of the ruleset. Why not just add more ways to spend prestige? Just ask what prestige actually is. It's your influence on the high command of your nation. When you get units you aren't producing them, you're using your influence to have them assigned to you instead of other fronts. So, prestige could be used to push controversial research projects, like wunderwaffen, convince the general staff to change strategy (I remember that in the first Panzer General you could spend prestige to bypass Kiev and attack Moscow early, for example), get the support of minor nations... just some ideas.

Yeah always miss that aspect from PG1, where you could use prestige to alter the strategic look of the war. Like early Moscow, or I remember using prestige to gain the Italian navy's support.

[R2G2]

currently there is only one issue i have with prestige. i can´t capture enemy equipment without making my prestige go skyhigh. especially in the DLCs capturing equipment is a good option. t26 in SCW and Char B1 in 1940 are probably the prominent once. i tend to go further. in SCW u can get a lot of decent AA guns that go for 2 core slots but have very high hard attack when turned into AT guns, like the vickers. i love using those as my AT guns. Then there is a 122mm Artillery the germans will never have. i try to capture them on sight. if u manage to get enough 152mm as well u can easily go with artillerie denied for at least 1939, maybe longer, since there won´t be anything new to get. If i do that prestige becomes irrelevant, but i don´t want that prestige. I just want that equipment to use. That combination of getting prestige for capture is kinda ruining it for me.
I have to decide if i want to play without capturing enemy equipment or live with the main resource of the game being irrelevant. yes irrelevant, i usually play on generallissimus, BUT the prestige u gain for capture is not linked to the difficulty. U get the units prestige value, no matter what difficulty u are on. Adding the difficulty-reduction to prestige gain for capture would solve my dilemma, not sure how many others have it.

I couldn't have said it better myself, but I'll try... CAPTURE PRESTIGE IS THE PROBLEM If there was an option to change the capture prestige amount, then all Prestige imbalance disputes would be over. It doesn't matter if it's a check box, a slider bar, or a text line in Rules.json file... it just needs to be something players can change for themselves.

[Kerensky]

I no longer agree that capture prestige is the problem.

Capture prestige is the primary way to stay afloat on Generalissimius. Without that income stream, and combined with other ways to make the highest difficulty mode even harder, I think -80% prestige very easily becomes unplayable. This is absolutely how I feel playing No Positive Traits Generalissimius + extra Challenge Modes enabled.

viewtopic.php?f=464&t=103021

I still haven't had time to finish my 1940 achievements, I have been stonewalled by this extreme difficulty mode for so long now (plus the need to work on stuff and not just play past DLC. )

[Grondel]

I no longer agree that capture prestige is the problem.

Capture prestige is the primary way to stay afloat on Generalissimius. Without that income stream, and combined with other ways to make the highest difficulty mode even harder, I think -80% prestige very easily becomes unplayable. This is absolutely how I feel playing No Positive Traits Generalissimius + extra Challenge Modes enabled.

viewtopic.php?f=464&t=103021

I still haven't had time to finish my 1940 achievements, I have been stonewalled by this extreme difficulty mode for so long now (plus the need to work on stuff and not just play past DLC. )

same discussion as randomness. some say "i want it chesslike" some say "war is not chess". having a slider to adjust general prestige gain, including the capture prestige, will give evryone what they want.

[eddieballgame]

I no longer agree that capture prestige is the problem.

Capture prestige is the primary way to stay afloat on Generalissimius. Without that income stream, and combined with other ways to make the highest difficulty mode even harder, I think -80% prestige very easily becomes unplayable. This is absolutely how I feel playing No Positive Traits Generalissimius + extra Challenge Modes enabled.

This...

[Xenos]

currently there is only one issue i have with prestige. i can´t capture enemy equipment without making my prestige go skyhigh. especially in the DLCs capturing equipment is a good option. t26 in SCW and Char B1 in 1940 are probably the prominent once. i tend to go further. in SCW u can get a lot of decent AA guns that go for 2 core slots but have very high hard attack when turned into AT guns, like the vickers. i love using those as my AT guns. Then there is a 122mm Artillery the germans will never have. i try to capture them on sight. if u manage to get enough 152mm as well u can easily go with artillerie denied for at least 1939, maybe longer, since there won´t be anything new to get. If i do that prestige becomes irrelevant, but i don´t want that prestige. I just want that equipment to use. That combination of getting prestige for capture is kinda ruining it for me.
I have to decide if i want to play without capturing enemy equipment or live with the main resource of the game being irrelevant. yes irrelevant, i usually play on generallissimus, BUT the prestige u gain for capture is not linked to the difficulty. U get the units prestige value, no matter what difficulty u are on. Adding the difficulty-reduction to prestige gain for capture would solve my dilemma, not sure how many others have it.

I think you should get prestige only if you delete the equipment, representing you contributing hardware you have captured to the war effort. It would make for a nice and simple balancing mechanic.

[R2G2]

...This is absolutely how I feel playing No Positive Traits Generalissimius + extra Challenge Modes enabled... I have been stonewalled by this extreme difficulty mode for so long now...

I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re missing the point that Xenos and others have tried to make regarding Prestige imbalance. Yes, everyone understands that you can make the game impossible by selecting enough negative traits and options. But this turns the gameplay into an unrealistic style of WWII warfare.

You can watch the Edmon’s 39 playthrough to see this. It’s very entertaining (I subscribe and watch), but it’s completely unrealistic in terms of actual WWII strategy.

Can you please identify the best commander traits and difficulty options to make Prestige a useful concept without destroying WWII strategy and tactics?