Slitherine

I consider myself to be a fairly casual player, or at least not a hardcore one ("power casual" perhaps?) and I have generally found that the game skews on the excessive side when it comes to doling out prestige, even on General level. On Colonel I truly felt that I was swimming in prestige. I am a little surprised honestly that there is such a vast divide in our playing styles and particularly prestige usage. I suppose it is a credit to a well-designed game engine that it can ably accommodate such differences in play style and gameplay outcomes.

Maybe Kerensky and the other devs should look at a general retooling of the difficulty levels? Maybe give larger prestige bonuses on the lower ones?

There are two parts to this really. More options to spend prestige is always good, and in the base game there are several things done exactly with this goal in mind. On one hand, as was stated above, we have the whole concept of elite replacements, and especially overstrength (which is much more expensive than replacements below max strength). On the other hand, we have units like disproportionally expensive 250 transport, which you can do without, or buy it in order to have "all the best", if your prestige is not tight. This approach could be used more often though.

Adding more ways to spend prestige might be nice, but on its own not a high priority, because you always risk to fall into a trap of spending too much on rubbish and find yourself without funds when the next upgrade time comes.

But regarding the idea to make prestige not tight for most players, I don't see how it is going to work. The whole point of prestige is to make players go more carefully and save their resources. More prestige promotes more casual playing style. You no longer need to play carefully, use more advanced tactics, make choices between normal and elite replacements, delay upgrades to better equipment etc. A whole layer of complexity is removed.

For some players this might be a welcome change, and that's exactly the reason why more prestige is the main difference between lieutenant and colonel. On lieutenant you face almost the same challenges, you just have much more money to spend. This results in a much more relaxed, casual playing style. However, I don't see what we could benefit by making this principle the basis of our design philosophy in general.

After reading all of the comments, I am under the impression that the difference of perception and experience between players comes from the fact that (difficulty level kept equal) a good and knowledgeable player will quickly enter a "virtuous cycle", efficiently earning ("farming" with an eye on the clock, limiting losses, DVs ...) and using (appropriate use of disbands, non elite vs upgrade, elite ...) his prestige to steadily build up his core, when a beginning or clueless player will quickly trap himself into spiraling losses and bad decisions. Bad decisions (or heck, bad luck or bad play) will add up : waste prestige on your first mission by cluelessly elite reinforcing your PzIs, then you will not be able to have a full core on next mission, which will be harder, you will take more losses, kill less units and get less enemy towns and VP, ... and have more needs to replace/reinforce ... etc ...
I can talk from experience : with a rusty memory of Panzer General long ago and having done the tutorial, I did the first four campaign maps more or less "cluelessly", replacing elites during missions, etc ..., then I hit the forums, read posts about the when's and how's, and, with a more or less constant skill at the actual tactical game, I had a vastly better core after restarting with a healthier use of prestige.

That been said, this is a constatation, not a solution. My impression is perhaps that the system is fine as it is, and should be kept as it is, but that there might perhaps be some need for :
* maybe a little more handholding on the tutorial to plainly explain what you should do with upgrades
* maybe some safeguards that will give a litte "free" help for people with a "degraded" core (eg. if your core total value+remaining prestige is under a certain threshold and the difficulty level is colonel or lower, then high command will give you a free additional unit, or a free upgrade)

Interesting feedback. Once the DLCs go live, I'd like to continue this discussion on the open forums. It's very good to get people talking and see as many view points as we can.

For the moment, the DLC campaign present and future follow the standard formulas. No prestige sinks, fairly tightly balanced prestige, and management of balance handled externally from campaign design (difficulty settings).

The fact of the matter is we're going to be moving into some new territory with this content, least of all because of the extreme campaign length the fully linked DLCs will create, and we may need some new solutions to go along with them.

One of the very interesting features is the ability to reconfigure difficulty settings in between each DLC campaign.
If you start 1939 on Colonel and find it too easy, you can resume 1940 on Field Marshal. If that's still too easy, you can resume 1941 on Manstein. If that's crushing, then you can go back to Colonel for 1942.

monkspider wrote:I consider myself to be a fairly casual player, or at least not a hardcore one ("power casual" perhaps?) and I have generally found that the game skews on the excessive side when it comes to doling out prestige, even on General level. On Colonel I truly felt that I was swimming in prestige. I am a little surprised honestly that there is such a vast divide in our playing styles and particularly prestige usage. I suppose it is a credit to a well-designed game engine that it can ably accommodate such differences in play style and gameplay outcomes.

Maybe Kerensky and the other devs should look at a general retooling of the difficulty levels? Maybe give larger prestige bonuses on the lower ones?

I don't think retooling the difficulties will ever happen. The fact of the matter is that the default setting 'Colonel' MUST be designed for players who are potentially brand new to the game. Prestige needs to be pretty abundant because in my opinion, the worst thing you can to do a gamer is absolutely annihilate them the first time they fire up your game.

So Colonel is the setting for players who are new to Panzer Corps.
Sergeant is the setting for players who are new to the Genre of Turn Based Strategy.
Field Marshal, Manstein, Rommel, and Guderian are the modes for people who have already finished the base game.

The only retooling of difficulties that might happen is if Sergeant is too hard or Manstein is too easy.
Otherwise, people who say Colonel is too easy... well they just need to move up their difficulty setting. Colonel is not going to be made harder in the DLC campaigns. It is going to stay as 'easy breezy' mode for veteran and elite players.

This is my philosophy and until someone above me tells me to do otherwise, I'm sticking to it.

That is a good point about the uncharted waters the DLC is going into. I think the capturable units were a smash hit and I have no doubts that you can deliver similarly compelling new features going forward. I think we all agree that your basic idea behind this idea is incredibly awesome. I think it would make for another layer of fun goals for the player to shoot for and make the campaign experience all the more varied. I just think that some of us were in disagreement on the particulars. I think we can have what you are proposing without significantly modifying the current prestige system. Just make the costs less steep and perhaps make the conditions for unlocking them more arcane (so that they are not super easy to achieve).

I think Kjeld made an excellent point explaining the "virtuous cycle", and I think he is on to something. I didn't mean to imply that I thought Colonel was too easy. I do agree with your philosophy actually. In fact, it sounds like it might be smart to make Colonel even easier. I was actually hoping for the difficulties to be perhaps more distinguishable. It seems like there isn't really *that* much difference between General and Field Marshall, and Sergant and Colonel. I was actually arguing for making the sub-Colonel levels easier, and the above-colonel levels harder. I could be in the minority here, but it seemed like there was less of a jump in difficulty when i play on Field Marshall than I expected.

monkspider wrote:I think Kjeld made an excellent point explaining the "virtuous cycle", and I think he is on to something. I didn't mean to imply that I thought Colonel was too easy. I do agree with your philosophy actually. In fact, it sounds like it might be smart to make Colonel even easier. I was actually hoping for the difficulties to be perhaps more distinguishable. It seems like there isn't really *that* much difference between General and Field Marshall, and Sergant and Colonel. I was actually arguing for making the sub-Colonel levels easier, and the above-colonel levels harder. I could be in the minority here, but it seemed like there was less of a jump in difficulty when i play on Field Marshall than I expected.

This is what prestige sinks are for. They're like gold sinks in MMOs. There's no avoiding the reality that the rich get richer. Some people, who min/max their way through a game are going to have their advantage snowball, while people who are consistently struggling will continue to struggle even more.

As a note, scenario design is structured this way. The difference between a decisive victory and marginal victory is pretty monumental in some scenarios. Piatek, for example. There are seven victory hexes total. A marginal victory only requires the player to control ONE. A decisive victory requires control of them all. This is probably the most extreme example, but pretty much every single scenario is designed with this logic, to varying degrees.

Anyways, even with that in mind, people who min/max are still going to get a snowball advantage, even if those decisive victories are harder to acquire.

The the point is this: Balance the default setting based on the assumption people struggle. This way, where prestige is fairly abundant (some people are still asking for more as we see in the various feedback threads here), the player won't run into a death spiral. A bad scenario leads to more difficult ones in the future, and down the spiral goes.

The balance and control mechanisms for people who are snowballing their success (strong win makes follow up easier to handle because abundance of resources) exist as harder difficulty settings. I don't mean Field Marshal, I mean Manstein, Rommel, and Guderian.

But some people might not enjoy the radical changes these difficulty settings bring to the table (10 strength who turn into 15 is challenging enough, but when 15 strength becomes 20 it really is a different game) so the idea of 'prestige sinks' will be there for those who want to play on a higher, but also 'normal' difficulty setting.

I dunno, we'll see if it's worth exploring at all. Even if it is, it will only ever exist as purely optional sinks, and how can something purely optional be a good way to balance difficulty or prestige inflation/snowball?

I do not know if it has already been proposed, but I'd wonder if the prestige cost for units could vary depending on the date of the scenario you play (purchase cost, upgrade cost, elite reinforcement cost, overstrength cost all included). You could get advanced tanks as soon as they are available historically as prototypes (as proposed in the initial post), at an inflated cost, giving a prestige sink for some players.

But on the other hand, you could upgrade very cheaply for the latest model of PZIVs in the late stages of the war, and get very low elite replacements costs when using those units in 44, which will of course help people that struggle with prestige and could not afford, say Panthers or Tigers. It could probably be justified by economy of scale, interchangeable parts ... vs. costly fabrication of prototypes.

Plus, advanced and savvy players could probably "strategize" a lot about what and how to upgrade instead of making relatively straightforward choices as nowadays : eg. one clever commander could for example take opportunity of lower costs on earlier tank models (and give ground to the enemy in this area) in order to gain, for example, an expensive prototype fighter that will give him superiority in another area.

And overall, regardless of your level, it could help having a more "realistic" core composition, by making Panzer IVs for example relevant (because of an increasing cost effectiveness) in the late stages of the war. Of course, (prestige) cost effectiveness is only one side of the coin, the other beeing "core slot" effectiveness, but it is a more general problem (the same one that makes AT and AA less relevant in the current state of the game) that is may be a little off topic in this discussion (or, well, you could purchase additional core slots at an extreme price as a prestige sink )

kjeld111 wrote:I do not know if it has already been proposed, but I'd wonder if the prestige cost for units could vary depending on the date of the scenario you play.

I really like this idea! It just feels right since historically, certain types of equipment were more difficult to get hold of than others due to limited production, allied attacks on German factories etc.

Kerensky wrote:Prestige means reputation and influence. If you have very large influence, you can get things other officers might not normally be able to get.

Things like being able to transfer Heroes into our units

Something like,
In Field Marshal, a +1 Hero costs 1.000 Prestige, a +2 Hero costs 2.000P, +3 Hero costs 3.000P.
In Coronel, a +1 Hero costs 500 Prestige, a +2 Hero costs 1.000P, +3 Hero costs 1.500P.

The Hero and the cost of the Hero wouldnt be reimbursed if the unit is disbanded?

impar wrote: Things like being able to transfer Heroes into our units

Something like,
In Field Marshal, a +1 Hero costs 1.000 Prestige, a +2 Hero costs 2.000P, +3 Hero costs 3.000P.
In Coronel, a +1 Hero costs 500 Prestige, a +2 Hero costs 1.000P, +3 Hero costs 1.500P.

The Hero and the cost of the Hero wouldnt be reimbursed if the unit is disbanded?

I like this idea, but I think a more advanced hero system overall would be better. One where you can transfer heroes between units, PG3 style.

Not sure if that'd be possible without rewriting a lot of the code though.

deducter wrote:Well the game already has a prestige sink, it's called elite reinforcing. I'm not sure whether you want to balance the game around making elite reinforcing the default option on Colonel. You do have two lower difficulty settings.

As I understand it, the AI is reduced below General setting.

Thus, the game on Colonel and lower isn't merely simpler. The opponent is also more stupid.

This is a deal-breaker for me: the AI is already limited as-is and does not need extra limitations like that.

I consider General the true "default" difficulty setting as it is the easiest setting with the full AI. Lower settings I treat as tutorial or training settings only.

Hmmm

Going through the DLC now on Colonel to get a feel for it, and I find it is biased towards 'easy mode' but that's OK. I finished the 39' with all strength-12 units in a full core, but I was somewhat careful with my replacements. (IE, tended to use normal replacements in battle, if I *had* too, else I would rotate the unit 'to the back') made it through with all decisive. A couple of the battles were 'closely' run, and I did lose a couple of core units along the way, mostly through stupidity.

Something I would be interested in is the ability to toggle additional formations into a specific battle in the operation briefing page. These extra units would 'only' be available for THAT battle (auxiliary units) and would cost a fair pile of prestige.

For instance, in Seelowe, maybe allow the player to spend ~2k to have the Italian fleet support the invasion? Figure out some way to prevent the player from just abusing the 'extra' units (-prestige when the requested aux units die?)

I find that 90% of the scenarios are pretty 'easy' - I know that I am gonna win, it's just a question of if I will get the DV in time. But there are the occasional scenario that is just balls hard for me for some reason, and I would like to be able to expend some of that extra prestige garnered in the 'easy mode' battles on those that are really challenging. That would let me play at a harder level overall, which would be more 'fun' for me. As it is, you need to play at the difficulty level that will let you beat the hardest scenario. Since all scenarios aren't the same 'difficulty' for each player, in each game played, why not make a way for players to affect ONLY that scenario?

Cheers

Doc

Kerensky wrote:However we all know that making prestige tight hurts players who are not veterans (several people have expressed difficulty even with DLC 1939 and DLC 1940 on Colonel mode) while veteran players have the knowledge and the skill to change tactics to fit prestige they are given (using discount upgrade families to the maximum, preferring normal reinforcements over elites, and so on)

Haven't played much since the end of original vanilla beta (no time, plus played the original campaign to death in Beta) but recently downloaded the DLC and have been playing through it.

Congrats on a job generally well done.

I would like to weigh in on the question of difficulty however:

There's no avoiding the reality that the rich get richer. Some people, who min/max their way through a game are going to have their advantage snowball, while people who are consistently struggling will continue to struggle even more.

I disagree with this statement.

2 players of relatively close skill level both start on the same difficulty and both find the first scenario to be the perfect difficulty. If at the end of the campaign one is swimming in prestige and complaining the game is too easy and the other is perpetually short and complaining the game is too hard the problem isn't that there is too much prestige or too little - the problem is PzC has adopted a linear difficulty model in a game where a major component of balance - the core force strength - is not constrained to matching linear growth.

In otherwords scenario difficulty is tied to the preset difficulty level selected at the start of the campaign, as opposed to the difficulty required to make the game an enjoyable challenge for the core force a player actually brings to it.

My question is (and was in vanilla beta, and before that for PGF) why are such linear difficulty settings necessary?

I (and IIRC Kerensky and others) suggested the more effective model would be to tailor the difficulty of the scenarios based on the core a player shows up with.

Given that coming up with code to make that happen would be a real challenge, my suggestion to achieve dynamic balance was to use the AG/PGWin system of allowing players to manually adjust difficulty on the fly so they can do their own damn balancing. The system *almost* worked in those games. The problem was the "sliders" (fuel guages) only affected reinforcements bought during the game not the units the enemy started the scenario with and thus by the midway point could no longer compensate for the player's snowball core. An easy fix: Add a few more options for adjusting experience gain, base str, experience effectiveness etc and players can find their own happy medium between too frustrating and boringly easy based on their own tastes.

One of the very interesting features is the ability to reconfigure difficulty settings in between each DLC campaign.
If you start 1939 on Colonel and find it too easy, you can resume 1940 on Field Marshal. If that's still too easy, you can resume 1941 on Manstein. If that's crushing, then you can go back to Colonel for 1942.

This is almost what I'm suggesting but why between each campaign? Why not between each scenario? PzC campaigns aren't competitve E-sports so there's nothing wrong with allowing players to "cheat" and continually adjust difficulty levels to give them the challenge they're looking for (as opposed to what you think they're looking for).

docmorningstar wrote: As it is, you need to play at the difficulty level that will let you beat the hardest scenario. Since all scenarios aren't the same 'difficulty' for each player, in each game played, why not make a way for players to affect ONLY that scenario?

^this.

I fixed your problem of 'small campaign QQ'

I fixed your problem of 'small campaign QQ'

Whom do you address ?

What's a "QQ"

Sorry to ask. Kerensky

Kerensky wrote:I fixed your problem of 'small campaign QQ'

duly noted.

Now give me the ability to resurrect unit histories for the overly fragile core units and you will have achieved perfection!

huertgenwald wrote:Whom do you address ?
What's a "QQ"

Boredatwork?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=qq

Hi, I wasnt a beta tester but I have the game and was following the thread, and here is an idea for the future.

What if a random prototye from the current or next game year was offered for a prestige fee,
but you dont know what it is.
Then at the end of the mission you would be asked if you want to spend more prestige to keep it,
maybe double what it will cost when offered normaly.

If you dont have the prestige available at that time you lose the chance to keep it.

It would not add over cores like SE units but go into the reserve pool like a regular purchase.

...and It would be interesting if it were linked to a condition like:
- After recieving 8 DVs in a row (or something) you get "recognition from Berlin and awarded the chance to try out a new prototype for a fee" - ect...

Or maybe a current captured unit instead of a new prototype.

Anyway, thanks for Panzer Corps, I hope it will be continue to grow and develop. Also thanks for the mod support and the serial # system allowing for multiple games folders for modded versions of the game.
Realy I cant say enough good things... except this is the way to do games.