DLC 44 Grand Campaign East arrives

[Zhivago]

Nice reference to Goodfellas (where I got the quote from)--you know I am only kidding around, right?

No. It sounded insulting to me. Let's put it down to cultural differences and be done with it.

[Zhivago]

Again more faulty logic by Deducer...How dare the game developers let players like me pick and choose what units they want to play the game with! Deducer, you need to look up the term "converse accident" because in just about every post you have submitted to this thread contains multiple examples of this logic flaw. Please try to compare apples to apples, and not apples to oranges. Again, other than your masochistic desire to play with a weakened core, you provide no explanation other than your own subjective feeling as to why allowing freedom of choice is supposedly a bad thing. Go make your mod and your videos and have whatever kind of Panzer Corps experience you want to have, and let me have mine.

[Kerensky]

I dunno about you all, but I can't wait to see the DLC 45 Grand Campaign East Arrival thread.

[Zhivago]

I dunno about you all, but I can't wait to see the DLC 45 Grand Campaign East Arrival thread.

I was asking about that two days ago. When can we expect the announcement???

[Bonners]

I dunno about you all, but I can't wait to see the DLC 45 Grand Campaign East Arrival thread.

I'm quite looking forward to it; in the interests of accuracy I shall be selling my core, giving my 74 year old Dad a Panzerfaust and setting him up on the computer to defend the Fatherland to the last.

[AgentTBC]

I'm also a bit confused as to how the DLC campaigns encourage the use of older equipment. I don't feel any such encouragement, certainly. There isn't any reason not to immediately upgrade everything to Tigers/Panthers/KingTigers etc.

[ivanov]

There have been many creative ideas thrown around here, but the simplest solution would be to increase of the cost of the best equipment. If the Tiger cost 1300 like it does in the Deducter's e-file, then you would be probably better off using three Panzers IV instead. Of course if you like fancy toys like Adolf did, you could still go for a Tiger, but then you'd run a risk of being overwhelmed by the superior enemy numbers, without the possibility of reinforcing your expensive gear ( just like it happened in reality ). Again, the top tier hardware is simply too cheap in the game and due to that, the players can field the cores of "mass produced" Tigers, which is just pure fantasy and limits the strategic choices that the game could offer.

[Kerensky]

It's not an easy compromise.
Multiplayer has shown time and time again that these units are already too expensive to warrant much use. Players make use of the few they are given, but never really buy more. Even King Tigers don't have a big multiplayer presence, because you can get a Jagdpanther + 2 infantry for the same cost, and these 3 are much, much more effective.

Right now, we have a fairly well tuned multiplayer (thx for the compliments deducter) and a singleplayer campaign that is focused on letting the player play they want (no arbitrary unit restrictions). Is it perfect? Maybe not, but if there was a such thing as a perfect system, every single game in the world would use it (because it's perfect). And that does not exist.

[ivanov]

But I think that the unit cost can be adjusted even for every single year of the DLC. MP is a different story but the main concern of this discussion is the balance of the single player DLCs'.

[El_Condoro]

I don't think it will change anything. Even if they were free, why would you take up a slot with a Pz IV when you need a better unit to do the job. If you were allowed to take two of them for the same slot cost that might work but then we're back to where we started.

[MartyWard]

I have absolutely no problem with Colonel being very easy. But Field Marshall for the DLCs is not even remotely close to hard.

Maybe not for you but it is for me, and I suspect a large number of other players.

[MartyWard]

I'm not sure what you are asking the designers to do.

That one I can answer, remembering it's an off-the-top-of-my-head spec.

1. An integer field is added to the scenario parameters form where the scenario/campaign designer enters a prestige cap. For example, 20,000. This would be similar to the experience cap field that is already present.
2. At the beginning of a scenario (perhaps when the game allocates elite units?) a check is made as to the value of the player's core. As I said in another post, the value of experience and heroes would need to be sorted out. e.g. 8,000.
3. The available prestige for the player is set by deducting the core's value from the cap. e.g. 20K - 8K = 12K.
4. The player adjusts his core to his heart's content within the available equipment and his remaining prestige. He is able to deploy a number of units up to but not greater than the value of the cap.

There would be an upper number of units - the current slots - to prevent the spamming of too many cheap units. The slot limit would be relatively high, though, compared to current slot limits.

That's how I envisage it without testing. An in-game assessment of the approach would probably modify it, though.

[Edit]:
a. Difficulty levels examples: Lowest - Cap x2; Colonel - Cap; FM - Cap x0.75; others - Cap x 0.50. These would really need to be tested.
b. Add a cheat code to allow players to modify the cap.

In the DLC's you get a lot of captured units so your core is generally far larger than you can deploy. How would you figure the value of the core?

[MartyWard]

I'm also a bit confused as to how the DLC campaigns encourage the use of older equipment. I don't feel any such encouragement, certainly. There isn't any reason not to immediately upgrade everything to Tigers/Panthers/KingTigers etc.

You are right that there is no limiter within the game, other than prestige, but you can choose to not immediately upgrade.
That is why some of the posts are confusing to me, you already have the ability to play at any less level of equipment you want and you have the abillity to increase core slots to allow you to field 5 PZ IV's in place of 2 Tiger II's if you like.

[robman]

Here is an alternative solution: Raise the MARGINAL COST of purchasing additional units of a given type, rather than keeping a fixed cost per unit. This would accurately reflect reality and would force more difficult force-composition choices on the player. For example, if the first Tiger costs "x," the second might cost "1.5x," and the third "2x." Marginal cost differences could also be applied to unit classes as well as individual unit types: ranging from very low for infantry to high for aircraft. Within unit classes, the "marginal cost premium" of buying additional units of a given type could fall with time, as the unit becomes more common and more widely available.

This would require a much less dramatic change in the game mechanics than would a Warhammer-style quality-point cap (at least from the player's perspective), but it would achieve many of the same goals. Perhaps it could be part of a higher difficulty setting.

Edited to correct typo!

[ivanov]

I'm also a bit confused as to how the DLC campaigns encourage the use of older equipment. I don't feel any such encouragement, certainly. There isn't any reason not to immediately upgrade everything to Tigers/Panthers/KingTigers etc.

You are right that there is no limiter within the game, other than prestige, but you can choose to not immediately upgrade.
That is why some of the posts are confusing to me, you already have the ability to play at any less level of equipment you want and you have the abillity to increase core slots to allow you to field 5 PZ IV's in place of 2 Tiger II's if you like.

I think we are going in circles here. As El Condoro and others explained alread, a good, well balance game, should automatically impose hard, strategic choices on the player instead of forcing him to obey some self imposed rules or use cheat codes but... having said that, I understand that the developers have to think in the first place about the wast majority of the potential palyers, in order to ba able to sell their product ( sorry for using this word ). Due to that the more advanced players cannot really expect more from the official releases and need to rely increasingly of the mods or self imposed rules...

[Rudankort]

Now imagine if you give both players on Hylan Valley 50000 prestige to start instead of 4900 for the British and 3900 for the Germans. Why would the German player buy any other tank than the Tiger II at that point?

Players like Zhivago are arguing that you should be able to customized the core however you want, with no constraints except core slot numbers and the historical unit introduction date. Do the developers agree? If they do, then according to this principle, the German player should be allowed to buy 13 Tiger IIs at the start of Hylan Valley if he wants. All MP maps need to be changed so that they give both players 99999 prestige to start.

On of the basic principles in core game design was that prestige is the primary limit on what units you can have in the core. And the effect of it is exactly as some people requested above: you can have 5 Tigers or 10 PzIVs, but not 10 Tigers for the same money. It is essentially the same idea. Naturally, when prestige is abundant and stops being a concern, this delicate mechanics breaks altogether. In retrospect, I think that this system works very well in the short term, but not so well in the long term. This is exactly what you mention as well: in MP scenarios it works well, because it is just a single scenario. In longer campaigns the effects tend to snowball: small success leads to a bigger success, minor failure causes a greater failure. And this is not the only problem either: in the long term more expensive units turn out to be less expensive to maintain because they take less losses.

Not that we were not aware of these problems, and we did try to address them. For example, in PzC combat formulas are designed so that even great units against poor one can still take some casualties. But alas, this was not enough, and we could not make this effect any stronger, because even now people complain about poor units trashing good ones. Also, price differences between units are already very big and, as was noted above, we could not make great units even more expensive, because then their use would not be justified in short term. I. e. MP gameplay would be damaged.

You see, it is a tricky thing. A separate scenario and a long campaign are very different, and balancing both is not easy. In campaign you see huge amounts of prestige floating around, especially when the core becomes larger and you face the need to upgrade big chunks of it from time to time. This is something which does not happen in single scenarios at all. Grand Campaign is especially tricky, because it is SO long, it is really pushing the limits of core game design. However, I'm not saying that the problem cannot be solved and that we should not try to improve things in the future. Admittedly it is getting hard to solve it in the existing game, because we have so much content released already, and any radical change can ruin this content. But in a new game system which will follow Panzer Corps at some point this particular issue will be one of our priorities. I have some ideas of my own, and I will consider some things used in other games too (like high-end units taking more slots than normals ones). So yeah, it is a useful discussion, and we keep our ears open wide. You can be sure about that.

[El_Condoro]

In the DLC's you get a lot of captured units so your core is generally far larger than you can deploy. How would you figure the value of the core?

The same way - the captured equipment is added to the value of the player's core. The prestige cap and the upper slot limit, which would probably not ever be reached, is what determines how much of the player's core can be deployed.

SE units have an upper limit by scenario now - that could stay the same as it is so that they maintain their usefulness. i.e. not be included in the value of the core.

[El_Condoro]

Rudankort!! So good to hear from you and have your presence on the forum. Sincerely very glad to have you back. Cheers.

[boredatwork]

Rudankort!! So good to hear from you and have your presence on the forum. Sincerely very glad to have you back. Cheers.

Agreed, welcome back.

BTW Please don't be fooled by my criticism - I think between your game and Karensky's DLC you guys have done an amazingly good job with PzC - the only reason I argue so pationately about certain points is IMO the underlying core you built is so solid overall "perfection" is within your grasp - if not necessarily practical from a business POV to achieve with PzC, then certainly as part of an expansion or sequal.

[MartyWard]

I think we are going in circles here. As El Condoro and others explained alread, a good, well balance game, should automatically impose hard, strategic choices on the player instead of forcing him to obey some self imposed rules or use cheat codes but... having said that, I understand that the developers have to think in the first place about the wast majority of the potential palyers, in order to ba able to sell their product ( sorry for using this word ). Due to that the more advanced players cannot really expect more from the official releases and need to rely increasingly of the mods or self imposed rules...

The game IS balanced as it sits for most players and sales do play a huge part of the design. The sales from this game will fund the (hopefully) Desert game and the Allied version of the game. Most people do not regularly crush FM or Manstein levels with Pz VI's. So without any big re-design the better players can already do what they want.

I don't know what would be involved to change the game to a prestiged cap game but it is probalby more involved than just adding slots to your core through the cheat codes and having some self restraint in how you build your core. I would be disappointed if they made future game prestige cap only. If they made it an option where you checked a box like you do with fog of war then they could probably satisfy more of the better players but I am not sure if it is that easy.