Prestige

Parennis wrote: Uther wrote: <Snip> meh. you're happy with +20% production bonuses which seem to carry more weight than the military bonuses that are now being offered, but this is a 'step in the wrong direction'? you could buy your way to production advantage and without spending you suffered a 20pc penatly, and you didn't say boo then 'chilling?'.  chill out yourself, hypocrit.

Perhaps that is what I am but I still believe what I said (also, I don't think I have been particularly "hot," just expressing an opinion.)  Basically the Prestige bonus for production advantage was in the game when we started... I guess I accepted it as a given. 

In my (possibly hypocritical) opinion, making Military and Diplo bonuses be based on financial investment is a step in the wrong direction... and in a game such as this, has more of a directly unbalancing impact (both mathematically and in a more esoteric sense.)

Uther wrote: Stormcrow, If you felt it was indefensible, I assume you guys wouldn't have implemented it .  Just a view from outside... mucking around with battle/diplo settings represents a step in the wrong direction.  I think the argument that "there are so many more variables, what's one more?" is misleading.  All those other variables cancel themselves out in aggregate, this one doesn't.  It is unfortunate that military/diplo variables are now subject to revenue considerations.  It sends the wrong message.  I can now buy my way to military advantage... or in the other direction, without spending, I get a 10% penalty.  While from well above the fray, it may appear mathematically not a large impact, I believe it is chilling and and represents a slide (a slippery one?) towards a lack of balance.  I have already heard this from others... perhaps they will chime in.

meh.

you're happy with +20% production bonuses which seem to carry more weight than the military bonuses that are now being offered, but this is a 'step in the wrong direction'?

you could buy your way to production advantage and without spending you suffered a 20pc penatly, and you didn't say boo then

'chilling?'.  chill out yourself, hypocrit.

Personally, I dont have the money to spend on prestige, so that already puts me at a disadvantage for city building.  Now, I'm at a disadvantage for fighting.  If people that use prestige attack/defend against me , they wont lose as much with a bonus and then they'll be able to rebuild quicker too.  I guess I'll be falling even further behind now.

Diablito wrote: Considering how cheap prestige is, I don't really feel this is imbalanced at all. 75 prestige costs less than a bus ticket where I live.

75 is just a number.  As it so happens, 75 prestige is also worth less than a bus ticket.  So what's your point, exactly?

The average single use of prestige costs between 7 and 10 cents USD or CDN, and confers a very small privilege:  skipping a tedious one-time wait for construction to end or goods to arrive;  getting a little bit more of one resource over the course of a week; get a new random quest to consider taking (and the quests are quite useless now anyway, costing more than they provide).

But with these military bonuses, immediate shifts in balance can be responsively applied in a much wider variety of scenarios.  Tired of laurachristine's cleptomania?  See incoming attacks?   Spend ~9 cents, and suddenly I'm 10% more capable of repelling her thieves, not just now but for an entire week to follow!  Want to start a war?  Spend one dollar and gain a 20% (attack + defense) advantage over the enemy that doesn't do the same...not just for your big attack, but for all attacks probably lasting until after your war ends.  Sure other larger bonuses apply...but both sides have equal capacity to influence those factors.  In the end, Mr. Penniless is decisively 20% behind.

Further the depth and variety of ways to spend prestige widens an already tense gap.  With this many options, we flirt with a "he who spends the most, wins" outcome.  I'm starting to think I'd rather pay a flat monthly fee to play.  It would be fair, equitable, and all but destroy multi-account cheaters.  Or, since that would scare off too many, pay a flat fee to enjoy a set of minor statically applied benefits such as much longer research and construction queues, ability to schedule attacks, and other such conveniences that non-paying players could replace with greater attention and dedication to their accounts.

The game is a load of fun and totally worth a reasonable investment.  But I'm not ready to see the level of that "reasonable investment" be determined by a bidding war.

In defence (of course, what did you expect!) of the military bonuses: in the grand scheme of things 10% is a relatively small amount and does not come close to being a deciding factor in combat.

A level 10 commander provides 10% (if you level him up in one area), and a level 10 commander is not difficult to come by.

Terrain bonuses provide as much as 60% differential, and city walls can provide over 100% differential. 

The Combat schools of magic will provide similar bonuses and penalties to Prestige spend as well.

All of these stack, so there is more than 200% variance simply in the ingame mechanics excluding Prestige spend.

We totally agree that these bonuses would be a decisive and unbalanced game-changing factor if there weren't so many other modifiers already in play, and the game team (including myself) did not feel that a "Prestigable" 10% bonus in either (or both) directions was a "game-changer" given the 200% plus other factors at play.

We totally understand that, given 2 min/maxed armies of entirely equal force, then the Prestige spend of 10% would be decisive, but the margin would be very small.  +250% vs +240%, say, would mean one army's total destruction - and the other army's very near total destruction.


Edited by GM Stormcrow - 21 Mar 2010 at 22:49