Impressions of PA as of Current Alpha (162 hours logged)

[DanTheMan]

I booted PA again after having a break for half a year, and have been having a good old time enjoying the new features, performance boosts, and just trying to put the "architect" into prison architect with a very nicely designed max-sec prison. Then I realised I have now hit 162 hours logged on steam (dantec3 is my account name).

So, I thought I might share some constructive comments/criticism here on this board, where I think the devs are more likely to read it than on the steam discussion place, which is pretty spammy what with the sale on recently and all bringing in new players. Of course, I could write a long list of what I like about this game, from the ambient sound, to the artwork, the feel of building and of managing things, etc. but that is less useful. So moving on...

My main gripe is something I felt since I listened to the devs record a video discussing and responding to the article that was talking about Prison Architect and the U.S. incarceration system, but I think too much attention has been payed to the whole "educate" or "reform" element of the prison system, while several much more important elements are still mostly undeveloped. I am speaking of...

1. Relationships between characters. Prisoner to Prisoner. Staff to Staff. Prisoner to Staff.
As a foundation for...
2. Gangs. Inter-gang fighting. Enemy vs. enemy fighting.
And...
3. Group escape attempts. Staff helping smuggle stuff in. Staff helping prisoners escape.
etc.

I don't think the reform features are necessarily unwelcome, only that they should have been prioritized much lower from the perspective of what makes the game fun. Which really, is what a game should be. Reforming my prisoners so that their re offending rate is lower, and my prison rating is a bit higher = very slight fun boost for most players. I imagine. Trying to build a prison that can not only hold large numbers of max-sec prisoners safely, without rioting, but ALSO prevents even the most escape-obsessed crazy maniacs from successfully escaping, despite a range of various manners by which they could do so? Now that would = major fun times. You need to have that kind of challenge. It is not necessary for Prison Architect to be ideologically/politically neutral as to how prisons should operate in real life, because this is not real life. It need be no more realistic than Theme Hospital is a realistic depiction of hospitals.

Right now, my prison filled with max-sec guys just ticks over, sleepy as can be. They have their food, sleep, entertainment, family, security, freedom needs met. And that's it. No more problems. You just sit there and watch the cash roll in. While in reality of course, we would have systemic, ongoing issues to be watching out for. Violence shouldn't just be a result of a high threat level when you are dealing with max-sec guys. It should be a constant and ongoing problem that needs to be combated inventively.

My second gripe is fairly straight forward. I didn't like having to build workshops to fund my prison expansion in the past. It annoyed me no end. And I love not having to build workshops now. I like that holding max-sec people gives me plenty of money, such that I can make a tidy little profit simply by holding prisoners, instead of having to run an industry on the side. The balance now is better than before in that regard. That said, the grant system doesn't really add up. There is so much cash to be had now in terms of grants, that there is no financial challenge to the game at all right now. Pretty much right off the bat you can build whatever you can dream of, providing you get a little extra boost at the start by having some trees to chop down and sell. Then of course, you can sell your new prison for a tidy profit (much of which was built by government grants) and then build a new prison with new grants, and so on into infinity. So, infinite money. I think at the very least, grants from the government should not be exploitable in this fashion. Either make them a once-only thing between prison sells, or remove the value of grants from the total value of the prison. On top of this, the amount of cash they give you might need to be reduced by 30% or more. (Also, why does that health grant require two doctors? Surely I'm not the only person who fires a doctor as soon as the grant is achieved).


My Top Wants

- Personalities for Staff
- Relationships modeled between characters
- Gangs, gang-on-gang fights
- Planned Escape Attempts, escape Attempts that use staff relationships, prisoner-to-prisoner relationships (decoy fights, passing things through windows, throwing things over fences).
- Smuggling system (including using laundry)
- watch towers, rifles, search lights
- Libraries (can also help with smuggling in books)
- book object, proper book case object, book cart object
- change how CCTV cameras work/give them a boost
- penalties for crowding prisoners together. I see pictures of prisons where they are jamming dozens of prisoners into tiny little exercise yards or canteens. This shouldn't be possible. Prisons where you have 80% of the map dedicated to cells should just fall apart from riots. Penalties for claustrophobic conditions/narrow hallways etc also could feature into this.
- remove default peace penalty for armed guards. If I want ten armed guards patrolling my permiter fence far away from the actual prisoners, it shouldn't effect how calm they are in any negative way. If the prisoners are being suppressed all the time by the sight of guns, that might have long term negative effects.
- make injured guards be more proactive about going and getting themselves healed up it there is no on-going disturbance. I shouldn't have to bring my doctor to the guard.
- more tile types

Finally, great work on this awesome game. Love the monthly updates. Please re-use this engine on the next one and make it a space/ship designing-space-exploration/ship to ship combat game in the future you bastards.

[Cymsdale]

I agree with pretty much everything here. I'm finding it way too easy to keep things running when behavior seems almost exclusively dependent on meeting needs. Prisoners don't seem to have any relationships with each other, they will just throw a punch to the dude next to them if their clothes are too dirty or something.

Grants and prison selling are also way too easy for cash. With prison selling, I think that prison grade should be a huge factor in it, and you shouldn't be allowed to sell at all until you receive a grade.

[Initar]

+1 Its too easy when you know the game well to have a max-sec prison with... nothing happening. Really nothing at all. I'm sure i'm not alone at depriving my inmates of food or entertainement on purpose, or calling the firefighters on my electric generator, just to see a bit of animation... Some of the suggestion above are great, I'd love to see those kind of things implemented in this arleady glorious game.

[xander]

Discussion of bugs, feature requests, predictions for future versions, and other topics related to the alpha belong in the Prison Architect Developer Forum. I notice that you do not have access to that forum yet, which means that you need to register your Prison Architect key. If you bought Prison Architect directly from Introversion, then instructions should be in the email that you received. If you got the game via Steam, please read these instructions.

Once you have access to the Developer Forum, please read this topic on how to post a suggestion or question, and please try to search the forum before you post. It is likely that someone else has already had your idea or experienced your problem, and it would be better to respond to an older post than to create a new thread.

Thank you.

xander

[DanTheMan]

To be honest, its already a step of effort for me to register for introversions forums rather than just commenting on the Steam board. Surely anybody writing here is already an owner of the game? I mean, I guess I will go ahead and register, but its pretty annoying.

[xander]

To be honest, its already a step of effort for me to register for introversions forums rather than just commenting on the Steam board.

The guidelines were put in place to keep things organized in order to save people's time. When you intentionally flout the rules, you are essentially stating that your time is more valuable than everyone else's. If you are unwilling to be respectful of other people's time, what makes you think that anyone will care what you have to say? In particular, what makes you think that the developers, who have asked that we post alpha-related content to the alpha forum, will care?

It should also be noted that almost nothing you wrote is original---almost all of it has been brought up before, which you would know if you had spent a couple of minutes searching the forum. Again, instead of taking a some of your time to see if there was a more appropriate place to post, you decided to waste a little bit of a lot of people's time.

If registering an account (a process that can easily be done in a minute or two) and vetting your work before posting (less than 10 minutes) are too much work for you, perhaps you should consider not posting at all? That would save you quite a lot of effort.

Surely anybody writing here is already an owner of the game?

Nope. But that isn't really the point. IV sold early access to Prison Architect, and one of the *rewards* of that sale is an invitation to participate in the development process. One of the conditions of such participation is posting your ideas to the correct place. I know that Chris reads the forums, and he might even grab suggestions from the General forum, but most of the *discussion* of gameplay features and mechanics occurs in the Developer forum.

xander

[Watsons27]

Ehhh move this over to the right forum Xander is right. Also very scattered thoughts that have very little to do with title. It is more like you are bragging about how long you have played..... People have done that before you should have just posted your time under that thread. Wait people have made alll of your suggestions also just they are in the right place where they will actually be looked at and discussed.

[DanTheMan]

So I am a flouter of rules, a waster of people's time, and also a bragger. Friendly bunch here on this forum. Way to make a person and fellow fan of the game feel welcome.

[xander]

So I am a flouter of rules, a waster of people's time, and also a bragger. Friendly bunch here on this forum. Way to make a person and fellow fan of the game feel welcome.

You chose to violated the norms of the forum and I politely asked you to follow the rules. You responded by say that you were too important for the rules to apply to you, and are now pouting that people are not being nice to you. Grow up.

xander

[DarknessEyes]

I agree with pretty much everything here. I'm finding it way too easy to keep things running when behavior seems almost exclusively dependent on meeting needs. Prisoners don't seem to have any relationships with each other, they will just throw a punch to the dude next to them if their clothes are too dirty or something.

Grants and prison selling are also way too easy for cash. With prison selling, I think that prison grade should be a huge factor in it, and you shouldn't be allowed to sell at all until you receive a grade.

My current prison is worth over 2m cash and i never cheated... i just used to build prisons and sell them...

[Cymsdale]

Uh oh, the forum police disagree with the manner you delivered feedback. One thousand forum demerits!

[Mordeth]

Yes, I will stay at Steam. This was the 1st post I read here. I have seen warmer welcomes in the Blizzard and Eve forums.

[Watsons27]

Yes, I will stay at Steam. This was the 1st post I read here. I have seen warmer welcomes in the Blizzard and Eve forums.

Yeah also the same thing gets suggested everyday....
I think lots of people just don't know how to post and if you get a few to do it right the forum will be a lot cleaner. It will also make ideas all be in the same area. I would personally like to see 1 post with 100 comments instead of 100 post each with one comment. Think of the great ideas that would be developed if we were all collectively thinking in an organized way. We would actually talk about prison gangs than just people saying they want them.


But when all else fails..... Check the wiki.... LOOOK AT THE KNOWN ISSUES.... LOOOKKKK A SUGGESTION LIST NO WAY!........

http://devwiki.introversion.co.uk/pa/

[sivistojko]

To all people saying that it is too easy:
"When you have it, you are not satisfied, when you don't, you are also not satisfied". Players need to be able to run peaceful prison (like we can right now) and + more.

Can you imagine how hard would you whine if all prisoners needs have been met but there are riots appearing all over the place? You would cry here on the forums just like you do with every game with the same concept, that it makes no sense why are people so bad if they are essentially happy. If you want trouble, don't feed inmates and I promise you riots!

The problem is that you only and I repeat only imagine USA prisons (where they actually imprison teenagers) and think about the violence there. Well I have news for you since you want things to be so realistic: prisons in the rest of the world (excluding Russia) don't have gangs and violent behavior on an hourly basis.

So according to the current 'suppression' mechanic, we need to expect that it will keep the prisoners in order, which is exactly what it does. What you actually want requires additional variables beside 'needs' that will trigger certain scripts. Perhaps, the 'needs' list should be expanded and include 'Social' activities with other inmates that could potentially lead to disorder and violence....

Anyway it is very important to be able to run prison in different ways, and that includes boring prison where nothing happens.

[Initar]

Wow. Sure the post should have been moved. But all his suggestions were clever, and he's right: the game gets boring after a while. Nevertheless he said he loved it, and gave some ideas. And he's getting bashed by users and mods alike...
Thsi is my second and probably last post here too...