It needs to be easier to make money, the system needs tuning

[GC13]

--==<snip>=--

The fact that a battle is a losing one is no reason not to fight it.

xander

Yes, but if by fighting the losing battle you encourage people to badmouth the game to their friends, you're actively hurting yourself.

There ought to be a New Players forum. I never had any trouble answering the same old questions over and other for other games, and that should get people sufficiently off of your lawn.

[_alphaBeta_]

I'm obviously new and understand both sides of this debate. All boards vary on this since the etiquette on some is to avoid new threads about repeated subjects and resurrect older threads as necessary. Other times, resurrecting a thread seems to be the worst thing you can do. It's also difficult to say what the resurrection threshold is on some boards. Is three weeks ok, but three years pushing it? For my part, I try to find older threads and resurrect them since I feel this is the lesser of two evils from a moderation standpoint. Just look at all the duplicates on Mathis to get the idea.

Anyway, I really wanted to talk about the economic model rather than continuing to hijack the thread. A cursory search of the forums didn't yield much of anything, so I'll try to continue the discussion here. If my search terms were inadequate, please direct me to a better thread via a link.

Back on topic I agree that the numbers need some adjustments as of ALPHA-11. Feels to me like prisoners should bring more federal grant money with them. It's already known the classifications of prisoners will have different amounts, which I think is a great idea. Being this is ALPHA, I also agree that it probably doesn't make much sense to worry about this now given additional features are still coming. Makes more sense to do this once in BETA as part of an overall balancing of the features.

That said, I think simulations can go two ways on this. Either you're constantly given enough money to keep buying and expanding at a reasonable pace OR the game should provide some other means of entertainment (that doesn't involve spending) to amuse the player while they wait for money to come in. In the case of PA, that could include regime changes, deployments, future planning, policies etc. We have some of this now, but it probably could be expanded further if the goal is not to have money come too easily (which isn't much fun either, but if it is for you, you can always cheat). Striking that balance is difficult. I think the big problem for some now is there isn't a whole lot you can do right now that doesn't involve spending. The opening grants are also a step in the right direction, and fairly realistic as local governments would want you to expand and would provide the funds to do so. Grant payments before and after project completion (such as the infirmary one presently) are a real nice touch. I assume this will be expanded once out of ALPHA.

Luckily, as was said, we have the ability to adjust our funds via the save game file. I've been adding a bit everytime I come back to my prison to simulate grants that aren't in the game yet.

[xander]

A cursory search of the forums didn't yield much of anything, so I'll try to continue the discussion here. If my search terms were inadequate, please direct me to a better thread via a link.

This is all it takes to keep us crotchety old-timers from getting upset. Make an effort, and show us that you have made an effort. Hell, you could just pretend! I don't know if you actually searched or not!

Back on topic I agree that the numbers need some adjustments as of ALPHA-11. Feels to me like prisoners should bring more federal grant money with them. It's already known the classifications of prisoners will have different amounts, which I think is a great idea. Being this is ALPHA, I also agree that it probably doesn't make much sense to worry about this now given additional features are still coming. Makes more sense to do this once in BETA as part of an overall balancing of the features.

Exactly. Until the game is feature complete, it is impossible to properly address questions of gameplay balance. Maybe the prices and profits of currently implemented features can be tweaked to balance the economy, or maybe Chris has some grand master plan to completely alter the economy, throwing everything that already exists into a state of utter and complete imbalance. Until the game is feature complete, the correct answer is to fix the balance by editing your gamefile.

That said, I think simulations can go two ways on this. Either you're constantly given enough money to keep buying and expanding at a reasonable pace OR the game should provide some other means of entertainment (that doesn't involve spending) to amuse the player while they wait for money to come in.

Indeed. I can see all kinds of opportunity for gameplay to flourish by way of events that need to be managed (rather than though economy balancing): an outbreak of TB, guard strike, flood, and so on.

xander

[GC13]

I'd rather see some tweaking than waiting for a master plan. Right now the prisoners bring in too little money and the workshop probably too much. I'd rather get us a rough-in on about what the economy needs to look like now than leave everything horribly distorted all through testing and finally try to figure it out a year later.

[xander]

Right now

Learn patience. You are unlikely to get what you want.

I'd rather get us a rough-in on about what the economy needs to look like now than leave everything horribly distorted all through testing and finally try to figure it out a year later.

No one is asking you to play a game with a "horribly distorted." You are being provided access to a game with a horribly distorted economy, which you can choose to play or not. Moreover, the economy will almost certainly not remain horribly distorted "all through testing." Rather, it will likely remain distorted all through the alpha stage of development, then tweaked during the beta.

The goal of the alpha stage of development is to get a feature complete prototype. The goal of the beta stage is to fix bugs and balance the game. If you want a well-balanced and complete game right now, then you should not be playing a game that is currently in the early stages of development. You might consider the newest version of SimCity.

xander

[GC13]

Why do you quote me stating the current situation and then act like I issued a demand?

For that matter, why do you treat a statement about what would be better for testing as if it's a personal choice whether the game is encouraging the sort of gameplay it ought to or not? If we're forced into planning workshops to build our prisons (and last time I checked, building is the only feature we can really test right now) then the entire feature testing gets thrown out of whack unless the whole idea is to center the prisons around cash cow workshops.

[xander]

Why do you quote me stating the current situation and then act like I issued a demand?

Because that was the tone that your post conveyed.

I stated a fact. Chris has stated that he plans to implement features first, then tweak balance and bugs. This has been the outline from the beginning. He has added some major bug fixes, and it is not impossible that he would tweak the economy before the beta starts. However, the fact is that if you would "rather see some tweaking" right now, you are going to be disappointed. You can provide whatever reasonable argument you like, but it is unlikely that it will alter the process of development one iota. As I said, if you would rather that the developer do something other than what they are doing, you are in for a disappointment, and should go find another game to play for a while.

xander

[Pogo]

First off... there are two phases of testing.

This isn't specific to Prison Architect. This is just general game programming 101.


Alpha. In alpha, you get the basic building blocks of the game down. You're focusing on the game mechanics.
Beta. In beta, this is where you spend most of your time fixing bugs and tweaking balance.



So... there are things that can be done in Alpha that will effect the game economy. But there are also things that need to wait until beta. There's no point in tweaking the exact dollar amounts tied to grants or the workshop or the price of paying wages or building things in Alpha. There are still a lot of mechanics that can and will be added to the game that will just completely upset any balance you thought you obtained by tweaking this numbers. The most important matter is that spending time fretting over economic balance this early in the game's development retards the rate at which progression is made developing the games mechanics and features that are adding in the Alpha phase of the game. This pushes back the beginning of beta testing, and pushes back the overall release of the game.


It's important to understand that if you're playing the game right now, you're a tester. And right now, you're an alpha tester. Bug reports are important, because some bugs may be in the core of the programming and actually need to be fixed this early on. Plus you're just adding to the entire bug library, though many of these issues won't be addressed until the testing moves into Beta. Right now, the game is in Alpha, and that makes you an Alpha tester, not a Beta tester.

Like I said, there are definitely Alpha-type suggestions that can improve the game economy.

For example, I've suggested the grant money rewarded for prison population be broken down into tiers based on security risk. I should get more money for housing max security prisoners and less money for min security prisoners. That's a change that can be made right now that would improve the game's economy. Then in beta, we'd take a closer look at these exact numbers to make sure they're balanced. Do max security prisoners need to pay slightly more? Slightly less? How about minimum security prisoners? And when I made this suggestion, it also came with the suggestion of making these max security prisoners and even bigger risk when you put them to work as prison labor. That part of the suggestion is mostly a thing to balance in beta... but it's just a note on something to keep in mind when you think about balancing this in the future.


Another alpha-type suggestion I've made regarding prison economy is more varied forms of prison labor. For example, prison farms would allow you to make larger profits because you're paying less money for food. You wouldn't sell the food you grow for profit, you'd simply use it in your kitchens and have to purchase less food from outside. Getting the farms in the game needs to happen in alpha. Balancing how much food you can grow per square of farmland and the rate at which prisoners work the farmland are balance issues that can be saved for beta.



If you think that nothing needs to be added to the economy other than balance, then it's best to simply wait until beta when the focus will be on bug-fixes and balance. The only thing that is constructive in alpha testing are alpha suggestions, and balance is a beta suggestion, not alpha.

[GC13]

Good grief xander, I wish I needed to misquote you to make you sound smarmy. Yes, I'd "rather see some tweaking" of the economy than see absolutely nothing done with it, because you make it sound like it has to be a massive overhaul or nothing. It's a question of cost vs benefit: for almost no effort, workshops can be displaced from their role as the only way players have to grow their prisons. Even if workshops were completely superfluous because you were making $1,000 a day from each prisoner, we'd still be able to test the features in a full-bodied prison, but when we're starved for cash unless we use a mod or a workshop then like it or not we're viewing everything through a distorted lens.

prisoner_cash_per_day = 150;
cash_per_plate = 8;

That's all I'm suggesting right now for Alpha 12. Maybe we'll get crazy and change prisoner_cash_per_day to 200 in Alpha 13, but I think we'll find time in the schedule for all the work that would entail.

[xander]

...like it or not we're viewing everything through a distorted lens.

Yes, we are. We are seeing the entire game through a distorted lens. That is what happens at this stage of development. There is no campaign yet. There is essentially only one game mode. Nothing is balanced. There are features that are downright broken (the big TVs were removed because of this), and other features that the developers are clearly thinking about, but haven't introduced. No one should be expecting anything but a distorted picture of what the final game will look like.

Balance is a beta issue, not an alpha issue. For one thing, until it is know how all of the features in the game interact with each other, there is no point in trying to tweak the balance. For another thing, the "Word of God" (i.e. the stated intention of the developers) is that balance will happen later.

xander

[cozmium]

Not to get too dragged back in to the notions of what is and isn't an alpha or beta stage of a game, I think we all know this is an alpha and need to respect that each of us may harbour different reservations for what may constitute as a 'reasonable' change to a game mechanic - even during this stage. It's true that generally in an alpha you don't approach balance issues, but in a very non biased arguement (personally I was originally only thinking of what could be helpful in the game economy, regardless of when it might happen) you could suggest the logic that given we are here to test things and try them out as they progress, perhaps we would be in a better position to do so if we didn't have to resort to editing the save file? Just because we are essentially testing the game, does that mean we shouldn't still want to enjoy it in our own ways? These are philosophical questions, not my personal arguement - i'm happy to wait and see, but i'd also be happy if money came in easier. I don't have any ill will to those who would want such changes now, neither to those who insist it's not something that should happen yet - but you have to recognise each other's stances otherwise it just ends up in biccering!

On a more relevant note, I think the grants could easily be overdone. Whilst it may be realistic to how prisons operate in the world, I don't really think it's appropriate for the a game as much. Even the grants we get currently at the start of the game I find to be a bit too much of a 'helping hand' when i'd rather earn it and build up from even a tiny little 8 person prison or something. Maybe it's just me, but the notion of having a consistent grant based money boost would take the edge off what would be far more satisfying to build up yourself. You could perhaps make the choice to go with high security prisoners from the start (if they were paying more) getting money in faster with the risk of losing control with an immature security base, or play it safe and slower with med/low.

I had another thought about the electric chair usage too, with regard to economy. There could be an element of corruption so far as there often being two sides to a story - perhaps a prisoner was sentenced to serve jail time in your prison rather than execution. You could get a 'visit' from a victim willing to pay to have you take him for a nice evening walk - ending in the electric chair room. The downside could be it could get found out - perhaps even the lawyer could be used to try and make it seem like it was an 'accident' "he was just cleaning the chair your honour" and defend the prison in a basic court scene or even just a behind-the-scenes hearing. Might be a bit much perhaps, my imagination can get a bit carried away lol.

[henke37]

Balance is mainly a beta issue. But at the same time, extreme balance issues can cause trouble for alpha testing too. It is true that alphas will wreck the balance regularly by changing mechanics and adding features. But at the same time some features are sorta done and can be tested, but only if roughly balanced. Balancing early before things have been finished will lead to unusable results as things change, but is at the same time needed to a certain degree.

TL;DR: Balance quite roughly in alpha, get the balance perfect in beta.

[pkamppur]

I hope adjusting the income per prisoner is easy, and if that small change helps now, then why not do it?

I believe in iterative software development. Early feedback is good feedback. Trying to design everything in advance rarely works in practice. I don't see much benefit in being totally inflexible regarding phases of development.

Sometimes only when trying the thing for real (in this case, the current game with somewhat balanced values), you see that your original design needs some work and you might need to add features. That's why I don't believe in a strict "alpha -> beta" order.

My guess is that the "no balancing" thing in alpha is just to keep our expectations low, and not to expect a perfect game at this very early stage. I think the game obviously has seen some balancing already, because most dollar amounts are pretty close to reasonable, even now. Of course any adjustments now delay finishing the features, but it's a cost/benefit thing.

[Pogo]

I don't see much benefit in being totally inflexible regarding phases of development.

I explained this in my long post.

Alpha stage is for introducing and implementing new mechanics.
Beta stage is for taking all these mechanics and balancing the various aspects of the game.


Each mechanic you introduce in alpha stage is going to make a major impact on balance, one way or the other. Meanwhile, getting yourself bogged down in balance issues during alpha extends the overall length the alpha has to last (because time is spent trying to achieve balance instead of ignoring it in favor of focusing on alpha issues).

Now, you might turn around and try arguing that because you're balancing during alpha, the beta is shorter because you've already been balancing, but this simply isn't the case. Why? Because remember, we're introducing mechanics via the alpha that make significant impacts on game play.


Let's suppose for Alpha 13 we focus on balancing the economy. Then in Alpha 14 we introduce a mechanic that makes the workshop less profitable because anyone but low security prisoners are pretty likely to manufacture a weapon rather than a license plate and start killing people (and prevent others from making license plates). Now, even though the economy was balanced in Alpha 13, it's not balanced in Alpha 14, because the numbers that made the economy work in Alpha 13 all the sudden don't work in Alpha 14 because the workshop is significantly less profitable for other reasons.

Then in Alpha 15, we waste some more time rebalancing the economy and make it work again. Then in Alpha 16, we tier the different security level prisoners to pay different grant amounts (Min sec give $50/day, medium $150/day, and max sec $300/day), so now the economy is broke again because it was balanced to Alpha 14 mechanics. So now we go back and rebalance the economy for Alpha 17...

Then in Alpha 18 they introduce farms which allow us to save money by not having to spend as much money on food. And all that balancing on Alpha 17 we did is now wasted and the economy is bent out of shape again... so we just have to rebalance it around the new mechanic.


Now granted, it doesn't take an entire Alpha patch to balance the economy... but this is just kind of to illustrate the fact that ANY time spent balancing the game in Alpha is wasted time because not all the mechanics are in yet. Heck, for all we know, the current numbers may even work for perfect balance once all the mechanics are finally put in the game.

[cozmium]

snip

You're not technically wrong, obviously. But you're going to an utter extreme. Who said it needs to be balanced? All that has been suggested from several people is in the 'here and now' it would be nice to have more money coming in to avoid editing the save file and cheating. Everything else has simply been suggestion and thoughts about what could be done in the long term and/or the future.

If the devs decided to crank up the money per prisoner for example, yes things could change again, but no one is going to be unhappy about an excess of money in this stage of development. For example if things changed and money wen't down from the workshop as per your example, then there would be even less than there is now; exasperating the already tricky income situation. If things changed to make more money, then like I said - no one would be particularly miffed because the fact is it would benefit the situation of a developing game.