The Prestige Update...and a problem

The Prestige update massively widens the gap between new and (very) old players.

What was the situation before?

To be able to genuinely keep up militarily, you need a large mass of players at a higher level, currently around level 30+ (as we luckily have in Germany thanks to baby booms from January to April), or a smaller mass of players at a very high level who deal massive damage through efficient use of higher-tier gear. Or a mix between both.

That immediately makes one problem obvious:

If a country with a low amount of players gets a baby boom, those players easily need 4-5 months before they can keep up. How many of those players stay?

The "promise", or rather the hope people had, was that after about 1 year you'd be at the same top level as the other players. That this isn't a solution either, because then players who have been playing longer and didn't have a baby boom simply get overrun, was understandable.

Even though level 50 players, some of whom have been playing for 1.5 years, have an extreme economic advantage (being able to run 12x AE7 companies for months) and also a military advantage (through military rank, which in my opinion could actually scale a bit more heavily).

So with the level cap at level 50, which 200+ players have reached, a prestige system was to be expected.

Another solution would have been to have no level cap, but to make every level harder to reach.

That would lead to players fairly quickly just maxing out almost all skills and being able to do eco AND war at the same time. That would have been just as impractical, and the dev would have had to completely change the game mechanics to even have different playstyles.

What exactly does the Prestige update do?

For each prestige you get a prestige point, which you can raise a skill of your choice by 1 level with. That unlocks for example the 13th company. To unlock the 14th company you need 2 more prestige points (so you have to be prestige 3), and for company 15 you have to be prestige 7. Meaning: costs increase quadratically.

In return you get reset to level 25 (if you were exactly level 50 with no excess EXP) and get a +50% EXP boost until you're back at level 50. For each prestige there's a +10% EXP boost. So at prestige 6 you get a +100% EXP boost, twice as much as a new player...

Precisely that means:

As a new player you need just under 10.5 months from the levels 1-50 for the first prestige.

From prestige 1 to 2: 147 days (just under 5 months)

From prestige 2 to 3: 137 days (4.5 mo.)

From prestige 3 to 4: 130 days (4.3 mo.)

From prestige 4 to 5: 122 days (4 mo.)

From prestige 5 to 6: 116 days (4 mo.)

From prestige 6 to 7: 110 days (3.7 mo.)

And so on (this will get even faster with monthly quests)

Concretely that means someone who prestiges now (and some are already prestiged AND level 37) will already be at prestige 3 before someone new is even level 50.

That gives them 14 companies instead of 12. And permanently a higher EXP boost. The fact that combat skills can also be boosted this way isn't even factored in here.

Purely financially, the break-even point, assuming 22 BTC/day from companies (that's how much my companies make) and about 5 BTC/day in lost profit per level from the reset from level 50 to 25 (calculated slightly pessimistically as linear, normally it's more like 6 BTC/day for the first few levels, approaching 5 BTC/day toward level 50) according to calculations with the site https://economic-build-warera.netlify.app/

is at:

Prestige 1

BTC loss during the regrind: 5,232 BTC

Break-even ~384 days (12.6 mo.) until prestige 1 pays off financially

Prestige 2

BTC loss during the regrind: 4,903 BTC

Break-even ~360 days (11.8 mo.)

Prestige 3

-1,771 BTC

~170 days (5.6 mo.)

Big jump becuase of 14th unlocked company.

Prestige 4

1,673 BTC

~160 days (5.3 mo.)

Prestige 5

1,585 BTC

~152 days (5.0 mo.)

Prestige 6

1,505 BTC

~144 days (4.7 mo.)

Prestige 7

+871 BTC profit during the regrind ( 3 extra companies = 15 companies)

0 days!

So the pattern is clear: you benefit most at prestige 3 and 7, especially 7. So if you plan on still playing in ~2.5 years, prestiging gives you an immense advantage of at least 66 BTC/day in pure profit from that point compared to players who are new by then. Again: this gets faster with monthly quests.

As things stand an old player has a profit advantage of 44+ BTC/day over a new player once that new player finally reaches level 50 as well. Through prestige, the old players now have a temporary loss of just under 5,000 BTC, which only breaks even after more than a year. So as soon as the new player prestiges for the first time, the old player will soon be making pure profit off their first prestige.

That actually sounds relatively fair. It's a trade-off: weaken yourself temporarily in order to become stronger in the future.

Especially considering that while you're leveling up you're not exactly efficient in combat. At level 25-35 fighting is a lot less efficient than at level 50.

The problem:

All players who are level 50+ and collected EXP during that time got +50% on their surplus EXP.

That is really unfair. As far as I know it affected 200+ players who were level 50+ before the update.

Some of them had been level 50 for 2 months. They've done up to a hundred million damage in battles or made five-figure profits through their skills.

Of course, during that time they leveled their military rank or built up enough capital to be able to manipulate the entire market with it.

And as if that weren't enough, these players have now simply been gifted up to 1 month's worth of EXP. Even though they were constantly pushing heavy damage or able to farm money... why would you do that as a dev? As if being level 50 weren't already enough, you have to ARTIFICIALLY widen the gap between these players and EVERYONE else... if the EXP had been lost after level 50, I would have understood giving out bonuses for a limited time or something similar, but these players lost NOTHING during that period, they already got an update that gives them immense long-term advantages AND on top of that they get a bonus...

Conclusion and where to go?

We now have a system that heavily favours old players if they think long-term.

New players realistically have a 2-year disadvantage (previously more like 1 year, just to be at level 50 like everyone else) before they can also get to 14 companies, while the old players will be at prestige 4-6 in that time. So they won't have unlocked the 15th company yet, and the gap between a new player and an old player slowly closes.

With the monthly quests, if you follow the pattern so far (200 EXP daily -> 600 EXP weekly -> ~2000 EXP monthly?), you can assume that this gap won't close much faster either.

A small hope:

In my opinion, this opens up a new strategic decision. Do you stay level 50 and help your country/your allies militarily? Or do you go for prestige and spend 3-5 months leveling up first? Economically, prestige is ALWAYS a good decision in the long run.

This could be improved nicely through lucrative monthly quests and, for example, faster progress for prestige 0 players, so that later on you have to strategically decide whether you need prestige or short-term strength right now.

Suggestion / further suggestions?

The excess EXP should not have been rewarded with +50%. That has to be reverted.

There needs to be faster progress in the lower levels. The game is already frustrating enough when you can only really play after months, only to then have to prestige soon so you don't fall behind. Yes, if you prestige you should get a long-term advantage from it. But it can't be that you need months to be somewhat stable militarily or economically, only to then see that others are already prestige 3 and therefore have 2 extra companies that you can't have at all!

That's one of the reasons why in some countries only about 10% of players stick with the game at all... and that won't get better with this update, more likely worse.

My point isn't that everyone should be equally strong. But progress shouldn't wait 2-3 years to be on an equal level to a veteran player. Nobody wants to spend years just catching up in order to eventually get halfway close to the top players, do you?

Rant over.

Do you have suggestions?

What do you think about the system?

Does it make sense to widen the gap between old and new players, because they've earned it after all since they started earlier?