Prestige Update: Numbers and Expectations

Hey everyone,

We want to take this opportunity to lay out our expectations for Prestige earning with the current changes. This is a difficult, number-heavy scenario to grasp, so please stay with me! (Note that many of these numbers have been rounded up or down here to make them easier to read. Therefore, you may notice slightly different results if you do some of this math yourself.)


Average Joe - An Active Character

First I want to explain what we think an average "active" league member would be able to earn weekly. Obviously, individual player varies widely, but I think this lays out a reasonable outline for many to compare against.

We expect an "active" member to be able to contribute 1595 Prestige each week. That's broken down into:

• 903 from Instances
• 512 from Bases
• 180 from Tributes

The Prestige from instances is calculated on the average completions of level 30 characters in leagues. It boils down to an "active" member completing the following equal-tiered content each week on average:

• 0.87 Solos
• 1.14 Duos
• 1.55 4-mans
• 0.52 8-mans

The Base Prestige value is from only one base, but it's fully decked out. That means full power, all Mainframe traits, all Generator Mod slots filled, all Amenity slots used, and all Decoration slots used. We really want everyone to feel well rewarded for using their base to the fullest.

If a character's base isn't so decked out, they can always make up for it with increased activity elsewhere. For instance, if they had no decorations or amenities, they could make up for it by running another Duo. This presents a tradeoff of long vs. short term investment. While the decorations and amenities may take a greater amount of time to initially acquire and set up, they forever after grant Prestige automatically simply by walking into your base. The Duo would take less time up front, but that full amount of time must be repeated each week to earn similar Prestige.

The Prestige expected from Tributes is minimal and is based on currencies expected to be gained easily during the completion of other activities. Cash, Marks of Triumph, and PvP Marks are based on averages for level 30 characters in leagues. Marks of Fury and Symbols of Power are based directly on the completion of top tier content. We expect each "active" character to Tribute items with a total Prestige value worth the following currencies combined:

• 11,466.37 Cash
• 234.39 Marks of Triumph
• 16.11 Marks of Fury
• 16.11 Symbols of Power
• 1.95 Marks of Valor
• 3.59 Marks of Legend

Obviously no one will get these exact numbers, because they're averages. Let's look at some alternative examples of how you could reach the same expectation of Tribute values.

Using no more cash than what can be held at once with the 2000 cash cap, no current Marks, and no PvP:

• 2,000 Cash
• 40,000 Marks of Triumph

Using only PvP Marks:

• 125 Marks of Valor
• 5 Marks of Legend

Using only current Marks:

• 22.5 Marks of Fury
• 22.5 Symbols of Power

Average League Expectations

To reach the soft cap, which is the amount of Prestige we expect the average league to reach, we expect 40 average active characters to each contribute Prestige as listed above each week. For instance, in terms of instances completed:

• 0.87 Solos per character | 34.82 total for the League
• 1.14 Duos | 45.51 total for the League
• 1.55 4-mans | 61.93 total for the League
• 0.52 8-mans | 26.12 total for the League

That will earn the league 63,899 total raw Prestige each week before diminishing returns kick in at the soft cap of 62,500 Prestige. Based on the average "active" member contribution, we think this is a very reasonable amount of playtime required to maintain 10 Proficiencies.

Larger than average leagues will require less playtime per character to reach the same expectations. Smaller than average leagues will require more playtime or will simply earn less prestige each month. Smaller or less active leagues may not be able to reach the same benefits as larger or more active leagues. We are not intending for every league to hit the soft cap, let alone the hard cap.


Smaller Leagues

In a smaller league, for example one with just 8 "active" characters, the League should earn about 12,764 Prestige each week, allowing them to maintain 2 Proficiencies. This could allow them to, for example, get Damage Out and Support Stats.

With just 16 active characters, an "active" League should earn about 25,529 Prestige each week, allowing them to maintain 4 Proficiencies. This could allow them to, for example, get the above as well as Healing Out and Might & Precision. If the league wanted to kick things up a notch to reach 6 Proficiencies to add in the crit-related Proficiencies, they could do the following:

• 1.37 Solos per character | 21.92 total for the League
• 1.79 Duos | 28.64 total for the League
• 2.44 4-mans | 39.04 total for the League
• 0.82 8-mans | 13.12 total for the League

That would result in each "active" character earning 2,187 Prestige per week, putting the whole league at 35,005. Again, the exact nature of what everyone does to reach these numbers could vary. This is just to give you a basic idea of what we expect.

How much time does an active character have to put in to reach the 1595 prestige per week?

What exactly is an "average" player? Do you measure this by hours played per week or what?

Upcoming Prestige from Instances:

• Solo - 100
• Duo - 125
• 4-Man - 300
• 8-Man - 400

Examples over 1595 Prestige:

• 6 Alerts will net you 1800 Prestige
• 13 Duos will net you 1635 Prestige
• 4 Raids will net you 1600 Prestige
• 2 Raids, 2 Alerts & 2 Duos will net you 1650 Prestige
• 3 Alerts, 3 Duos & 4 Solos will net you 1675 Prestige
• 4 Alerts & 4 Duos will net you 1700 Prestige
• 7 Duos and 8 Solos will net you 1675 Prestige

Alright thanks!

1500 prestige PER WEEK? When I was earning my hall, my goal was to get 1000+ prestige PER DAY.

Even though you explaining the math does nothing to dispel the fact that people will be driven to mega leagues(especially with no worthwhile tribute system), I will admit your numbers ARE reasonable in terms of individual expectations.

But still...

Admit it, mister Stone, you were just crossing your fingers for someone to ask before reading to paste this

What is the reasoning behind the soft cap, can either (or both) of you explain? Considering we have the hard cap as it is to limit the bigger leagues from getting the upper-hand, why bother with a soft cap?

I may be missing the point, and that is why I am honestly asking this, but, to me, it kinda makes me feel that, as the week goes by, there is less incentive to run stuff, knowing the prestige earned will be less than it should.

I guess my previous post was out of order a bit.

I am impressed at how reasonable the numbers are and very thankful that you guys revealed them to us.
"But still..." The numbers(which I like) still do not dispel the fact that:

1. The tribute system is nearly worthless now
2. While it was always true and accepted(By me at least) that small leagues had to work harder for less benefits. the new/fixed system increases the gap between mega-leagues and small leagues.
3. I merely liked the older system better I guess.

While saying all this though, I do understand that this is probably for the best. I am emotionally still pretty mad that the Tribute system was gutted so hard, and I still believe that the selfishness of a few individuals on the forums brought it about( You guys may tell me differently but I know better imo).

Thankfully my league doesn't(no longer) care about proficiencies and we will continue to slowly(soon to be even more slowly) obtain statues and bank slots/tabs.

So is the metric of an average league a league that hits 62,500 per week? In the example given in the OP it's a 40 member league contributing 1595 per person during a week, which would be just a bit over the soft cap but it sounds like ultimately the expectation is that an average league will hit the soft cap.

I'm just trying to get a clear picture of what the expected average is exactly.

Thanks!

I very much appreciate this explanation. It makes it a lot easier to convey to my league members what is going on. If 16 characters doing ONLY the bare minimum can generate that much prestige, I would say this is perfectly reasonable when you consider that most of the content you are expected to earn prestige for are daily lockouts and not weekly.

Personally, I would consider needing such a small amount of content PER WEEK to get that much prestige more than reasonable. I'm not even sure I would actually consider that active myself. A person who runs their 3 alerts every day will by far exceed their expected contribution in the developers model.

I can't say that I am overall pleased with this design, but I now understand where it is coming from and that works a lot better for me. I don't think it encourages mega-leagues, it just makes it obvious that smaller leagues WILL have to work harder. However, that is about expected.

Thank you Mepps, Zinbik, and the rest of the team for taking time out of your days to explain this to us all. If I have any other thoughts on the subject, I will surely bring them here but for now, I'm satisfied as it gives me a direction, and a way to anticipate how much Prestige we might be able to actually generate now that day 1 maxing is a thing of the past.

Oh and I, STILL think 40 active members is considered an "average" league size to be redonkulous. If these so called average leagues can earn 65k+ prestige a week, imagine the above average leagues. 65k in two days?!?!?!

Am I reading that right? Four instances a week is considered active?

Thank you for explaining the breakdown on the controlled numbers you guys expect used for your calculations.

I gotta ask still, can we please remove Diminishing Returns off tiered content? It still makes little sense.

It's used for the purposes of the example(s) that Zinbik outlined above.

The goal was for the average league to maintain 10 Proficiencies. That's what the soft cap is based on. However, we still wanted to allow something for more hardcore leagues to strive for without allowing for too large a difference between the average and the top. Therefore, we decided to allow you to go a bit beyond that cap, but made it more and more difficult the further you went to get to the final hard cap.

The desire was something like this. (This is not a fully accurate representation.)

Playtime............|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|-----|--------|----------------|
Proficiencies......0..1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9.10..11......12.............13

As you can see, the diminishing returns created by the difference between the soft and hard caps allow us to require different amounts of playtime for the first 10 Proficiencies versus the final 3. Getting to the hard cap and maintaining all 13 Proficiencies at all times is meant to be an exclusive stretch goal that few leagues can achieve.