I’m fine with this as long as the prestige is low enough, like 1 prestige per block.
This is true of some crafts like Refined Gleam but not others like Refined Stone. You actually lose prestige crafting stones to refined stone. But it’s denser, so I guess that counts for something.
Maybe refined gleam should craft at 2:1 or something like that. It might help.
It certainly should be ‘more efficient’ than single and batch crafting, though I still don’t think you should end up with more materials than you started with.
I don’t really have another solution on hand. Currently, there are blocks that are easier to collect large quantities of, which are also higher in Prestige than their base counterpart.
I don’t know. I feel as though either the Prestige or crafting system needs an overhaul. As of right now it is a system that actively encourages and discourages certain block usage, which flies in the face of a ‘Boundless’ sandbox building game.
And therein lies the rub. If, say, Compacted Gems were used only for building then I’d be fine with some rebalancing on account of prestige, but most of the problematic blocks are used to craft other things.
Say, Power Coils for example. Those use both gems and machined metal / alloy blocks.
So instead of changing things on the crafting side of the equation (and having who knows how many unpredictable ripple effects for crafting in general and the economy) it seems simpler to rebalance things on the prestige side in my opinion.
Edit: I think the whole prestige formula needs a look over, and a rebalancing pass on the prestige value of specific blocks also seems necessary at this point. Gleam being worth as much as it was in Early Access made sense, but it no longer does with the current planets and the ease of obtaining large quantities of the stuff even in low tier worlds.
You’re right; refined stone is actually in a good place, with; 288 ((2) 575) into 50 ((6) 300) - this is the pattern all crafting should follow in my eyes.
Actually I don’t think refined stone is in a good place. I look at prestige as measuring the amount of effort that goes into producing a block. I think it’s fair for crafting to add on a little bit of prestige, as it does require some effort. I think the balance goal should be for all materials prestige values to accurate represent the amount of work required to produce them, so there is no clear advantage to using any particular material to amass prestige.
I don’t see how this would work, unless of course they make higher tier blocks - that are easier to obtain than their lower counterpart - lower Prestige than their base counterpart, and that just seems rather odd.
Unless you have another Prestige rebalance solution? It’s late here and my brain is fried.
totally agree. as i said in other post as a reply to @Jirodyne i started to read some posts that person wrote and i see a strange tendency to moan about everything. if you dont like 90% of the game mechanics or game itself plz dont play it. a lot of ppl enjoy this game as it is ;/ i dont understand why u dont like most of the game content and mechanics…
Hmmm, you’re right - I agree, though you might also off-set those a little by the fact that you’re saving plot room by placing 50 Refined Blocks instead of 150 Stones. I don’t envy the developers juggling these values, but Refined Blocks are certainly closer to where they should be.
I can think of a few, but none foolproof. For example, a maximum density of a single type of block (be it refined gleam, or gems, or whatever) that will count for prestige within a plot. Possibly in a sliding scale.
512 blocks per plot (if my napkin math is correct), so perhaps after 50 (or 100, or whatever number to be decided later) identical blocks those blocks could start giving diminishing returns on their prestige value until placing more of the same block will give 0 prestige.
This would of course be proportional to the number of plots that a beacon has. Sort of a combination of ‘variation’ and ‘built ratio’ bonuses I suppose.
It wouldn’t ‘fix’ the issue of gaining (potential) prestige from mass crafting, but it would make it so that having more of the same stuff isn’t necessarily better prestige-wise.
I believe something like this is already in place via the variation rule, and even still - it effects all blocks equally in that regard, so you’re still better off with the higher tier blocks that you’ve mass produced - you could simply switch from one set of high tier blocks to another; which still doesn’t solve the issue of lower tier blocks being discouraged.
Unless I’m missing something, which is entirely possible.
The difference is that the variation bonus is a bonus, while what I’m proposing would be an actual cap to how much prestige you can cram via high prestige blocks in the smallest space possible.
You can lose the variation bonus entirely and still have more prestige when you place the next block. What I’m proposing is that the next block would give 0 prestige. 
You could make non-crafted blocks exempt from the diminishing returns. And of course, all that is in addition to what is quickly becoming my mantra on the forums, “prestige values need rebalancing”.
As it stands you’re actually penalized for building with natural blocks (and quite a number of 'em, as you’ve listed already). The problem isn’t simply that they’re not being incentivized, but you’re actually punished for using 'em (if you care about prestige). That needs to change, regardless of all other considerations.
I voted for changing the method.
The main thing I’d like to see is a multiplier that increases dramatically when using a large amount of brick/deco rock/deco wood… enough to make a decent size build have more prestige using a combination of them rather than machined metal/gleam.
I personally think the competition that prestige creates is a good thing, as a completely optional activity. There will always be set methods that are more efficient than others… it would just be nice if the blocks with most colour/pattern variants gave the most when used in big builds, to encourage more variety and having the most prestigious blocks on display, rather than hidden.
I misunderstood you before. Yes, that seems like a possible solution to the problem, at least something for the team to consider.
This is perhaps the best place to start.
I have to retire for the night now, but good talk - and thanks for giving me something to mull over.
I think this would unfairly favor builds with a variety of materials. We’re all used to ugly gleam piles but I think if done right an all-gleam build could look quite beautiful. I think this rule would too harshly punish those that want to work with a single material.
Not necessarily. A hollow cube of gleam, for example, would be unaffected. If balanced correctly, it would just make it harder for people to prestige-bomb (with any material) while still leaving proper builds (four walls and a roof, sculptures, etc anything non-solid) largely untouched.
I guess I can see that possibly working. It’s all in the balance though…good luck devs 
Builds are an artistic (or not) choice. Nobody gets to decide what is acceptable. Be it a giant gleam tower, a road, a castle, a garden, nothing at all, or pixel art. The fact is, people pay for their plots and get to build whatever they choose so long as it fits in with the CoC. Trust me, I see plenty of “ugly” builds (to me), but that’s a player’s choice, not mine.
Blocks are blocks, regardless of what formation they are put into. If someone wants to build out of gleam, that’s their decision.
Edit: as my usual response to most complaints: everyone can build towers or vaults, if they want, but they choose not to. It’s not a fault of the game.
Which would mean if I build something that’s a few plots wide that the plots where I put my walls would end up getting less prestige? I have a building where I wanted the windows in a certain way, to get that look I had to use 2 layers of brick of which 1 is chiseled, am sure there are plots in that building that have a lot of those brick blocks.
Your suggestion would punish such things no matter what number you can come up…
I feel prestige is fine as it is, perhaps a tweak here and there, and yes, since currently gleam is so easy to find and not difficult at all to refine it might be a good idea to lower it and a change in the natural blocks calculation. I like to fill up spaces with soil and plant grass so it looks nice. I also tend to ‘create’ land by filling ditches and small waterways with soil and place grass even tho I know I will use it to build on some time later. If that gets punished currently with the negative prestige that kinda sucks…
When the devs do change gleam prestige I hope they announce their plans up front and that they tell us:
So people have some time to compensate as to not lose control over their settlements…
Not necessarily. Perhaps I didn’t explain myself properly. Still using made-up numbers (would have to do more math to come up with a balanced number):
If you have 1 plot only in your beacon, and use 512 blocks of gleam, then I suppose we can all agree that it was done to game the prestige system, right?
I mean, most of those blocks wouldn’t even be visible and you can’t even enter the thing, its just a solid cube.
Now, if you have 200 plots, and used 512 gleam in that build, that’s a much lower percentage of gleam to other blocks (or air). Follow me so far? To fill 200 plots into solid cubes of a single material it would take 102.400 blocks.
So, the ‘block cap’ in my idea would scale based on number of plots. Let’s say 1/4 of the maximum volume of blocks that would fit in those plots. So, 128 identical blocks in a single plot beacon and block 129 would give 0 prestige, but it would take 25600 of the same block in a 200-plot build to hit the cap, and then block number 25601 would give no prestige.
Does that make more sense? It was late and I may not have expressed myself very well. It’s not counted ‘per plot’ but rather a cap that scales with the total number of plots. 
And anyway, it’s not a perfect suggestion, it was just the first idea that I came up with to solve @Pseudonym84’s problem of making sure that easy to mass craft blocks didn’t end up being rewarded more than their raw counterparts, without changing the mass craft mechanic to output less items than single crafting. Other blocks would be uncapped.
It could also work as an attempt to make variety (and effort) put into building more rewarding, prestige-wise, than spamming a single block until all plots are filled solid with it.
There would still be ways for people to ‘game’ the system for prestige-bombing settlements, which I can’t think of a way to avoid with any change to the prestige system other than disconnecting it from the warden system, but it would be more difficult than it is now.
Likes. Builds with likes should suffer less diminishing returns.