That would be nice too. But every time I suggest a likes system someone comes in and says that the (maybe three) youtubers that play the game would get rewarded too much by such a system 
So I kinda gave up on suggesting that idea. 
2 Likes
My idea isnât that likes should earn extra, but that likes should remove diminishing returns - if itâs a good build itâs a good build regardless of what itâs made of.
As mentioned, then some folks would use outside sources (social media) to artificially inflate their âlikesâ. As it stands now, we all have the same materials and methods available to us.
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Dislikes then, so we can âBOOâ ugly builds 
1 Like
While this is true, not all materials are rewarded the same. Some are even punished.
It seems pretty clear that the effort-reward ratio is skewed in favor of a few âoptimalâ blocks and creative/aesthetic building styles have no system to reward 'em (which some sort of âlikesâ system might remedy to an extent), while ânaturalâ looking builds are actively punished by the bonus system (if you build with too many ânaturalâ blocks such as leaves, wood trunks, etc, you end up with less prestige than you started).
Now, perhaps the complaints about gleam are just a symptom of underlying problems with the prestige system in general (leading to threads such as this one), thus my vote for a revamp of the prestige counting method.
Thereâs still need to do a rebalance pass of the prestige values to sort out the natural block penalty, however. I donât see why the efforts towards one particular building style (pure gleam towers for example) should be rewarded more than the efforts towards creating a garden or a tree-house or other styles that rely heavily on the âpunishedâ blocks. The solution might be âbuffingâ the natural blocks rather than ânerfingâ things like refined gleam.
And while a likes system might skew a little in favor of the odd streamer / youtuber, I donât see a problem with that. Theyâre such a minority that it would hardly make an impact on anything, and even if it did, I donât see a problem with giving 'em a little more prestige when theyâre out there providing free advertisement for the game and contributing to increasing its population. Itâs not as if people without the game would be able to âlikeâ the builds made by the people they follow. 
A âdislikeâ system however would be too messy. And contradictory too, youâd have to go up to some build you donât like, and give it footfall, just in order to âbooâ it, not to mention that forum disagreements would spill into the game way too often⌠I donât really see anything positive coming out of a way for players to punish other players.
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it blows my mind how people argue such absurd pointsâŚ
sure, any system can be gamed. but wouldnât it be a nice change if some so-called (or not) gamed beacon that actually looks really good, and has been voted by many players -actually- be the viceroy? instead of some godawful pile of high-prestige blocks?
why is this looked down upon? I think thatâs the way it should be. This game should reward hard working creative players, not block spammers.
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Thereâs another argument against the voting system, which in my opinion is far more valid than the âgaming the systemâ argument; and itâs that people who lack creativity would then also be exempt from the Prestige system.
I agree with that. Itâs fine me saying aesthetic value should be celebrated and reward, as someone who strives to build such things, but I know there are people out there who arenât all that creative, but still want to take part and help up the Prestige of their Settlements.
Iâve said this before, but Iâll say it again here anyway; I think the answer lies somewhere in-between; a base Prestige value from blocks, and a modifier from âlikesâ.
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Of course. I personally wasnât suggesting a likes system to replace the prestige system, it would be in addition to it. The easiest way to implement it would be as an additional bonus within the existing bonus system.
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Yeah. Just like with real art, if someone can stack 3 blocks of gleam, title the piece âAnhedonia,â and get 1,000 likes they deserve some reward for that nonsense. And we also shouldnât punish uncreativeness because that would affect uncreative people like me. Was JK about the boos unless boos also offer rewards lol.
We should only be allowed to dislike developer builds.
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I kind of think of it like this. In some games, you can build different walls. In the end, youâre probably going to want the best walls that provide the best protection. People could complain everyone is building with just those walls because they provide the best protection. But why wouldnât you? If protection is what youâre after. Youâre free to build with lesser walls, if you like the look better, but then you also suffer the penalties.
If ANYTHING, I do believe natural blocks (placed by a player) should have SOME value. However, if all blocks have equal value, then no block has any value, other than the number of blocks placed, then youâre back to solid cube plots.
The problem people are having, is they donât want to play within the mechanics of whatâs already provided, but want the benefits. If someone isnât willing to use the prestige system as it is, and already in place, thatâs on them.
Again though, I donât think natural blocks should suffer a penalty.
I personally think, and believe it was originally intended, for a blocks value to be based on how hard it is to obtain, either through rarity, danger of the planet or area it came from (particularly when Titans and blink are introduced) or skills required to craft.
Thatâs not currently how the system works, and I feel needs amending. Although the game has been officially released, there are quite a few systems that will evolve over time - the Prestige system is certainly one if them, I guarantee it.
4 Likes
Iâm not going to vote but I strongly feel that all blocks should have similar prestige values. Gleam should be the same as any other rock. Both go up once refined, with decorative blocks having the highest prestige. Fresh in to the game youâd assume thatâs how it works, but not until I came to the forums did I find out that all that was out the window and the highest prestige value blocks were quite often eyesores.
I think there are two ways of looking at the situation:
One is from the viewpoint of mechanical advantage, and in that case yes, everyone should be building everything out of Decorative Gem blocks. Since thereâs no actual âprotectionâ factor, then the only mechanical advantage is prestige.
The other is from the viewpoint of creativity and aesthetics. This seems to be part of the core design values for the game, and seemed to be emphasized in trailers, advertisement, the game features descriptions on the website, etc.
Now, if everyone is pushed to go towards the mechanical advantage viewpoint, then thereâs no building variety and creative / interesting / aesthetic building is effectively removed from the game mechanics (and thus the game), contradicting the core design value of the âbuildingâ aspect of the game.
Itâs hard to judge aesthetics, and certainly no algorithm could reasonably account for that, so topics like this (and people arguing in favor of a rebalance of the mechanics of prestige) are merely attempts to figure out a way to bring some mechanical advantages to building creatively, preferably without negating the advantages of using the high-value blocks.
Then thereâs the issue of the values themselves. Those would ideally be reflected on how much work goes into obtaining those blocks, thatâs the whole idea behind the prestige system. And at present, the prestige values of certain blocks are placing 'em in the wrong spot of this hierarchy that supposedly reflects the effort (and cost) in obtaining them.
There are a lot of complicated, inter-related issues involved in this discussion.
But do notice that no one is building towers of decorative gem blocks yet, even tho they provide more of a mechanical advantage. Theyâre building with the handful of blocks that offer a disproportionate effort-to-reward ratio. That, in itself, should be a strong sign that something in the current prestige value balance is a bit off.
6 Likes
The way I see it, if the average mid level player has two hours to spend his or her time, and efficiently used an hour gathering an amount of block X, and the other hour gathering block Y, then their values should even out on a time basis.
If the player gathered 1000 of block X, and 10 of block Y, then 1000 X should be worth the same as 10 Y.
There would also be room for modifiers based on skills required.
2 Likes
Now, I might be mistaken about this, but I seem to recall refined gleam taking 10000 spark per mass craft at launch, just like gleam lanterns. At some point during the recipe changes (around the time of the whole brick controversy) I noticed that refined gleam was costing zero spark.
If I recall, thatâs around the time when posts about gleam towers started popping up. Perhaps the dev team decided to rebalance the recipe and forgot to rebalance the prestige accordingly.
Sadly thatâs relying on memory and I have no positive proof one way or the other (and at that time, patch notes were still⌠not quite comprehensive). Am I remembering things wrong, or was that what actually happened?
At any rate, in addition to the time factor and the skills factor, spark cost should be a factor.
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Pretty sure I remember Refined Gleam costing spark during beta, though Iâm in your boat; my brain whispers lies to me all the time.
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I feel that everyone that built a giant gleam tower will vote against this. This seems to be asking more a question of how many people have built one.
I donât think nerfing the prestige value of refined gleam as a whole is the way to go. If a player is dead set on wanting to pack prestige, they will always find a way. Tackling min-maxers as a dev with nerfs is a bit of a losing battle and not the best use of resources.
The obvious problems
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Kada I and cool blue (âwhiteâ) gleam: Ridiculously available compared to other gleam types. We are talking endless fields of it right next to a major portal hub. Itâs also on a level 2 world with 0 danger whatsoever. Equip a titanium AOE hammer and bring back 1500+ in 30 minutes. Now try that with any other gleam colors.
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The refined gleam recipe: No spark or power requirement. Own a refinery and you are good to start mass producing. Just as simple as refining wood or stone, except wait, itâs worse: You would have to dump 8 of those to get 1 refined block back. With gleam, you actually get 1:1 (and an even more advantageous ratio if you mass craft)!
These 2 problems also snowball, creating an even bigger one, contributing to our âwhiteâ gleam landscapes. And honestly, I donât think most people originally intend to game the prestige system; Itâs just that everything else that yields decent prestige is so involved to acquire that you start sprinkling gleam here and there for lighting / highlights and realize that you could get to the next settlement tier with a little more lighting and eventually lose control.
Possible solutions paths
- Less / no gleam on Kada I (a level 2 home world). The raw quantities are absurd compared to other colors.
- Spark / power requirements and /or non 1:1 crafting ratios. The idea of coming back to base with gleam and getting even more refined gleam than that original number in exchange for nothing more than some time in the refinery is broken and encourages gleam spamming.
A perhaps more exotic idea: Since the worlds have static, canon representations (i.e. what they regenerate to), itâs possible to know the distribution of block types and their tints in the world and the universe. What if the base prestige of a block became a little more dynamic, considering a combination of 2 things: How rare it is in the world vs other block types and how rare it is tint-wise compared to blocks of the same type across the whole universe. Wouldnât that make gathering more diverse and interesting? Maybe I would bother diving for some small quantities of rare gleam or hunting down a rare tint of ancient wood if they came with considerable prestige bonuses (which would in turn make the economy more intricate).
tl;dr IMO Prestige value is fine as it is. Ease of acquisition (for cool blue) and crafting is not. There are many options that have denser prestige per block but the crafting hoops and / or difficulty of acquisition reflect that. Not the case for gleam.
I donât want to see us to beg for nerfs to gleam production or acquisition⌠because some of us honestly build real things out of it - why should we be punished because someone cried nerf?