What's your favorite implementation of a prestige mechanic?

iain3000 , 3 months ago

The thing that I find the most interesting is usually where there's an in-game logic to the prestige; it's not quite the right genre but hades deals with this incredibly well.

thepaperpilot OP Admin , 3 months ago

Oh hey, the loops subgenre typically does that part well! They tend to have a narrative (rare for incrementals, I know!) That explains the looping.

kopi-pasted , 3 months ago

My favorite implementation of a prestige mechanic is actually Ctrl/Cmd-C's completion token system, simple and boring as it may be.

This system gradually makes you build up a multiplier which increases polynomially over the course of your playthrough. It can get big enough to break the game's intended pacing, but you build it up slowly enough that you can see it slowly crumbling. In other games, behavior around prestiging is tightly controlled (this can be seen in the game's chapters). That's still the case here even with absurdly large multipliers but the feeling that you are supposed to do this is less present.

It's a power fantasy in which you feel you are defying the developer's intentions for how the game should be played. Eventually you quit because you have so much power that getting more requires giving the game constant attention (and by that point, a multiplier of 2x doesn't feel like anything anymore).

thepaperpilot OP Admin , 3 months ago

That sounds really interesting - I hadn't heard of that game before. I like games with a definite ending though

kopi-pasted , 3 months ago

It's not as interesting as I make it seem. At the end of the day, it's just a flat multiplier. It'll take a few weeks or even months of somewhat involved play before you start reaching the point that the completion tokens start noticeably changing the game's pacing. The game itself is not that much fun to play without this system.

I like it for the reason that the dev didn't seem to have accounted for people grinding that bonus after completing all released content - but I'd expect that most people would not feel the same way.

cardboardempress Global Mod , 3 months ago

Really enjoying Dodecadragons and how it handles prestiges. Earlier resources become automated, and while there's still some grinding it's not forever and you know that there's going to be a milestone that takes the pain away. Each resource builds, and you know what your target is for the next prestige. I like it.

Louigi Verona's Machinery, I liked the way different prestige mechanics still mean the game is still more or less the same time between resets with more progress, and adding new mechanics.

CheckBackMod - spending prestige currency for more gainz, carefully! It's entirely possible to go backwards because RNJesus isn't on your side!