I know this is a little abstract but I'll try to explain the best I can.

So I'm working on this resource management prototype right now, and in it, you allocate a resource across four different locations, and players have to figure out where they want to allocate depending on circumstances.

If a player allocates the requirement, they get <x> points. If they exceed the requirement, they get <x> points and a bonus for each allocation above the requirement.

If they completely fail to allocate at all to the location, they get a penalty for that location equal to the previously mentioned <x> points AND a single additional penalty equal to that previously mentioned bonus. If they just fail to meet the requirement but allocate something, its just a penalty of <x> points.

This is pretty clear as communicated in gameplay mechanics, both on-screen and as a player plays.

But there's also an additional penalty, if and only if, the player doesn't allocate anything to the location.

You see, because <x> points are both a gain and penalty, in the early stages, it's advantageous and educational to the player for this to be as high as possible, but this would be overwhelming as the game progresses because you aren't able to fulfill the requirements of every location.

So in order to combat that, each time a player successfully fulfills the requirement, the succeeding <x> required points is divided by how long they've been able to maintain that sequence. This creates smaller numbers for <x> as it goes on.

And the additional penalty that the numbers for <x> will start to get larger each time the player fails to allocate anything to that location. This is not explicit and may not even be clear why the number is jumping from 8 to 85, because they're only seeing it in the next round after failing to do so.

There is still the direct penalty that I mentioned previously of <x> AND the bonus being taken away from the player's location score for failing to allocate at all to that location.

Now I know this is a bit much and this is more of an abstract, philosophical question, but what kind of obligation do I have regarding transparency of penalties? Does the fact there's already a direct penalty make up for the lack of transparency in the broader, less visible penalty?