In this paper, we introduce a new approach to measure the dissatisfaction for coalitions of players in cooperative transferable utility games. This is done by considering affine (and convex) combinations of the classical excess and the proportional excess. Based on this so-called α-excess, we define new solution concepts for cooperative games, such as the α-prenucleolus and the α-prekernel. The classical prenucleolus and prekernel are a special case. We characterize the α-prekernel by strong stability and the α-balanced surplus property. Also, we show that the payoff vector generated by the α-prenucleolus belongs to the α-prekernel.