Are they frikkin serious?

Did they playtest this thing??? Ever???

Playing as a rebel with one friend as Gideon, Mak, Daila, and Fenn. We lost aftermath by a turn and the upgrade we could afford was the extended haft for the wannabe Jedi. This was our first side mission. We had never played it before.

Imperial was playing superior leadership.

Turn one he drops an officer with the field officer attachment, and double order force marches the eweb into position.

The Jedi died on turn two. At the first L turn. We didn't get the doors open till turn 6, didn't get the termial loaded till turn 7, right before he autodisables the other two terminals with his brand new royal guards.

The threat level was 2. Over the mission he would have normally generated 14 threat. He had almost 20 threat on the board at the start of the mission and almost 40 threat is reserved units.

Now as a mission reward we got almost nothing and the imperial gets 3 bonus influence for doing nothing but using the units the mission gave him tied up with a bow.

Am I missing something here? Is this just totally borked beyond repair?

Are they frikkin serious?

Did they playtest this thing??? Ever???

Playing as a rebel with one friend as Gideon, Mak, Daila, and Fenn. We lost aftermath by a turn and the upgrade we could afford was the extended haft for the wannabe Jedi. This was our first side mission. We had never played it before.

Imperial was playing superior leadership.

Turn one he drops an officer with the field officer attachment, and double order force marches the eweb into position.

The Jedi died on turn two. At the first L turn. We didn't get the doors open till turn 6, didn't get the termial loaded till turn 7, right before he autodisables the other two terminals with his brand new royal guards.

The threat level was 2. Over the mission he would have normally generated 14 threat. He had almost 20 threat on the board at the start of the mission and almost 40 threat is reserved units.

Now as a mission reward we got almost nothing and the imperial gets 3 bonus influence for doing nothing but using the units the mission gave him tied up with a bow.

Am I missing something here? Is this just totally borked beyond repair?

I think it's basically a case of mission difficulty varying with time. I've always found generous donations to be an easy source of bonus credits for the rebels if it's done as side mission 3 or later (and I think they still got most of the bonus when I did it as side mission 2).

Sounds like you might have a player skill disparity too.

Well, he had never played imperial before, and I had never played rebels, and neither side had ever played that mission, so skill played as little part as possible.

Theres definitely some lack of balance in the side missions mattering on when you take them. Unlike Story Missions which always happen at the same time/threat level, side missions don't have that benefit. Some side missions give the imperial player a ton of units (Mak's side mission) or barely anything (Jyn's side mission) right off the bat. And while the x2 threat optional deployment helps... it's like putting a band-aid on a machete wound in the early side missions.

The one time we did Generous Donations was the last side mission slot, and it came out to about 50/50. I disabled one terminal and they didn't have enough time to fully draw the rest of the credits out.