First, I would say losing side doesn't get FULL rewards. They get their Xp reward so that part doesn't snowball

so they are incentivized to win still to deny you extra rewards.

The winner of more missions should have an advantage going into the finale, it just shouldn't be completely over the top

On 1/24/2017 at 1:02 AM, Majushi said:

So, even if I do decide to spend 3-4 Influence. (which is hard to save up for unless you want to possibly fall behind Rebel development)

Then they get a choice of taking my mission or one of theirs.
If they take theirs I get the Villain, but still have to select the Villain as one of my Open Groups AND have the threat to be able to field a single figure unique deployment.
If they take my mission sure, I've denied them a mission slot, but win or lose I still come up against the issue above.
Villain missions are a badly executed idea, for many many reasons.
If Villain missions didn't cost 3-4 influence, they might be worth it.
If Villains didn't take an Open Group slot, they might be worth it.
If Villains didn't cost a ton of threat (granted, some more than others), they might be worth it.
If Villains weren't a single figure deployment that dies very quickly, they might be worth it.
So far, the only thing I can see making them even remotely considerable is that they might take up a Rebel Mission slot.

My group came to similar conclusions in our last campaign and our idea was to house rule Ally/Villain side missions such that:

• Simply selecting the mission wins you the ally/villain at the end of the mission
• The reward for winning the mission is a reduction in cost of the Ally/Villain. We were thinking "2" but this could be a custom number if particular figures are overly expensive. Or something like a reduction of 1 threat for anything with threat <10 and a reduction of 2 for anything over 10, and 4 for anything over 15
• Rebels don't have to play two side missions for the same Ally to deploy the elite variant

Will let you know how it goes after we play Hoth

For our upcoming JR campaign, we're going to experiment with a few house rules. What do you guys think?

1) All players choose two characters before starting the campaign; their default Hero (A), which they always play, and an alternate Hero (B), which they play, if their default Hero is wounded (sits out next mission) or withdraws (sits out next two missions).

2) A and B characters share all items and all have the same amount of XP, even if they don't play every time.

3) Between missions, Heroes and the Imp can switch between different class cards of the same value (swap out one 2 xp card for the other 2 xp card, for instance) to try out different combinations.

4) After a mission, the Heroes can choose to keep one supply card drawn from a crate at the expense of not getting 50 credits for that crate, and begin the next mission with that supply card.

These house rules are not meant as neither benefits or nerfs for anyone, just as a way of simply experiencing more parts of the game in a single campaign.

9 hours ago, GyldenDamgaard said:

For our upcoming JR campaign, we're going to experiment with a few house rules. What do you guys think?

The idea of switching Heroes or Imperial class cards sounds like a nightmare to me. I get so used to my deck or Hero's abilities that switching back and forth kind of kills the campaign feel, and I know I'd be forgetting all kinds of triggers, but that's just me.

I'm loving these ideas about keeping 1 supply card by giving up the extra 50 credits. I'll be trying that as well. Of course, said item can't be kept again, I'm thinking of adding some kind of attribute test(maybe strength for hauling the additional item) for a hero to try to keep it.

11 hours ago, udat said:

My group came to similar conclusions in our last campaign and our idea was to house rule Ally/Villain side missions such that:

• Simply selecting the mission wins you the ally/villain at the end of the mission
• The reward for winning the mission is a reduction in cost of the Ally/Villain. We were thinking "2" but this could be a custom number if particular figures are overly expensive. Or something like a reduction of 1 threat for anything with threat <10 and a reduction of 2 for anything over 10, and 4 for anything over 15
• Rebels don't have to play two side missions for the same Ally to deploy the elite variant

Will let you know how it goes after we play Hoth

These are good ways to make allies/villains more attractive. My only thought is how much to discount figures for winning. Also unique vs groups will need a different discount. My own spin on it would be to allow for a 1 time half cost reduction. So it's a bonus but won't apply for the whole campaign

I've seen the idea that the devs encourage a houserule in which even the losing side can get mission rewards in a few places on the forums. Could anyone point me to where that's sourced from? How they recommend doing it?

On 2/14/2017 at 8:58 AM, Abak said:

I've seen the idea that the devs encourage a houserule in which even the losing side can get mission rewards in a few places on the forums. Could anyone point me to where that's sourced from? How they recommend doing it?

E: Link is showing a bit weird

Quote

Hi, Jonathan Ying here, one of the designers of the core box.
We were a bit too conservative with the power budgets of the original cast of uniques. On the Rebel side they saw substantially less testing since the Campaign Game got the lion's share of testing time, (also the reason why the Sabs were imbalanced) they were only rarely brought into play. Han Solo was given a rather dramatic nerf very late into development so that he wouldn't dominate skirmish utterly. (He used to have an ability that was called True Cunning and it gave him 2 blocks for every evade result. It was about as nuts as it sounds.)
Most of the costing problems were a result of a lack of truly thorough testing. Units like Vader and IG-88 were often thrown into Missions for narrative purposes and the rest of the mission would be balanced around their presence. Which was different from when we would test non-unique figures who were usually much more linked to their deployment cost in campaign play. We only have so much time and a game this big deserved more than we had. We absolutely pushed our dev cycle to the limit for the game, but there's only so much a small team can do.
It is also entirely my fault that the Royal Guards were so **** OP before the nerf. The main reason that this slipped through the cracks was because they were tested most often in the Later Story Missions, which often had really tricked-out rebel heroes in the tests. So to make sure they were able to stand up to really strong Campaign Heroes they were given more power than their point cost really deserved. That was mostly on me, as I was largely responsible for the hero and unit design at that time. Thank goodness for Paul and Todd for fixing them!
Sorry about the mess.

EDIT:
The other questions, which I guess I'll throw in while I'm here!
A house rule I use personally when playing campaigns, if one side loses a Story mission, they are guaranteed full rewards in the next story mission even if they lose. If the other side still wins that next mission then both sides get full rewards. This really closes the snowball gap, but still means that consistently winning will keep you pretty strong.
Heroes? I love Verena Talos, she was one of the last heroes I designed for IA and I had a blast making her a badass Solid-Snake style CQC specialist.
Favorite mission? Ha, I think I've got two, and they are not often played unfortunately: Bunker Buster, which has a sort of payload objective (from the Stormtroopers Pack, which is a tough sell since we already give you nine of the buggers in a core box.), and Under Siege, because it flips the usual script with the Imperials trying to kick down the door and raid a map rather than the other way around. (the story mission you get if you lose Aftermath.)
Skirmish squad? I really love the Inquisitor, I usually pack him with some officers and a nice Stormtrooper defensive formation.

Quote

Essentially this house rule applies only to XP and credits/influence for story missions. And if a side loses twice in a row they continue getting full rewards. The victory gap is never more than 1 XP. So there's still substantial incentive to win the side missions and there's still a little snowballing, which keeps the tension up, but it doesn't get out of hand and the rebels don't go into every single upgrade step with pennies, which feels less punishing.

^ Huh. Another interesting suggestion. Especially when the developer said:

Quote

Errata is a pretty big deal at FFG, and I pitched it but it just wasn't a priority, really.

Might have to incorporate this one into future campaigns.

But I'm also wondering why they didn't include this ruling in Jabba's Realm. I mean, they addressed the rebel upgrade/Imperial Agenda concerns in it.

10 minutes ago, Armandhammer said:

^ Huh. Another interesting suggestion. Especially when the developer said:

Might have to incorporate this one into future campaigns.

But I'm also wondering why they didn't include this ruling in Jabba's Realm. I mean, they addressed the rebel upgrade/Imperial Agenda concerns in it.

I haven't played through the Jabba campaign yet (I'm going to be the Rebels this time, so I haven't been skipping ahead) but in one of their interviews I remember the designers saying that they were trying to build this campaign to prevent some of the snowballing from previous campaigns. Maybe that's the reason it's not included in the rules, because the campaign was already built with this sort of thing in mind?

The example they gave was in the way some of the bonus rewards worked. In previous campaigns they were sort of a rich-get-richer sort of deal - like maybe if the rebels win they get their usual rewards, but if they won in 4 rounds or fewer then they get their usual rewards plus a bonus. So basically the only way that they could earn the bonus would be if they were already doing well enough to stomp the imperial to begin with. In Jabba's they talked about having the bonus rewards be more of a consolation prize. Like maybe the rebels lost the mission, but if they managed to destroy at least 4 terminals along the way then they get some sort of extra credits or whatever for at least partially completing the mission.

But who knows, maybe you folks that have played the JR campaign will tell me that none of this is even true

There is a system in place for partial victories. There are also some missions where the IP can get extra experience, whereas the heroes will get more money if they win which makes it harder to put a good catchup system in place. The campaign itself is a blast as well!

2 hours ago, ManateeX said:

The example they gave was in the way some of the bonus rewards worked. In previous campaigns they were sort of a rich-get-richer sort of deal - like maybe if the rebels win they get their usual rewards, but if they won in 4 rounds or fewer then they get their usual rewards plus a bonus. So basically the only way that they could earn the bonus would be if they were already doing well enough to stomp the imperial to begin with. In Jabba's they talked about having the bonus rewards be more of a consolation prize. Like maybe the rebels lost the mission, but if they managed to destroy at least 4 terminals along the way then they get some sort of extra credits or whatever for at least partially completing the mission.

I believe you are correct here and I remember them saying that too. They had partial, consolation rewards in at least one of the core missions (under siege, can't remember if others). They should have done that more but it seems they have realized that

Snowball rewards are bad. Catchup rewards are good

On 2/8/2017 at 0:22 PM, frotes said:

These are good ways to make allies/villains more attractive. My only thought is how much to discount figures for winning. Also unique vs groups will need a different discount. My own spin on it would be to allow for a 1 time half cost reduction. So it's a bonus but won't apply for the whole campaign

As I posted above, my solution was a one time 100% discount for one mission and then that ally/villain is gone for the rest of the campaign. Only applies to allies/villains earned from side missions and doesn't apply during the finale. Makes those green side missions a lot more valuable.

Another recent house rule I might try out in the next campaign.

Random Allies (so rebels don't pick the same ones, also might not use any we've used in the past). To compensate, earning regular allies gives you access to their elite version as well.

Another thing to consider, always gain access to the ally. Winning allows you to get a 1 time discount of half (round down, so 7 becomes 4) of it's cost to deploy, similar to one of the boon rewards from Hoth. Any other card that reduces cost, does so to the original value before applying this one.

Or just 1 time ally with the half cost rule above. This way it feels like you summoned them in, similar to like how you did a side mission to help them. Not applicable to finale

I've also been tweaking some of the class cards of certain heroes (mainly reducing strain cost and such) to allow for more flexible build paths and fun/different setups. This, along with my losing side respec XP rule, should allow for some different repeat of many of the heroes.

1 hour ago, frotes said:

Random Allies (so rebels don't pick the same ones, also might not use any we've used in the past). To compensate, earning regular allies gives you access to their elite version as well.

Not a bad idea. My rebels really, really like bringing Leia and the droids along. I'm getting kind of sick and tired of those acquisition missions, tell you the truth.

5 minutes ago, subtrendy said:

Not a bad idea. My rebels really, really like bringing Leia and the droids along. I'm getting kind of sick and tired of those acquisition missions, tell you the truth.

Yes the two droids is the main one I had in mind since they are always worth it. Leia is also a hot pick and I think JK Luke will be too. They can kind of imbalance certain campaigns imo if combo with Murne/MHD.

gray missions are randomed and that mechanic works fine. Also giving them elite versions of trooper type units might be cool to play around with

On 2/7/2017 at 5:07 PM, frotes said:

First, I would say losing side doesn't get FULL rewards. They get their Xp reward so that part doesn't snowball

so they are incentivized to win still to deny you extra rewards.

The winner of more missions should have an advantage going into the finale, it just shouldn't be completely over the top

I've run with this house rule in a few campaigns (including two that are still in progress) and I'm not sure I entirely like it for a few reasons:

1. Often the XP reward is the only reward for winning the story mission.
2. XP inflation - if one side wins all of the story missions, the losing side will have 13 XP (core and RTH anyway). So you end up with one side with 14 XP and one side with 13 XP. Each side will always have a minimum of 12 XP. This has varying levels of impact based on the Imperial class deck and the Heroes selected.
3. The winner of the first story mission will always either have the same XP or exactly one more XP than the loser of the first story mission, placing more emphasis on the outcome of that first story mission.
4. The main incentive is to have an XP advantage but in order to do so you need to win the first story mission so that you get that initial 1 XP lead, then you need to win the last story mission. Everything else in between only really affects whether the winner of the first and last mission ends up with 13 XP or 14 XP.
5. Credits and to a lesser extent Influence can still heavily sway the outcome of the campaign. Rebels with all T3 weapons and 1 less XP are going to be very strong as opposed to Rebels with mostly T2 items and 1 more XP. Consequently, makes the outcome of each story mission less important than the outcome of the side missions, which feels backwards.

I still like the idea of anti-snowball mechanics but there are more variables at play than XP. Winning 7/10 missions SHOULD give you some level of advantage going into the finale but depending which 7 missions you win, with the XP compensation rule that advantage might actually be entirely negated.

First, it's awesome that you tried it out.

there are 4 story missions per campaign so this rule will prevent a 4xp swing at most. 4xp difference seems to be a big one compared to 1xp gap. winning 7/10 missions, you usually get some extra influence to give you an advantage in the finale.

your point about experience inflation is definitely something to think about. Not sure how to fix it except to just not give exp to either side.. but instead reward the winner with influence/credits but that also seems like it would have its own problems. Also the xp inflation only happens if 1 side loses all the side missions. Hopefully that won't happen if everyone is only 1xp difference and the side missions are more split in who wins/loses. I'm ok with the xp parity

this is mostly a problem in Core/Hoth story mission design with how they give rewards. Also I think the loser should have an easier next story mission but that's not always the case

2 hours ago, frotes said:

First, it's awesome that you tried it out.

there are 4 story missions per campaign so this rule will prevent a 4xp swing at most. 4xp difference seems to be a big one compared to 1xp gap. winning 7/10 missions, you usually get some extra influence to give you an advantage in the finale.

your point about experience inflation is definitely something to think about. Not sure how to fix it except to just not give exp to either side.. but instead reward the winner with influence/credits but that also seems like it would have its own problems. Also the xp inflation only happens if 1 side loses all the side missions. Hopefully that won't happen if everyone is only 1xp difference and the side missions are more split in who wins/loses. I'm ok with the xp parity

this is mostly a problem in Core/Hoth story mission design with how they give rewards. Also I think the loser should have an easier next story mission but that's not always the case

I may have been a bit unclear when talking about this - depending which missions you win, winning 7/10 missions may leave you with very little advantage. If you win all 4 story missions but go 3-3 on the side/introductory missions, there will be very little advantage gained if following this house rule. Depending on the class deck/rebel heroes, 1 XP may not give a very noticeable advantage and I feel like if you do that well during the campaign, you should have a bit more of an edge in the finale. However, I do agree that snowballing is a problem (hence why I've tried this house rule in my campaigns). Like you said, it would be nice if the campaign adjusted more for this through subsequent missions - harder next mission if you win, easier next mission if you lose.

3 hours ago, machfalcon said:

I may have been a bit unclear when talking about this - depending which missions you win, winning 7/10 missions may leave you with very little advantage. If you win all 4 story missions but go 3-3 on the side/introductory missions, there will be very little advantage gained if following this house rule. Depending on the class deck/rebel heroes, 1 XP may not give a very noticeable advantage and I feel like if you do that well during the campaign, you should have a bit more of an edge in the finale.

I guess it depends if you see that as a problem or not. Personally I think it's better that the finale is on even footing but I can see where you are coming from too. You want to feel like you earned some kind of advantage for good play throughout the campaign. I think the idea in another thread of just limiting the XP gap to 2 would work well

3 hours ago, machfalcon said:

Like you said, it would be nice if the campaign adjusted more for this through subsequent missions - harder next mission if you win, easier next mission if you lose.

Having played through core and hoth, there are slight adjustments in the mission route to allow for this type of pathing. Mainly adjusting which story mission followed New Threat/Under Siege and which mission followed the Interlude in Hoth. Also I made adjustment to certain events/setup in New threat and Fly solo that I think will allow for a better mission balance/experience

As a house rule for campaign mode I'm giving Darth Vader the Deflection command card. The -2 accuracy forces rebel heroes to get closer if they want to attack him, which can help negates or at least lesser the 4-speed movement issue. And if they take a chance and stay too far, the attack may miss and Vader may inflict 2 free damages.

36 minutes ago, player1690582 said:

As a house rule for campaign mode I'm giving Darth Vader the Deflection command card. The -2 accuracy forces rebel heroes to get closer if they want to attack him, which can help negates or at least lesser the 4-speed movement issue. And if they take a chance and stay too far, the attack may miss and Vader may inflict 2 free damages.

Hmm... that'd be a cool ability for the *fingers crossed* Darth Vader Skirmish upgrade!

1 hour ago, player1690582 said:

As a house rule for campaign mode I'm giving Darth Vader the Deflection command card. The -2 accuracy forces rebel heroes to get closer if they want to attack him, which can help negates or at least lesser the 4-speed movement issue. And if they take a chance and stay too far, the attack may miss and Vader may inflict 2 free damages.

it would be especially nice in the finale when you can spend 2 threat for 2 blocks too

12 hours ago, Stompburger said:

Hmm... that'd be a cool ability for the *fingers crossed* Darth Vader Skirmish upgrade!

Maybe that's a solution for some of the overcosted allies / villains from the early waves. I'm not a skirmish player, so if I'm way off base, let me know.

House Rule Idea:

Spend threat equal to the point value of the skirmish command card to gain that ability.

It wouldn't fix all the early allies, but maybe some.

Thoughts?

2 hours ago, bdgolish said:

Maybe that's a solution for some of the overcosted allies / villains from the early waves. I'm not a skirmish player, so if I'm way off base, let me know.

House Rule Idea:

Spend threat equal to the point value of the skirmish command card to gain that ability.

It wouldn't fix all the early allies, but maybe some.

Thoughts?

So how would that work for Rebel allies when there's no threat (give Imp threat?), or command card manipulations like General Weiss' Endless reserve (just ignore it?)

It could be interesting though: when Chewie's on board, Rebels may give Imp 3 threat to let Chewie to become focused when a hero gets defeated wounded; when Weiss is on board, Weiss gains: <action>: pay 2 threat, reinforce a defeated friendly TROOPER

2 hours ago, ricope said:

So how would that work for Rebel allies when there's no threat (give Imp threat?), or command card manipulations like General Weiss' Endless reserve (just ignore it?)

It could be interesting though: when Chewie's on board, Rebels may give Imp 3 threat to let Chewie to become focused when a hero gets defeated wounded; when Weiss is on board, Weiss gains: <action>: pay 2 threat, reinforce a defeated friendly TROOPER

I think that's exactly how it could work. Some wouldn't work (Han's is one notable example). But it might make taking allies / villains a lot more viable.

Vader would get a legit gap closer that allows him to use Brutality. IG-88 gets very scarry. Dengar would be even more able to deliver conditions. Chewie and Leia get appropriate boosts.