Something's been bugging me for a while when it comes to balance and play-testing at the design level.

How would a team who play-tests a mission several times in order to balance it compensate for the fact that they (except for the first playthrough) now know what's coming?

That can be a HUGE advantage. Large enough that I don't see how its effect can be ignored when it comes to testing for balance...

Unless they have enough people who can play-test the missions from a first-run perspective EVERY time. Is that how FFG does it? Granted, a lot of missions come down to the last roll, and that's awesome - but a lot of them are also steam-roll sessions. Finales are especially vulnerable to this.

Anyway, it just occurred to me that if I play a mission and lose horribly as the rebels, then replay it with the knowledge of what's coming and have a close game (which is almost always what happens when it goes bad the first time), it seems as though they've balanced the mission according to those subsequent playthroughs where the rebels know what's coming...

I just lost the JR finale 'Mutiny' before the end of round 3 - which got me thinking about this again...

Thoughts?

If your goal is to playtest rather than to win, then I assume that it'd be possible to play a game using only the knowledge that you have at any given time.

For instance, if opening a door would cause units to spawn in a room, then playtesters should consider:

1) The do not "know" what opening the door does

and

2) Opening doors is often a mechanic that triggers effects.

So, they have to try to not play as if they know exactly what is behind the door, but also not play dumb and act as if they had no idea opening the door could be a trigger. It's probably a difficult balancing act, to be sure.

Different companies perform different playtests, testing varies from game to game, and alpha testers are looking at different things than beta testers. In general, the more varied testing the better.

I think (agenda) side missions are easier to play, replay, and even solo-play than story missions. The side missions can be played in the one-shot format as discussed in the other thread and its kin:

From what I gather from the designer interviews and other talks, Imperial Assault missions are intended for competitive play, and are thus sometimes hard for casual rebel groups. It helps with replayability though. Also, if a mission allows different strategies, they will be more replayable. I think there are other considerations as well. A good reward should make obtaining it a little harder. Sometimes a little bit imbalance might be good to make campaign a good playing experience. In the end though, there are too many variables to consider and test everything.

(I have recently designed a mission of my own, so I have some very recent experience. I am eagerly awaiting blind-test feedback.)

Also, people learn, the community learns. I think that Rebel strategic play has reached a point where the Imperial player is often in the receiving end, so I welcome the existence of more powerful imperial class decks to allow adjusting to the opposition.

One thing that seems to help allow the mission to be competitive even when the Rebels know what's coming is that the Imperial player often has choices, and the Rebels can't play around all of the options.

Also, the devs seem to be pushing the use of one-off Agenda Cards, which adds another unpredictable element to missions.

Testing should be done to cover various ways of playing the mission, and one of those cases should include having knowledge of the mission to make sure it's not completely pointless to ever play it a second time. But given how obviously unbalanced the last two campaigns have been, I'm not sure there is any testing done.

15 hours ago, Union said:

Testing should be done to cover various ways of playing the mission, and one of those cases should include having knowledge of the mission to make sure it's not completely pointless to ever play it a second time. But given how obviously unbalanced the last two campaigns have been, I'm not sure there is any testing done.

I agree with that, actually. It's impossible to fairly replay if the mission is perfectly balanced on the unknown elements - the rebels have the advantage if replayed. Maybe a 'replay' mode of the mission. Like a difficulty setting (which most of us do with house rules).

On your second point - it did seem fairly simple for the rebels to steamroll the JR campaign we just finished except for the finale. I lost before the end of round 3 having all of my heroes flipped...

I used to believe the game is balanced, however, the more I play the more I believe otherwise. FYI I play Imperial ( while trying to help out the rebels as their 5th player ) and I still win.

No amount of play testing can truly balance this game. and with every other expansion, the variables get overwhelmingly many! Heroes, Class Cards, Imperial Class Card, Agenda Cards, etc. Timed missions are very unforgiving for the rebel players. There is no room for error for them otherwise they will cross the point of no return. Timed missions require every action to count, bringing you close to the objective. If rebels shoot an imperial figure and it doesn't die from 1 attack, you just wasted an action. a few more like this and the timed mission is a loss. There are some imperial cards that are completely broken also, aka Mortar; you will always find 2 targets to hit. That card can grant you average of 15 dmg per mission ( over 4 rounds) if used correctly and that's roughly 30% of the heroes' health pool.

Based on My experience, this is what I have realized over three campaigns with different skill levels.

1) Inexperienced Rebels vs Inexperienced Imperial : Rebels Win

Inexperienced imperial will not make the right deployment choices or buy the right class cards that help him win. He will end up getting his units killed faster than they are deployed because of the Heroes' ability to shoot twice. Occasionally, the rebels will lose to timed missions or if they misunderstood the mission objective.

2) Inexperienced or (Semi Experienced) Rebels vs Experienced Imperial : Imperial Wins

This will be a one sided bullying. the campaign will even end as "Rebels 0 - 12 Imperial" . ( See 4 ).

3) Experienced Rebels vs Inexperienced Imperial : Rebels Win

Same as 2). the campaign will even end as "Rebels 12 - 0 Imperial" . ( In my play through with me in the rebel team, The imperial player quit after losing 3 in a row, so i took over again as imperial; and won the rest of the missions after being handicapped).

4) Experienced Rebels vs Experienced Imperial : Imperial Wins

If an Experienced Imperial Player, deploys the threat-efficient units ( regular royal guards, regular trandoshan hunters, Elite Jet troopers), makes the right moves, buys the right class cards in perfect order, buys the right agenda cards, makes the right tactical moves, plays the one-off agenda cards at critical moments, There is no freaking way the rebels will ever have a chance to win. There is a GLIMPSE of hope if heroes roll high and imperial rolls blanks. (And even in those scenarios i have pulled some fancy tricks and won the missions as imperial). If both sides are equally experienced, the mission surprise events will throw the Rebels off. This is amplified in the Final Missions.

In a nutshell, In an equal skill match up:

Rebels are destined to lose with a slight chance to win. Imperial are destined to win with a slight chance to lose.

These are my two cents.

In my experience (and I played many campaigns, getting close to 20 now) if the Rebels and Imperial are both high experienced (I mean, having played at least 2-3 campaigns; in my regular, non-family playing group the least experienced player is Rebel for a third time now, and he also was Imperial twice), Imperial player will lost most of the missions, but will have a chance of winning Finale.

That is because experienced Rebels can make right decisions at the start of the game. If they pick the right heroes (more the well-working combination of them than just the powerful ones, and knowing which combination will work good is not an easy feat; IMO it requires at least two full campaigns played as Rebels to get good feel of synergies between heroes), and then buy their skills wisely, Imperial Player will have a lot of trouble.

4 hours ago, Jarema said:

In my experience (and I played many campaigns, getting close to 20 now) if the Rebels and Imperial are both high experienced (I mean, having played at least 2-3 campaigns; in my regular, non-family playing group the least experienced player is Rebel for a third time now, and he also was Imperial twice), Imperial player will lost most of the missions, but will have a chance of winning Finale.

That is because experienced Rebels can make right decisions at the start of the game. If they pick the right heroes (more the well-working combination of them than just the powerful ones, and knowing which combination will work good is not an easy feat; IMO it requires at least two full campaigns played as Rebels to get good feel of synergies between heroes), and then buy their skills wisely, Imperial Player will have a lot of trouble.

Have the Rebels been playing a different campaign every time? Or are they playing a campaign that they have already played? I have a feeling it's the latter.

The discussion is about rebels playing missions for the first time and being able to win or not.

6 hours ago, Serox said:

1) Inexperienced Rebels vs Inexperienced Imperial : Rebels Win

4) Experienced Rebels vs Experienced Imperial : Imperial Wins

In a nutshell, In an equal skill match up:

Rebels are destined to lose with a slight chance to win. Imperial are destined to win with a slight chance to lose.

These are my two cents.

It's funny, but my experiences have been the exact opposite of yours - when everyone's new to the game I find that the Imps have the advantage, but when everyone knows what they're doing I find that the Rebels have a (slight) advantage.

I think it comes down to the fact that the rebels need to make very few mistakes if they want to win - they really need to learn to get the most out of their abilities, spend their credits appropriately, etc. If they mess up on any one of those things then they're going to lose, almost irrespective of what the imperial does (within reason). Threat just builds up too quickly if you don't know how to efficiently clear it, and on the other side of that coin if you spend all your time killing imps then the round timer will be over before you know it. Add to the fact that the rebels don't really know what to expect from map triggers in the first few missions and to me it adds up to an imperial advantage.

1 hour ago, Serox said:

Have the Rebels been playing a different campaign every time? Or are they playing a campaign that they have already played? I have a feeling it's the latter.

The discussion is about rebels playing missions for the first time and being able to win or not.

both.

I have two playing groups (friends and family), and in both groups we played each campaign at least twice (I still dont have Jabba's realm); more with my family. But even playing mission for a first time, Rebels knowing what to do with their heroes have easier time than Imperial IMO. Of course, it may be specific for playing style of me and my group. But we all are rather competetive players, who do not want to play gentle in order for other side to have chances of winning, so we do what we see as the best tactic and strategy

Honestly, I think any sort of sweeping generalization is really only applicable at an anecdotal level. I think most people here will tell you that "balance" means a very different thing in IA than it would in something like a Euro game, but that's not to say that one side should consistently be at the advantage.

Also, that's of course not to say that wasn't your experience- there are so many factors that go into a mission and a campaign that I have no doubt that one could see a total sweep.

10 hours ago, Serox said:

4) Experienced Rebels vs Experienced Imperial : Imperial Wins

If an Experienced Imperial Player, deploys the threat-efficient units ( regular royal guards, regular trandoshan hunters, Elite Jet troopers), makes the right moves, buys the right class cards in perfect order, buys the right agenda cards, makes the right tactical moves, plays the one-off agenda cards at critical moments, There is no freaking way the rebels will ever have a chance to win. There is a GLIMPSE of hope if heroes roll high and imperial rolls blanks. (And even in those scenarios i have pulled some fancy tricks and won the missions as imperial). If both sides are equally experienced, the mission surprise events will throw the Rebels off. This is amplified in the Final Missions.

In a nutshell, In an equal skill match up:

Rebels are destined to lose with a slight chance to win. Imperial are destined to win with a slight chance to lose.

These are my two cents.

I agree with your points minus the last one. Experienced Rebels vs Experienced Imperials is very Rebel favored. Unless you play the core game and the rebels don't throw the first mission.. Imperial can snowball hard then

8 hours ago, Jarema said:

In my experience (and I played many campaigns, getting close to 20 now) if the Rebels and Imperial are both high experienced (I mean, having played at least 2-3 campaigns; in my regular, non-family playing group the least experienced player is Rebel for a third time now, and he also was Imperial twice), Imperial player will lost most of the missions, but will have a chance of winning Finale.

That is because experienced Rebels can make right decisions at the start of the game. If they pick the right heroes (more the well-working combination of them than just the powerful ones, and knowing which combination will work good is not an easy feat; IMO it requires at least two full campaigns played as Rebels to get good feel of synergies between heroes), and then buy their skills wisely, Imperial Player will have a lot of trouble.

This. Check out the records of the PBFs on bgg, especially of the groups that are experienced. They are strongly Rebel Favored, especially if they are playing with 2/3 of Gideon/Fenn/Diala

15 minutes ago, frotes said:

They are strongly Rebel Favored, especially if they are playing with 2/3 of Gideon/Fenn/Diala

Or 3/3

I think the hidden information is not such a big deal. Most players who complain about this didn't pay attention in the fluff text part, which almost always gives strong indicators what will happen during the mission. In my experience, you just can give new players the advice that it is a bad idea to open doors too late and what it means for the activation order and tell them to pay attention to the mission briefing, and offering to reread it at wish.

Another look into playtesting would be the recent Jonathan Ying AMA

8 hours ago, Incredibul said:

I think the hidden information is not such a big deal. Most players who complain about this didn't pay attention in the fluff text part, which almost always gives strong indicators what will happen during the mission. In my experience, you just can give new players the advice that it is a bad idea to open doors too late and what it means for the activation order and tell them to pay attention to the mission briefing, and offering to reread it at wish.

I agree that usually the "Lore" tells a lot about what to expect and also once you have some experience, you can do some good guess work. Only thing you won't know is end of round triggers

If a group strongly dislikes the full on hidden information, one way to alleviate it is by telling the rebels the event name & triggers in each mission but not that details. So they have an idea of what is going on but don't know what exactly will happen