Question for designers

Brian W

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I have a scenario in playtest right now and I am a little frustrated. I have played it myself 3 times and it has been played another 10 or so other times. Almost every playing has been an SS win (over the russians); however, all the playtesters are saying it is pro-russian! I have never won it, nor has it been really close. I have changed the scenario 5 times, every time giving the russian side either more forces or easier vc or taking away SS.

What do you designers/playtest coordinators do when something like this is going on? I mean it is easy when you get four or five reports saying "I won as the SS and it is unbalanced towards the SS by a squad". What is happening is, "I won as the SS, but the Russians are way too powerful, give the SS another PSK". And even after playing a scenario twice, both with SS wins, I have one group saying it is way pro-Russian!
 

byouse

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Brian

Sounds like you "know" what you want done and how it's supposed to be done but your playtesters are not doing it that way.

Without reading the reports who knows if this is the case, but that's what it sounds like.

Ultimately you (or Evan or whomever) are responsible for it so you should do what you feel is right with the balance, but use your playtesters for input.

Unless, of course, they are doing obviously wrong things (saw some reports Rex had about the time of the GH playtest and clearly the players were playing a beach assault wrong. How do you give weight to that (he did, he shouldn't have).

JMO,
Brian
 

Pitman

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What I would want to know is a) why the playtesters think it is unbalanced and b) whether or not the playtesters are in agreement. If the playtesters cite a bunch of different things, then they may be off. If they are all in general agreement about one potential problem, it might be worth looking at.

I would also be curious as to their explanation of how they won, even though it was unbalanced. Did they simply say they pulled it out with dice? Did they say they were more experienced than their opponent? Or was it something else.
 

Brian W

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pitman said:
What I would want to know is a) why the playtesters think it is unbalanced and b) whether or not the playtesters are in agreement. If the playtesters cite a bunch of different things, then they may be off. If they are all in general agreement about one potential problem, it might be worth looking at.
It all seems to be that they are looking at the forces and saying that the Soviets have too much not to win. Even when they don't.

pitman said:
I would also be curious as to their explanation of how they won, even though it was unbalanced. Did they simply say they pulled it out with dice? Did they say they were more experienced than their opponent? Or was it something else.
Mostly the reason given is that the Soviets tried to rush the attack and instead should have gone slower. That would be fair enough except for three things:

1. Even after winning as the SS and then switching sides, groups are losing as the sovs.

2. I find it hard to believe that so many people are rushing their attacks.

3. I have played it myself twice keeping things slow, but still came up short.

I have had this experience before and I expect others have seen it too. For example, when I designed Manila John, it has about 4.5 marine squads fighting on a half board with 12 447s. People looked at it and said the Japanese couldn't lose, but when played, the Japanese will be very lucky to have the paltry exit force required to win. Something about a 3:1 advantage seems to scare people off.
 

Matt Romey

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I've found that scenarios like this can create a buzz of ideas; use that to your advantage and get a discussion going. Email is an excellent way to do this. Get people talking about why they think the way they do - be open about your reservations and try to persuade them that it is pro-SS.

Try to get one or some of them to reach a consensus of reasoning on why it's not pro-SS. Then, play one of them with you as the SS side. There's no better way to prove your point then to actually push the counters and roll the dice. Believe me, after you are done, one of you will have changed his mind, and you'll have your answer.

This happened, btw, in one of our playtests for the Melee Pack (The Wolves' Last Tooth'). I was convinced that a scenario was broken - that the Italians could easily win with a board edge creep on the left hand side. Others disagreed. So I played Robert Feinstein with me as the Italians, hitting hard on the left. He stuffed me so hard I cried uncle after 2 turns. Turns out I was wrong. :)

But I was happy to find that the scenario wasn't broken! I have a tremendous amount of confidence in that scenario now.

Matt
 

Brian W

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Matt Romey said:
This happened, btw, in one of our playtests for the Melee Pack (The Wolves' Last Tooth'). I was convinced that a scenario was broken - that the Italians could easily win with a board edge creep on the left hand side. Others disagreed. So I played Robert Feinstein with me as the Italians, hitting hard on the left. He stuffed me so hard I cried uncle after 2 turns. Turns out I was wrong.
One of the problems with this is that a stategy that may be very good (even the best) may fail if your opponent knows you are going to try it. So, it depends on keeping someone in the dark. It also may prove the only strategy to win the scenario, leading to a one-play scenario.

However, I agree with you that we playtesters need to do such things to properly test the scenario.
 

syfaulk

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Brian wrote:
For example, when I designed Manila John, it has about 4.5 marine squads fighting on a half board with 12 447s. People looked at it and said the Japanese couldn't lose, but when played, the Japanese will be very lucky to have the paltry exit force required to win. Something about a 3:1 advantage seems to scare people off.
John Basilone is somewhat of a local hero around here. Even though he's from New Jersey, he was stationed here (Camp P) , was married here and part of a local freeway is named after him. On top of that, there is a motion on the books here in SD to have a John Basilone Day (2/19). It also helps that San Diego has the largest Italian-American community on the West Coast.

Anyhow, my point is that when I saw this scenario, I HAD to play it. It's by far the best of the pack I've played so far. Brian is totally correct though. I played the Marines and when we did set everything up and I actually took a look at the force pool I thought "no way". However, the Japanese only managed to exit 9VP. A nail biter. The mixture of weather, night and the stumbling Japanese columns balances out the numbers advantage. Good job on that scenario Brian.

So while it may appear that the Russians are the superior force, the SS are turning out victories. Seems pretty obvious that while your PT'rs are seeing numbers/quality, the SS have something on their side that is helping them win.

Quoting Brian again;
3. I have played it myself twice keeping things slow, but still came up short.
This statement should definetely tell you that you need to take a look at swinging a bit of balance towards the Sovs. While I'm not on par as a scenario designer/playtester as some of you guys, I'd still suggest you trust that gut instinct and keep balancing, regardless of comment, towards the Sovs until you start seeing some wins.
-Scott
 

Matt Romey

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One of the problems with this is that a stategy that may be very good (even the best) may fail if your opponent knows you are going to try it. So, it depends on keeping someone in the dark. It also may prove the only strategy to win the scenario, leading to a one-play scenario.
Well, when playtesting something numerous times, there is usually a bit of roll-playing involved as far as pretending you don't know your opponent's strategy. If your opponent has declared he will try the "attack hard left" strategy, you still have to set up as if you were expecting an attack anywhere.

Now the only-one strategy thing can be a problem. There's no easy way to deal with this, you just have to get everyone's opinion and bang it out. If there really is only one viable strategy then you may have to go back to the drawing board.
 
G

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This scenario was recently modified and is probably in good shape now. One of the problems is that some of the playtesters were playing older versions of the scenario and had delayed sending us the playtest reports.
In this case a playtest results of older versions of the scenario tell us very little. In a playtest where changes come frequently, it is important to send in the AARs immediately after playing and to also make sure you are playtesting the latest version. I think this is a fine scenario that needs only a few playtest iterations to confirm the balance now.

If you would like to playtest Le Diable Noir, let me know.
 

WesN

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It is balanced

I won as the Soviets and the SS, it has to be balanced!

Wes
 
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