swellington
Member
Hitler on Ice! a new disney traveling event to teach kids about the holocaust and other great disasters of mankind.Which is more frightening: a demonised Hitler or a humanised Hitler?
Hitler on Ice! a new disney traveling event to teach kids about the holocaust and other great disasters of mankind.Which is more frightening: a demonised Hitler or a humanised Hitler?
Your playtesting can still work, although the playtest coordinator needs to be aware that they can't just lump your games into the pool & say "ah, perfect balance as it's 5-5". If you have a good feel for your skills relative to your opponent you can judge balance based on how close you got to a W:Of course the one underlying assumption for all playtesting and all ROAR reports was that the two players were of perfectly equal ability and were equally capable of capitalizing on the rulebook. Im a newer (weak) player and i usually lose a lot. You can assume that every reporting done my partner on our games skews the balance - not sure that is a fair representation to the designer or the playtest process. Maybe all the other games out there take place between opponents of very equal ability - though i doubt it.
Was it really? I could certainly buy that it was playtested by MORE different people than any other pack, but I doubt it was actually playtested more than a typical Journal/AP etc. in total playings. Perhaps I'm mistaken there, but that's my feel. The playtesting was somewhat more in public because Mark was recruiting other playtesters & building buzz about the product which is not the case for a typical Journal. And FWIW, I think the way Mark playtested was a very good choice for that pack overall."Few Returned" was playtested more than any other recent ASL production. At least it was touted as such.
I think there's a happy medium somewhere. You want the scenario playtested by a broad enough group that the SSRs/VC are buttoned up with tight verbiage and a variety of tactics have been explored to ensure the scenario isn't broken. Too little playtesting runs the risk of missing something obvious there and a broken scenario. If you have a McGrath-Chaney dream matchup playtesting for you, you could likely get away with 1 or 2 playings perhaps, but they're far from the average ASLers.It's the dirty little secret of ASL that tons of playtesting won't improve the quality of scenarios or make them more balanced. Those of us in the know are aware of this, but the ASL public at large still swallows this lie, and are encouraged to keep doing so by those with an agenda. It makes me sick to see the best designers in the world hiding or exaggerating their numbers of playtests because ASL players have been brainwashed.
The biggest error in playtesting, I think; some guys forget they're not supposed to be playing it competitively as much as critically.the "my dice were against me" syndrome that lots of folks fall into...
Well, what I actually said was that a scenario that has been playtested more times has a better chance of being balanced. There is never a guarantee when it comes to design and development. It's hard to see how someone could really argue with this point.He claims that more playtesting = more balanced scenarios.
Well, I guess what you mean to say is that it turns out that a scenario that had only been playtested 2-3 times actually was balanced. IMO, it is not possible to determine with any certainty that a scenario that has only been playtested 2 times is balanced. It's a crap shoot.Yet his own pack belies this. If I may tease him a bit, one can only guess as to how awful it would have been if it hadn't been playtested a billion times. Perhaps Mark isn't a good enough designer to produce quality scenarios unless they've been playtested 60 times each. Work on it Mark. I've seen David Lamb come up with a balanced scenario after only two or three playtests.
Not to my knowledge. I have no idea if it was playtested more than any other production. It did have more playtesters than any other, but that does not mean it had a higher total number of playtests."Few Returned" was playtested more than any other recent ASL production. At least it was touted as such.
I don't know to what extent MMP mentioned playtesting at all in its marketing of Few Returned. As for myself, most of the times I ever mentioned the playtesters it was simply to express how grateful I was to them.The reason that it's huge ammount of playtesting was advertised was to take advantage of the average ASL player's gullible acceptance of the fallacy that massive playtesting makes scenarios more balanced. It doesn't. Otherwise "Few Returned" wouldn't be posting numbers virtually identical to scenario packs that have minimal playtesting.
Two times is not enough. It is not enough for people to try different strategies, to determine if a scenario can be broken, etc.Once again: it is the ability of the designer and his playtesters to know when a scenario is finished, and putting an appropriate stop to playtesting that determine it's quality.
That's a fundamentally flawed assertion. It is certainly true that no amount of playtesting can guarantee a scenario will be balanced or fun, and it is certainly true that beyond a certain point you hit the law of diminishing returns. But I think very few people besides yourself would accept the notion that a scenario that has been playtested 2-3 times is more or equally likely to be balanced than a scenario that has been playtested 8-10 times.It's the dirty little secret of ASL that tons of playtesting won't improve the quality of scenarios or make them more balanced. Those of us in the know are aware of this, but the ASL public at large still swallows this lie, and are encouraged to keep doing so by those with an agenda. It makes me sick to see the best designers in the world hiding or exaggerating their numbers of playtests because ASL players have been brainwashed.
I haven't acted as if you, or anybody else, were lazy or genius or what have you. Unlike you, I have not been making this personal. I have not talked about you, or your skills or lack thereof, or any of your scenarios or packs, I have only been responding generically to statements such as "playtested 2-3 times."Clearly you find it incomprehensible that a scenario can ever be recognized as finished so quickly. Since you lack the abiltiy to tell when a scenario is finished, you keep on playtesting it to death. Just because you're not skilled enough to pull it off, don't drag the rest of us down to your level.
A near-perfect scenario was designed. One of the best playtesters in the world put his stamp on it, and it succeeded because of their combined talents, and CONFIDENCE...not "luck". You act like we were lazy and just threw it out there hoping for the best and got lucky. That's not only untrue, it's insulting.
I don't have any method and I am not touting myself as a better designer or developer than anyone else on the planet. I don't know why this is becoming a Mark vs Glenn thing, except that Glenn seems to want to make it so.But given how far they both fall short of that unlikely goal, both the "Glennbo" method of relying on sheer talent and gut feeling, and the "Pitman" method of relying on dogged persistence, seem to be about equal as ways to achieve the goal... within our limited ability to statistically measure the outcomes.
I think the focus has not been on that, Dave, because unlike balance, it is easier to determine if a scenario is actually fun to play with just a few playtests.A thread that's been hijacked by a good asl discussion!
The thing that worries me about this whole topic is that the focus seems to be about balance and no one's mentioning the "fun" factor of the scenario.
Balanced scenarios can be un-fun, and fun scenarios can be unbalanced.
C. an analogy involving hitlerWhich is more frightening: a demonised Hitler or a humanised Hitler?
That is not an assumption. Most designers try to take skill levels into account when evaluating playtests, I think.Of course the one underlying assumption for all playtesting and all ROAR reports was that the two players were of perfectly equal ability and were equally capable of capitalizing on the rulebook. Im a newer (weak) player and i usually lose a lot. You can assume that every reporting done my partner on our games skews the balance - not sure that is a fair representation to the designer or the playtest process. Maybe all the other games out there take place between opponents of very equal ability - though i doubt it.
You have something to strive for?So if the top players decide a scenario is balanced, what about the rest of us down in the depths of ability?
Personally I don't think that one is balanced at any level, but I've only played the initial release - don't know if the MM '99 version is better (no record on ROAR for the reprint).Is "Angels at the Airfield" balanced between top players, but only played by normal players and as such, the essence of the attack missed by the majority of the US players?
And the solution is to print something very pro-attacker so that a newbie who doesn't realize what smoke assets his vehicles have and how to cross a bridge under fire can still win? That's not really practical is it? Shouldn't we strive to teach the beginner what he could better do to win? After the beginner gets his butt kicked as the Ami & wonders how this barker was ever published, he could read the Scenario Replay in the Journal (or was it an annual?) and see how the incomparable J.R. Tracy solved the same problems and he learns a lot. Suddenly he's not a beginner anymore, but making his first steps towards Grognard status. Heck maybe he even plays it again as the Ami or next time he's on the attack with the Americans thinks to check out his smoke assets etc. & utilizes some of those fancy tactics and his game leaps a couple levels...Scouts out, between two beginners will probably be a walk over for the defender everytime - how many times do you really think beginners will play it after their first time?
Well that's a nice ideal, but relatively impractical in all but the simplest of scenarios IMO. Maybe it's true for something like Guards Counterattack with a relatively fixed setup and simple OB, but add toys, vehicles etc. and the complexities just get way too high to anticipate what a bad player won't know to do. Will he forget his smoke assets? Will he always prep? Will he leave his tanks exposed w/o infantry support? Who can tell? If we balance for one level of incompetence, is it unbalanced for a different type of bad play that we didn't anticipate? That would be tricky.Balanced should mean balanced at all levels of play - there's no expectation that to play a balanced game both players must be experts. This is the problem - between novices, one scenario may look perfectly balanced, and yet as their experience grows the balance may swing in an apparent arms race.
Well this is without a doubt true. If it's not fun, don't bother. Calling a coin flip is perfectly balanced, but that doesn't make it fun.Hence I fall back to it should be fun, and interesting (have options) for both players. To hell with the playtesting guys, just make us fun scenarios!
Hmmmm...Given the lessons of Greenland and Iceland, I'd be quite suspicious of "Fun-o-Rama!" as false advertising, but your point stands that if it's not fun it doesn't matter that much if it's balanced. By the same token though, I'm unlikely to play a fun dog multiple times either. Now fun and relatively balanced I may play quite a bit over the course of several years on the tourney scene...Would you more likely buy a pack called "Balanced-o-Rama! The perfectly balanced 10 scenarios - guaranteed to be even, over 100 playings or your money back!" or "Fun-o-Rama! 10 scenarios that will have you reminiscing for years to come."?
I would say you are correct.Was it really? I could certainly buy that it was playtested by MORE different people than any other pack, but I doubt it was actually playtested more than a typical Journal/AP etc. in total playings. Perhaps I'm mistaken there, but that's my feel. The playtesting was somewhat more in public because Mark was recruiting other playtesters & building buzz about the product which is not the case for a typical Journal. And FWIW, I think the way Mark playtested was a very good choice for that pack overall.
:laugh::laugh::laugh:...But I will not back down from my belief that playtesting a scenario only 2-3 times is inadequate. It is not enough, really, even to test out different strategies, and if one doesn't at least playtest the main possible strategies, how can one truly have a grasp on whether or not it is balanced? One can't, in such a situation; one just has to hope for the best.
No, I have to reject this. You have to assume balanced given competent play, otherwise it is useless. Because novices are so incompetent at using armor on the attack, for example, a scenario that will be balanced for two novices will be very tough on the defender when played by two competent players.Balanced should mean balanced at all levels of play - there's no expectation that to play a balanced game both players must be experts. This is the problem - between novices, one scenario may look perfectly balanced, and yet as their experience grows the balance may swing in an apparent arms race.
This is certainly true - we have no way of knowing the matchups to determine if there was a skewing in sides. Maybe the experienced Groggie always takes the Germans so ROAR shows it as unbalanced, but it's really a side selection issue? (Note: in my experience this is somewhat unlikely as I'd guess 80%, or more, of scenarios sides are diced for, but that doesn't mean sides can't be skewed randomly particularly in scenarios with few playings)In essence i was saying that it is possible that ROAR ratings in no way are capable of 'statistically' representing balance and ultimately may be a poor reflection of true balance.