News From the Developers of the Force and Destiny Beta

Hello Force and Destiny™ beta testers,

This week, we’re still preparing for next week’s Character Creation update, and since there’s no rules update, I wanted to take the chance to talk a little bit about the beta process. Specifically, I thought I would take a moment to address the changes that are made in the beta updates, and those that we work on separately as we prepare for the finalized Core Rulebook.

It’s safe to say that making a Core Rulebook (even one where the basic game rules have already been established) is a long and complex process. Even though we ran Force and Destiny through our alpha playtesting months ago, along with our own internal tests, we’re still tweaking and reviewing items as the beta is ongoing. Of course, at this stage, most of the changes at this stage are based on your feedback.

Because we’re still processing earlier feedback and developing new materials, even as we’re receiving your comments, there are scores, even hundreds, of changes between the beta and the final product. Many of these changes are minor; we correct misspelled words, make small tweaks to item prices, and add the additional content that will eventually flesh out the completed Core Rulebook. Putting all of these changes into the beta updates just isn’t feasible, but it’s not necessary, either. A lot of these changes aren’t going to change game mechanics, or don’t need to be reviewed by the playtest community. Let’s go over our update criteria to show you what I mean.

1. Does the change affect mechanics? Proofreading changes seldom make it into the beta updates, simply because they don’t need to be tested. That isn’t to say we’re not eternally grateful to those of you who post in our proofreading feedback forum! We take all your proofreading changes and make sure they’re fixed in the final book.
2. Is the change reintroducing old content? This comes up a little less often, but is still important. For example, a lot of you made the good catch that the Exhaust Port talent in the Starfighter Ace has no use in the core rules, because no enemy starships have the Massive rule. That’s definitely something we’ll be fixing (probably by adding either a Dreadnaught or a Victory Star Destroyer into the final book). However, we probably won’t add those profiles to the beta test since they’ve already been extensively tested in the Age of Rebellion beta last year.

Sometimes, however, we do add changes to the beta that break these criteria. If a mistake is glaring enough, we may “fix” it in the errata even while we fix it in the actual book, just to reassure everyone that it’s been noticed and addressed. We hate errors as much as you do, and sometimes we correct them early in the process to say, “Don’t worry; that problem’s been fixed.”

So that’s some of the thinking that goes into deciding what changes get put in the beta updates, and what changes get saved for the final book. Thanks for reading, and thanks for playing!

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