I am a composer who used Encore for 19 years, finally so frustrated with its problems that no upgrade would solve, and switched to Finale in 2014, totally rewriting hundreds of pieces from scratch (sure wish you could import Encore things!)

I have Finale 2014.5, which I have used and enjoyed, up to a point for some years now.  Bought with a disc, upgraded via Internet when 2014.5 came out.  I have a HP A4 Vision AMD Computer, equipped with Windows 10.  Somewhere in that you should be able to divine my "operating system", I think.

I can get some volume change on playback when I use the Expression Tool.  ffff to ppp comes out about like f to p, so I exaggerate my volumes and then hand-fix them when I make a performance copy.  As unsatisfactory as this is, I can live with it.  I can get accel. and ritard via the Studio View thingy, and it's not bad, though it's uncertain how you maintain or discontinue these effects, and if you do them to much the whole piece gets fouled up with unwanted tempo changes and glitches. 

But your Human Playback guide indicates I should be able to do a lot more - such as trills and drum rolls, crescendo and decrescendo.  As long as I have had finale, and I have written an entire symphony, I have never been able to get these to work.  VST, MIDI, tried everything under the Audio sun, followed Help's instructions to the letter over and over.  Nothing.  So I still write trills with 32nd notes, which sound fine on playback, but I have to erase them so normal people can play simply "tr" and a wiggly line. 

Can you see some chain of something or anything that can make Human Playback work?