Bare with me as this evolves from a conversation I had last night with one of the locals. I think right now, Focus is way to easy to get between the Rebels and the Mercs. The main blame of course is C3P0 and Gideon. Just handing out focus left and right has helped make a two die attack almost pointless. If your heavy hitters aren't focused up the first round of shooting, you can pretty much forget being able to compete in most of the matches.

Maybe to help balance things out, Gideon needs to take a strain when he passes out his Focus. If C3PO passes out a focus, maybe loose distracting or suffer a strain. I don't want to nerf them entirely just make there be some cost associated with it. Even the Focus command card costs a point, and an action to let any figure do it. And that is one time.

Thoughts on this, or an I just nuts?

I think it's valid but mitigated in casual play. Which, seems to me to be what the product has been developed for. Seems.

In casual games, the mitigation comes through a lack of spare Gideon & 3PO figures to share. There's usually one of each per gaming group, and the rebel player(s), or the figure owner, has first dibs.

How to fix that, without throwing a money wrench into a bunch of people's products at home, I do not know. Other than to release a card that somehow discourages the opponent focusing. I personally can't believe the focus is LOS and not a number of squares, or adjacent. It's just crazy. But, we still don't use Gideon much cause the model doesn't look cool.

I would argue that two dice units would not be seen no matter what. There are just too many three dice attacks out there now to choose from that the people who are currently buoyed by Focus would just stop seeing play in favor of three dice units.

10 minutes ago, ThatJakeGuy said:

I would argue that two dice units would not be seen no matter what. There are just too many three dice attacks out there now to choose from that the people who are currently buoyed by Focus would just stop seeing play in favor of three dice units.

Idk I think with or without focus being handed out eQuays are still more efficient than HKs.

I said this a while back:

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I'd be okay with Gideon getting nerfed so that Focus special action only works on Rebel figures. Threepio should stay the same.

Even with all the new Rebel deployments and upgrades, they need as many attack buffs they can get. Here's why:

• 27 of 39 Rebel Deployment Cards w/ figures are unique, single-figure deployments. The majority of these 1) cannot attack more than once per round and/or 2) are older deployments that are limited in their base combat effectiveness.
• Of the 6 Elite multi-figure deployments, only 1 (Elite Alliance Rangers) are designed to fit in the new skirmish meta introduced with Jabba's Realm. 3 Elite deployments have figures that desperately need Focus or other offensive buffs to keep up with the new damage curve. 1 Elite deployment is just completely unplayable -- sorry, eRebelTroopers - and 1 needs Focus or offensive buffs to apply Harmful conditions onto targets (eAllianceSmuggler).

With the Power Tokens, we're seeing lots of new ways to increase damage potential for these new HotE and older deployments across all factions. (If you're not taking Ready Weapons if you're running any group of Troopers, you are really missing out.) I still think Power Tokens are not going to be the fix to the older, overcost Rebel uniques. But they at least bring Jyn Odan, Lando, Obi-Wan, Leia and Farmboy Luke back into the discussion of being decent choices for competitive lists. Add these cards with the new HotE unique deployments and skirmish fixes, Rebel players now have a chance to really do some work... provided that Focus is still a tool they can utilize.

I agree, too many focus passers in a single faction is a problem, so I guess it's time to ban Temp Alliance. Or just change 3po and Gideon's focus abilities to "Rebel Only". Son of Skywalker too, that should be Rebel Only.

How do power tokens make Luke Leia and Lando more viable? They don't have any exclusive access to power tokens, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

What if we give Empire access to Focus to make things balanced between the factions?

The problem is that focus turns it into a slug fest and in a lot of cases you can ignore the mission objectives. There should be a balance between the outright slugfest and needing to get the objectives. Otherwise I'm just paying xwing in a different format. One of the things I like about the game is that you can win without killing the entire squad of the other player.

1 hour ago, defkhan1 said:

What if we give Empire access to Focus to make things balanced between the factions?

More focus isn't the answer. I'd prefer emphasizing mission objectives. Instead of a battle of who can kill the most units.

1 hour ago, kingargyle said:

More focus isn't the answer. I'd prefer emphasizing mission objectives. Instead of a battle of who can kill the most units.

But... shooting stuff is fun

To be fair, it is called "skirmish", which implies the emphasis is on some sort of battle/fight, not capture the flag. But I personally love it if the objectives impact each match in some meaningful and unique way, and right now I would say usually only 4/6 of the tourney legal missions are impactful (at least usually, for me at least). But I do agree that focus is too easy for the MERC faction to get. Rebels really need it. I wonder if giving imperials easy access to it would actually make them too good combined with the already amazing defense of zillo (and the popular figures like Vader, Terro, jets, even the imp officer for instance have good nice defense already). Clawdites can be used to buff imps now in some lists with reliable power tokens, as well. But mercs have easy focus, easy card draw (black market/jabba), and some of the "easier" command cards to use (assassinate/heightened etc), a high variety of strong units and access to all the strong rebel ones. Thematically I really do feel that imperial temp alliance makes so much sense (the picture on the card says all), but the mercenary one doesn't make sense (Leia wasn't really in an alliance with Jabba, cmon). I see both sides of the temp argument (it's fun to mix and match, but also thematically problematic), but I think that's part of the focus problem.

Yeah. Skirmish is in the name but the game is about objectives in some small way. Every battle that has ever been fought has been about done sort of objective... Steal the death star plans come to mind. I don't mind there being fire fights but not at the expense of the objectives even mattering. Competitive players will take the most efficient method to winning the game... That is currently loading up on as many focus that you can and killing everything round 1. Limiting focus or at least making some sort of consequence to giving it out could help bring the other element of the game back into skirmish. Getting points without necessarily having to kill all your opponents figures.

TBH I just like shooting things. Objectives are probably necessary for this game, but I'm the type of person that finds way more enjoyment in a straight firefight than 'pick up x crate because the mission says so'. Might just be me.

4 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

TBH I just like shooting things. Objectives are probably necessary for this game, but I'm the type of person that finds way more enjoyment in a straight firefight than 'pick up x crate because the mission says so'. Might just be me.

The straight up fire fight is the least interesting thing to me about skirmish. When there is a balance and decisions where if I I have to make a difficult choice between the two that is when I find skirmish at its best. If it is just straight up killing other figures then it is just xwing in a ground battle game. I've already done that.

The designers are 100% aware that Focus is a problem in Skirmish.

HotE power tokens are an attempt to address one of the problems with Focus: it's not granular enough & is too big of a buff.

Self-Focusing figures like IG-88 and BT are another attempt.

Seems likely they will watch how these fare and use what we learn to create new designs to address Focus problems in the future.

IMO focus itself is not the problem, neither is easy access to focus.

Rebels need the buffs to be be competitive. Therefore, Gideon and 3PO should not be banned or nerfed there.

The problem is easy focus for certain Mercs, above all others the eWeequays. Therefore, I'd say, that all buffs should be infaction only. Or just Gideon's and 3PO's. Anything more than that would hurt that game more than it would help.

And here we are again with the ban Temp Alliance train.... Gideon and 3P0 are just fine the way they are. IF the designers would want to do something about everyone being focus, why not just make more command cards like "Disorient". Or just imagine a 2 point version of assassination which gives "+2 dmg and +1 extra dmg if the enemy has a beneficial condition". With stuff like this you could easily reduce the number of focus given outside the figures own activation.

And why would you limit C3P0 to "terrorist only" buffs? If you get him via an eJawa he is reprogrammed and is looking forward to focusing his friends in the scum faction.

8 hours ago, nickv2002 said:

The designers are 100% aware that Focus is a problem in Skirmish.

HotE power tokens are an attempt to address one of the problems with Focus: it's not granular enough & is too big of a buff.

Self-Focusing figures like IG-88 and BT are another attempt.

Seems likely they will watch how these fare and use what we learn to create new designs to address Focus problems in the future.

I agree. The tokens should bring some more balance to the game with respect to this issue of focus. I just hope someone doesn't find some greasy break to abuse this. I wasn't a fan when I first heard about the tokens, but at some point games need to evolve and design space needs to be explored.

What if the Focus condition gave you one or two "?" power tokens instead? Maybe cannot choose the same token twice.