Some crazy stuff, but how do we think about the 2.0 addition of force?

To me its showing that once again, consistent double mods are the name of the game, especially for efficiency. While they can be priced out, its still kind of sad to see.

It also makes pricing these high init aces rather hard.

Now with more force options, would it be better to have force simply be like a separate type of charge, for spending on abilities and force talents?

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I'd say of problems with the game, its not bad bad, but I don't see it as being good for the game either...

It is kind of nicely thematic, but I think just having a separate type of charge for special abilities would be neat.

Well, force talents/abilities would likely have to be better, as there's no tradeoff of losing mods. It could definitely work though. Might also open up design space for having multiple force talent slots, since it's unlikely that some ships will spend more that one force in a round.

I've always felt the free force regen at the end of turn was just lazy design (it's at worst an unblockable calculate every turn).

It should have been something like: you only regen a force token after you fully execute a non-red move. This gives it some restriction and the ability to block it.

Or better yet: you only regen a force token in the status phase when your force pool is empty. This gives the bigger force pool pilots essentially a couple calculates that go away once spent.

I think it would have been just better to remove the default force=calculate entirely. (I don't really care either way how the game takes this at this point, just speaking hypothetically about 2.0 at launch)

17 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I think it would have been just better to remove the default force=calculate entirely. (I don't really care either way how the game takes this at this point, just speaking hypothetically about 2.0 at launch)

I think that is a very easily implemented fix for if force as a concept is deemed to broken to be adjusted with price. That is a rules thing that could be changed with a single sentence change in the RR. I think right now it's maybe a little harsh, but if the situation worsens, I think a lot of people would be okay with force powers just becoming a charge with no inherent dice mod capabilities.

It would make things like brilliant evasion and foresight considerably more powerful and diversify what force powers are used in the meta, so that could be interesting, but there's another set of parameters that would need to be balanced that comes along with that. That being said I think it could be quite an eloquent fix if ever needed.

I think it works pretty well as is. ****, can you imagine if it was in 1.0? By the end of that version, force would raise your attack and agility by 2 and force abilities so powerful due to 1.0s power creep dice would be meaningless! All new mechanics would need to be put in place...

"Aggressive Negotiations" - during your attack phase, instruct your opponent to concede. What do you mean they said no? Hit them in the face! No! HARDER! Are you a kittem? Harder!

Once blood is drawn, discard this card.

Man, remember when we had to flip one time use cards face down? Man, so weird to think about...

They could still add something to the rules like no more than 1 force per attack. Would incentivice taking the force powers.

Regarding double mods I agree, I would even say target lock should habe been toned down to reroll 1 dice. Reroll 2 with fcs or with ordnance so ordnance is not so boring. Feels wrong that it adds so little value except for a few like proton torps.

1 hour ago, BVRCH said:

I think that is a very easily implemented fix for if force as a concept is deemed to broken to be adjusted with price. That is a rules thing that could be changed with a single sentence change in the RR. I think right now it's maybe a little harsh, but if the situation worsens, I think a lot of people would be okay with force powers just becoming a charge with no inherent dice mod capabilities.

I'd be fine limiting force as maybe 1 per roll/modifying recharge, but as a glorified charge/slot to be taxed hard no. There's enough slot taxes as is. Leaving too many hanging features makes a game feel incomplete.

1 hour ago, Xeletor said:

Regarding double mods I agree, I would even say target lock should habe been toned down to reroll 1 dice. Reroll 2 with fcs or with ordnance so ordnance is not so boring. Feels wrong that it adds so little value except for a few like proton torps.

That makes target lock no longer the equal of Focus offensive-wise. Very few people would take that action unless they needed to.

6 hours ago, CRCL said:

I've always felt the free force regen at the end of turn was just lazy design (it's at worst an unblockable calculate every turn).

It should have been something like: you only regen a force token after you fully execute a non-red move. This gives it some restriction and the ability to block it.

Or better yet: you only regen a force token in the status phase when your force pool is empty. This gives the bigger force pool pilots essentially a couple calculates that go away once spent.

I feel like the ships/cards have been appropriately priced to recharge every turn. There’s already enough conditional text in this game. I’m ok spending a bit more points that has a feature that simply works without thinking through another 50 interactions.

I like the idea of only being able to spend force for its default effect once per turn. Then you still have a free calculate, but it also incentivizes finding something else to spend it on, and ships with two or three force don’t look impossible to shoot at.

So, in general, I am fine with changing rules, even rules on how certain tokens work. Editing the rule book is a less drastic step than giving a card an errata in my head.

That said, I do think changing the Force Token so that it doesn’t change a focus result has some unfortunate side effects. The crit Blinded Pilot refers to the Force Token using its “default effect” to modify dice. Emperor Palpatine’s* ability is all about using his force token for modifying an allied roll. If we change Force to be just a special form of Charge Token, we need to change both of these and probably more.

Now, @Matanui3 ‘s idea of using a Force Token’s default effect once per turn could give the desired change without requiring cards to change. This does still hurt some Force users, like Luke, but it might work out.

*I was going to just say Palp, but then remembered “oh yeah, there are more of him now.”

I don't see the problem. The normal Force power isn't so good that it's pushing other pilots out of the game. It's not elevating otherwise bad pilots. It isn't causing dice creep.

Is it harder to price? Maybe. But they seem to have done a good job with (say) Luke and Wedge- each of whom is the backbone of a list, taken for different reasons. Neither of whom is pushing the other out.

In practice, Force tokens are a lot like Networked Calculations or Advanced Droid Brain.

Force tokens are just there, being a cool bit of thematic flavor that adds an interesting dynamic to the game. Not over powered, not doing anything silly. Just being an interesting flavor.

Another standing issue is that it's typically more efficient to use the force for an ability and focus than to use force for mods. Of course this depends heavily on the situation and what upgrades and abilities you're equipped with, but it's still often a very difficult decision. I consider the calculate ability of a force charge to be secondary to anything else, primarily because it turns off your pilot ability and your talents for the turn, unless you take turns where you don't use it for your ability, talents, or calculate.

Playing against a really good force user it seems like they just have an infinite amount of abilities and passive mods, but in truth, Soontir with Predator has far better passive mods than CLT Anakin with PCR. Anakin has to choose between his ship ability, his own ability, and his talent. Every turn he uses more than one he has to go a turn with none at all. Soontir gets all 4 regardless.

Changing a single focus result can be crucial in any given moment, but frankly, so can a single re-roll, an extra die, a barrel roll, or anything else that pilot or ship abilities are based on. I don't think it's really something that can't be balanced, it's merely something that's quite useful and has to be priced to match. For the most part it has been, but the I5 Jedi got absurdly overbuffed at the last update. It's always funny to me when something is strong because it's undercosted and a lot of people complain that it's bad for the game. There are things that are bad for the game (because they remove player agency; things like Handbrake Han, Tripsilon, or arguably gunner Luke), but I don't think the force is one of them.

What if Force tokens could only change a single die result per roll? It would scale their power down a bit relative to focus and calculate tokens. Force using pilots would still be slightly better than baseline, but would still have a reason to take Focus actions over TLs on defense. It would also make abilities that let your Force points modify more than a single result into something with value.

For starters, I think there'd need to be more force talents and more stuff to do with force charges .

Like, maybe every force user gets two talents, and so folks might actually want to bring a weaker Brilliant Evasion (or an offensive equivalent). Maybe Brilliant Evasion no longer exists. However, with just the current stuff to do with force, it'd be dang useless as far as 2e goes. Vader and Aethersprites would be great. Luke becomes a useless trash pilot, since easily recharging force doesn't matter, if there isn't anything to spend it on.

If there was a larger comprehensive plan, could work.

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I'd had a thought the other day: what if force was reroll a die, rather than turn an eye to a success? That'd make it less consistent (single rerolls are worse than single calculate by a little), and it'd mean the default action a force user wants to take is a focus, which makes a lot more thematic sense than force users wanting to take a lock. I mean, one of the most iconic times someone uses the force is specifically to avoid having to use a targeting computer to get a lock.

7 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

What if Force tokens could only change a single die result per roll? It would scale their power down a bit relative to focus and calculate tokens. Force using pilots would still be slightly better than baseline, but would still have a reason to take Focus actions over TLs on defense. It would also make abilities that let your Force points modify more than a single result into something with value.

Do you mean the player could use only one Force Charge per attack or defense roll? I'm asking because "What if Force tokens could only change a single die result per roll?" reads like the current spend one charge to change 1 focus effect of them.

1 minute ago, theBitterFig said:

I'd had a thought the other day: what if force was reroll a die, rather than turn an eye to a success?

I like this. Pair it with what I think @PhantomFO means (limit of one Force Charge per attack or defense roll) and it'll still be useful but less of an actions don't matter effect.

16 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I mean, one of the most iconic times someone uses the force is specifically to avoid having to use a targeting computer to get a lock.

One of? If that's not the most iconic time someone uses the force, I'm pretty sure nothing is.

2 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Do you mean the player could use only one Force Charge per attack or defense roll? I'm asking because "What if Force tokens could only change a single die result per roll?" reads like the current spend one charge to change 1 focus effect of them.

Exactly. Though I also love @theBitterFig 's idea to make it a reroll of a single die instead of a converting a focus.

It also opens a design space for pilots or Force Powers that let you spend more than one Force charge when attacking or defending. Powers like Brilliant Evasion would be much more impactful.

3 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

One of? If that's not the most iconic time someone uses the force, I'm pretty sure nothing is.

Luminous beings are we.

14 hours ago, Octarine-08 said:

I'd be fine limiting force as maybe 1 per roll/modifying recharge, but as a glorified charge/slot to be taxed hard no. There's enough slot taxes as is. Leaving too many hanging features makes a game feel incomplete.

That would be barely a change from its current state, and unlikely to fix anything. Like I said I don't think anything drastic needs to happen with force right now, I'm simply saying it is an easily implemented option if ever necessary, and obviously these 'slot taxes' you speak of would need to be adjusted in kind.

I do think having the force modify dice in a different way is another plausible fix.

Another stray thought:

What if Light-Side force users could only spend force like a calculate when defending ("A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense. Never attack."), and Dark-Side force users could only spend force like a calculate while attacking?

Or maybe combining with @Blail Blerg 's initial concept, there are no default uses, but these two force powers get re-written:

• Brilliant Evasion (Light-Side Only) "While you defend, you may spend 1 force charge to change one [eye] to [evade]."
  • Alternately, "While you defend, you may spend 1 force charge to reroll 1 green die."
• Hate (Dark-Side Only) "While you perform an attack, you may spend 1 force charge to change one [eye] to [hit]."
  • Alternately, "While you perform an attack, you may spend 1 force charge to reroll 1 red die."

I'd expect most Force pilots to get a bit cheaper, since they'd have to buy their dice mod tricks. I'd expect most Force-pilots to have more than one force Talent, but not all. Maybe Zuckuss and Gand Findsmen get a force charge and only one force talent, but can only equip Sense. I'm not sure what I'd do with Force Crew or Force Gunners... do they add Force Talents? The cute Finn/Rey interactions all get mostly messed up, but meh.

Maybe if Vader can't just rely on the force for his green dice, perhaps the TIE/x1 could get it's Evade action back? Perhaps if Vader was rewritten to not chain off performing an action, but fully executing a maneuver... Focus/Evade, or Focus/Lock, or whatever, but not all at once...

Overarching concept: maybe there's a header "Force Power" which would be everything from Fine-Tuned Controls, Brilliant Evasion, Luke-Gunner rotating his ship's firing arc, or Vader gaining an extra action. Maybe Kanan crew would have two entries in "Force Power" for either the stress removal, but also some second effect. Ezra-Gunner would would have a force power like "While you perform an attack, if you are stressed, you may [etc etc whatever Hate says...]."

I mean, obviously I don't think FFG should errata this into place. Just something that seems fun to think about to me.