2 hours ago, BDrafty said:

spend a force on Vader, Soontir has to do work to get the focus

I'm not certain that these are weaker. Vader is actually stronger as he can get more than 2 actions, and if he's blocked, 1-3 force acts free soft focus actions. Soontir is more lateral. He can't always get evade focus every turn that he has an action like his first edition counter part, but unlike 1st Soontir, if he is blocked, he can still get mods. What really "hurt" these two from their first edition counterparts was the upgrades they could take. Vader wants engine upgrade, and Soontir wants Autothrusters. Give either one to them in 2nd Edition, and we would definitely see that their abilities aren't weaker.

33 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I'm not certain that these are weaker. Vader is actually stronger as he can get more than 2 actions, and if he's blocked, 1-3 force acts free soft focus actions. Soontir is more lateral. He can't always get evade focus every turn that he has an action like his first edition counter part, but unlike 1st Soontir, if he is blocked, he can still get mods. What really "hurt" these two from their first edition counterparts was the upgrades they could take. Vader wants engine upgrade, and Soontir wants Autothrusters. Give either one to them in 2nd Edition, and we would definitely see that their abilities aren't weaker.

My argument is mostly based on context and the motions that the game devs had to go through to translate abilities to second edition. Vader is a good example here in that JUST having force is a strong advantage. However, the player does have to erode that advantage in order to use his 2E ability. Not that the abilities of Fel and Vader are weak in 2E, but they are not the same level of 'Free' that they were in 1E. The point here is that the Devs had a path they kind of needed to follow to import these guys over.

The new to 2E I6 guys like Ani and Vonreg seem to have abilities that are a lot more subdued compared to pilots who have a 1E counterpart.

I'll throw in my own two cents here.

I feel one thing that has already hampered X-Wing's variety of pilots is an often 'no brainer' choice in pilots due to most of the heavy hitters having not only a high initiative but also a very good ability. Personally and this is just my opinion I feel the inverse should be true. Lower initiative named pilots should have better abilities to compensate for their lower initiative, but the higher initiative pilots have less exciting or not as strong abilities because they are already getting the benefit of board knowledge which has been shown to be more valuable in most circumstances then a pilots ability.

Is this the right way to approach things? I think so but that doesn't mean I am right or that it is inherently right. I just feel it would close the meta gap and create more viable pilots if you had to make a choice between High initiative & not so powerful ability VS Low initiative & a more potent ability.

The issue is the glass has already been broken. They can't really go that direction anymore because the response is "Why take this pilot when I can take Vader who has a good ability and a good pilot skill?" However, what they also can't do is just keep creating better and better abilities, because that leads to power creep. It's not an easy solution.