45 minutes ago, Matanui3 said:In every pvp game, you need to be able to mess with your opponent’s stuff somehow. That said, just because the effect is fine, it doesn’t mean it isn’t overtuned. That’s just an entirely different discussion that I have no relevant experience to get into.
This.
I think the issue with Sloane is that she isn't a common enough type of character, who was essentially a "This is a reason to play the faction and a list that isn't a super mega efficient swarm double modding everything all the time, or mega aces who just refuse to interact" piece.
That is really important to any faction that isn't going to have Jedi, Boba, or droids. We kinda need more 'build around' options, and Sloane... kinda represents the way the game should go in a certain sense? She is highly interactive with multiple paths to defeat her, but she heavily changes the nature of the game she is in and you actually need to think about how you tackle her, and punishes you for going too 'all in' on one strategy.
Sloane might be 'too good' but she definitely shouldn't be 'Leia'd.' If a faction lacks anything that is 'too good' its going to be a bad faction and the game just becomes 'efficiency wing.' The entire point of asymmetric games with the ability for players to choose their powers and abilities is that you get to choose things that are way better than what other factions can take. Guile as a character wouldn't function if his Flash Kick and Sonic Boom weren't broken strong defensive tools that entirely dictate how you fight Guile, for example, because his entire kit is based around these tools and how he can't apply them aggressively, making him feel different than someone who is just generically very good like Ryu or whatever. Sloane is an interesting effect because she has so many counter-play options available that transform it from a generic 'passive mod aura' to something more dynamic, while still being clearly extremely powerful. You need options that give a character (or in this case a faction) 'too much' value in a certain field so your opponent is forced to try to counter it, and so your not just smashing your highpoints against each other mindlessly.
I want to play in an X-wing where Sloane swarms are good way more than I want to play in an X-wing where only Droids swarms are good. Obviously both have space to be good, but a lot of people on the forums catastrophize anything which forces you to think about anything besides arc coverage and dials. Yes, the core of the game should be about this and every list should care about this stuff, but the fun of a list builder game is how your list and your opponent's list introduce new space besides the core game, while the core game still matters. We shouldn't push to a place where the core interactions don't matter (To use another FFG listbuilder/deckbuilder game as an example, Netrunner's meta sucked when it was all Inversificator Kits, Cerebral Imaging, and Bad Publicity decks to basically turn the game into a complete nonsense fest that had nothing to do with the core game of 'runners build up rigs to break through ice efficiently, corps use ice to slow down the runner from getting into important servers' and ice legit just didn't matter), but the game also shouldn't just be the core interactions either.
Sloane does an excellent job of doing exactly that, pushing the game out of 'pure core' interactions while still being an effect that rewards you for being good at the core mechanics of the game. Ergo, she should be 'deliberately overtuned' to at least some extent so she can be part of what the imperial faction is 'about.'
Edited by dezzmont
