A great question!
I opted for "N/A or Other" as that was closest;
a lot of locals were divided on this thought provoking question;
half didn't care, as they don't play VSet pieces (pssh).
the next quarter said they wanted Uniques from all factions to be in all 'Unofficial-official' sets,
and the final quarter said they wanted quality over quantity - if that meant less factions per set for the sake of quality,
it was a worthwhile minor tradeoff.
How do I see it?
I'm sure there's material ad infinitum to continue making VSet 'unofficial-official" cards,
and custom statcards, for a long time - as long as folks want to
and I hope there will be custom stat cards made long into the future.
The last couple of VSets have been admittedly awesome.
In terms of game balance, if sets are made which only have pieces from a few factions,
it could help bolster those, while preventing that
"TheHutts" reflected eloquently in the past on the Mini of the Week thread 'glut of mediocre pieces' -
ie, too many pieces which fill essentially the same roles, so 2/3rds of the faction just sits there until the next redo cycle when those are made awesome hehe.
It'll help try and keep the meta closer to NP-complete,
rather than NP-incomplete and biased in favor of a few squad types.
The VSet team are trying to make pieces which are consistently found to be rated in the 8/10 to 10/10 range, and for the overall design of the piece and functionality, not due to being OP or meta-shifting outright;
so if they can continue to meet that standard they set for themselves while having fewer pieces or factions per set,
then cool! We want the good stuff, without the 'filler' pieces hehe, the 4s and 5s, even some 6s out of 10s which just sit there,
because 7s, 8s, and 9s outta 10s are the more practical option
.
Conversely, make too many pieces for minor factions, which are too powerful etc...
and it is effectively putting all the other factions at disadvantage.
Something fans of melee would hate to see,
would be anti-force direct damage squads getting even more powerful...
it would shift the meta into a very un-Star Wars-esque direction
I'm going to guess that latter extreme is highly unlikely to happen,
given the VSet team's outstanding record of making awesome pieces
I'm also guessing the bulk faction denomination in future will be Fringe uniques etc, from multiple 'fringe factions'.
Besides, with a lot of pieces now having multi-faction affinity,
I'm sure it will continue the awesome of VSets, even if each set doesn't have something from all factions in the set.
CIS/Separatist and Fringe faction fans have very little to fear at that move,
even with minor nerfing, Separatist faction still has a lotta options and is still extremely competitive.
you could go as low as 4 or 5 factions per set. Maybe, with themed 20 piece sets etc,
you could do 2 or 3 factions etc...
I think elsewhere, crime gang factions and subfactions were discussed as having a faction status outright...
that might differentiate fringe from different kind of fringe customs,
as most of new content will likely be 'fringe'.
Having the TFA/JJNuWarsTrek continuity as both separate epoch and factions
(The First Order, the Resistance etc)
also increases the number of factions as options
(and, allows for era-specific tournament play etc).
that's the feedback and the kitchensink,
thanks for reading
and I look forward to seeing what people think about this