I'm about to lose my mind on why this isn't working. I'm merely trying to implement a Top N filter and the visual is just completely ignoring it. What else can I check to explain this? I have an original report from which I'm modifying and the original is working as intended, despite that I've duplicated it exactly from what I can see. So I am clearly missing something, I just don't know what it is.
And to be clear, this is the original with virtually the same data output:
UPDATE 1: I started changing the N value to see what may have changed and oddly enough, it's the # counts that change.
SOLUTION: I wanted to provide a more specific description of what resolved my problem, in hopes it helps others. What I had done originally was simply add another filter on # (right-clicked on # in Data pane on right, selected Add To Filters). This did not work and contributed to the odd behavior I documented regarding changing the N value in my first Top N filter. So what resolved this was by changing my pre-existing Region filter (in first screenshot, it is seen below highlighted filter as "Region is (All) ). By changing this to a Top N, my filter worked as expected. It seems the trick is that the filters must be specific to how the data must be "grouped", for lack of a better word.