Landon Winkler |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Landon, it's not a competition about whose life is harder. Its an attempt to provide some perspective on the situation.
I'm also trying to add a bit of perspective. I don't think our points are actually all that different.
But we diverge if you say we shouldn't be providing positive feedback to Paizo. We don't have the luxury of knowing what's going on in their team's lives or how happy they really are at the end of the day. We also don't have the luxury of somehow diverting our positive feedback to someone less fortunate.
So, say nice things about Paizo when they deserve them. Let your GM or players know when they had a good session or a sweet idea. Thank forum moderators when they create a friendly environment. Tip well for good service, if you can afford it. Let teachers know if they taught you something and students know if they learned something.
Just because someone's better off than me or has what I imagine would be a dream job doesn't exempt them from that basic courtesy.
I appreciate how some fans of Paizo feel a need to rally to the defense of the Paizo developers. But sometimes the reality is that some, at least, of the criticism is deserved. Then the knee-jerk protective reaction is counter-productive since it shields the developers from criticism that is deserved.
Perhaps your experience is different, but I've always found that counter-productive feedback is just whatever kind that annoys the recipient. And whether that's because of vitriol, smarminess, repetition, all caps, grammar, or some pet peeve... if you annoy the person you're giving feedback to, they're less likely to listen and will judge your idea below its merits. That's just human nature.
But honest positive feedback is never wasted. Specifics are more useful for choosing direction than vague generalities, to be sure, but it's still never wasted.
I want people to be happy, as a general rule. Much more so if they've added enjoyment to my life, as basically everyone on the Paizo staff have, individually or together.
And, even if them being happy has no impact at all on the products I get in the mail, that has worth.
I believe this is one of those times. I understand what the developers were trying to do, but this is a cluster f*** of serious proportions, and trying to pretend otherwise does nobody any good.
People are obviously quite excited about arguing about it. As I said before, more power to them.
But people care about very different things. I would be hard-pressed to categorize any Pathfinder FAQ update as being a cluster, let alone one of serious proportions. The forum response might qualify for the folks who have spent their weekend putting out fires.
So it might be worth considering that people aren't pretending at all. It might not be a cluster to them. There's room to care about the game very deeply and not have an FAQ entry even show up on your radar, let alone be a major feature of your day.
Cheers!
Landon
xevious573 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
MrSin wrote:Adamantine Dragon wrote:thunderspirit wrote:spoilered** spoiler omitted **They've removed a lot of post today. Many negatives statements about paizo or the design team. Could easily be one of those.
I've got mixed feeling on being thankful myself.
I'm sure they have removed a lot of posts. Somehow I think that removing a post is a bit less stressful than having to be interviewed by the police when a customer literally tried to physically assault my wife.
That's all I'm saying. I appreciate the Paizo staff, I really do, but all this "oh you poor abused people" nonsense is just hilarious. They sit at a computer keyboard and read messages, which they can delete without fear of a knife coming out. Seriously people. It's a b@+%% sometimes, but let's not get carried away.
You know... I thought about your point above about not having knives drawn on them...
And for the life of me, I can't agree with you. Being threatened with physical violence is inexcusable, without a doubt. Having a person yell in your face for making an honest mistake - inexcusable. Having several people berate you across the internet, call you out, specifically, for something as innocent as reminding GMs "Hey you can place limitations on Free Actions, here's some numbers we think are reasonable", as incompetent and unintelligent game designers... well that's also INEXCUSABLE.
Their is such thing as a difference in degree of danger. There is such thing as a difference in degree of proximity (Cyber-bullying is NOT any less distressing then other types of bullying and can be even more stressful... you know... for the record). BUT there is no such thing as degree of inexcusable - either your behavior is reasonable or it's not. The behavior on these boards have NOT been reasonable.
Psyren |
Psyren, I have very little problem with being contentious. I admit it.
I know that - and that's where we have an impasse.
I find today's level of discourse to be flaccid and feckless with so much effort put into avoiding contentiousness that it is virtually impossible to have a serious conversation about anything.
I would use "civil" rather than "flaccid" and certainly will continue to speak out against contentiousness for the sake of that civility.
Matt Thomason |
6 people marked this as a favorite. |
There's a line.
The line is between criticizing the product, and criticizing the people behind it.
On one level, you're pointing a finger at something that doesn't do what you want it to do. You have a right to do that. Bear in mind it might be something that isn't going to get changed, and you may have to live with that too.
On the other level, you're taking a shot at a person. Nobody deserves that. It's not something you just have to live with for having a customer-facing job (which a game developer, in fact, is not) either, as I've seen enough other companies simply shut down their public forums as a result of it going overboard. Just because you're aware of it happening to others elsewhere, that isn't an excuse to say it's okay to bring it here either. Try using that energy to stop it elsewhere instead of spreading the problem, unless you really don't mind seeing the devs stop talking to us altogether. The whole "I'm the customer, and I'll say what I damn well like" culture is a trend that needs stamping out, not encouraging. Personally, I've always got a lot better results when I explained how upset a faulty product has made me than screaming down the phone at someone about how stupidly it was designed.
Justin Rocket |
say nice things about Paizo when they deserve them.
This is what it boils down to. God knows there's been many bad game design issues. There's also been cases of fundamentally different game design philosophies (such as VoP - "poverty sucks", but so does medieval living, thank the gods we've got powerful magic to make up for it, except the VoP doesn't give that). Sometimes, the game designers take an ownership mentality (the same mentality that turned so many people against WotC). And sometimes, they don't do a good job explaining why they made a decision. But, sometimes they do great work. When they do, they deserve recognition and nice things said about them.
tony gent |
On the whole i think the staff at paizo do a great job and i'm generally very happy with pathfinder
Are there things that annoy me yes but i just change those bits ( of which there ain't many ) and get on with having fun
All things considered i think paizo do an outstanding job and i'm very happy with the way they are taking pathfinder and i look forward to adventuring for many years to come
Keep up the good work from a fan from across the pond
Justin Rocket |
What did I miss? Which faq is causing the controversy?
As far as I can tell, its a pretty petty argument about how many free actions a character can make in a round. The Faq says to leave it up to the GM and people are complaining because the example provided assumes the GM set the number at 5.
Psyren |
What did I miss? Which faq is causing the controversy?
How many free actions can I take in a round?
(It's not even a rule - it's explicitly a suggestion.)
mdt |
Kolokotroni wrote:What did I miss? Which faq is causing the controversy?As far as I can tell, its a pretty petty argument about how many free actions a character can make in a round. The Faq says to leave it up to the GM and people are complaining because the example provided assumes the GM set the number at 5.
3 if you are a firearm user, and talking counts against them.
Chemlak |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Some people seem to be missing a hugely important distinction:
Criticising work that the design team have done is A-OK. For example, saying that you dislike the rule that says that weapons with a +6 enhancement bonus (including special ability bonus for special weapon abilities) can overcome DR/Epic, with a bunch of reasons for why that design decision seems wrong/odd/silly is basically okay.
Criticising the designers themselves is NOT okay. For example, saying that the new overcoming DR/Epic rule is stupid, and that the design team clearly don't know what they're doing, and "obviously" haven't considered the implications of the change, which you then proceed to lay out in excruciating detail.
See the difference? The first one raises concerns and objections to the rule. The second one is a direct objection to the people who wrote that rule.
Do the first, not the second. If your objection contains the words "know", "aware" or even "intent", you're probably edging into the second.
Be respectful of the people, even if you don't respect the decisions they made.
And my two coppers is that I appreciate the design team no end. I know they make mistakes, everyone does. But I don't think they're wrong for doing their jobs as best they can. Keep up the good work.
Kolokotroni |
Justin Rocket wrote:3 if you are a firearm user, and talking counts against them.Kolokotroni wrote:What did I miss? Which faq is causing the controversy?As far as I can tell, its a pretty petty argument about how many free actions a character can make in a round. The Faq says to leave it up to the GM and people are complaining because the example provided assumes the GM set the number at 5.
But isnt knocking an arrow a free action? huh, thats an odd ruling, even though its just a suggestion. Its one i'd ignore at my table, but eh, its not something to go nuts over, though maybe its a bunch of gunslingers in society play that are worried? I dunno, definately seems an odd faq to me, especially since they call it out as a suggestion in the first place.
Either way, I'd totally be on board with thanking the dev team for their work and their interaction. I dont always agree with them, but I truely appreciate the time and effort they put in on things that are not writting new books to sell to us.
mdt |
mdt wrote:Justin Rocket wrote:3 if you are a firearm user, and talking counts against them.Kolokotroni wrote:What did I miss? Which faq is causing the controversy?As far as I can tell, its a pretty petty argument about how many free actions a character can make in a round. The Faq says to leave it up to the GM and people are complaining because the example provided assumes the GM set the number at 5.But isnt knocking an arrow a free action? huh, thats an odd ruling, even though its just a suggestion. Its one i'd ignore at my table, but eh, its not something to go nuts over, though maybe its a bunch of gunslingers in society play that are worried? I dunno, definately seems an odd faq to me, especially since they call it out as a suggestion in the first place.
Either way, I'd totally be on board with thanking the dev team for their work and their interaction. I dont always agree with them, but I truely appreciate the time and effort they put in on things that are not writting new books to sell to us.
Actually, knocking an arrow is a non-action. Drawing one from the quiver is a free action. And it's not supposed to apply to arrows, per SKR. But nothing in the FAQ says that, and it seems it is supposed to apply to cross-bows (or at least SKR hinted at that). So... who knows.
Tacticslion |
There's a line.
The line is between criticizing the product, and criticizing the people behind it.
On one level, you're pointing a finger at something that doesn't do what you want it to do. You have a right to do that. Bear in mind it might be something that isn't going to get changed, and you may have to live with that too.
On the other level, you're taking a shot at a person. Nobody deserves that. It's not something you just have to live with for having a customer-facing job (which a game developer, in fact, is not) either, as I've seen enough other companies simply shut down their public forums as a result of it going overboard. Just because you're aware of it happening to others elsewhere, that isn't an excuse to say it's okay to bring it here either. Try using that energy to stop it elsewhere instead of spreading the problem, unless you really don't mind seeing the devs stop talking to us altogether. The whole "I'm the customer, and I'll say what I damn well like" culture is a trend that needs stamping out, not encouraging. Personally, I've always got a lot better results when I explained how upset a faulty product has made me than screaming down the phone at someone about how stupidly it was designed.
I think Matt Thomason knocked it out of the park with this. Well said.
Claxon |
Without reading through this whole thing I want to say thank you to Paizo in general, and especially to James Jacobs and Sean Reynolds who spend so much time helping to clarify our understanding of the Pathfinder system rules and the setting of the world. We lean on you all a lot to help clarify so many things and attempt to break your game in many ways you probably never considerd. I just hope despite the frustation that we cause that you guys keep on keepin' on. So thanks for all your work, you two and the whole team, to provide the best product you can for us.
Kolokotroni |
Kolokotroni wrote:Actually, knocking an arrow is a non-action. Drawing one from the quiver is a free action. And it's not supposed to apply to arrows, per SKR. But nothing in the FAQ says that, and it seems it is supposed to apply to cross-bows (or at least SKR hinted at that). So... who knows.mdt wrote:Justin Rocket wrote:3 if you are a firearm user, and talking counts against them.Kolokotroni wrote:What did I miss? Which faq is causing the controversy?As far as I can tell, its a pretty petty argument about how many free actions a character can make in a round. The Faq says to leave it up to the GM and people are complaining because the example provided assumes the GM set the number at 5.But isnt knocking an arrow a free action? huh, thats an odd ruling, even though its just a suggestion. Its one i'd ignore at my table, but eh, its not something to go nuts over, though maybe its a bunch of gunslingers in society play that are worried? I dunno, definately seems an odd faq to me, especially since they call it out as a suggestion in the first place.
Either way, I'd totally be on board with thanking the dev team for their work and their interaction. I dont always agree with them, but I truely appreciate the time and effort they put in on things that are not writting new books to sell to us.
Yea I saw those posts. Seems to me like another attempt to limit gunslingers, and accidently (or maybe apathetically?) kick crossbow users in the pants. Part of me wishes paizo would ditch their gun rules and start over, finding something that will work better within the system and Either A abandon the limits of 'reality' in terms of loading guns, or work with the idea of a gun firing once or at most twice in a round and make guns actually functional in that space.
ciretose |
Dev team, there are at the time of this post 36 favorites on the front page.
Remember them, those who are thanking you, at least as much as you remember the vocal minority who throw fits when you think about the next FAQ and wonder if it is worth the flame war.
36 of us, and counting, thank you.
Even if 35 of them aren't all that loud about it. (I'm obviously not in the 'not loud' category...)