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So I wanted some official answers and statements (a.k.a. a press statement) for the playtest and send a email to the customer support, but instead of answers I get a link to this forum. Specifically this place. Not a press sub forum but exactly the playtest discussion. I don't want a discussion, I want official, factual statements. But well if that is apparently now the official place for press statements I'll ask it here.
Dear Paizo team.
I would like to know what the goals and mission statements of the Pathfinder Second Edition are. Having read the rules of the playtest I still struggle to find a conclusive answer and even your blog and web page have not let to any substantial answer. Because I don't like to imply intent I wish to have an official statement from your side about it. It would help out immensely in the playtest process, so I don't miss potential pitfalls, loopholes or any other anomaly in the game. So please tell me:
what are the goals of Pathfinder Second Edition?
what is the focus in the new design?
what are the issues with the previous edition you try to fix?
what do you expect form us playtesters and what should we be on the lookout specifically?
Thanks for your support
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We've been asking the first question since day 1. Still haven't gotten an answer. I don't expect this thread to be any different.
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Awesome. Stellar job there Paizo. "We will design the new edition with specific goals in mind, but keep those goals secret so none of you know whether or not OF2e is even being designed to appeal to you. Mwahaha"
Never thought I'd see the day where WotC ran a better playtest then Paizo.
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We've been asking the first question since day 1. Still haven't gotten an answer. I don't expect this thread to be any different.
The answer is found in the introduction text, page 4 of the playtest book. Specifically, this sentence: "Our aim is to make the game easier to learn and simpler to play, while maintaining the depth of character and adventure options that has always defined Pathfinder."
You may disagree with this goal, or even second-guess Paizo's statement of their motives, if you want. But you can't say this question hasn't received an answer.
We've been asking the first question since day 1. Still haven't gotten an answer. I don't expect this thread to be any different.You got an answer in the last blog.
" But it's equally important to the data collection process that playtesters not know what those goals actually are until the test is over, since to do so any other way would bias the results."
The specific goals of the playtest are hidden so that players don't play with them in mind and thus skew the outcome. This isn't the same thing as the goals of 2nd Edition, which are stated pretty clearly.
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These questions have been answered already. They were answered as early as April. Earlier probably, but it is harder to quote audio interviews.
Go to the Gameinformer interview for points 1-3.. Further elaboration can be found in various blogs, forum posts, twitch streams, and other interviews.
Bulmahn: In reality, the new edition of Pathfinder started the first day after we sent the first edition to the printer, because a game like this is such a big thing, and it has so many moving parts. Role-playing games have hundreds of pages, dozens of roles, lots of sub systems, and Pathfinder was born out of the 3.5 version of Dungeon & Dragons. As such, we inherited a lot of pieces of the game that, even when we started, were eight years old, and now 10 years after that we’re looking at parts of a mechanical system that are 10 years out of date. Well, I guess out-of-date might be the wrong term. The tech for it is almost 20 years old, and game design has moved a lot since then. I would say the start for Pathfinder: Second Edition really started almost right away with us understanding that there were some limitations to what we could and couldn’t do with the game.
The engine itself is great. It allows us to tell us these great, heroic stories while building the characters you want to build. We knew we wanted to keep that, but there was a lot about the way the math worked and how there were some elements of choice and the way you built your characters that wasn’t very friendly to new players. Even more problematic, at the higher levels of play when the story’s really coming together and you’re getting to the endgame, there are some math problems that make the game have some uneven play experience. You end up with some situations where high-level characters actually get worse at things when they go up in level, which is kind of odd and counterintuitive. We wanted to make the game a bit more true to the stories we wanted to tell.
I think in some way the engine wasn’t doing quite what we needed it to do, so the start for Pathfinder: Second Edition — or in this case the Pathfinder playtest which is coming out first — is that. We wanted to re-engineer the game to allow the game to emulate the stories we wanted to tell even more so than they did in the past. I think that’s where we started. We always try to start from a place of what’s best for the story, what’s best for the group, and what’s best for the players. All of our decisions spring from that. The most important part of the game is the people playing it and the stories they tell together.
Also, y'all are misquoting the Paizo team again. They have told us the general goals for Pathfinder 2nd edition. They have even told GMs some of the specific goals of Doomsday Dawn. What they haven't told everyone (especially players over GMs) is all of the fine details about what they are specifically testing because they don't want to corrupt their data.
So basically we know the answers to questions 1-3 already-- if you don't, do some digging. I promise it isn't being kept a secret from you. Question 4 is specifically something we shouldn't (all) know yet.
So, to summarise Jason's goals:
Friendly to new players.
Able to emulate the stories Paizo wants to tell.
Avoid high-level math problems giving uneven play experiences, and situations where high-level characters actually get worse at things when they go up in level.
Question: When did high-level characters ever get worse at anything in PF1?
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Question: When did high-level characters ever get worse at anything in PF1?
Worse relative to the challenge level, not worse on an absolute scale.
Question: When did high-level characters ever get worse at anything in PF1?
I've been wondering this as well, I can't think of any example of this happening in one of my games.
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I've been wondering this as well, I can't think of any example of this happening in one of my games.
Question: When did high-level characters ever get worse at anything in PF1?
In a few of the games I ran I was essentially forced to give each PC almost twice their WBL in Magic Equipment in order for them to statistically have a 50/50 shot at making even their first Attack in a round or Save against checks at their APL because the Players simply didn't spend their money on the "Required" gear such as Cloaks, Rings, Belts, and Headbands. It SEVERELY gimped the party in more than one Campaign because they didn't like buying that one-size equipment that made every PC wear essentially the same equipment so they can can mathematicaly viable after level 8.
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That's why I switched to automatic bonus progression...
But I guess if it's relative that makes sense. A Fighter would get worse at CR-appropriate Will saves unless they went out of their way to do something about it.
I suppose this explains the +1/level system to some extent. By default everyone remains exactly as good against CR appropriate challenges. (Except when the DC assumes you have particular items...)
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Basically, at high levels PF1 becomes very hard to play, for everyone save for experts with a lot of time on their hands. I think there's a broad consensus on that point.
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See this is the reason I originally e-mailed my question. I wanted an official statement and not a diluted murky answer. You have been all very helpful. Whished I could say that from the customer support. But I don't wanna throw shade around. Still keeping the goals of a playtest out of the mind of the playtesters is just begging for catastrophe to happen. I guess it is a way to not get the testers hung up on certain issues but as a layperson it's hard to know what's important and what's not. A quick mini guideline just would have been helpful is all I am saying.
Basically, at high levels PF1 becomes very hard to play, for everyone save for experts with a lot of time on their hands. I think there's a broad consensus on that point.
well it is a hobby after all. If you stick a long time to a game you will naturally learn a lot about it. If anything this might help casual players to stick along longer. Smart business decision but it might cost them a few expert players in the long run and that are often the people throwing tons of money at your game. Can't say if it would equal out in the end
See this is the reason I originally e-mailed my question. I wanted an official statement and not a diluted murky answer. You have been all very helpful. Whished I could say that from the customer support. But I don't wanna throw shade around. Still keeping the goals of a playtest out of the mind of the playtesters is just begging for catastrophe to happen. I guess it is a way to not get the testers hung up on certain issues but as a layperson it's hard to know what's important and what's not. A quick mini guideline just would have been helpful is all I am saying.
You're welcome. This comes to show that the customer support's response to you was exactly the correct, most efficient* possible :-)
(* With "efficient" being defined as: Using at little as possible of customer support's time, so that they can attend to the next customer in line).
Basically, at high levels PF1 becomes very hard to play, for everyone save for experts with a lot of time on their hands. I think there's a broad consensus on that point.well it is a hobby after all. If you stick a long time to a game you will naturally learn a lot about it. If anything this might help casual players to stick along longer. Smart business decision but it might cost them a few expert players in the long run and that are often the people throwing tons of money at your game. Can't say if it would equal out in the end
Well, I have been playing for more decades than I care to count. But if you are with a group that can comfortably play PF1 at level 15 without major house rules, then let me say, I'm very impressed.
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Basically, at high levels PF1 becomes very hard to play, for everyone save for experts with a lot of time on their hands. I think there's a broad consensus on that point.well it is a hobby after all. If you stick a long time to a game you will naturally learn a lot about it. If anything this might help casual players to stick along longer. Smart business decision but it might cost them a few expert players in the long run and that are often the people throwing tons of money at your game. Can't say if it would equal out in the end
That's a fallacy that has been repeated a lot. You are confusing depth with complexity, which can be correlated but are not the same thing. It is possible to have a game that still provides deep strategic and tactical choice while being easier to understand the basics of.
It is the difference between a game where a player can make a bad decision instead of a good one versus a game where a GM has to inform the player constantly that they can't actually do the move they are trying to do because of the rules. It isn't hard to learn the rules of chess, but it is very hard to master it.
Whether or not PF2 walks this line is up for debate (and testing) but making a game that is rewarding for experts and is intuitive to newbies are not mutually exclusive goals. The best video games manage to do this, for example, and it is often cited as one of their strengths in reviews.
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well as of now I don't really see a lot of depth in PF2. Looks more like hitting the enemy as hard as you can as often you can. Granted that is what a lot games do but I liked the customizability of PF1. But there is still a lot time and they might just add that later
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well as of now I don't really see a lot of depth in PF2. Looks more like hitting the enemy as hard as you can as often you can. Granted that is what a lot games do but I liked the customizability of PF1. But there is still a lot time and they might just add that later
As someone who started playing PF1e when just the CRB was out... this really isn't much different.
Coming from 3.5, my first thought was "wow, Pathfinder has so few options compared to all the 3.5 books, it feels like there's only one good build for each class, etc..."
We should all remember that PF1e didn't launch with the depth of complexity that it has now.
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We've been asking the first question since day 1. Still haven't gotten an answer. I don't expect this thread to be any different.The answer is found in the introduction text, page 4 of the playtest book. Specifically, this sentence: "Our aim is to make the game easier to learn and simpler to play, while maintaining the depth of character and adventure options that has always defined Pathfinder."
You may disagree with this goal, or even second-guess Paizo's statement of their motives, if you want. But you can't say this question hasn't received an answer.
The specific goals of the playtest are hidden so that players don't play with them in mind and thus skew the outcome. This isn't the same thing as the goals of 2nd Edition, which are stated pretty clearly.We've been asking the first question since day 1. Still haven't gotten an answer. I don't expect this thread to be any different.You got an answer in the last blog.
" But it's equally important to the data collection process that playtesters not know what those goals actually are until the test is over, since to do so any other way would bias the results."
Exactly. Well stated. Thank you saying this.
Every time I've seen a thread like this, I find myself pointing at the playtest doc, all of the blogs, interviews and twitch videos, and then stumble away grumbling.
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We wanted to re-engineer the game to allow the game to emulate the stories we wanted to tell even more so than they did in the past. I think that’s where we started. We always try to start from a place of what’s best for the story, what’s best for the group, and what’s best for the players.
You know it just hit me when I reread this. I've read/heard this (or variations thereof) a couple dozen times in the last year and it just occurred to me.
"to allow the game to emulate the stories we wanted to tell..."
We - not the players. The devs. And there I think is the crux. Somewhere along the lines, focus got shifted from the players to the developers. I'm not going to speculate how or why, but the next sentence speaks volumes about their order of importance - the story, the group, the players.
This is, imho, an exact about face from 3e. 3e was all about the players. Which is why it was so ludicrously popular. But you look at this and the order and I can't help think that this is like those railroaded sessions we all endured (or maybe created) in high school. The story is the most important thing and everything has to bend to that. Then the group - everyone is going to suck / succeed equally in everything. And lastly, the player. But what is there left for the player after 1 and 2 are done? Who wants to finish an AP in exactly the same way that everyone else finished it because those were the demands of the story. The one thing PnP has over CRPGs is flexibilty, and now we're severely diminishing that.
*shakes head*. I'm disillusioned about this, I really am. The overall focus, the frantic pace of the playtest, the announcement of a final release date before any public beta was conducted. These were all errors made by computer companies in the 1990s and it cost many of them their existences.
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We wanted to re-engineer the game to allow the game to emulate the stories we wanted to tell even more so than they did in the past. I think that’s where we started. We always try to start from a place of what’s best for the story, what’s best for the group, and what’s best for the players.You know it just hit me when I reread this. I've read/heard this (or variations thereof) a couple dozen times in the last year and it just occurred to me.
"to allow the game to emulate the stories we wanted to tell..."
We - not the players. The devs. And there I think is the crux. Somewhere along the lines, focus got shifted from the players to the developers. I'm not going to speculate how or why, but the next sentence speaks volumes about their order of importance - the story, the group, the players.
This is, imho, an exact about face from 3e. 3e was all about the players. Which is why it was so ludicrously popular. But you look at this and the order and I can't help think that this is like those railroaded sessions we all endured (or maybe created) in high school. The story is the most important thing and everything has to bend to that. Then the group - everyone is going to suck / succeed equally in everything. And lastly, the player. But what is there left for the player after 1 and 2 are done? Who wants to finish an AP in exactly the same way that everyone else finished it because those were the demands of the story. The one thing PnP has over CRPGs is flexibilty, and now we're severely diminishing that.
*shakes head*. I'm disillusioned about this, I really am. The overall focus, the frantic pace of the playtest, the announcement of a final release date before any public beta was conducted. These were all errors made by computer companies in the 1990s and it cost many of them their existences.
Uhh you realize that's why Pathfinder 1e was made too? They wanted a system to use to build their Adventure Paths but they didn't like what was done with 4e so they just made tweaks and changes to 3.5. Now after doing this for a long time and putting up with the short comings of the 3.5 system they decided they had enough experience to make their own system from the ground up. It's really not much different.
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Uhh you realize that's why Pathfinder 1e was made too? They wanted a system to use to build their Adventure Paths but they didn't like...We wanted to re-engineer the game to allow the game to emulate the stories we wanted to tell even more so than they did in the past. I think that’s where we started. We always try to start from a place of what’s best for the story, what’s best for the group, and what’s best for the players.You know it just hit me when I reread this. I've read/heard this (or variations thereof) a couple dozen times in the last year and it just occurred to me.
"to allow the game to emulate the stories we wanted to tell..."
We - not the players. The devs. And there I think is the crux. Somewhere along the lines, focus got shifted from the players to the developers. I'm not going to speculate how or why, but the next sentence speaks volumes about their order of importance - the story, the group, the players.
This is, imho, an exact about face from 3e. 3e was all about the players. Which is why it was so ludicrously popular. But you look at this and the order and I can't help think that this is like those railroaded sessions we all endured (or maybe created) in high school. The story is the most important thing and everything has to bend to that. Then the group - everyone is going to suck / succeed equally in everything. And lastly, the player. But what is there left for the player after 1 and 2 are done? Who wants to finish an AP in exactly the same way that everyone else finished it because those were the demands of the story. The one thing PnP has over CRPGs is flexibilty, and now we're severely diminishing that.
*shakes head*. I'm disillusioned about this, I really am. The overall focus, the frantic pace of the playtest, the announcement of a final release date before any public beta was conducted. These were all errors made by computer companies in the 1990s and it cost many of them their existences.
Yup. That's explicitly why they made PF1. They had specific kinds of stories they wanted to tell and 4.0 didn't support it.
Heaven forbid creative people actually tell stories they are enthusiastic about telling, rather than whatever they think will sell the most to the general public.
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well as of now I don't really see a lot of depth in PF2. Looks more like hitting the enemy as hard as you can as often you can. Granted that is what a lot games do but I liked the customizability of PF1. But there is still a lot time and they might just add that later
You seem to conflating "quantity of build options" with "tactics depth during combat." MaxAstro has already pointed out the issues with looking at build options. For the latter, the PF2 action economy is already a huge improvement over the original PF1 action economy for tactical depth. Martials in PF1 tended to do precisely one thing: stand still and swing their weapon as many times as possible. Unless they had pounce, in which case they charged and swung as many times as possible. You needed very specific builds to break this paradigm, and it would take many levels for it to kick in.
In PF2, there's a ton of things you can do with your third action that may be better than attacking at -10. Raise a shield. Take cover. Move into better positioning. Hit and run. Feint. Demoralize. Drink a potion. Or a do a combat maneuver, they don't provoke anymore. And all of this can be done at level 1 sans any feats. With feats, instead of just raising your numbers to hit or make a save, you can get entirely new kinds of actions and tactics to employ, but they won't be the optimal move in every situation.
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Yup. That's explicitly why they made PF1. They had specific kinds of stories they wanted to tell and 4.0 didn't support it.
Heaven forbid creative people actually tell stories they are enthusiastic about telling, rather than whatever they think will sell the most to the general public.
Really? You're saying that the APs could not have been made in a 4e setting or a 2e setting or 5e? That's a ridiculous assertion. The stories could be told in almost any setting. It's only the numbers that are different. So, unless you are fixated on the numbers, the story should be system agnostic. Which, i reiterate is the problem with 2e - there is a fixation on the numbers.
Heaven forbid people should express anything except blind support for the product.
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These questions have been answered already. They were answered as early as April. Earlier probably, but it is harder to quote audio interviews.
Go to the Gameinformer interview for points 1-3.. Further elaboration can be found in various blogs, forum posts, twitch streams, and other interviews.
** spoiler omitted **...
Why exactly do I have to look for interviews and streams on 3rd party sites for information about the playtest? It's like they're trying to hide that information from as many people as possible and it strikes me as dishonest.
They could at least provide written transcripts of those videos and interviews on these forums or their own website so that we can remain informed about the direction of the product were currently testing.
If they wanted real feedback, they wouldn't be hiding their answers all over the internet and forcing us to go look for them. They wouldn't be avoiding giving us written blog posts and concrete answers. This is a publicity tour, not an invitation for feedback.
The game is mostly finished, the "playtest" is just a preview, and our feedback means nothing.
It already has been on their website since April.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v2th?Game-Informer-Interview-with-Jason-Bulmah n
They have also tweeted about it and I'm sure blasted it out on various other forms of social media as well.
https://twitter.com/paizo/status/988921259751751681
The fact that they haven't personally responded to the 8000 interchangeable topics calling for more information doesn't mean they are hiding it. It just means they have bigger things to focus on, like you know, actually going through our playtest data to perfect the game.
Your last sentence is just flat out not true when they have admitted that major systems like Resonance are 100% going to be changed by the final product and may in fact be thrown out.
Yup. That's explicitly why they made PF1. They had specific kinds of stories they wanted to tell and 4.0 didn't support it.
Heaven forbid creative people actually tell stories they are enthusiastic about telling, rather than whatever they think will sell the most to the general public.
Really? You're saying that the APs could not have been made in a 4e setting or a 2e setting or 5e? That's a ridiculous assertion. The stories could be told in almost any setting. It's only the numbers that are different. So, unless you are fixated on the numbers, the story should be system agnostic. Which, i reiterate is the problem with 2e - there is a fixation on the numbers.
Heaven forbid people should express anything except blind support for the product.
I'm saying that this has been the reason why Pathfinder has existed for ten years, yes. That is what Paizo said a decade ago. It is what Paizo is saying now.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2hy5d?Paizo-Pathfinder-Politics
There are far bigger differences than mere numbers between editions. 4e runs on completely different resource pools, for example. In Pathfinder a caster can have fly and invisibility running at the time. In 5e, they can't. That sort of thing alone has a drastic impact on the sorts of ways a caster can approach battles and the word in general, and that stuff changes the story. Frankly I could go into greater detail but "Pathfinder is different from 4e which is different from 5e" or "stories should reflect the mechanics of the game they are told in" don't really feel like points that need defending.
You're saying that the APs could not have been made in a 4e setting or a 2e setting or 5e? That's a ridiculous assertion. The stories could be told in almost any setting. It's only the numbers that are different. So, unless you are fixated on the numbers, the story should be system agnostic..
Not necessarily. The rules of the system tell part of the story in themselves.
Do high-level warriors / wizards / ancient dragons need an army to take on an army? Or are they their own army?
Can characters teleport around easily, making long-distance travel trivial?
Can characters ask the gods the answers to questions, saving them having to do any real research?
Can the dead be brought back to life by magic? Or are they dead forever?
Are fallen paladins a thing?
Can you redeem orcs? Vampires? Red dragons? Demons? Or are they pure evil?
Whatever the answer is, it closes off some storylines and opens up others.
I said my piece. If you require a specific rule for every little thing, then you're going to be hard pressed for any system to satisfy you. And you would have been slaughtered playing anything old school like 1e AD&D. Somehow we were able to tell amazing stories without fifteen rulebooks and an SRD to constantly refer to.
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I said my piece. If you require a specific rule for every little thing, then you're going to be hard pressed for any system to satisfy you. And you would have been slaughtered playing anything old school like 1e AD&D. Somehow we were able to tell amazing stories without fifteen rulebooks and an SRD to constantly refer to.
I'm not sure I even know what you're talking about anymore... A lot of us DID play Adv. D&D and had fun with it. they COULD have made their adventure paths in 4th edition, but they didn't like the system and felt the stories could be better told using a modified version of 3.5 so they decided to make their own RPG. What's wrong with that? It seems to have worked out well for them.
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The game is mostly finished, the "playtest" is just a preview, and our feedback means nothing.
I don't agree. The developers fixed Signature Skills, at least in part because of customer feedback.
I am not asserting anything wrong or right about this, but it would have been nice to have at least something the customer support can copy paste into there emails. Other companies, even far bigger and far smaller ones, do that too. I got my answers, I am fine. But just a reminder, please don't make this about an edition war again and don't infer intent. Speculations and rumors aren't helping anyone
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I am not asserting anything wrong or right about this, but it would have been nice to have at least something the customer support can copy paste into there emails. Other companies, even far bigger and far smaller ones, do that too. I got my answers, I am fine. But just a reminder, please don't make this about an edition war again and don't infer intent. Speculations and rumors aren't helping anyone
There is no edition war. No one is saying one edition is better than the other. (At least, I'm not.) The only thing that has been asserted is that editions are different, and that is relevant to how the game is played and what stories are told. Which is apparently controversial now.
that was more of a general advice. Didn't wanna attack anyone geez.
In a few of the games I ran I was essentially forced to give each PC almost twice their WBL in Magic Equipment in order for them to statistically have a 50/50 shot at making even their first Attack in a round or Save against checks at their APL because the Players simply didn't spend their money on the "Required" gear such as Cloaks, Rings, Belts, and Headbands. It SEVERELY gimped the party in more than one Campaign because they didn't like buying that one-size equipment that made every PC wear essentially the same equipment so they can can mathematicaly viable after level 8.
My players would admittedly optimize their characters and were not about to turn down cloaks, rings, belts and the like.
You're saying your players experienced these issues because they did not want to gear up properly, according to what the game considers to be proper.Whether some magical items should be mandatory or not is another debate but an optimized character with appropriate gear would not end up being less competent in some specific areas at higher levels than they were at 1st level when playing 1st edition.
I have never, EVER, experienced that in the past 6 years that I have ran Pathfinder APs, with optimized characters.
Besides, the new cloaks, belts, rings and heabands are the following:
1) Magic weapon (appropriate bonus for level)
2) Magic armor (appropriate bonus for level)
3) Stat-boosting item (increased key ability score)
4) Skill-boosting item (e.g. Healer's Gloves)
5) Class-specific items that are absolutely required at some levels (e.g. Druid's Vestments)
Because it is no longer possible for an optimized PC to achieve over 60% hit chance, these items are now more required than ever to even have a decent chance to contribute.
It would be delusional to believe that specific items will not be required in 2nd edition for PCs to not feel like they are getting worse as they gain levels.