Ancestry and Class Surveys

That is very odd. We will look into the survey logic to see if there is a problem floating in there... otherwise we will have to kick this up to surveymonkey to fix. Can you tell us specifically where this happened and what occurred?

Just a guess, but I think that everyone in the process of filling out the survey gets kicked back to the beginning whenever you make a change.

I probably got kicked back to the start a dozen times while filling out the class survey. The longer I spent on a page thinking about my answers, the more likely I was to get kicked back. I was persistent and eventually got through. Probably only made it because I knew many of my answers off the top of my head and was able to blow through most of the pages quickly.

75. Which best matches your opinion of the inclusion of half-elves in the Core Rulebook?

They should appear in the Core Rulebook as a branch of human, as in the Playtest.

I was really hoping for a "They should appear in the Core Rulebook as an option for any ancestry" option. This is the only reason I was excited to see them no longer be their own individual entries - seemed like it was opening up a whole new range of character options (half dwarf/half elf, half orc/half goblin, etc).

That is very odd. We will look into the survey logic to see if there is a problem floating in there... otherwise we will have to kick this up to surveymonkey to fix. Can you tell us specifically where this happened and what occurred?

This happened a ton, all over. It seems to me to be server load issues.

We think people getting kicked back to the start might have been due to some minor and backend changes we were making to the survey. We're holding off on those for now, so if it keeps happening, please let us know!

There wasn't really an option on the race entries for "I like that the race option are feats so that I'm not stuck with a racial hatred or a particular skill within a very narrow context, but feel like 1 feat and maybe some speed or vision doesn't make the race feel distinct enough on its own."

magnuskn wrote:

The class survey resets to the first page after a few classes. You can go through the class pages again and your options have been noted, but when you get to the last page you already filled out, all your stuff is gone and it is a dice roll if the second time around it will take or you will get booted back again to the first page. I suffered through this from the Monk to the Ranger, but now I'm getting tired of going through dozens of pages only to get thrown back to the first one. Could this please get fixed ASAP?

That is very odd. We will look into the survey logic to see if there is a problem floating in there... otherwise we will have to kick this up to surveymonkey to fix. Can you tell us specifically where this happened and what occurred?

As I said, starting with the Monk the "Next" button started throwing me back to the first survey page ("What is your gender", etc). By going through the next buttons, I got back to the last page I had worked on. While the pages before that had been saved, the last page had to be filled out again. For a while pressing the "Next" button thereafter got me one more page and saved the last page, but after reaching the Ranger it stopped working and threw me back to the first page, where after going through the "Next" buttons until the the Barbarian I was always thrown back to the first page again.

There wasn't really an option on the race entries for "I like that the race option are feats so that I'm not stuck with a racial hatred or a particular skill within a very narrow context, but feel like 1 feat and maybe some speed or vision doesn't make the race feel distinct enough on its own."

I interpreted that response to fall within the range of the "I like that these features aren't mandatory, but I think spending a feat is too much" option.

Since I like my Dwarven Monks to not be greedy and hateful, but most ancestry options don't really feel befitting of feats.

One thing the Ancestry survey failed to capture was how bad straight human was (the half-orc/half-elf were ok-ish). The main draw is Natural Ambition but I could nab that by using that General Feat that lets me take feats from another ancestry. Doing so would net a wider array of available Ancestry feats and a more optimized stat array for the low low cost of a General Feat.

I wish there were a free response section where I could input stuff like that.

As I said, starting with the Monk the "Next" button started throwing me back to the first survey page ("What is your gender", etc). By going through the next buttons, I got back to the last page I had worked on. While the pages before that had been saved, the last page had to be filled out again. For a while pressing the "Next" button thereafter got me one more page and saved the last page, but after reaching the Ranger it stopped working and threw me back to the first page, where after going through the "Next" buttons until the the Barbarian I was always thrown back to the first page again.

Just keep trying and processing through each step again and again, it will work eventually, I just finished taking the survey after one and a half hour, including 30 minutes of looping back to the first page and clicking next. ><

I'm surprised and frankly dismayed by how many things are not represented on these surveys, like the 1 ancestry feat at 1st level issue, despite huge amounts of discussion of them on these boards. It conveys the impression that Paizo is barely paying attention to feedback at all.

The survey links to the open response portions of these surveys are now live. If there is something we missed or did not include in the surveys, these are a good way to let us know. Check the blog up above.

One thing I have been wondering about as well is the following: I answered everything with the latest update (1.2) in mind.
I would not have been so kind with the number of skills some classes receive had I answered the question based on the initial version of the core rulebook.
Surely, the survey is based off update 1.2?

If so, I would like to say that the Bard part of the survey is missing Virtuoso's Brilliance as a choice for the most powerful level 20 feat.

Also, when a player specifies the details of a class they have already played, they are asked about whether they went with an archetype and, if so, which one.
Some of the archetypes you can choose from are not currently available as they pertain to base classes outside the Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard.
I know these archetypes are coming next week but why are they already included in the survey?
No one should be able to pick an archetype they couldn't have actually played!

magnuskn wrote:

As I said, starting with the Monk the "Next" button started throwing me back to the first survey page ("What is your gender", etc). By going through the next buttons, I got back to the last page I had worked on. While the pages before that had been saved, the last page had to be filled out again. For a while pressing the "Next" button thereafter got me one more page and saved the last page, but after reaching the Ranger it stopped working and threw me back to the first page, where after going through the "Next" buttons until the the Barbarian I was always thrown back to the first page again.

Just keep trying and processing through each step again and again, it will work eventually, I just finished taking the survey after one and a half hour, including 30 minutes of looping back to the first page and clicking next. ><

I'll try tomorrow. I hope the problem has been solved by then.

ErichAD wrote:

There wasn't really an option on the race entries for "I like that the race option are feats so that I'm not stuck with a racial hatred or a particular skill within a very narrow context, but feel like 1 feat and maybe some speed or vision doesn't make the race feel distinct enough on its own."

I interpreted that response to fall within the range of the "I like that these features aren't mandatory, but I think spending a feat is too much" option.

Since I like my Dwarven Monks to not be greedy and hateful, but most ancestry options don't really feel befitting of feats.

That's what I went with. I don't feel like "a feat is too much" makes sense though. There aren't better things to spend that racial feat on so the value of a feat is fairly inelastic with few exceptions.

dnoisette wrote:

thflame wrote:

Why weren't Drow an option for a future race? That would have been my number one pick, as my favorite character is a drow.

This, I kept looking for Drow and couldn't even believe it wasn't available when I could not even remember what some of the races on offer actually were.

Isn't the Golarion canon that Drow are inherently evil in that they have been tainted by Rovagug and in case they somehow get over being evil and are cleansed of the aforementioned taint, they cease to be Drow?

Doesn't really seem appropriate for a PC option.

They let goblins in so I don't think they can point to morals as a reason to exclude a race... I find goblins far more "inherently evil".

I know these archetypes are coming next week but why are they already included in the survey?

No one should be able to pick an archetype they couldn't have actually played!

Because some people aren't answering the survey immediately and will be answering it after the archetypes come out. I know my group will be waiting until we've played more characters before we answer the ABC surveys.

LOL pick 5 races listed for the next products? LOL I'm betting no one picked my spread. ;)

I would have loved for the same question to have been asked about classes but, oh well...

I would have loved for the same question to have been asked about classes but, oh well...

Yeah I agree. In fact, I just finished the first survey and that pretty much sums up my feelings on it: "I would have loved it if there was a question on that".

I'm quite dissatisfied with the Ancestry survey, actually.

It asks us to rate satisfaction with things like number of HP and languages each individually, rather than providing any mechanism for stating our satisfaction for the Ancestry's chassis as a whole.

This is an issue for a lot of reasons, but let me use an example:

I'm perfectly satisfied with Halflings having 6 HP (it makes sense), and 25 foot movement (ditto). Indeed, I'm perfectly satisfied with all the Halfling's individual options.

What I'm dissatisfied profoundly with is the fact that Elves have the same HP, better movement, and Low Light Vision as well. They are, in terms of statistics, flatly superior. And their Ancestry Feats are probably better to boot (the Halfling ones are pretty good, but Elves probably have the best in the game).

And that's just an example of the disparities between Ancestries. That's my dissatisfaction, and all evidence is that I'm not alone (the last post I made on this topic got favorited quite a bit) and there's no real way to express it on this survey. Or anything like it. I can technically just give the Ancestry a low star rating (and did), but that lacks a fair bit of nuance.

Yeah I agree. In fact, I just finished the first survey and that pretty much sums up my feelings on it: "I would have loved it if there was a question on that".

We have to balance the conflicting goals of thoroughness and reasonable length. Being too long will both drop response rates and skew data because the dropped responses will not likely be randomly distributed from among the responders (more casual responders will drop first).

For anything you'd like to answer that we didn't ask, there's the free responses surveys (which should be up now, we had the class one and just forgot to activate).

Indeed. The open surveys are where you can tell Paizo whatever you want. For instance, I repeated my incessant requests that Half Orc and Half Elf no longer be limited to Half Human (this wasn't a category in the other survey). I also asked for Half Gnome, Half Dwarf, Half Goblin, and so on... But not Half...half...ling...because that's weird?

Indeed. The open surveys are where you can tell Paizo whatever you want. For instance, I repeated my incessant requests that Half Orc and Half Elf no longer be limited to Half Human (this wasn't an category in the other survey). I also asked for Half Gnome, Half Dwarf, Half Goblin, and so on... But not Half...half...ling...because that's weird?

I for one welcome our new Quarterling masters.

Indeed. The open surveys are where you can tell Paizo whatever you want. For instance, I repeated my incessant requests that Half Orc and Half Elf no longer be limited to Half Human (this wasn't a category in the other survey). I also asked for Half Gnome, Half Dwarf, Half Goblin, and so on... But not Half...half...ling...because that's weird?

While amusing, I very highly doubt that this will be included as an option. Pathfinder has always assumed the Golarion setting, and 2E has doubled down on that assumption.

And the existing races on Golarion are fairly set in stone after 10+ years of setting building.

The Once and Future Kai wrote:

Indeed. The open surveys are where you can tell Paizo whatever you want. For instance, I repeated my incessant requests that Half Orc and Half Elf no longer be limited to Half Human (this wasn't a category in the other survey). I also asked for Half Gnome, Half Dwarf, Half Goblin, and so on... But not Half...half...ling...because that's weird?

While amusing, I very highly doubt that this will be included as an option. Pathfinder has always assumed the Golarion setting, and 2E has doubled down on that assumption.

And the existing races on Golarion are fairly set in stone after 10+ years of setting building.

Even if it's not "official," we can potentially try to build the half-ancestries in a way that they can be used like Kai wants. For instance, you could get those up and running with a minimum of tweaking and no deep game design necessary with the current version (and that means we could use the paradigm to do just that ourselves for ancestries that have traditionally spread beyond human in Golarion, like aasimar/tiefling/other planar scion).

And the existing races on Golarion are fairly set in stone after 10+ years of setting building.

Between Sorcerer bloodlines and Bastards of Golarion, I think there's room established for new ancestral combinations.

Even if it's not "official," we can potentially try to build the half-ancestries in a way that they can be used like Kai wants. For instance, you could get those up and running with a minimum of tweaking and no deep game design necessary with the current version (and that means we could use the paradigm to do just that ourselves for ancestries that have traditionally spread beyond human in Golarion, like aasimar/tiefling/other planar scion).

Thanks for the reply. This excites me to no end.

graystone wrote:

Yeah I agree. In fact, I just finished the first survey and that pretty much sums up my feelings on it: "I would have loved it if there was a question on that".

We have to balance the conflicting goals of thoroughness and reasonable length. Being too long will both drop response rates and skew data because the dropped responses will not likely be randomly distributed from among the responders (more casual responders will drop first).

For anything you'd like to answer that we didn't ask, there's the free responses surveys (which should be up now, we had the class one and just forgot to activate).

Oh, I totally understand there is a limit to what you can ask. It wasn't just that some questions seemed missing but some answers seemed missing from the questions that were there too. It just seemed... off I guess. It just left me with the feeling that I wasn't able to convey what I wanted.

The open surveys are where you can tell Paizo whatever you want.

I do plan to go back and fill those out but I'm not sure I'll recall all the things I wanted to mention at the time about certain aspects of the survey. I kind of wish there was a comment section at the bottom of each page of the first set of surveys to fill in with the info fresh in mind.

I think the classes survey would have better served if it was a separate survey for each class instead of one big one that you had to choose to either take that section or skip. I almost feel obligated to fill out as much of it as I possibly can in order to give more thorough feedback since I'm already in it.

The ancestry survey had questions about which races we wanted later, so why did the survey about classes not have questions about which classes we wanted later?

Because of course they'll release all the classes over time. They might not have plans to release all the listed races, especially given some weren't regular playable races in PF1.

I think the classes survey would have better served if it was a separate survey for each class instead of one big one that you had to choose to either take that section or skip. I almost feel obligated to fill out as much of it as I possibly can in order to give more thorough feedback since I'm already in it.

I think I understand their reasoning for it (It probably makes cross-tabulation easier, and in some cases, possible at all, such as seeing where people who thought class X had plenty of interesting choices, but didn't think that way of class Y had issues with individual class Y mechanics, or where they thought class X shined), but I do agree. I feel like I have not enough experience to talk about each class individually, but there are a few classes that I've played that I think I could give good data for.

Telefax wrote:

The ancestry survey had questions about which races we wanted later, so why did the survey about classes not have questions about which classes we wanted later?

Because of course they'll release all the classes over time. They might not have plans to release all the listed races, especially given some weren't regular playable races in PF1.

We don't entirely know that. As we see with the Cavalier, some classes might wind up just as archetypes. It might be good data to see where people really want classes, and where they might be fine with archetypes. But it's possible that that's outside the scope of the playtest, and where, for ancestries, they already primed such questions with the questions of whether Goblins should be core or whether Half-elf/orc worked well enough as heritage feats or if they needed their own entry.

As long as we at least get a proper magus and inquisitor that mostly work the same way they do now.

Scythia wrote:

Telefax wrote:

The ancestry survey had questions about which races we wanted later, so why did the survey about classes not have questions about which classes we wanted later?

Because of course they'll release all the classes over time. They might not have plans to release all the listed races, especially given some weren't regular playable races in PF1.

We don't entirely know that. As we see with the Cavalier, some classes might wind up just as archetypes. It might be good data to see where people really want classes, and where they might be fine with archetypes. But it's possible that that's outside the scope of the playtest, and where, for ancestries, they already primed such questions with the questions of whether Goblins should be core or whether Half-elf/orc worked well enough as heritage feats or if they needed their own entry.

Even releasing a class as feats is releasing it. They could easily do likewise with Ninja, Gunslinger, and Anti-Paladin.

Sorcerer had several of their 8-14th level feats missing if you clicked the 'played a sorcerer' box.

Since Overwhelming Spell struck me as the only sorcerer feat worth taking since reach spell, this seemed relevant.

Even if it's not "official," we can potentially try to build the half-ancestries in a way that they can be used like Kai wants. For instance, you could get those up and running with a minimum of tweaking and no deep game design necessary with the current version (and that means we could use the paradigm to do just that ourselves for ancestries that have traditionally spread beyond human in Golarion, like aasimar/tiefling/other planar scion).

The solution I've been pushing would be to have everyone get two (or more) heritage feats at level 1, and then make an ancestry feat called mixed heritage which lets you take one (or more) of those heritage feats from another ancestry and become a half-whatever. That kind of set up would make all the playable races mixable by default, with no need to individually create half-ancestry feat chains. More choice for players, less work for designers/homebrewers, everybody wins.

It felt odd only being able to pick one class per ancestry. I've played several humans/half-elves, at least more so than any other ancestry purely because extra class/general feats are overpowered as far as ancestries go.

Am i expected to fill out the survey multiple times in that case as i only got to review about half of the classes i played at this point?

As long as we at least get a proper magus and inquisitor that mostly work the same way they do now.

So the risk of making an old class into an archetype or build or something less than a full class is that we run the risk of upsetting the people for whom that class was their favorite. I don't think we have to worry about that very much for the Cavalier.

Tholomyes wrote:

Scythia wrote:

Telefax wrote:

The ancestry survey had questions about which races we wanted later, so why did the survey about classes not have questions about which classes we wanted later?

Because of course they'll release all the classes over time. They might not have plans to release all the listed races, especially given some weren't regular playable races in PF1.

We don't entirely know that. As we see with the Cavalier, some classes might wind up just as archetypes. It might be good data to see where people really want classes, and where they might be fine with archetypes. But it's possible that that's outside the scope of the playtest, and where, for ancestries, they already primed such questions with the questions of whether Goblins should be core or whether Half-elf/orc worked well enough as heritage feats or if they needed their own entry.

Even releasing a class as feats is releasing it. They could easily do likewise with Ninja, Gunslinger, and Anti-Paladin.

My point is that if, suddenly, they see from the survey that actually, most people want the Gunslinger (for example) as a full class, that's valuable survey data that they're not getting by not including a question akin to the one asked on the ancestry survey. As I said, I'm not sure now is necessarily the time, but I'm also not entirely convinced that "top 5 ancestries for the future" is necessarily relevant to the playtest, except insofar as their previous questions had to do with people's feelings on some of their changes to what was a core ancestry (which is also something they could have asked with the cavalier [and it's possible they did do that, but nobody mentioned it yet, and I'm holding off on the survey until I have more useful responses])

sherlock1701 wrote:

As long as we at least get a proper magus and inquisitor that mostly work the same way they do now.

So the risk of making an old class into an archetype or build or something less than a full class is that we run the risk of upsetting the people for whom that class was their favorite. I don't think we have to worry about that very much for the Cavalier.

Cavalier isn't a bad class. And it's a niche that should be filled. It's just that mounted combat is problematic in a game where dungeon crawls are a thing.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

sherlock1701 wrote:

As long as we at least get a proper magus and inquisitor that mostly work the same way they do now.

So the risk of making an old class into an archetype or build or something less than a full class is that we run the risk of upsetting the people for whom that class was their favorite. I don't think we have to worry about that very much for the Cavalier.

Cavalier isn't a bad class. And it's a niche that should be filled. It's just that mounted combat is problematic in a game where dungeon crawls are a thing.

I had a friend who really wanted to play a cavalier. The first dungeon we were in, due to the size of the horse, the horse almost got us killed because of just how in the way it is. Granted that applies to just about any large creature, but at level 1 or 2 its harder to have solutions to the problem (other than the DM just not including enclosed spaces for the first couple levels).

PossibleCabbage wrote:

sherlock1701 wrote:

As long as we at least get a proper magus and inquisitor that mostly work the same way they do now.

So the risk of making an old class into an archetype or build or something less than a full class is that we run the risk of upsetting the people for whom that class was their favorite. I don't think we have to worry about that very much for the Cavalier.

Cavalier isn't a bad class. And it's a niche that should be filled. It's just that mounted combat is problematic in a game where dungeon crawls are a thing.

My long stated supposition is that the reason it wasn't popular was that it wasn't one niche that needed to be filled, but three (and because one class tried to do it all, it mostly sucked at it): the first, and most problematic was mounted combat, for the reason you mentioned. A mount was actively detrimental in most areas and it took until (I think?) the ACG to have an archetype get rid of it, which, not so coincidentally was the first time I played a cavalier. The second was the tactician feature, which was nice in theory (have a class that can grant benefits that aren't simply numerical bonuses, and have them reward tactics), but teamwork feats never really came together, and often didn't play well with party composition. Add to that the fact that another class from that book was more effective with them, through the inquisitor's solo tactics (where they only needed to worry about what feat was best for them, as opposed to how each feat helped each party member), and the Tactician Cavalier wound up underwhelming. And lastly was the sort of Orders/Challenge niche that rewarded a sort of single-combat playstyle, but was just sort of meh in general.

PF2e, however seems like it could be well equipped to solve these problems (or at least the second two). While Mounted combat is still a potential pain, it's no less a pain than it is for the paladin or anyone with a large animal companion. But for Tactician, the three action economy and tighter math seem begging for abilities that reward or enable tactical play and aren't just an additional +X, and for the Order/challenge part of the class, as well as just the class as a whole, PF2e is a great boon, as part of the problem with the cavalier was that it tried to do so much that it couldn't do any of the things all that well, but class feats mean that the class can do all the things you want it to, even if individual characters might only specialize in one of those things. Hunt Target could even be what 2e Challenge is (though more probably, something that has the feel of hunt target, but less designed for TWF/agile weapons and ranged attacks), especially as it seems more suited to the cavalier than the ranger.

But, yeah, Cavalier was always the class I wanted to love but couldn't, and it's a shame that because it was never well loved in 1e, 2e couldn't take this as an opportunity to fix it.

I guess my question is, if humans have all these wonderful sub-cultures, where are the other races sub-cultures? You have Varisians and Tians and so forth, but you don't really list those distinction for non-Human races and that feels lackluster. I would really like to see some cultural diversity among non-Human races so that Dwarves from this part of the world have a different culture and maybe even language than Dwarves from this part of the world. Perhaps these Halflings over here don't speak Halfling as their mother tongue, but speak Varisian instead.

You're missing Channel Smite on the cleric Survey. This is a bit annoying, as the cleric I played was kinda built around using Negaite energy with Channel Smite.

I just filled out the Alchemist section and quit out. I hope it saves what I did.

But seeing as some other people are noting issues, I wonder if 1) It'll take and 2) If I should go back but a) will that matter with some of the issue.

Well, filled in the surveys, 2 biggest gripes remain: how passive paladins feel with retributive strike, and how tight maths means no one really shines, no one really sucks, it's all a bit meh.

LOL finally finished the surveys... Wow did that take some time.

Missing options: I noticed several options gone: for instance, I couldn't say I took a familiar because the feat was missing from the list.

thflame wrote:

I disagree. ANYTHING should be an appropriate option for a PC. (Maybe with level adjustment.)

I'm of the opinion that any ancestry which can literally only be a single alignment is inappropriate. Like Pathfinder canonically has more non-CE Succubi than non-CE Drow.

even if we assume that, a few things stand out

1) some people don't play in Golarion. It is easy to change drows background in your home world, but it is harder to build a race mechanically if you are not a game designer. Certainly I easier to pick up Paizo 's vision
.

2) being always evil is not a problem for evil campaigns. Which some people play.

Drow is an inmensily popular race, because of certain guy with 2 scimitar. It is wise to give people popular things

Side note, I didn't take any Dedications. Do I jsut leave that blank? Could have used a "Didn't take" box. If there was one I didn't see it.

Are we EXPECTED to always take a Dedication?

I'm really scratching my head on how this survey is set up. For example, the survey asks what you think the best feat from 1-6 is for a class. But this fails to capture:

- Which class feats seemed underpowered or overpowered or difficult to understand, and why.
- What levels seemed to have obvious or unsatisfying options.
- That the level 6 feats are going to mostly be better than the level 1 feats.

It feels frustrating that I went through the entirety of the alchemist portion of the survey and I left no meaningful feedback. Nothing about how, for example:
- Being limited by resonance was more stressful than being limited by spells, because resonance was tied to my emergency survivability.
- I felt pigeonholed into bombs, because my combat contribution was otherwise negligible.
- Mutagens come in too late and have awkward and clumsy mechanics until high levels.
- Etc etc.

Not to mention questions like: "Which feat from 1-6 is the most powerful?" never shows the full picture. For example, for Alchemist, is Precise Bombs the most powerful 1-6 feat? Every bombing alchemist needs it to avoid incurring the wrath of their party. But every bombing alchemist that picks Precise Bombs also needs Quick Bomber in order to have a chance of dealing reasonable damage, and Debilitating Bombs to supplement their damage with debuffs. Which of these is the most powerful? No idea.

Take the open survey instead of the first link. I tried to take the first survey and dropped it as I felt it wouldn't let me give adequate feedback.