I was lucky enough to play the first fight of the field test yesterday, so there is how it went :
Our team comprised two Vesk Soldiers (one, mine, with a Rotolaser and Reinforced Stock, the other with a scythe). Both had chosen Close-Quarters as their specialization.
On top of that, we had a support-based Mystic Android (divine), a human Envoy (Gunblazing Leadership, rapier and laser pistol) and a... Rogue Minotaur (ruffian, Str-based, with a whip and a laser pistol).
We defeated the first wave of attackers fairly easily, mainly because it hadn't been adjusted to our 5 characters. To compensate, the GM sent us the officer just as we were finishing off the last zombie. We had taken very little damage.
The first feeling we had was that this double fight was very long, even though we were all experienced PF2 players. The amount of damage inflicted per turn was undoubtedly to blame (at least in the second wave).
First wave: as a Soldier armed mainly with a Rotolaser, I felt pretty useless. The range of the area attack is far too short: either the initial range of the weapon must be doubled (to 60ft minimum), or the area attack must be made within a cone the size of the initial range factor (30ft). Otherwise, it's unusable.
I intentionally stayed out of close combat, which was ultimately a mistake (having 3 other people in the team going mainly for contact, I could have benefited from easy flanks). I tried to use my Auto-Fire attack, but because of the ridiculous range I could never get two enemies at once.
The Primary Target ability never worked for me (although I built my Vesk with 3 Dex and 4 Con to make the best use of it). I had no luck on the dice. Fortunately, because it wasn't clear to my group if a target missing its save and being hit by Primary Target would take twice the damage. Honestly, I hope so.
Let's talk about damage. 1d8 is extremely low for a weapon of this caliber, and we only managed to deal with the officer because we had an unusual amount of melee. I've tried to respect the "range meta" suggested by the fieldtest, but as it stands it's not fun at level 1. The combination of short range, very low damage with no static damage, and high bulk make "range meta" totally useless. I felt unable to contribute compared to a melee Vesk wielding a melee weapon and being on the frontlane like myself.
Second wave: we won, but with luck (two 20nat, one with MAP), 4 wounded PCs, 3 unconscious, and if we managed to hold out it was only thanks to Mystic's unlimited healing capacity. Without his network, we would have lasted two rounds.
A word on design: I can see the point of having a "stress test" in a playtest. However, making a level 4 boss with a Reactive Strike face a level 1 team, equipped (according to the fieldtest itself!) only with ranged weapons inflicting fire OR piercing OR (if they pick up their previous enemies' weapons) electricity damage, while giving the boss resistance 5 to ALL this damage, while the weapons do between 1d6 and 1d10 damage at most... Paizo, let's get back to reality: it's obvious that there will be problems.
A word about the others: the two classes that shone brightest in this fight were Mystic, without whom nothing would have been possible, and Rogue, who was able to get past the damage resistances thanks to his Sneak Attack. Sadly, this last one is not a SF2 class.
The two soldiers were virtually non-existent (apart from a scythe critical against a zombie, which would have been far less impressive with a fieldtest ranged weapon), even if the Suppressed condition prevented the boss from kiting us endlessly. Apart from that, it never had any effect on an attack roll (not all -1s count every time).
The Envoy was both relatively effective and very boring to play, in the opinion of its player: the most optimal combo to do was quickly identified as: 1a Get Them! + 1a shoot (triggers Lead by Example, no need to touch) + 1a Take Cover + ra Watch Out on every boss'first strike . A very repetitive playstyle, but one without which we wouldn't have been able to win.
In short, I think the ranged meta still has some work to do before it can be implemented effectively. For that, we'll need to drastically increase ranges, add obstacles to the map to make Cover more interesting, and also increase ranged damage. There's no point in concentrating on a ranged attack with 60ft range (or half that, hello Rotolaser!) when an enemy at that distance will simply stride once or twice and eviscerate me with double the damage.
Finally, I found the Soldier's game design to be quite profoundly flawed. In itself, the class stands out for its focus on heavy weapons. And it uses its Con for just about everything, except... instead of its Dex, for ranged attacks, which it's supposed to do (Primary Target) and its damage.
So we have area damage with a ridiculous range, a monocible attack with less precision than a classic ranged martial, damp squib damages, and the bizarre image of a huge military lizard with +0 in Str and +3 in Dex. Really, it's extremely disappointing.
