At our last gaming session, my group had a discussion about being so frustrated with the Hero Lab Online experience that maybe we should go back to PF1 or even switch to 5E D&D.
Now I know this is a rather extreme position, but my group was deep into Hero Lab Classic for PF1 and really enjoyed using it as a tool at the gaming table. They are all veteran players but we are older and have less time now so using a tool like Hero Lab is kind of essential to our enjoyment of the game. Several of them are engineers, techies, or teachers and have definite experience and opinions about software and interfaces.
It was a bit of persuasion on my part to get them to switch to PF2 last August, but we did and we are almost done with Hellknight Hill...and loving it, even with the steep learning curve of the new rules. They were all looking forward to using Hero Lab.
But the transition there has been rough. They don't like the interface. They balked at the cost. There have been significant bugs and glitches in the software. There have not been enough system upgrades. They don't like being tethered to the Internet. They don't want to pay additional money for additional packages. There was not support for Age of Ashes at launch. And then this week we get great new that Age of Ashes package is available, but it is only the first 3 adventures AND it will cost each of them $9.99.
There are no clear alternatives out there for iPad/MacOS. I'm also not sure why the financial model can't be more like D&D Beyond, which allows me to purchase data packages and then share that with my group at no additional cost to them. It just felt like a kick in the head to tell them they needed to start paying more to get the content when the experience has been so negative.
I was glad to hear that Lone Wolf was pulling people off RealmWorks to increase support of HLO. But I am worried that it is too little, too late for my group. There need to be significant improvements to the experience and cost structure if my group is going to continue with HLO...and maybe Pathfinder 2e!
