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My gaming group is working on playing through the play test adventures and I have some feedback about the skill and proficiency system. I'm going to attempt to keep this concise and avoid some of the circular discussions I've read on other similar posts.
Background - I'm an experienced gamer on the min/max end of the spectrum with experience in 3.5, pathfinder 1.0, and D&D 5E. I have so far play tested PF 2.0 at levels 1, 4, 5, 7, and 9
Thesis - I don't know how to be good at things in this game. My impression so far is that the underlying math of this system places more variance in uncontrollable factors than in choices the players can make for their characters. This makes it difficult or impossible to make a character that feels like they are good at something.
Math - Dice rolling games are about probability and variance. All checks in PF 2.0 use a d20 which has a flat probability curve and and a variance of about 5. Checks are resolved either against an arbitrary DC set by the DM, author, or developer or against another character's statistics. Since an arbitrary DC can be adjusted at any time, it's more useful to talk about opposed checks.
The numbers feeding into a check include several components, all of which are sources of variance in the result of the check. These are Dice, Level, Proficiency, Stats, Items and Conditions (including buff spells).
explanation of the magnitude of the variance
Dice: about 5, because math
Level: 5 (from -1 for easy encounters to +4 for deadly ones)
Proficiency: 7, skewed a the bottom (from -4 for untrained to +3 for legendary)
Stats: 6 (from -1 for a penalty to +5 for an invested specialist)
Items: about 3 (from 0 for basic to +3 for legendary)
Conditions: about 3 (this one is tricky to count, but in play it seems hard to stack too many conditions at once)
In practice what I have observed is that Dice and Level are the biggest sources of meaningful variance. Generally proficiency, stats, items and conditions only vary by a point or two each since everyone is generally trying to use skills (including attacks and such) that they're good at. Simplified down that leaves us:
Dice: 5
Level: 5
Other: 6
That means that all of the choices players are making in builds, gear and tactics are only slightly more impactful to their success than the level of the challenge they're facing and the whims of chance.
Impressions from play - My experience playing this system, unsurprisingly, supports this analysis. Characters succeed more when they're dealing with low level challenges and fail more with high level ones. When dice are hot, a character rarely fails and when dice are cold they rarely succeed. In many cases it's not even worth adding the bonuses. If the dice show 4, the check fails and if the dice show 17, the check succeeds. To my perspective it makes the game feel more like roulette than chess, and that makes it a lot less fun for me to play. I enjoy RPGs the most when the choices of the players and the characters have a significant impact on game and such a heavy focus on chance takes that away.
Suggestions - I suggest augmenting the bonuses from proficiency ranks. -4/0/2/4/6 seems about right, though I wouldn't be sad to see -6/0/3/6/9. This would allow characters choices to start to outweigh the die rolls.
I suggest reducing or removing the level bonus to checks. Half or even one third character level would be good. I find it disappointing to look at challenges 5 levels above or below my character level and know that they are not worth engaging because one side will roll over the other.
I also suggest, and this is something of a tangent, reworking class abilities that are tied to level appropriate DCs. It's unsatisfying to have spent build choices and actions on abilities that might or might not activate, depending on the dice. I'm specifically looking at the bard's Inspire Heroics and Lingering Performance.