So where are the 7-11 new scenarios


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3/5

Hmm... Are there any 12+ modules coming?

-Matt

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Well, this is close, and I certainly hope to see it sanctioned.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Matthew Pittard wrote:
Slow Track at high levels has always seemed pretty crazypants to me.

Why? I think high level is the best time to unleash the parachute crazy pants.

Your character concept has (hopefully) come together by now and hit its stride.

If you already have a character at 11th you have nothing to look forward to except the character retiring?

For everyone in our group the 7-11 scenarios are the only ones where its not a celestial convergance to get everyone on the same scenarios. The lower tier ones get a lot more play and thus have a lot less left to play.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

I've got 2 slow-trackers, but they've seen some module play to not completely eat away my 7-11 options. For me it's all about how fun the character happens to be.

5/5

So far only my -1 has keeping it slow so I might get to play him as much as possible. I have my eye on getting to a star replay of Eyes of the Ten one day. Or perhaps a new seeker arc... My first seeker saw too little table action and too many gm-chronicles while working his way to Seeker levels.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West

I think the choice of slow track vs. normal track is mostly irrelevant.

There are always going to be fewer higher-level scenarios published than lower-level ones, so eventually you will run into a log jam where you have more characters looking to play a particular level than there are scenarios available. This can be ameliorated somewhat by careful character scheduling (such as playing level 3-5 characters in tier 1-5 adventures wherever possible, rather than in tier 3-7 or even tier 5-9). Eventually, though, you're going to have to decide which character from your cohort will get to experience a particular scenario. The choice of slow or normal advancement just affects how long a character remains eligible for play, and how many of your characters will be able to get all the way to retirement level.

The original complaint was that there weren't enough opportunities for high-level play in a year (and that at present this season appeared to offer even less than previous seasons).

While I don't have access to the full Paizo reporting, I do have data from several local game stores, and from three local conventions. These indicate that, at least in our area, more than two thirds of tables played are low-level (tier 1-2, 1-5 or 3-7), and that more tables are played at tier 5-9 than at tier 7-11. That suggests that, with two scenarios published a month, we might hope for 4 tier 7-11 scenarios over the course of a year.

Silver Crusade

Mattastrophic wrote:

Hmm... Are there any 12+ modules coming?

-Matt

The very next one is 10-12, actually.

5/5 5/55/5

I have been thinking about this (as dangerous as that is). There is an intrinsic logic problem here. New players want to play low because they don’t have any high tier characters but at the same time since they have played much less there are lots of low stuff available to play from previous seasons.

Experienced players who have played everything would more likely want balanced tier distribution so they can play all there character tiers relatively equally.

So the argument that low level stuff gets played much more does not logically tie to the same argument that more low level stuff should be put out. More low level stuff gets played because there are more newer players. New players have played less scenarios so there will always be more low tier stuff for them to play.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

My wife has played every 1-5 scenario to date. Starting new characters when her current ones retire will be difficult. Surely you have felt the same pressure?

Grand Lodge

roysier wrote:

I have been thinking about this (as dangerous as that is). There is an intrinsic logic problem here. New players want to play low because they don’t have any high tier characters but at the same time since they have played much less there are lots of low stuff available to play from previous seasons.

Experienced players who have played everything would more likely want balanced tier distribution so they can play all there character tiers relatively equally.

So the argument that low level stuff gets played much more does not logically tie to the same argument that more low level stuff should be put out. More low level stuff gets played because there are more newer players. New players have played less scenarios so there will always be more low tier stuff for them to play.

As I understand it it's to allow the old guard to mingle with the newer players on the low tier tables, due to the fact that the older players have already played many of the older low tiers.

5/5 5/55/5

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:
My wife has played every 1-5 scenario to date. Starting new characters when her current ones retire will be difficult. Surely you have felt the same pressure?

Actually I have experience the opposite. I know several players who have now quit PFS due to they became tired of creating new characters over and over, they wanted to keep playing their already built characters.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
roysier wrote:
Actually I have experience the opposite. I know several players who have now quit PFS due to they became tired of creating new characters over and over, they wanted to keep playing their already built characters.

How do they still have scenarios to build them with? My wife only had eight until we started doing APs, and I have 18 only thanks to liberal use of 7-11 GM credit being knocked down to 1st level characters.

Grand Lodge 4/5 Global Organized Play Coordinator

Interesting read this far as it is almost the complete opposite of this thread.

3/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

That's because Drgnmoon and Drogon have generated a lot of posts about 1-5s over the life of the campaign. Their voices are very loud by comparison.

-Matt

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Hmm, fun times going back to compare old thoughts and see if I still believe them. :)

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

I wonder if there could be such a thing as a higher tier replayable scenario.

A small selection of NPCs (to make it seem different each time), random encounters, maybe even a couple different plots, or antagonists, and half the loot on the Chronicle gets crossed off (akin to The Confirmation).

Maybe make it like tier 6-7, or something for just after you've graduated 1-5s and aren't quite ready for 7-11s.

And make it a challenge, not a walk through (or have a hard mode option for tables that have all already played it).

Thoughts?

4/5 ****

I took a look back through that thread and would like to reiterate something I mentioned there.

Quoting Self:
Something to remember from Vic Wertz stats is that only a very small number of PFS players ~1% IIRC play 24+ scenarios a year. (I know we've largely been talking about ease of coordination in this thread rather than pure running out of scenarios but I thought this point was worth noting)

One of the neat thing about publishing adventures is that if twice as many people play you don't need twice as many adventures. The number of players that run short on things of course grows. Of course if we've got 100,000 players that 1% that is playing everything is 10,000.

That said Erik Mona said they were looking to up the number of PFS adventures published but that it takes forever to turn the Paizo ship.

At the moment we're just at/under 30 a year. I wonder if we'll do better this season with things like the return of quests and maybe a new seeker arc. Or the release of the Goblin Attack mini game with PFS chronicles.

As another note both the length and quality of adventures has increased dramatically since season 0. IF PFS scenarios need to increase in price from $4 -> $5 to make it happen, make it so.

tl;dr; Doubling the number of players does not require doubling the number of adventures, however if 1% of players are out of adventures and we double the player base from 50,000 to 100,000 that means an extra 5,000 players with nothing to play.

Also scenarios are way better than they used to be and could easily increase in price point from $4 to $5

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

I think scenarios should go up in price, too. Especially if it means it will become more likely that they'll publish more scenarios. In the hopes that my voluminous voice gets heard, again, I would like to propose something (well, rehash something, but still...).

Paizo needs to publish 36 scenarios per year. The following spread would be most awesome:
.

1 x Tier 1 (replayable)
11 x Tier 1-5
10 x Tier 3-7
6 x Tier 5-9
5 x Tier 7-11
1 x Tier 12 (tying up season story lines)
2 x Specials (be they 1-11 interactives or things like #5-99)

I would never have issues with idle players, new players not finding seats, or veteran players not being able to play high level because I'm worried about expanding the player base. I would truly love to see Paizo finally decide, after all these years of debating this topic in various ways, that the only real solution is to provide content.

5/5 5/55/55/5

You don't just need scenarios that people haven't played. You need enough available scenarios that groups can put together legal tables with the scenarios that they have left.

Silver Crusade 5/5

From a player standpoint, I'd like to see more 7-11s. As an organizer that organizes over 130 games a year, I desperately want to see more 3-7s and 5-9s. I've still got at least ten 7-11s that I haven't ran at my location in the years I've ran games there, and plenty of my veteran players still have 1-5s that they can play. Meanwhile, I have offered all of the 3-7s and the 5-9s (save those released since November), some multiple times. It doesn't help that so many 5-9s are portions of multi-part stories (8 adventures, I think?), which adds complexity to scheduling them.

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

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I do have to say, though, that I'm pretty happy with the current season's output of 1st level content. If giving up a couple 7-11 scenarios is the cost, it is something I will live with. I have multiple people who only play 5th level and lower, effectively retiring any character that gets to 6th level. I have zero players who are unwilling to play low level in favor of NOT playing.

I do still think that high level play is the REASON we all play. Not having enough content at that level range will ultimately become a serious problem for PFS. But it is a problem that is far more "fixable" than not having new players enter the system due to lack of low level content.

3/5

You say that high level play (well, PFS really stops at mid-level play, but that's a point-of-view matter) is the reason we all play, yet you also say that you have multiple people who retire characters at sixth level.

Why is that? If later levels are so important, why do these people skip them?

-Matt

5/5 5/55/55/5

Mattastrophic wrote:

You say that high level play (well, PFS really stops at mid-level play, but that's a point-of-view matter) is the reason we all play, yet you also say that you have multiple people who retire characters at sixth level.

Why is that? If later levels are so important, why do these people skip them?

-Matt

Because it gets too hard to put together high level tables.

Low level tables can be filled out by

the vets with low level characters

The newish people that haven't gotten past 5 yet

the walk ins handed a first level character

The guys who's 7-11 tables fell apart

Mid level tables can be filled out by

Vets with mid level characters

The newish guy whos finally gotten to three! (but this gets problematic)

the guy who's 7-11 table fell apart.

High level tables can be filled out by

The guy hoping his 7-11 table doesn't fall apart

New guy with a pre gen who will be underpowered and under prepared

You don't just need a mid level scenario you can run, you need one that an entire tables worth of people that can be there on the same day at the same time haven't played yet. Trying to get even one home group moving at slightly different speeds and a slightly overlaping store group through the 6-7 doldrom requires a little planning

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

Mattastrophic wrote:

You say that high level play (well, PFS really stops at mid-level play, but that's a point-of-view matter) is the reason we all play, yet you also say that you have multiple people who retire characters at sixth level.

Why is that? If later levels are so important, why do these people skip them?

-Matt

Eh, yeah, a little oxymoron on my part. Sorry about that.

People play RPGs to advance their character. If "advance" means grow their personality, and have fun stories of adventures had to share with others, that's okay. And I have a group of these people, none of who like to play above 5th level for various reasons (often because they're playing with their kid, and high level play isn't something they want to bother with). But, usually, "advance" means get bigger/stronger/better. I.E., go up in level.

We all play this game to advance our characters. <-- That's what I should have said.

3/5

That's a worthy explanation... But why level five? Why stop there and not three, four, six, or seven? Why is level five so special?

-Matt

Grand Lodge 4/5

Probably because 5 is the highest level of the 1-5 tier.

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

Mattastrophic wrote:

That's a worthy explanation... But why level five? Why stop there and not three, four, six, or seven? Why is level five so special?

-Matt

I think it's what Jeff said: they like the Tier 1-5 stuff. I can't even get them to play sub-tier 3-4 games in the Tier 3-7 adventures. They sign up for 1st level modules and scenarios, and Tier 1-5 adventures, and that's it. I even have one person who slow tracks her characters starting at level 1.

They really like role playing, and believe that low level games accomplish that goal best. Which I understand; sometimes higher level play feels like a game of tactical warfare even to me.

3/5

And that's a pretty big problem. Why would roleplaying be such a low-level activity? Why can't it be widespread and enjoyable at all levels? Why are 1-5s fun to roleplay in and 3-7s not?

-Matt

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

It's not right or wrong. It's what they believe. And what people believe is rarely something you can change.

4/5

I do think time constraints play a role in the belief that high level play is not accomodating to roleplaying. Now whether or not that is true...

5/5 5/55/55/5

Where's that idea coming from?

Is it a number of "true role players" that turned up their noses at optimization finding the gulf between their characters and the rest of the party getting too big to have any fun in combat?

The amount of time high level combat takes up?

The plots becomming convoluted venn diagrams of people?

Silver Crusade

It might also depend on what high tier scenarios are getting put up. If your only experience with high tier games are brutal meatgrinders, then yeah, I can see why you would keep away if Library of the Lion is your 5 star standard. As an organizer, I try to stay aware of what I'm putting on the schedule and keep it spread evenly between hardcore combat and more laid-back social scenarios. If you run nothing but a bunch of mechanically weak early season scenarios or social, combat lite scenarios, then suddenly spring Port Godless or Storming the Diamond Gate on your players, dont be surprised if they get turned off.

I generally see players get their first character up to the 5-9s, feel out of their depth or realize they made some terrible build decision, then make a new character or two based on what they've learned and basically retire their -1. If they play once or twice a month, then you arent going to be seeing high tier for awhile. A lot of those issues could have been fixed if a veteran had taken twenty seconds to explain the weaknesses of two weapon fighting or how much of a pain ranged sneak attack is. Considering the veterans need other people to make those high level tables happen, they should have a vested interest in helping their community play better, anyways.

The amount of away from the table work also increases exponentially at higher levels, especially if you happen to be a spellcaster and are expected to maintain a scroll library. Some people like that, but it's my experience that most dont. The average person wants to come and have a relaxing slot or two of gaming once every few weeks, not more work to take home. That's not even getting into the monetary costs of collecting all the disparate sources so you can have your spring loaded wrist sheathes, snowballs, and ioun stone resonance powers.

Ultimately, though, it's a game, and if some people want to self-select themselves out of the higher level games because they know they wont enjoy them, who am I to judge them.

4/5

BigNorseWolf wrote:

The amount of time high level combat takes up?

This.

Though for the record, I personally love 7-11, 12+. But I have heard others who believe this.

Sovereign Court 5/5

up in the spokane area we have seen the exact opposite, the player base has declined and when i inquired why people quit playing i hear alot of coplaints bout to many low level scenarios being ran and not enough higher lvl. id like to see more 3-7's and more 7-11's

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8

Answering Matt's question from the first page...

Wardens of the Reborn Forge is 12+ and now sanctioned for PFS. We've got plans to use it as our second retirement arc in our area.

3/5

Ehh, it's got guns and stuff, and there's no epic conclusion to a story begun by PFS.

-Matt

Liberty's Edge 2/5 *

Walter: GUNS you say? My 11 Gunslinger would LOVE to play that for retirement. Absolutely love it. In fact Im trying to think of a way it could happen (he only needs a single scenario to hit 33exp).

Shadow Lodge 3/5

I think the reason for players retiring characters early is just that they want to play more than one class. There's always someone who can't decide whether to build a wizard or a monk or a paladin, so he'll build all 3 and try to squeeze scenarios between all of them (at tier 1-5), instead of leaving that "clever 3 level gap" between them.

Maybe 3-7 and 5-9 should be combined to a 3-9 (with subtiers 3-4, 5-6 and 8-9) to help Paizo meet demand? That way more 1-5s and 7-11s could be the focus. Or maybe just 4-8 (4-5, 7-8) to keep it simple.

Drogon, you listed 11 1-5's, 16 mid levels, and 5 7-11s, but there's no reason 3-7s and 5-9s can't play in the other tiers, unless you're level 6. 16 is way too many.

Dark Archive 5/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber
Avatar-1 wrote:

I think the reason for players retiring characters early is just that they want to play more than one class. There's always someone who can't decide whether to build a wizard or a monk or a paladin, so he'll build all 3 and try to squeeze scenarios between all of them (at tier 1-5), instead of leaving that "clever 3 level gap" between them.

Maybe 3-7 and 5-9 should be combined to a 3-9 (with subtiers 3-4, 5-6 and 8-9) to help Paizo meet demand? That way more 1-5s and 7-11s could be the focus. Or maybe just 4-8 (4-5, 7-8) to keep it simple.

Drogon, you listed 11 1-5's, 16 mid levels, and 5 7-11s, but there's no reason 3-7s and 5-9s can't play in the other tiers, unless you're level 6. 16 is way too many.

IIRC from the last thread, that distribution was set up to allow one of the hardcore to launch a few new PCs to help make tables and educate new players from a peerish position, and progress one of them through to high tier. Retirement takes two seasons and the 1-11 specials of a season if available.

It's a long term plan and requires another body at Paizo HQ which is why it's a dream but a desirable one.

Quibbles about the banding that require changing the tier breakout are interesting but questionable - one of the things the current tiering does is reduce some of the REALLY bad crossover phases where you enemies swing twice and you don't. tier 4-5 legitimately puts PCs up against CR 10 encounters if you end up playing up in a 7-8 tier. That's something you want to delay a smidge (there's a notable difficulty bump between CR9 and CR10 encounters, in my opinion)

Drogon's one of the people who has enough statistical data to talk about that I"m inclined to listen to his observations very closely. Mike's mileage may vary.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 *

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Matthew Pittard wrote:
Slow Track at high levels has always seemed pretty crazypants to me.

I'm thinking about it with my level 9. The reason being is that as soon as I hit level 10, the 4th chronicle (tier 10-12) from Jade Regent gets applied which levels him to 11, at which point the 5th chronicle (tier 11-13) applies and he is then level 12. So I am thinking of switching to slow for level 11, so that I can play 3 tier 7-11 scenarios before retirement.

Shadow Lodge 3/5

If you're playing up, you're always going to get that kind of thing come up.

A player playing up in a tier 1-2 will get the occasional CR 6 encounter; a player playing up in 5-6 will get the occasional CR 10 or CR 11 encounter. Nothing changes there. Scenarios will have to adapt accordingly, which is just another thing they can control.

Liberty's Edge 2/5 *

Michael: We have a local player who had a Cleric. He decided to play Level 9 on Slow. First guy in Perth to do so. We all thought he was crazy (as resource burn is felt more accutely). It was about this time he started dying.

Remember all those movies where you have a team of characters, and suddenly something happens, one character freaks out and runs off? Well that was his Cleric who just kept fleeing and dying. Also casting a Bless spell at level 9 as a combat action? hmm...

So yeah, between Levels 9-10 like 2 deaths. Another at 10. I think he might barely be scraping retirement now, but nobody has seen that Cleric played in a long time.

We started to run High table 10-11s and be forced into bringing this Level 9 along to make up the legal table. He got super frustrated that he was being left behind..

It was at this point through an emotional and not logical response that I decided to NEVER play Slow. Ive never regretted it and currently have 3 characters sitting on the 10-11 zone.

Scarab Sages 4/5

Replacing 3-7 and 5-9 with 4-8 would leave levels 3, 6 and 9 characters without an in-tier option. 3-9 makes more sense, but it would mean developing three tiers in a single scenario. I believe the difficulty in doing that is one of the reasons we don't have 1-7s anymore.

Sovereign Court 5/5 Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

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Avatar-1 wrote:
Drogon, you listed 11 1-5's, 16 mid levels, and 5 7-11s, but there's no reason 3-7s and 5-9s can't play in the other tiers, unless you're level 6. 16 is way too many.

This isn't a bad point. The only thing I can really point at to refute it is "gut feeling."

Someone upthread mentioned the difficulty he is having getting to the the 7-11 adventures. Others have pointed out the difference between a CR 6 to 8 encounter (found in 3-7 adventures) versus a CR 9 to 11 encounter (found in 5-9 adventures). My "gut" says that they're right (and anecdotal evidence of my own store's playing patterns, I must admit).

I advise players in my store to transition to 3-7 adventures as soon as they are able, and to start a new 1st level PC at the same time (which, of course, is limited to 1-5 adventures). As soon as that first PC hits 5th level, I advise them to stick to 5-9 adventures. Presumably, their second PC has hit 3rd, and they should be starting another 1st level PC. By following this pattern, players in my store are able to take seats at nearly any table I offer, keeping their options open (I offer two 1-5 adventures, a 3-7, and a 5-9 or 7-11 at every slot). This way they rarely have to sit on the sidelines due to not having a PC at the right tier, or no options due to already having played the offered adventures.

I think, so long as this pattern is followed, the 16 options at mid-level is "just right," to borrow a line from a fable. The sweet spot in the Pathfinder RPG is said to be mid-level, anyway, and in PFS that would be 3rd to 9th. So, there really *should* be more options at those levels.

Honestly, If I were the guy who set up OrgPlay way back in the day (and had the gift of my current knowledge of how this would all work, of course) I'd actually have set up the tiers to be 1-2, 3-7, 5-9, and 10-11. Developing them would be much less a drain on resources, prepping them would be easier for GMs, and finding a "path of play" for players would be far more intuitive.

Plus I wouldn't end up with these players who only play 1-5s. /-:

I rambled a bit and am not sure I answered your comment. But, that's my opinion. Hope it was at least helpful in the discussion.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

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I personally feel like 1-5's are to get a nice intro and to level up to 3 or 5. Level 3-7 and 5-9 are the sweet spot of the game in my mind. Most of my favorite scenarios I've played or run fall into these two ranges. I find that the middle tiers have a nice balance of tactical complexity, have characters who have hit the ability to use their gimmicks, and still leaves time for good investigative and roleplaying components in scenarios. The 7-11 tier stuff is for trying to level to retirement once you've advanced beyond the good stuff in my mind. It's the hardest stuff to balance. Combats are complicated and take forever...leaving little time for anything else. There are a few gems at this range, but more that I've been disappointed with than impressed with.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Matthew Pittard wrote:
Michael: We have a local player who had a Cleric. He decided to play Level 9 on Slow. First guy in Perth to do so. We all thought he was crazy (as resource burn is felt more accutely). It was about this time he started dying.

I'm not planning on playing level 9 on slow, probably just level 11, that way I can actually play at level 11 rather than have the character retire at the end of level 9.

For level 9 I am not looking to play tier 7-11. I'll stick with 5-9 scenarios and play the 7-11 ones at level 11.

Shadow Lodge 3/5

Ferious Thune wrote:
Replacing 3-7 and 5-9 with 4-8 would leave levels 3, 6 and 9 characters without an in-tier option. 3-9 makes more sense, but it would mean developing three tiers in a single scenario. I believe the difficulty in doing that is one of the reasons we don't have 1-7s anymore.

Does that matter though? Players are always going to be playing out of tier at some stage regardless, unless they're trying really hard to avoid that.

Silver Crusade 5/5

Avatar-1 wrote:
Ferious Thune wrote:
Replacing 3-7 and 5-9 with 4-8 would leave levels 3, 6 and 9 characters without an in-tier option. 3-9 makes more sense, but it would mean developing three tiers in a single scenario. I believe the difficulty in doing that is one of the reasons we don't have 1-7s anymore.
Does that matter though? Players are always going to be playing out of tier at some stage regardless, unless they're trying really hard to avoid that.

Honestly? Yeah, I think it matters. As it is, every level has the opportunity to play in-subtier, and I don't think that is a choice we should take away from the players. Players might have to work to avoid playing OOS, but it should be an option for them if they want it.

3/5

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Just to add to the slow track topic, I slow-paced my main character through every level but 6th on the way to 12. It was totally worth it. And now she's 20th.

-Matt

3/5

Sounds to me from all of this that the BEST way to fix all this is to ramp up content production.

I know that's a tall order. Is it a staff volume issue? Money? I know you guys can't answer that, I'm just thinking out loud.

If it helps, I'd pay a little more for scenarios if it meant more quality scenario production in a season.

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