Please group this forum with other Pathfinder forums

[pogie]

Doesn’t make sense to me to group all of the organized play forums. Clunky navigation at best with this new website.

[Hmm]

Hey Pogie, I am going to disagree with you here. Organized Play is its own thing, and many of the people in this forum are players or organizers of gamedays that might include all three of the current facets of Organized Play: Adventure Card Game, Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society. This is the place where some of the most committed (and some days, I feel like I should be committed) fans of Organized Play hang out.

Having all three together like this means that we can collect all the forum rulings and see all the blog posts from our Organized Play Leadership team.

However, I have to agree with you that navigation (especially for those of us in mobile) is clunky. I was navigating to these forums through my own posts until I finally bookmarked this page:

http://paizo.com/community/forums

I hope this link helps others.

Hmm

[cavernshark]

There really isn't any good reason* it couldn't be in both sections. I understand your point, HMM, but I also agree it'd be very nice to have this under the simple 'Pathfinder' forum headings. If it's not possible, then I suppose we have to pick one bad or the other. Neither is particularly ideal.

*It's entirely possible the forum architecture doesn't support multiple entry points if the forum views are bound to underlying folder structure instead of just associated document collections displayed in logical formats.

[Gary Bush]

The new website will take some time to get use to. Also, the fact that it is chunky and does not function well on phones is a problem.

But I agree with Paizo and HMM that Organized Play should be separate from the forum dedicated to the game itself.

Once you get familiar with the new layout, it is actually pretty smooth.

[Tallow]

Gary Bush wrote:

Also, the fact that it is chunky and does not function well on phones is a problem.

I believe they responded to someone's comment about it not working on their phone over on the website feedback forum. The response was that they were aware and were working on it as one of the priority fixes.

[Hmm]

cavernshark wrote:

There really isn't any good reason* it couldn't be in both sections.

If it could be in both sections, great! I would have no objection... Though I suspect we may have to tell people that they have wandered in to the PFS forums a bit more often than we do now.

:)

Hmm

[Jeff Morse]

I am using an HTC. When I load just the forums page, I get it all. Just have to scroll down further as they moved the order around some. Now, if they could remove all those beta threads and move Pathfinder back to the top, that would be nicer I think.

[Ascalaphus]

cavernshark wrote:

There really isn't any good reason* it couldn't be in both sections.

But should it be in both sections?

The distinctions between the subforums are relevant - Rules is for people who want to find out how something works, Homebrew for talking about what you'd like them to be. And this PFS forum is about how things work in PFS, not in regular/home Pathfinder.

Wouldn't grouping it closer together lead to more confusion?

[cavernshark]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

Wouldn't grouping it closer together lead to more confusion?

Would it really, though? It's not like people don't already post in the PFS forums asking for advice or rules clarifications or vice versa. It's no less confusing than Starfinder scenarios in the GM Discussion forums under Organized Play.

Categorization is inherently multi-dimensional. Here we have 'Regular, Homebrew, Organized Play' and minimally 'Pathfinder, Starfinder' on a separate axis. The best solution is one which supports natural pivots between the natural groupings that exist.

I would absolutely consume a 'Pathfinder only view all the way down the Regular, Homebrew, Organized Play' axis. It is annoying right now that to even browse both I have to bounce back up to the top level and then back down or look at all 400 forums at the same time. I doubt I'm the only one.

[pogie]

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

Hey Pogie, I am going to disagree with you here. Organized Play is its own thing, and many of the people in this forum are players or organizers of gamedays that might include all three of the current facets of Organized Play: Adventure Card Game, Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society.

Hmm

I would argue it is far more common for people wanting to browse a group of all Pathfinder RPG forums grouped together than a grouping of disparate Organized Play forums. I would guess by a factor of 50:1 or more.

[CrystalSeas]

pogie wrote:

I would argue it is far more common for people wanting to browse a group of all Pathfinder RPG forums grouped together than a grouping of disparate Organized Play forums. I would guess by a factor of 50:1 or more.

Can you link us to the data that allowed you to estimate that 50%?

As far as I know, only the Paizo engineers have that level of user data. It sounds like you think that they are ignoring the data they collect about our onsite behavior.

If you're going by your own personal habits, then I'm another voice that thinks it makes more sense for how I use the boards to keep the Organized Play threads totally separate.

[Pirate Rob]

Please keep the organized play forums grouped together as is.

[pogie]

CrystalSeas wrote:

pogie wrote:

I would argue it is far more common for people wanting to browse a group of all Pathfinder RPG forums grouped together than a grouping of disparate Organized Play forums. I would guess by a factor of 50:1 or more.

Can you link us to the data that allowed you to estimate that 50%?

Let’s work under the assumption that the pathfinder rpg line is the most popular product paizo makes. Let’s also assume that pfs is the most popular organized play system that paizo supports.

Now which two are most alike? The popular rpg line and the organized play system of that game, or the popular rpg organized play and the organized play of an lcg which relatively few people play and of those, far fewer play organized play.

If you think the latter, we don’t really have much to discuss as we are coming at this from very different viewpoints.

[Leathert]

I don't play the card game,but I do like having Starfinder and Pathfinder Organized Play Forums behind the same link/on the same page.

[Woran]

The Org. Play Forums and the PbP forum is pretty much the only two places I visit on the boards.

[JoeElf]

It's the World Wide Web. Surely they could have the PFS forum linked on the page twice; once under Pathfinder and once under Organized Play.

If we're looking for anecdotes, I use mostly the Advice, Rules, and Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild. I am playing neither the card game nor SFS at present, and lots of others at my very active lodge are the same. But I don't know if they use these forums frequently at all...

[Kate Baker]

Pirate Rob wrote:

Please keep the organized play forums grouped together as is.

I also like having all the Organized Play forums grouped together.

[Tallow]

I prefer organized play all linked together.

[GM Lamplighter]

First, I love the new site, and once I get re-used to everything I think it will be MUCH better. Thanks!

I also like having all the Organized Play stuff together. We already get enough folks commenting on how they'd rule at home because they don't see this is in the PFS section of the boards.

The only improvement I'd love to see are separate forums for the GM discussion of different game systems. I like Starfinder and the ACG, but I don't GM either of them in an Organized Play Setting.

In an organized play system, it's important to let GMs find the specific info they need to run their game, without making them page through stuff that is irrelevant. The very reason we have a separate OP forum is also why we should have separate PFS and SFS GM forums.

I think this mixing unintentionally encourages table variation. The more of a pain it is to check the GM threads where all of the clarifications and authour/developer support happens, the fewer people will bother. I get cross-promotion, but if I'm a PFS GM not already running Starfinder Society, scrolling through a bunch of GM threads for scenarios I don't own probably won't be the thing to draw me in.