What are the design goals of Pathfinder 2?

[Mekkis]

So, we've been teased by various blog posts, revealing a few of the new mechanics that will be (might be - possibly - depending on playtest feedback?) in Pathfinder 2.

The list of bullet points on the main page doesn't give any real information. So:

What problems in Pathfinder is Pathfinder 2 trying to solve?

What features does Pathfinder 2 provide someone who enjoys playing Pathfinder?

Without knowing the overarching goals are, the snippets of information that we're receiving seem nebulous at best.

[quirthanon]

These are good questions and I hope the Paizo design team answers them, in detail with examples. Because I think some of the new proposed rules remove certain types of stories and play styles from the game.

More questions that should be answered on a per change basis, are:
• What's wrong with the old rule? What issues in play does this cause?
• How does the new rule fix the issue with the old rule?

It's my opinion that some of the new rules are only for fixing "Wrong Bad Fun" style of play. I don't like this as everyone can play their own game, the rules should support as many styles of play as possible.

[QuidEst]

There’s a Know Direction interview that covers some of their design goals. I’d give that a listen when you get the chance. People (myself included) will bring a lot of personal bias to their summaries.

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

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[Dread Moores]

Whether or not it is agreed with, a few of the Paizo staff have mentioned that the skill proficiency system was designed to address the higher level imbalance in skill checks among PCs. While not all posters agree this was even an issue, that provides part of their answer to the above questions for the skill system.

[Fuzzypaws]

The overarching goal as I read it is to stop the bleed of players to other systems so the game doesn't die. To this end the subgoals appear to be to clean up clunky stuff inherited from 3.x, make the game easier to learn and intuit while still keeping the crunchy customization that 5E took away from us, and bring classes more to parity so for instance martials are as fun as casters and not just spending every single turn full attacking with no variety in tactics.

We'll see how that works out. I'm hopeful, anyway!

[GreyWolfLord]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

The overarching goal as I read it is to stop the bleed of players to other systems so the game doesn't die. To this end the subgoals appear to be to clean up clunky stuff inherited from 3.x, make the game easier to learn and intuit while still keeping the crunchy customization that 5E took away from us, and bring classes more to parity so for instance martials are as fun as casters and not just spending every single turn full attacking with no variety in tactics.

We'll see how that works out. I'm hopeful, anyway!

This is WHAT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

Right now, from what I've seen it doesn't actually appear to be that way though.

I think the thought is to retain their original base plus bring in new blood (aka...new players) just like you stated, but the way they've gone about it seems counter intuitive thus far.

They'll probably get a big boost the first year (or maybe two) because of the playtest PR and core rulebooks normally sell well, combined that speaks more money.

However, from what I've seen they are going to lose around 1/4 to 1/3 of their base, and they are simply put, too close to either 4e or 5e to really attract anyone away from those systems for long.

It's too close to 4e and 5e for those who left those systems to play pathfinder, and it's too close to pathfinder for those who left Pathfinder to play 4e and 5e.

As such, I think they might WANT to get new players and keep the old, but it seems like they are taking shots in the dark rather than anything based on surveys, research into WHAT players actually WANT, and hard down to science information gathering.

Lacking that, they didn't go the opposite direction either where they have a VERY LONG playtest (aka...DnD next) where they can change various iterations regularly in regards to lengthy and massive feedback. Their playtest zone (it appears to be a year, but it's probably more like 6-8 months at the longest, maybe as short as 4-5 months, as they'll have to have time to proof and send it to print) is rather short.

It sounds more like things based off of what they've read on forums and other areas...and that's not a good way to build a game.

A shot in the dark can hit center target, so they might get lucky...but the way they've gone about building the system from what I've seen thus far seems a little counterintuitive from what their design goals would have been if they had it based off of massive surveys and other items (and if there were surveys and research BEFORE the playtest even began...I think most of us and the 5e players would have heard about it).

I'm optimistic, but I'm also concerned as the method they've come up with to design the system is a HUGE gamble (could be successful, could be highly successful, could be a flop). It really doesn't seem like they actually went and asked around what players actually wanted from a new PF system, what 5e players would want MORE than what 5e offers and what would draw them away from 5e, and what their ideal system would currently look like if it had to combine Pathfinder and the best elements of RPGs today in a massive arena of thousands upon tens of thousands of research returns.

It sounds more like it is based off of forum comments, things they've seen at the occasional con, and insider preference...and that has me concerned because that does not actually conjoin with overall design goal of keeping old players and drawing new players in.

Again, it could be highly successful, and I hope it is, but I am a little concerned from how I've seen them going about it thus far.

I may be wrong though, they may have done all this research and just no one locally that I know ever knew about it.

Either way, hopefully it is very successful and turns out for the best, but I think I might not be the only one who is a little concerned at this point (and it is VERY EARLY still, so that may be unnecessary concern).

[Fuzzypaws]

Oh, despite my optimism I definitely share the concern about the playtest apparently only being 6-8 months long. That doesn't feel like enough time to really iterate and go through several rounds of changes if stuff actually does need a lot of tweaking and fixing. The problem we might get is we report some issues, Paizo actually does listen and change stuff, but then doesn't have time to playtest the changes... So we only find out later that the changes introduced a bunch of problems themselves.

I really hope that August 2019 final publish date is just an optimistic floating target, and that they are willing to push that back as much as a year if need be.

[Dread Moores]

GreyWolfLord wrote:

However, from what I've seen they are going to lose around 1/4 to 1/3 of their base, and they are simply put, too close to either 4e or 5e to really attract anyone away from those systems for long.

Using the forums (note: I'm not saying you are, just nothing this, as it has come up elsewhere) as any kind of guide towards reception isn't a great idea. Positive or negative, forums for RPGs (even online communities in general) are pretty statistically irrelevant. They're always comprised of the vocal minority of a fan base, regardless of what their opinions may be.

Even personal groups and interaction offline is a mistake when trying to grab numbers. The entire tabletop market is incredibly difficult to get accurate numbers on, whether it be players, sales, or anything else. There are a few outliers (Evil Hat springs to mind, with Fred's posts covering budgets and expenses for a particular project), but they are absolutely outliers. Even something like Icv2 isn't going to give you anything resembling a full picture, as it tracks retailers only. Even combining something like OneBookShelf and ICV2 isn't close to a full picture.

For my own sake, this is the ninth or tenth edition change I've been through on a game I play regularly. Most of it seems to be about what I expected in terms of the community. The big difference in this one has been the company's reaction. I wasn't involved with Pathfinder for their first playtest. But I can say that a six month long playtest, open to the kind of numbers this one will be, is anything but normal in the tabletop market. While something like DnD Next is impressive...it's definitely not normal. Neither are the previews Paizo has put time into.

That level of interaction is the thing giving me the most positive feeling towards their design goals and philosophy. They're responsive, and they're actively looking for a significant stress test. That alone makes this very different from any other edition change I've faced.

[Staffan Johansson]

Dread Moores wrote:

Using the forums (note: I'm not saying you are, just nothing this, as it has come up elsewhere) as any kind of guide towards reception isn't a great idea. Positive or negative, forums for RPGs (even online communities in general) are pretty statistically irrelevant. They're always comprised of the vocal minority of a fan base, regardless of what their opinions may be.

Also, listening to just the people on this particular forum would limit their input to people who over-all are pretty happy with PF1. If redesigning the game, it's probably a good idea to listen to people who don't like the current game, and see what their complaints are and see if you can do anything about them without scaring off your current fan base.