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Congratulations! We've taken a thread that had the active engagement of four Paizo employees, and turned it into a flame war.
... this is why we can't have nice things ...
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Have a *little* bit of faith in the Paizo team.When the Playtest is here, kick the tires hard. But kick them honestly - as fully implemented in the Playtest, we'll see how the Goblin works. Then, if Goblin still don't work, raise an uproar.
I respectfully disagree on the goblin question. Goblins are well define in D&D, Pathfinder, and even their own world lore. Yes they can rewrite such but that only goes to show you that what they are doing doesn’t fit with the goblins we all know. There is no need to play test the inclusion of a race that has no business being core to the game. Its not a matter of how it plays, or if its balanced. Its a matter of flavor and history.
You want to test changes in classes or combat or anything numbers and game play related that is what you need to wait for the play test for. But a change in flavor, or history....nope we know enough to make our minds up about that without a play test.
I do not have your faith in the dev team, sorry. But I will wait to discuss the combat system and class balance till after the play test and some number crunching, that is to me just being fair.
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Congratulations! We've taken a thread that had the active engagement of four Paizo employees, and turned it into a flame war.
... this is why we can't have nice things ...
It's not so bad. People love Pathfinder. It means a lot to them. Sometimes things get heated. I wish that folks would not treat dissenting opinions as a threat, but unfortunately, that's not how the internet seems to work.
In the end, I'm happy that folks are sharing their opinions. It's what we want, after all.
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Congratulations! We've taken a thread that had the active engagement of four Paizo employees, and turned it into a flame war.
... this is why we can't have nice things ...
It's not so bad. People love Pathfinder. It means a lot to them. Sometimes things get heated. I wish that folks would not treat dissenting opinions as a threat, but unfortunately, that's not how the internet seems to work.
In the end, I'm happy that folks are sharing their opinions. It's what we want, after all.
This may sound weird but Stephen I've posted under a lot of names and I've only occasionally hear your opinion, and sometimes I even don't agree with you. But, you are always a joy, you seem to understand intimately why people get so passionate about the game. Thank you.
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You're providing feedback now, and we're hearing it now—don't think it doesn't bear weight!Thanks for responding. I very much appreciate it.
Fair enough. Like I said, I do hope to get my group to playtest the game. I just know that if the game is too different from what we enjoy then getting more than one game session is going to be difficult. And if we were to get someone to play a goblin that would negatively impact the enjoyment of the game all of our feedback will be coloured from that experience.However, your feedback—like everyone's—will bear more weight after you've actually seen the game, and it will bear still more when you're actually playing the game during the playtest process.
If you choose not to do that, of course, that's fine, but don't be too surprised when we listen more to the people who do.
I would strongly encourage you to push your group, or at least a portion of it as you have mentioned before it is large, to really put in the time on the playtest. It is absolutely true, they may not like the system at all because it is too different, but remind them it is their opportunity to provide meaningful, experience backed feedback to help shape the final system and potentially get something they DO like as a result. If they can provide play experience demonstrating the rules or the theme not working well for them and provide that feedback it helps more than saying "it is too different" because it provides in context explanations of the problems which helps better inform the development team how to address those issues. Personally, I don't think the added weight of playing comes because the developers go 'Oh, he took the time to play so I will listen to him more' and is more because it provides context to the problem that helps them better evaluate it.
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They're a NE raceWell... That's what the book says but they SURE don't act that way. If you look at the lore and hazard a guess, I think most people would say Chaotic with a side of chaotic and some evil/insane sprinkled in. I've been wondering if they plan to shift the alignment for them.
as a culture i can see ne or cn.
as a player unless i was going with a paladin or the like I would personally play a goblin as one of these, N, ng,cg
Customer Service & Community Manager
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Especially the heavyhanded moderation on the forums...In my experience, the people who think our moderation is heavy-handed is roughly balanced by the people who think we don't moderate enough.LOL I can see that.
For me, sometimes it seems a bit inconsistent. Sometimes I see a post removed and for the life of me I can't figure out why and other times I see one I'd remove and it stays after a round of removals. *shrug* I'm sure it's a variance in perspective and/or the specific moderator.
I think much of this is due to the ratio of moderators and time to number of posts. The paizo.com forums get a significant amount of posts (roughly doubling with the playtest) and we don't have any full time moderators. My time is balanced with managing Customer Service and scheduling for PaizoCon. The complaints that its too heavy handed and that there's not enough moderation are, in my opinion, both correct. I'm often moderating with a more drastic/expedient approach because there just isn't time to be as nuanced as I would like, something that would improve with more moderation (not necessarily more deleted posts, but more moderation).
Moderation isn't just about post removing or throwing warnings into threads. It's about shaping the conversation of the forums so that it isn't insulting, argumentative, or harmful. So that gamers can come here and feel like they won't be personally attacked or constantly battling people making their existence political or controversial while posting to or reading our forums. So that people can engage in respectful discourse and hopefully learn something new, or get questions answered, have fun or connect with other gamers. There are certainly some people who are fine with pages of bickering with other community members or being excessively harsh with language, but that kind of posting drives away too many other valuable voices that I am not okay losing.
There are a lot of balances aiming for with moderation. From my experience, usually more than people realize. For example, if a post is made that should be removed, but the community has responded respectfully and thoughtfully demonstrating why it isn't okay, do I leave that as a form of education or remove a few pages of posts because they are all replying to a toxic post? If someone flags a post from 10 years ago, what's the bar for removing it? Our community standards and moderation have evolved since the days when our two software devs handled almost all of it. Does removing something represent destroying part of a conversation, does it serve as evidence for shifting norms? Lot's to consider which can definitely contribute to a feeling of inconsistently.
And of course, there's room for human error, too.
On the bright side, some of the recent internal adjustments that have now brought customer service and the paizo.com community under the same umbrella means that there's now 5 people who are assisting with the flag queue instead of one.
Hope that gives a bit of context.
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On the bright side, some of the recent internal adjustments that have now brought customer service and the paizo.com community under the same umbrella means that there's now 5 people who are assisting with the flag queue instead of one.
I can imagine that meeting:
“What we’re looking for is a monumental task. It requires empathy, intelligence, wit and an enormous work ethic. It’s pretty much impossible!”
“It’s okay, we’ll get Sara to do it.”
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One of the most interesting design insights that came during D&D 5E's development was that a given concept or mechanic had to meet a 70% favourable public feedback threshold to make the cut. Just under 70% and they would rework the idea and release another version for playtesting. Significantly less than 70%, and the idea would either get completely scrapped or sent back to the drawing board for a total redesign.
This is perhaps a gross exaggeration, but one could make the claim that 5E was an RPG designed by committee/focus group. Whether or not you like 5E might inform whether or not you think this is a good approach to game design.
Unfortunately, 5th Edition feels incredibly unfocused and self-contradictory at a result of this.
The DMG says that magic items should be "rare and wondrous" and not a commodity on the market. Yet, the game is balanced around PCs constantly getting new equipment. Because feedback was divisive about whether magic items should be a core part of the game.
Alignment is still in the game! ...but it plays absolutely no role in the game or setting, not even in campaign settings and classes where it should matter. Because feedback either loves or hates alignment.
It uses terms like Hit Dice and other familiar terms! ...but they mean completely different things. Because feedback wanted the game to tie to older editions.
It has a mechanic for rewarding roleplaying! ...But the mechanic has no connection with any other aspect of the game. Because many liked Fate and vaguely wanted a system for encouraging roleplaying.
Like, I do not want standard unarchetyped Paladins to be alignments other than Lawful Good, full stop.Slightly off topic:
I've seen the possibility of non-LG Paladins pop up a few times now. Is this something that a Paizo employee has mentioned being a possibility, of just another rumor/wish floating around? I ask because back during the 1e alpha/beta playtest, some fairly important people at Paizo were dead set against the idea of Paladins being anything other than LG.-Skeld
It’s about 8 years in coming. (Sorry, my memory isn’t as sharp on this as I would prefer.) In the hype machine for either the Advanced Players Guide or Ultimate Combat there were promises of Paladin variants of all flavors. People were excited, eager, and ready to chew on them. However, the concept was unceremoniously pulled from the book and folks were (rightly) disappointed. It was later revealed that one of the staff (I think Jacobs, my apologies James if it was someone else) was very passionately against it, and they felt it completely flew in the face of what it meant to be a paladin and so it was pulled.
So basically, there has been a desire for character support on that front for a very long time (before PF1 came to be as you mentioned) and there is an added angst among some that comes from being teased and left disappointed.
Not to mention, as I've pointed out a few times... they explicitly said the Fighter is no longer going to be focused on armor this time, and that belongs to another class. The only other core class that makes sense for is the Paladin, and it would fit with the Paladin's depiction in other games and media as well. But having the only heavy armor tank class in the game be restricted to LG would be incredibly bizarre.
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On the bright side, some of the recent internal adjustments that have now brought customer service and the paizo.com community under the same umbrella means that there's now 5 people who are assisting with the flag queue instead of one.
I noticed several new moderator faces popping up since the playtest so I figured you'd roped in a few more people. Glad to hear it, especially with some of the new material being 'hot button' type topics. Thanks for taking the time to make an informative post and good luck weathering the playtest storm.
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I do wonder if Paizo is anticipating which topics are likely to be hot-button topics on the forums (a whole lot of people had strong opinions on goblins) and which ones are likely to be largely uncontroversial (the elf/dwarf blog was largely uncontroversial).
If nothing else being able to give the moderation team a "head's up" would probably be a good idea.
I do wonder if Paizo is anticipating which topics are likely to be hot-button topics on the forums (a whole lot of people had strong opinions on goblins) and which ones are likely to be largely uncontroversial (the elf/dwarf blog was largely uncontroversial).
If nothing else being able to give the moderation team a "head's up" would probably be a good idea.
They do seem to be aware of this as Friday ones are seem to be less controversial ones so not to create a nuclear flame war when all moderators are not working.
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Congratulations! We've taken a thread that had the active engagement of four Paizo employees, and turned it into a flame war.
... this is why we can't have nice things ...
It's not so bad. People love Pathfinder. It means a lot to them. Sometimes things get heated. I wish that folks would not treat dissenting opinions as a threat, but unfortunately, that's not how the internet seems to work.
In the end, I'm happy that folks are sharing their opinions. It's what we want, after all.
Well, they are a threat. If the case for a change I don't want or against a change I do want is made loudly and persuasively enough, it might cause the final game to be different than I want it to be, perhaps in a way that matters a lot to me.
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Well, they are a threat. If the case for a change I don't want or against a change I do want is made loudly and persuasively enough, it might cause the final game to be different than I want it to be, perhaps in a way that matters a lot to me.
If you had only said persuasively, you might have had a point.
In my experience, shouting your point seldom changes someone’s mind.
The designers are reviewing the feedback. By now, I imagine they have a fair idea of what are the hot button topics on these forums. They may even have a good idea what they are for a more general audience.
They are doing the Playtest to find out what works for a wide range of people and what doesn’t. As evidenced by many of the developer comments, they are trying to get it from a general audience. That means they have to use a lot of judgement and not allow strong voices — even within the design team — determine what the final rules are.
Repeating the same things over and over again without adding anything new is unlikely to change things. Rational and well thought out posts are much more likely to do that. Such posts that are supported by Playtest data have an extremely high chance of changing things.
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PuppyTurtle (great alias name!), thanks for being honest about your concerns.
If the case for a change that I don’t want or against a change I do want is made loudly or persuasively enough, it might cause the final game to be different than I want it to be, perhaps in a way that matters a lot to me.
Now, let me reassure you that they aren’t threats — they’re assets. Sometimes an idea is just plain crazy and disastrous to implement. However the great thing about crazy ideas is that they can spark other ideas, and soon everyone’s brainstorming. These can lead to solid suggestions that that will add tremendous flavor to the game, or make a once confusing mechanic suddenly easy to use.
We’re all here because we’re pretty passionate about the game, and that’s a good thing. I know that we’re in a time of transition here — there are lots of changes coming, and none of us see the full picture for what the designers have planned. It can be both scary and exhilarating to see all our rules and assumptions about Pathfinder being re-examined.
Still... the designers have opened this forum up for discussion about the Playtest because they want to hear from all of us. It’s not about who’s the loudest, or who’s the most persuasive. Paizo’s not designing by committee. What’s most important here is having a mix of ideas, and creating a welcoming setting where everyone can feel like they’re part of the community, and can have their voices heard.
This isn’t a zero sum game. When everyone can share their ideas and opinions, this forum becomes more useful for the designers as feedback on the Playtest, and we all win.
Hmm
Moderation isn't just about post removing or throwing warnings into threads. It's about shaping the conversation of the forums so that it isn't insulting, argumentative, or harmful. So that gamers can come here and feel like they won't be personally attacked or constantly battling people making their existence political or controversial while posting to or reading our forums. So that people can engage in respectful discourse and hopefully learn something new, or get questions answered, have fun or connect with other gamers. There are certainly some people who are fine with pages of bickering with other community members or being excessively harsh with language, but that kind of posting drives away too many other valuable voices that I am not okay losing.
There are a lot of balances aiming for...
Thanks for explaining this, and for the work you do. I think it must not always be a lot of fun.
On my side I think what's off-putting isn't so much the degree of vitriol (although it is) but more the tendency of threads to derive into off-topic rabbit holes. An in-depth first post may be interesting and thought-provoking, but if posts after that move towards controversial, snarky and/or emotional responses, then it seems impossible to revive the initial conversation. I've seen a number of threads go that way since the playtest was announced.
Just to poke the bear of discussion. I guess im one of these scary gaming radicals because I love the Goblins and want them in game as core and have always house ruled that Paladins can be any alignment as I see them just as the ultimate mortal representative of whatever chosen deity they represent. So Neutral Good God = Neutral good Paladin or whatever. It just never made sense to me to restrict them to Lawful good because it always felt silly that ONLY lawful good Gods had paladins running around. Anyway, glad to see the powers that be chiming in an being active its going to be a fun and frustrating process for all to wade through this but I hope the end result is an amazing game for all to enjoy.
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You’re not that scary, Vexies. By now, everyone knows that core goblins are the single aspect of this Playtest that has me most excited. I love those little oddball pyros.
I also want the option of being able to have paladins for Desna and Cayden Cailean. I would love it if they created a Divine Champion class and then had the LG Paladin as one subset of it, so that the lawful good crowd could take pride in their paladins, but so that Desna and Cayden could also have their holy warriors.
We’ll have to see what the Playtest brings us.
Hmm
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You’re not that scary, Vexies. By now, everyone knows that core goblins are the single aspect of this Playtest that has me most excited. I love those little oddball pyros.
I also want the option of being able to have paladins for Desna and Cayden Cailean. I would love it if they created a Divine Champion class and then had the LG Paladin as one subset of it, so that the lawful good crowd could take pride in their paladins, but so that Desna and Cayden could also have their holy warriors.
We’ll have to see what the Playtest brings us.
Hmm
Technically, Clerics could be counted as Holy Warriors and Warpriest too when they show up in 2e.
More to the point, can the Devs in 2e finally define if Paladins get powers from gods or the inherient goodness and order they have in their soul?
It’s not about who’s the loudest, or who’s the most persuasive. Paizo’s not designing by committee. What’s most important here is having a mix of ideas, and creating a welcoming setting where everyone can feel like they’re part of the community, and can have their voices heard.
Nor is it about who posts most frequently and who posts every. single. time. someone else makes a post they disagree with.
The number of posts you make, and the number of words you write can be viewed as an attempt to keep other voices from being heard, especially if you post more than anyone else or write more words than anyone else.
One voice trying to drown out multiple other voices is a bad way to get the attention of the people who are attempting to listen to everyone.
You're impeding their ability to quickly scan the thread to see what *all* the ideas are. And when you make their job harder, that doesn't help your cause.
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It doesn't seem like CrystalSea's post was directed at you, Hmm. I think the "you" was a general "you". It was just a little confusing since they quoted you, but I think they were actually trying to reinforce your point.
So sorry Hmm, that was a "Yes, and" quote.
RumpinRufus is right, I was trying to reinforce your point. Read it as "The number of posts one makes......." .
Curse you, English language! And the imperfect form of communication that is internet messageboards.
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It’s not about who’s the loudest, or who’s the most persuasive. Paizo’s not designing by committee. What’s most important here is having a mix of ideas, and creating a welcoming setting where everyone can feel like they’re part of the community, and can have their voices heard.Nor is it about who posts most frequently and who posts every. single. time. someone else makes a post they disagree with.
The number of posts you make, and the number of words you write can be viewed as an attempt to keep other voices from being heard, especially if you post more than anyone else or write more words than anyone else.
One voice trying to drown out multiple other voices is a bad way to get the attention of the people who are attempting to listen to everyone.
You're impeding their ability to quickly scan the thread to see what *all* the ideas are. And when you make their job harder, that doesn't help your cause.
I don't post prolifically because I think it will make paizo more likely to listen to my arguments. I do it because I have nothing better to do with my life.
I don't post prolifically because I think it will make paizo more likely to listen to my arguments. I do it because I have nothing better to do with my life.
If you're not making a joke, then PM me
If you're simply making a joke, then there are probably other online communities where that behavior is appropriate. To deliberately create extra work for Paizo staff is not cool.
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I will admit that I also am a forum addict. If you are looking for a way to suck up loads of time, have you tried gaming online? There’s PBP on these forums, or you could join real time VTT games.
There are also other projects that that could use your passion and energy, if you decide you can volunteer.
You can even volunteer in the world of gaming, if you want. One of the reasons I became an organizer was that the organizer of the place where I was playing moved, and no one else had stepped up. So I started organizing games alongside my boyfriend Bret. Little did I know what that would lead to. Two years later, I’m running online conventions and serving my PBP community as a Venture Captain. (Bret’s still organizing at the store where I play live.)
Hmm
Chief Technical Officer
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They do seem to be aware of this as Friday ones are seem to be less controversial ones so not to create a nuclear flame war when all moderators are not working.I do wonder if Paizo is anticipating which topics are likely to be hot-button topics on the forums (a whole lot of people had strong opinions on goblins) and which ones are likely to be largely uncontroversial (the elf/dwarf blog was largely uncontroversial).
If nothing else being able to give the moderation team a "head's up" would probably be a good idea.
Not a coincidence. I'm not sure what the DC of that Perception check was, but you succeeded!
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NEW FRIEND?