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Hi,
Recently, both of our local game store events have inadvertently reported PFC sessions as RPG, resulting in an (unwanted) permanent switch of all PCs at the table from PFC mode to RPG mode. It's a bit of a headache to address, generates errors for all future reporting, and there's no easy way to fix the resulting impact without posting help requests to pfsreportingerrors@paizo.com.
The following change should help address this issue:
1. Add a button or mini-form to the OP Player tab labeled "Core PC Checker" or "PFC Audit" - something like that.
2. Upon hitting the button (or using the mini-form), the player would enter the ID of the PC they want to check, hit "Audit" or "Go," etc.
3. The code would check to make sure that all reported sessions for that PC ID were reported as CORE, and, if so, permanently set the designation of that PC to PFC (and undo any unwanted conversion or RPG contamination).
4. Alternately, if it finds sessions that have not been reported as PFC, it can give the player an audit list so that they can correct the problem(s) locally or otherwise.
5. Once they correct the problem(s) with coordinators, they can re-run the check and fix their PC.
Benefit:
1. No more customer service overhead to fix incorrectly converted OP PCs (a very common problem).
2. Does not affect PFC characters that intentionally play RPG or receive RPG GM credit to undergo one-time RPG conversion.
3. Users can audit their own PCs and correct problems quickly and easily.
Everyone wins, and it should be a very simple thing to add, requiring minimal code, most of which already exists, since it is used to pull and display the session list for individual PCs.
On that note, there are 2 issues with the session list:
1. It doesn't show whether the game was reported as PFC or RPG.
2. The ID column doesn't show the PC ID suffix (-X) for GM credits.
Thanks - I hope these suggestions are useful.
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Thank you for the feedback! The team is aware that the character designation for which program a character is registered for can result in these errors. We have a few ideas for how to address the problem in the hopper that we can hopefully get a closer look at after our busy convention season has ended.
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Thanks for the reply, Chris! Yes - GENCON is looming! Good luck with all the crazy prep!
Here is additional clarification - there are several distinct problems:
1. Unwanted, forced conversion from PFC to RPG from games misreported as RPG and no auto-correct/undo after correcting the session reporting (back to PFC).
2. Not being able to see where things went wrong with a PC that should be PFC but isn't. (An audit function)
3. PCs initially created as RPG because new PFS players don't necessarily understand how things work and are using that PC for PFC games.
4. Not being able to easily self-correct any of these issues at the user level once other reporting problems are resolved. (Hence, the button for users to manually invoke self-audit and conversion back to PFC, assuming the sessions are OK and regardless of whether the character was created as RPG or PFC. It would just work like magic!)
Heya! Our team doesn't handle that particular inbox and doesn't have much insight into the lead times. However, if there's an urgent, pressing issue we can investigate.
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Gotcha. Appreciate it.
If you could ping the responsible party, that would be great. I would like to restore my character to PFC as soon as it is convenient so that he is correct in the event that I play any upcoming CORE games. I also cc'd customer service.
It would be nice to know the expected ballpark turn-around time for this type of request/correction so that I can advise others who have the same problem.
Thanks!
In my opinion the best solution is just to let Core characters play in RPG without hindrance. That solves the issue of forced change, and allows people that want to play their Core character do it regardless if the event holds Core tables or not. She is not forced to create a RPG character she does not want to have.
Include a button to perform the change from Core to RPG for those who want to start using other sourcebooks with their Core character and many current headaches will be finished for reporting GM's, event organizers and Paizo tech and customer services teams.
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Interesting...I guess it doesn't matter if PFC PCs want to "play up" into RPG without converting, but it probably requires additional back-end support on reporting (which needs to change anyway). It shouldn't be an issue for the RPG GM, and is unrelated to 1 play each in PFC/RPG.
I would be in favor of that kind of change, since it would also facilitate player mobility and help games fire off at the game store without PFC players being forced to use a pregen or convert if they didn't want to.
And, as you say, it would fix the forced reporting PFC->RPG conversion.