| Wraythblade |
I and my friends have a combined 120 years of gaming experience amongst us. We changed to Pathfinder several years ago just before D&D 4e launched. We did so because, in our opinion, PF improved on many of the issues we had with 3/3.5.
Due to our experience, each of us is somewhat an unconscious min-maxer and PF offered us excellent opportunities to make any character we wanted to play really. Many of the optional rules work really well for us too (e.g. Wound thresholds, Hero Points, etc). Each of us GMs and PF allowed us to run any type of game/campaign we wanted - low magic to high fantasy.
PF offered detailed character development through traits, the wide array of feats and skills, class abilities and the optional rules. All-in-all, a system wide of scope and deep.
This is not to say it's perfect and our expectations with 2e were that the strengths of 1e would be built on and it's failings eliminated.
I like that the actions have been streamlined and simplified: this will make combat or encounters flow more smoothly. The concepts of backgrounds and ancestries are easily extensions of what was present in 1e with various feats, traits, race choices, etc.
But that is really where my appreciation of 2e ends thus far. The 2e rules seem to me too similar to 4e/5e D&D. I see them as limiting character development and choice due to the fences around class ability progressions. I also feel they are oversimplified with too much "leading by the nose" to them.
Paizo, you have ten years worth of forum comments, questions, answers, suggestions and ideas to plumb. Make improvements and enhancements to your existing product instead of this D&D 5e variant please.