Seems like activity on these forums has slowed tremendously these past couple of months, nobody has responded to my Emporium thread in ages, and I've been having a much harder time finding groups of people willing to play or host (offline or otherwise). I'm sure some of it was from that unavailable Paizo site snafu a short while ago, but I was observing this trend even before that happened.
Is Starfinder doing okay? Or is it already beginning to plateau, or even die off?
What's it like for you in your areas?
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It's pretty easy for me to find meatspace players in my area.
Society tables at my local con also filled up pretty quick, but that may be partially people shifting sway from PFS tables, because of PF2.
It has been a bit since I tried to get online players, because I run online games midweek, and have had too many other things coming up in the last month during my usual timeslot. So I can't say about online results.
I expect the forums to be slow for a while, with the outages having been long enough to get people out of the habit of checking them.
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Honestly I think it's mostly just PF2. Many of the more frequent posters here (myself included) also participate in the Playtest discussion.
Granted, I do think some more support for Starfinder from Paizo would be welcome. Again the FAQs haven't seen update since Feb, and we've got no indication even when a new printing with even the Feb fixes will be out. The Starfinder devs have been a bit more active on the forums which is good, and is an indication at least that they aren't just leaving it to quietly die.
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I attended a local con over the weekend, and the number of Starfinder Society games was equal to or greater than the combined number of PFS and 5E games. To say the least, Starfinder seems to be very healthy in my area. A member of the Paizo staff was in attendance, and I was lucky enough to be in a game he ran.
Additionally, I've spoken with local brick and mortar shops as well, and they all have mentioned SF selling well. In fact, I have to pre-order with my flgs to ensure I get copies of the latest products.
If you check YouTube and Twitch, there are many SF live plays, and there are twice that many podcasts. Also, there are a number of smaller boards, Reddits, Facebooks, etc. that have healthy communities. This board is mellow, but I wouldn't use it to represent the entire product. I think the world may be slowly moving away from message boards and gravitating more towards comment formats.
That's good to know. You guys are probably right about it just being PF2. Sorry for being such a Nervous Nelly.
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And me looking at the Facebook Starfinder communities, activity is picking up, getting lots of new faces that claim never having played Stafinder before and just now getting in. My third party Starfinder books are selling well - that wouldn't be the case if SF was suffering somehow. I think your experience is just anecdotal. I know many who play and run Pathfinder and never come to this board, so it's not a surprise that SF seems to be getting less attention here. Just my observation...
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Had also noticed the lack of activity, and as someone that just discovered SF last week, I was thinking what was up about that. Slowly finding out more about SF and loving it, hope it's here to last!
...loving it, hope it's here to last!
Same!
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Honestly, I've been too busy playing and prepping Starfinder games to worry about posting much. I definitely love RD's character emporium, though, so I definitely want to give it a shout-out!
And while I'm sure PF2 playtest is consuming most of the forum traffic, I hope Starfinder is finding its fans and community in numbers far beyond what these forums represen. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't find the hyperbolic cries of nerf, insults from the vocal "more power" crowd, and the outright rudeness and ignorance of self-proclaimed game design experts knocking Paizo and its staff.
There have been posters that said the PF1 playtest was much the same, but I now understand why Starfinder didn't go the public playtest route.
Playtest nonsense aside, long live Starfinder! It's e most fun I've had with RPG's...perhaps ever!
Loving it my group is still going strong and I see a lot of interest locally. I do think some more attention to editing and some FAQ love could go a long way to keep up the enthusiasm going.
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Honestly, I've been too busy playing and prepping Starfinder games to worry about posting much. I definitely love RD's character emporium, though, so I definitely want to give it a shout-out!
And while I'm sure PF2 playtest is consuming most of the forum traffic, I hope Starfinder is finding its fans and community in numbers far beyond what these forums represen. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't find the hyperbolic cries of nerf, insults from the vocal "more power" crowd, and the outright rudeness and ignorance of self-proclaimed game design experts knocking Paizo and its staff.
There have been posters that said the PF1 playtest was much the same, but I now understand why Starfinder didn't go the public playtest route
The PF2 grar has certainly kept me from the forums as much as I used to. That spills over into not reading Starfinder or the other subforums I used to read on a daily basis (albeit I don't really post very much).
I spoke to one of the Paizo people a while back (a couple of months prior to Starfinder launching) and they expressed confidence that the first year would do well. In their view the true test would be year two (once everyone had an AP a monster book a setting book and the Core Book in hand there'd be a natural 'breaking off' point).
Given the increased rate of APs, it seems to me they're not too concerned about that, at least in the short term. For me, I hope they see enough ongoing demand to expand the line to include a more regular "Campaign Setting" or "Player Companion" set of supplements. It seems the modern trend is to slow output somewhat, but I could definitely use some more flavour material.
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The Starfinder Society online community is the first one i've seen where people have played so much its actually harder to find players than DMs for some games...
I think the reduced forum traffic may be in part due to there being less content to talk about, which is to be expected as pathfinder has years of content that all interacts with each other, and the pathfinder playtest is being measured against that large volume of content.
I was expecting the armoury to generate more discussion but I think a lot of people are too overwhelmed by armoury to read everything in it.
In my own context, my starfinder game is still being played weekly 9 months later, and my players are still excited to see what comes next, so I see that as a pretty good sign of the health of the game (as I have never been in a campaign that lasted so long or was played weekly before).
I check the Starfinder forums pretty much daily. But I have to agree with what has already been said about PF2.0 taking quite a large chunk of talk away from Starfinder.
I would love to be in more Starfinder games (except society, never really managed to mesh with that), but my scheduling and lack of transport keeps me from doing very much irl. And online games are tricky to say the least.
Is Starfinder doing okay? Or is it already beginning to plateau, or even die off?
Don't know about anyone else, but I'm personally losing interest and jumping ship from starfinder. It's combination of several factors, but it's mostly a disconnect of what the game offers and disapproval of it's rules. Our group is used to narrative/roleplay first type of games like Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness. One of the reasons our group has put up with starfinder this long is that we have a great GM that chooses logic and roleplay over arbitrary paizo-isms.
I think the real problem this game has is that it feels like a video game. It has a bunch of ideas and conventions that make sense when applied to that space, but here on the table where's there no computer to do all the behind the scenes work, it feels clunky because you gotta flip to three different pages to get all of those little rules cogs to mesh together.
As far as Starfinder goes I still feel the community impressions (and thus your player's impressions) are out of sync with the mechanics. The art and layout all have a sci fi look, but in reality the mechanics and game play are tuned for something like Borderlands and Destiny: shootem up and take their guns. That's a fine idea for a game and even interesting. But I found so many folks were trying to force sci fi on it, and had rightfully expected something like sci-fi, because that's what the game presents as in its visuals.
I blame a lack of good sync between James Sutter, the creative lead, and Owen KC Stevens, the design lead, for at least some of this. During the publicity cycle Sutter was out front and talking Firefly and Shadowrun and even Star Trek as touchstones. Not a word about borderlands or Mad Max style stuff.
I think as time goes on, more and more people likely realize starfinder isn't a real science fiction game, but fantasy with the veneer of sci-fi like warhammer 40K. And that it's not a really roleplaying game, but Borderlands with RPG elements.
Our group wanted a Fallout 2 experience, and we got Fallout 4 instead so to speak because of that aforementioned disconnect between the game's presented aesthetic and mechanics.
I would love to be in more Starfinder games (except society, never really managed to mesh with that),
Whatsa the issue?
SFS content is first rate and our local Society does very well. I'll be jumping in to help GM for them at the local cons this fall.
My own home campaign is a blast. I've actually found Starfinder easier to teach to newbies than Pathfinder, literally everyone I've introduced has been clamoring for more.
Does anyone know why we haven't yet heard what the next book after Alien Archive 2 will be? Seems like we should know by now...
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Does anyone know why we haven't yet heard what the next book after Alien Archive 2 will be? Seems like we should know by now...
it'll get announced at some point.
it'll probably something like "Starships" which will have lots of starships (and mecha???) and probably some rules to help GMs build random solar systems/astral phenomena on the fly.
but that's just a guess.
Honestly hoping we get a magic themed book at some point soon. Some more mystic connections, some more spells, more solarion revelations. Stuff like that. I dont want more powerful stuff, but some more thematic stuff would be nice.
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Honestly hoping we get a magic themed book at some point soon. Some more mystic connections, some more spells, more solarion revelations. Stuff like that. I dont want more powerful stuff, but some more thematic stuff would be nice.
well... there have been two new mystic connections since the core was published, additional spells in a couple of supplements, two pages full of goodness for solarians in armory, and pact worlds added 14 new themes, while there was another theme in armory.
personally, i think starship options and possible alternate ways to run starship combats would be much more helpful. that's really where a lot of people have some problems with starfinder.
Does anyone know why we haven't yet heard what the next book after Alien Archive 2 will be? Seems like we should know by now...
We did. It's the beginners box.
So to echo other posters. The local playgroup is doing well. A bit down because of vacations but we are still able to support play every week and have multiple tables often.
I think a lot of the forum silence is related to the general lack of new info combined with how well the community answers questions.
I for one have not needed to start a new thread because so many of you have asked and been answered the questions I have.
without new content to excitedly ooh and aww over our posts go down considerably. Leading to this.
Does anyone know why we haven't yet heard what the next book after Alien Archive 2 will be? Seems like we should know by now...
We also dont know anything about the upcoming SFS scenarios leaving lot of potential conversation for "someday"
I would speculate that the recent site issues are to blame and that people that would do these updates have been busy working on the back end. So hopefully we see an uptick in activity soon
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Does anyone know why we haven't yet heard what the next book after Alien Archive 2 will be? Seems like we should know by now...We did. It's the beginners box.
Per Paizo, that isn't a rulebook and isn't a part of the rulebook subscription (Vic confirmed in the product thread). Despite this, it may have taken the place of the March rulebook. Though, I really hope that isn't the case.
As to the OP's question. Some of what's happening now may also be (in addition the playtest and site issues) due to people starting back up in school. I know when the semester starts the first few weeks of it are always hell on my schedule, and hobbies suffer.
Per Paizo, that isn't a rulebook and isn't a part of the rulebook subscription (Vic confirmed in the product thread). Despite this, it may have taken the place of the March rulebook. Though, I really hope that isn't the case.Does anyone know why we haven't yet heard what the next book after Alien Archive 2 will be? Seems like we should know by now...We did. It's the beginners box.
I agree, while im sure there are plenty of people looking forward to the beginners box it doesnt really offer me much. Id be sad to think this took the place of a regular release. Regardless I am looking forward to seeing what comes next.
Out of curiosity, around what level would you say your group started having bad feelings about balance?
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I am tempted to get and read the first AP, because the second hand reports really make me think it was just generally poorly designed for balance purposes.
I really didn't find any issues in our run through with it. I even had to tune the difficulty up on everything due to my group being a 6 person party. Perhaps it was harder on a standard 4 person party but I don't really think so after being quite familiar with it. It really just depends a lot on group make up I think. There was a lot of complaining about the last encounter of the book being too hard but despite turning up by a lot my group disappointingly tore it down.
My group is currently playing the PF2e playtest, which has paused our starfinder akitonian space-pirates campaign, but it's just hard in general to find things to talk about on the boards when the only official content coming out is adventures.
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Guys, don't forget that the game is only 1-year old and that it basically starts from scratch. If you compare to Pathfinder, Paizo used the OGL content to publish both the rulebook (essentially combining the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide) and the Bestiary.
Furthermore, they're using a brand-new set of rules for everything, they can't just bring a bunch of new rules and hope that everything fits like a glove.
Finally, they did give us rules to convert Pathfinder stuff into Starfinder. While you do have some busy work, you can still use races, classes, items and monsters from Pathfinder into Starfinder. We're talking about a LOT of books.
On a sidenote, they are trying/testing a new publishing process with smaller books, but at a tigher schedule, such as releasing smaller Alien Archives instead of beefier Bestiaries.
On another note, Starfinder's world is... much larger than Pathfinder, so they need more time and resources to flesh out new planets.
I believe the beginners box is the March release as it was mentioned in the blog thread by one of the devs that although it is not part of the subscription, the resources needed to make it meant that they couldn't do the hardback release that would otherwise be expected.
The full comment left the state of a March book (or no March book) entirely ambiguous. Yes, Owen mentioned that the beginner's box required resources, and they only have so much staff. He also mentioned that they try to give each product announcement its own time to shine, and that speculating on unannounced material (or lack thereof) would distract from that.
I'm hoping that there will still be a March book. Other than maybe participating in a Beginner Box Bash, and maybe the new Absalom Station Lore, the Beginner box does little for me.
I fear that you are correct, though, and they'll use the Beginner Box as an excuse for no book in March. If that's the case, I'm going to have to re-assess my commitment to the subscription. I subscribed with the expectation that I'd be getting regular releases. If they're going to be releasing books haphazardly "whenever they have time", then it'd be easier and more reliable to just buy them on Amazon and only buy the ones I'm interested in.
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They've also been unhappy with monster attack bonuses and the poison/disease/curse rules all the way through, though as the GM I disagree both of those. Frankly, I'm going the use the Pathfinder Unchained poison rules in any PF game I run going forward.
Its not shocking, poison and disease are one of the few things that actually feels like a real threat most of the time in Starfinder.
They've also been unhappy with monster attack bonuses and the poison/disease/curse rules all the way through, though as the GM I disagree both of those. Frankly, I'm going the use the Pathfinder Unchained poison rules in any PF game I run going forward.Its not shocking, poison and disease are one of the few things that actually feels like a real threat most of the time in Starfinder.
Agreed. I like that it's a threat, though I'm not too keen on the last 3 steps out of tops 7 generally always being "you don't have a character". Once you hit Bedridden, you're generally looking at rolling up something new, or having to tell the group "sorry but no adventures for at least 10 days".
Not as devistating when you consider all space travel takes at least 1d6-ish, but still not fun to be sitting out sessions cause you're stuck in "not dead but can't play" limbo.
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My local group for Starfinder is really enjoying the setting, which I've also been greatly enjoying myself. We have full intention of finishing Dead Suns and who knows where we will go from there.
I've also had groups of people expressly asking to be involved 'in my next starfinder game', so that is exciting to me as a GM. So long as there is interest, I will be running campaigns. I also think it shows that there was a niche for this type of game(that wasn't just arbitrarily a Star Wars game).
I personally have a few mechanical quibbles I would like to see addressed with errata in the coming months. I feel like the whole system just needs a few tweaks to make some mechanical interactions less awkward.
All the content released so far is great, but I hope the game will have a steady stream of new stuff coming out to keep the game growing.
Our group has been in Starfinder for a year now, Dead Suns ended and now we are doing a sandboxish homebrew adventure which goes where the players seem to want it to go. Players have no interest in changing the game or starting over with new chars so we'll probably go forward until they get bored or killed :)
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I haven't been checking the forums because of website glitches. That and I don't have much to say.
I'm running one game online that has dwindled down to one player. He's rich enough to buy his own ship and start traveling the spaceways.
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In our area Starfinder Society is incredibly popular, Pathfinder Society, not as much.
Of course, I play at home with my wife and kids and we haven't stopped playing Starfinder since it's release.
And with how awesome Against the Aeon Throne is I don't see it changing any time soon.
My sense is Starfinder is very healthy. I know lots of people who are very enthusiastic about it. I tend to post about it online elsewhere than these forums is all
In our area there are oftentimes more Starfinder tables going than Pathfinder tables. And I've convinced a number of my non-TTRPG friends to give it a try just based on the setting, as fantasy isn't really their jam but sci-fi is.
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My group still meets weekly and we're having a total ball. I plan on running the Aeon throne once it's all released.