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People who get super passionate about a property are the ones who buy your merch and make sure to go to every single thing.I feel like the salient point is to learn to identify "anti-fans" which is to say people whose passion about a property is channeled towards how much they dislike a piece of media, or how much they dislike its current incarnation relative to how it used to be. In general, those people are not worth catering to are best kept out of sight (and off twitter).
Since the normal, healthy reaction to "I don't like X" or "I used to like X, and now I don't" is to just go on with your life and find something else you like to occupy your time and attention. Let's not indulge the people who are not processing their disappointment in a constructive or healthy manner.
I would say people who focus on "how bad PF2 is" and not "how can we make PF2 better" are dangerously close to that "not processing disappointment in a productive manner."
So you'd argue that anyone who takes issue with an edition/reboot/episode/whatever because they preferred the prior incarnation, and then proceeds to express their opinion in any manner, is essentially a troll to be ignored? Even if the new product is bad or flawed?
God forbid that anyone express disappointment or point out problems in anything.
No (with apologies for possibly putting words in anyone's mouth), he is saying there is a subset of people who hate-follow a company only to complain, not to get any enjoyment out of the their product. It is weird if someone gets NOTHING out of a product to obsessively follow it it just to be hateful. Usually the healthy reaction to disliking something THAT MUCH is to move away from it--and certainly not purchase products one doesn't like and help keep a company one dislikes afloat.
He did not imply anywhere in his statement that anyone who had anything negative to say was a hate-follower. That's in fact a rather incredible leap of logic to take, since a lot of folks who simply offer constructive criticism or say what they don't like will equally remark on what they do. (Whereas hate followers don't.)
There's a lot of us who love Paizo and Pathfinder and have given negative feedback because they indeed enjoy the game and see where it can be improved (I can't think of any longtime community member here who has only ever praised Paizo without also offering suggestions, feedback, or criticism). And indeed, a lot of us feel free to do that because Paizo is very responsive to constructive criticism. I've seen no one claim criticism or disliking something is the same as being hate-following or being an anti-fan.
Indeed, usually hate-following means you're incapable of offering actually constructive feedback that would make a product improve, because if the product improved, you couldn't rightfully hate it anymore, and the hate seems to be what the anti-fan gets off on above all else.
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The Starwars problem in my mind was a failure to manage expectations. The first trilogy introduced a good world and story, proceeded to get deeper into the story and show that the scale of the empire was a problem and that one new threat was only an immediate concern, then the last one sort of fumbled making some obvious merchandising based narrative decisions. The second trilogy went with a weird mix of sleeker sci-fi but keeping the now dated melodrama of the first. By adopting a new world scape, but keeping an old story telling method, they managed to create something that felt disjointed. The third trilogy started with a call back to the first movie that was a little too on the nose, and then progressed to a story that didn't seem prompted by the previous film nor grounded in the world presented in either the first or second trilogy, retaining only the melodrama. It swung too far and viewers didn't know what to make of it.
The only real comparison would be whether or not Paizo has adequately managed their consumer's expectations. Are players going in thinking it will be an updated Pathfinder game, which they won't find and will be annoyed by, or are they going in expecting something entirely new by trusted creators in a world they enjoy?
The system as it stands seems designed for PFS play, and I think it will do that job a little better than PF1, though it would probably be a good idea to increase the success rate and decrease relative potency in order to keep players from feeling impotent or locking them into specialized one trick builds.
In the future, it would probably be best to avoid politically loaded analogies.
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Pathfinder came about because of players that didn't want the big changes that switching to 4th would entail.
Not only that, but the folks working at Paizo also didn't like the changes they were seeing in 4e (that WotC hadn't put out an OGL didn't help). At least that's how PF was sold at the time, in a nutshell.
At this point, PF has little to loose and all to gain.
Paizo/PF has a lot to lose if PF2 misfires, considering it's the core of their business and they don't have M:tG/Hasbro backing them up if it fails. There are lots of examples of popular-ish products being radically redesigned and failing because they lost the core qualities that made them popular to begin with. 4e is a perfect example a redesign leading to failure. PF was wildly successful primarily because it was a continuation of 3.5e with refinements and marketed to a fanbase that didn't want radical changes.
-Skeld
I wouldn't be so quick to make sweeping assumptions. I would imagine many similar statements were made about the beginning of Pathfinder. Sticking with/improving on 3.5 was clearly a winning formula, yet WotC abandoned it.Pathfinder came about because of players that didn't want the big changes that switching to 4th would entail. They wanted 3.5 to continue on with refinements. That's what Pathfinder was, recognizable as 3.5 but with improvements. So, when Pathfinder 2 was announced, what were players likely to expect? Pathfinder with improvements, still recognizable but refined. What I feel was put out for the playtest was more akin to big changes, like those that originally gave rise to Pathfinder. This could attract a new player base, but seems pretty unlikely to retain much of a base that was with the prior product specifically to avoid such changes and preserve a sense of familiarity. In fact, this would provide an excellent opportunity for some ambitious studio to emerge with the 'true' successor to Pathfinder, much as Paizo itself did before.The parallel is not congruent. At this point, PF has little to loose and all to gain. 5e dominates the market, literally with its own movie stars. PF has been contracting since 2014. If a third party wanted to carve out a 3.75 niche, it would, at this point, attract a percentage of an already ailing market - perhaps appealing to those uninterested in change, but hardly able to reproduce the coup PF orchestrated in 09. If it were a viable route, Paizo would not be abandoning it.
3.5 was one of the smallest selling D&Ds of all time, and the market collapsed in 2004. Paizo got a % of them probably 66-80% but 3.5 sold half of what 3.0 did.
4E blew up in there face but 3.5 was sinking before 4E landed. With a possible short lived 4E bump each edition of D&D sold less than the one before it since 1E and B/X (2E sold less than 1E, 2E outsold 3.0 which outsold 3.5, 4E may have outsold 3.5 on release but then tanked fast.
3.0 outsold 2E on release but seemed to sell less overall (Dancey provided figures on GitP forums) but 2E lasted 11 years vs 3.0's 3 years. Either way the big seller for 3.X was 3.0 not 3.5 or Pathfinder. 3.X combined outsold 2E though.
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Wrote lots of analysis...
For me, I'm still where I was during "Knee Jerk Reaction" phase..
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2v9mv?First-KneeJerk-Reaction#27
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2va3m?The-Main-Problem-of-PF2#7
There's been changes to PF2, and I've delved deeper into the new system, but it still just isn't doing it for me. I dislike the changes to the spells (nerfs abound, and some are just fun-killing and needless). Resonance needs to be junked, can't stand that mechanic. Shield use - not a fan. Pricing changes (change for the sake of change?). It just goes on and on and I've got a full time job, thanks - fixing 2E for Paizo ain't paying my bills - even if I could (and I'm not so daft to think I can do better...but I just prefer PF1 over PF2 at this point).
For the most part, unless I get sucked into a thread by a compelling initial post (like this one), I've pretty much "noped" out of this playtest - it's become 4E all over again in my mind. I'll take another sniff maybe when it's more polished up, frankly, and go enjoy Return of the Runelords and the next AP. After that...dunno. 3rd Party time? Maybe back to Wizards and 5E? I mean, of the two versions - one I recognize as DnD - and one I don't. Just like when it was Pathfinder vs 4E. Exactly like that, actually.
I can't be the only Pathfinder player out there with this feeling (and who has just walked away at this point from PF2). Paizo is taking a gamble: will PF2 keep me in the fold (and buying books and AP's)?
