| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
OP asks, as has been done here, what problem is 2E trying to solve. Many people seem to feel that the answer is that 5E is exponentially outselling PF. Paizos response is resulting in working at cross purposes to itself. Dumb down the game enough to reduce barriers to entry while retaining enough crunch to not alienate their e siting base.
It’s any interesting read
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/9ftkix/what_problem_is_2nd _edition_actually_solving/
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
While I did leave an answer in that topic myself, I feel like the question is insufficiently holistic. PF2 does quite a few things differently and works with a different core balancing mechanic than PF1 so for the most part, even problems that exist in both versions will not have the same impact on the game.
The main problem they solved was having a core balancing mechanic that couldn't ensure value in player choices as their level progressed.
|
| 22 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nobody knows what PF2E is trying to do other than be new so that people will buy Pathfinder again.
In multiple places (for instance this thread I started 5 weeks ago) people have asked for some overarching design goals, but we haven't been able to piece much together (other than "make it feel like Pathfinder"), so by and large it's all speculation based on what 2E seems to be actually doing. This, of course, makes it difficult to know if 2E is succeeding at what it wants to do. I'm personally finding it a little frustrating that we don't know what kind of game it's even supposed to be, meaning that any feedback about how well things are working is completely entangled with feedback about what it's trying to do.
I am beginning to strongly suspect that 2E didn't have any real design goals in mind, but was a bunch of different changes and systems put together by the developers. They threw a whole bunch of stuff out to see what would stick. There may be some sort of coherent idea for the audience, or the type of game they were trying to design, but I've not seen that articulated anywhere.
| 40 people marked this as a favorite. |
This game fixes the "powergamers destroy modules in pathfinder society" problem and the "designing APs is difficult when characters values can be vastly unpredictable"problem
The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
PF2's design goal: be the game the designers would like to create/play.
It's that simple. These are rules that Jason and his team thought of that they like. They fit the style game that the dev team as a collective want to write for.
I honestly feel for Jason in particular. Spending nearly a decade and a half writing for someone else's system has got to be frustrating. I imagine he's really eager to spread his wings and create an edition that is his.
And that's all fine. And cool. And I deeply respect that.
I don't think there's much point in looking for something deeper here. Sometimes a game is just a game.
The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.I'm not sure that is a good business approach: screw what the customers want, this is what me and Hal, like.
To be fair, while this system might not make it in more open home games, it could well become popular with said PFS and module crowd that want to just run paizo made stuff and call it a day.
If there is one thing proven is that some do want this new system, granted, probably not as many as paizo would liked, but hey, you cant have it all.
|
|
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.I'm not sure that is a good business approach: screw what the customers want, this is what me and Hal, like.
It might actually be good business sense.
I don't know the breakdown of Paizo's sales, but remember that Paizo publishes 12 Adventure Path books a year for Pathfinder. That's a lot of effort, not just from freelancers, but also from editors and developers. If you can make that process a lot easier, you might be able to free up the time necessary to improve the quality of the things you put out. Paizo's APs already are quite excellent, by and large. It'd be nice if they could get back to regularly putting out modules (either the 64-pagers they were doing later, or the 32-pagers they were doing earlier, or both).
I was talking to another guy at a convention recently. There were a lot of complaints about PF2. Leaving those aside, though, one guy said that the main reason he'd stuck with Pathfinder was that they put out two scenarios every month, an adventure path book every month, modules (at least in the past). He's too busy to design his own setting and adventures any more, but the amount of support from Paizo allowed him to keep GMing a lot.
This is Paizo's killer ap. A core game designed to support that might just not be a bad idea. It doesn't have to be exactly the game customers would want to play, it just has to be something they will play and won't hate too much, and that will support the rate of adventure publication that they do.
(Myself, it's going to be hard to overcome the way they've implemented critical failures on Nat 1, and resonance for potions, to have the core game not be too frustrating to play long term. Here's hoping that those two things get fix. Alas, while there is a lot of talk about resonance, I'm not seeing a lot about critical fails on Nat 1.)
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Alas, while there is a lot of talk about resonance, I'm not seeing a lot about critical fails on Nat 1.)
I dislike them too (well, hate them TBH), but they are easily houseruled and frankly PF2 has a long way to go to get to the point where crit-fail 1s are my biggest problem in PF2.
| 15 people marked this as a favorite. |
This game fixes the "powergamers destroy modules in pathfinder society" problem and the "designing APs is difficult when characters values can be vastly unpredictable"problem
The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.
Sounds very similar to my needs as a GM.
| 18 people marked this as a favorite. |
On top of all this can we please admit that the tactical combat in 1e is actually quite shallow? Especially for martials. 5ft step and full attack over and over is really brain dead but is the most effective way to fight for like 80% of the cast. 2e combat so far (halfway through chapter 3) actually has hard choices and so much more mobility. We have been loving combats so far even though they are a bit harder than we are used to in 1e. Actually the increase in difficulty has been refreshing to be honest.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Forgetting of course that what Paizo wants is also what a lot of customers want. But it is easier to think that your needs and likes are representative of the whole customer base.
I assume most of Pathfinder's playerbase want to play the "optimize character to shine in play" game, that is why they play Pathfinder instead of 5E
This is also evident in online communities due to the sheer amount of optimization and math-related threads.
There are, of course, exceptions.
However, it seems to me that all the signs indicate toward my assumption being mostly correct.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
PF2's design goal: be the game the designers would like to create/play.
It's that simple. These are rules that Jason and his team thought of that they like. They fit the style game that the dev team as a collective want to write for.
I honestly feel for Jason in particular. Spending nearly a decade and a half writing for someone else's system has got to be frustrating. I imagine he's really eager to spread his wings and create an edition that is his.
And that's all fine. And cool. And I deeply respect that.
I don't think there's much point in looking for something deeper here. Sometimes a game is just a game.
I think this is reasonable speculation. The only problem is that it appears that the game they want to play is NOT the game that I want to play. I want to play a truly evolutionary development of PF1e, not something pretending to be an "evolution" that it is actually qualitatively different from PF1e.
As I've prepared for my first playtest playing of PF2e today, I've become increasingly disenchanted with the whole PF2e approach and the degree to which it is a whole new game with a whole new set of rules to learn.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
2e combat so far (halfway through chapter 3) actually has hard choices and so much more mobility.Yeah, I see more movement, I love it, but can you give an example of these hard choices?
I don't see movement myself. You're in base to base with an enemy why move if you're a Martial? And the battle maps haven't been really big enough for running battles.
This might just be due to how I run monsters
As for the purpose of PF2; yeah it seems to be the game they want to make and design for. And it seems easy to work with. To play? Feels off and to run? I actually dislike running it.
So I'm glad to see the designers are happy but I don't see anything in the playtest that makes me want to play PF2 other than testing
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
2e combat so far (halfway through chapter 3) actually has hard choices and so much more mobility.Yeah, I see more movement, I love it, but can you give an example of these hard choices?
Whether or not to raise your shield for the AC and shield block reaction or take a 2nd or 3rd attack. Whether or not to keep attacking whatever creature you are attacking or move to help your back-line getting amubushed (not everything has attack of opportunity so you can actually switch targets much easier even if they are further than 5ft away), every class has some "activities" that are either 1 or 2 or even 3 actions that you can now decide if they would be better than trying for a 2nd or 3rd attack. Firing off a 3 action magic missile or using a 1 action magic missile and casting a 2 action spell in the same turn. Using a 1 action heal on yourself and attack twice, or using a 2 action heal to an ally further away and keep attacking your current target with 1 action, or move use your 1 action heal to heal an ally then attack the target they are struggling with.
Those are just a few things I came up with in 30 seconds. There are hundreds more. Basically every turn you have at least 1 decision to make between two different actions that are both beneficial. Where in 1e unless you're a spell caster there's really only one "correct" choice most of the time.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
This game fixes the "powergamers destroy modules in pathfinder society" problem and the "designing APs is difficult when characters values can be vastly unpredictable"problem
The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.
This is the conclusion I have also come to. They have PFS tunnel-vision because that is what affects them the most.
Nevermind that the vast, overwhelming majority of Pathfinder games are home games. Nevermind that tons of groups homebrew from their published materials, or only occasionally use their Adventure Paths. Nevermind that dealing with powergamers and munchkins is a very different animal in private groups than it is in official PFS games (for starters, you can just kick someone out of a private group if they are a constant problem).
Things like Resonance make way more sense as optional-for-home-play, but mandatory-for-Society-play rules rather than being hard-coded into the entire balance of the game.
The echo chamber is intense, and I can't see how they're going to avoid alienating large swaths of their established player base if they insist on pretending that PFS is their bread-and-butter (spoiler: it's not), or that their frustrations as designers are universal problems of the played game (spoiler: that's not always the case).
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really like that not everything and its mother has AoO, and especially not incurred for so many actions, it seems to have had an undesired effect of inhibiting movement in combat, since 2000.
I'm not even sure AoO was the main mobility problem in 1e, although it definitely contributed to it. I really think it's the iterative attacks/full-attack action design that does it. The fact that you're losing out on a ton of damage for moving more than one square is just really bad design.
| 12 people marked this as a favorite. |
Forgetting of course that what Paizo wants is also what a lot of customers want. But it is easier to think that your needs and likes are representative of the whole customer base.I assume most of Pathfinder's playerbase want to play the "optimize character to shine in play" game, that is why they play Pathfinder instead of 5E
This is also evident in online communities due to the sheer amount of optimization and math-related threads.
There are, of course, exceptions.
However, it seems to me that all the signs indicate toward my assumption being mostly correct.
I asked my wife, and she says her goal as a player is "to be unpredicable." She has a reputation for derailing adventure paths, even among other GMs than me. I like how she improves the story because her derailments are from her characters having more realistic concerns and reactions than stereotypical adventurers have. For example, in Fires of Creation she played a young dwarf smith, an exceptional townsfolk with ordinary ambitions forced into exceptional circumstances. When they discovered a villain's base in town and could have broken in and claimed the villain's secret loot, they went to the town council and reported it like responsible citizens. The module did not plan for that.
Pathfinder 2nd Edition currently seems like it will clamp down on her playing style. I am going to argue my hardest, with my story-telling abilities and my mathematial analyses, to keep the game compatible with her style.
I asked my housemate, another of my players, and his goal for his characters is to tell a story. Another player had the goal to play an exotic character seeped in a foreign culture. A fourth player had the goal to optimize his character to win at everything.
Sounds very similar to my needs as a GM.This game fixes the "powergamers destroy modules in pathfinder society" problem and the "designing APs is difficult when characters values can be vastly unpredictable" problem
The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.
I need the opposite. I love the Paizo Adventure Paths, and I would be giving my money to Paizo even if they stopped publishing roleplaying rules and instead made modules for other company's rules, as they did under Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. Yet my players will break away from any adventure path, or they will try strategies that the writers never imagined, and I will need roleplaying rules that let me bend in the hurricane winds of creative, unpredictable characters. (The players are more predictable: they want a good story.)
If the tight math of FP2 says that the character who devoted all possible improvement to Acrobatics cannot reliably leap from wall to tower, then the player will invest in Athletics, too, to master throwing a grappling hook to set a tightrope between wall and tower and walk the tightrope with Acrobatics. And if PF2 has no rules for tightrope walking, then I will have to invent them (probably cursing at Table 10-2 in the process). My player already wanted rules in The Lost Star playtest to push the statue of Drakus over to block a cavern entrance--I adapted the Shove rules. (My wife's character there was a goblin paladin of Alseta with Mind Quake Survivor background. Only one hostile goblin died, because the paladin's mission was to rescue the Mudchewer goblins.)
My own opinion on the reason why Paizo is bringing out Pathfinder 2nd Edition is that they reached a design threshold. They found several clever mechanisms: the 3-action system, the proficiency system, the 4-degrees-of-success system, Ancestry-Background-Class character generation, and class feats--that can improve and simplify the Pathfinder game. They decided that now was a good market to introduce them. However, they are also testing out several not-so-clever mechanisms, such as resonance and +1/level, in the hopes that they can solve all problems with Pathfinder. They need this playtest, because some of the new ideas don't work.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really think it's the iterative attacks/full-attack action design that does it. The fact that you're losing out on a ton of damage for moving more than one square is just really bad design.
I think it's the core reason the Monk class has been so difficult to balance over the years. This super mobile class' primary offensive tactic boiled down to...stand still and punch a lot. Based on the Monk player character that was fielded in my Rose Street Revenge session I think that problem is no more. Will be interesting to see how their viability is impacted. Hit and run Monk makes a lot more sense.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've started a running list of reactions from my group to the playtest. It includes both the players reactions and mine (as the GM). Something to keep in mind for context with this particular group is that everyone has at least 10 years of TTRPGing under their belt, and all of them have moved from one system to another at least once. Additionally, most of the players also GM - because of that I'm sharing a lot of the underlying mechanics with the group as we play.
So far I have:
- 8 things we like enough that we'll try to bring them over to PF1E
- 15
12things we dislike intensely about the new rules, some of which are deal-breakers for some of us - 1 thing we disliked intensely that was removed
- 5 ways the PCs are treated differently than everyone else that feel unfair during play
- 3 new rules that we just don't see the point of but don't have strong feelings about
- 8
4things that have the kernel of a great idea, but the current implementation is frustrating
That's not a comforting list for us at almost the halfway point of the playtest. At the end of the day, Paizo (presumably) needs to make an attractive enough product that it's worth rebuying witches and sylphs and masterwork backpacks again for the new system for their current playerbase, while also being a contender for the time and money of people new to the hobby or playing other TTRPGs. I can't comment on whether PF2E as currently envisioned will hit that second mark, but it's not hitting the first mark yet for me. YMMV.
Edit: Had coffee with a couple of my players, and updated the totals on the list after sharing my draft list and getting their input.
I really think it's the iterative attacks/full-attack action design that does it. The fact that you're losing out on a ton of damage for moving more than one square is just really bad design.I think it's the core reason the Monk class has been so difficult to balance over the years. This super mobile class' primary offensive tactic boiled down to...stand still and punch a lot. Based on the Monk player character that was fielded in my Rose Street Revenge session I think that problem is no more. Will be interesting to see how their viability is impacted. Hit and run Monk makes a lot more sense.
It would have been so easy to just tie the extra flurry attacks ONCE PER ROUND to ANY attack not just the full attack and solve this problem. Just saying.
BTW
They realized they screwed up and fixed it with Flying Kick when Unchained came out.
EDIT:
I'm not being harsh for the sake of being harsh
I hold Paizo's design team in high regard and I believe they can handle some blunt, if honest, criticism
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
What is actually stopping her style in PF2? I don't see it at all. Thats all character roleplaying choices and nothing to do with the mechanics. GMs always had to react to players doing things not covered by the AP or Module.
She had a problem that I mentioned in Class Feats Are My Group's Biggest Problem With PF2E.
Okay, let me throw in the opinion of one of my players, my wife who just finished The Lost Star with her goblin paladin. (I'm the GM, so I have not played a playtest player character.) She glanced ahead at the 2nd-level paladin feats and said, "These don't fit my character." The backstory of her paladin is that a young goblin garbage-picker was taken in by a hospice after a mind-quake (he had been picking through Necerion's garbage). He adopted the ideals of the clerics and became a Hospice Knight paladin.
Of the five 2nd-level paladin feats, four swear to kill things: Dragonslayer Oath, Fiendslayer Oath, Shining Oath, and Vengeful Oath. The fifth, Divine Grace, is personal protection, which she says sounds too selfish for her paladin. She will go back to the two remaining 1st-level feats and pick Warded Touch.
Also, I have crunched the numbers on the +1/level aspect and it is too much of an increase. It improves combat too much, which makes combat the strongest way to approach any problem.
When the party killed Drakus the Taker in The Lost Star, her paladin dragged the body over to the remaining goblins that they had been careful to not encounter. "I have destroyed your false leader. Now you can return to living in peace!" the goblin paladin declared. I was lucky she rolled an 18 given her +4 in trained Diplomacy, and I added a +3 circumstance bonus for having killed Drakus for a critical success in Diplomacy against the goblins' Will save. A regular success would have left the goblins unfriendly. Since all their abilities were oriented toward fighting, their unfriendly response to any diplomatic misstep by another PC would have been violent. By PF2 standards, a +3 circumstance bonus is gigantic.
Look at the skills of a Goblin Warrior: Skills –2; Acrobatics +3, Athletics +3, Stealth +5. So -2 in Survival and Occultism for living in caves and sewers, but +6 to hit with a dogslicer. And the 0-level warriors are the least combative goblins listed in the Mudchewer tribe. Though the problem of presenting hostile NPCs only as combatants is common in PF1, too.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've been watching a lot of franchises over the years chase emerging casual markets while still retaining their old customer bases.
Unfortunately, that's rather difficult, and most of them fail to some degree. You know the old saying about simultaneously acquiring and consuming cake.
The ones that give up the stable foundation often fall through, the ones that give up the emerging market often stagnate and just kind of stagger along, and most of them find a middle ground, losing some, gaining others, and they just continue along at a fairly stable rate. The few that truly succeeded did very well for themselves, for obvious reasons.
New blood, new ideas, new money.
I really hope this playtest helps Paizo shape PF2 into one of the few.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really think it's the iterative attacks/full-attack action design that does it. The fact that you're losing out on a ton of damage for moving more than one square is just really bad design.I think it's the core reason the Monk class has been so difficult to balance over the years. This super mobile class' primary offensive tactic boiled down to...stand still and punch a lot. Based on the Monk player character that was fielded in my Rose Street Revenge session I think that problem is no more. Will be interesting to see how their viability is impacted. Hit and run Monk makes a lot more sense.
Based on an admittedly small sample size, my monk experience so far has been awesome. The superior speed + flurry of blows frustrated many a foe and prevented a TPK.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In fact I don't think I know of any game that truly allows you to model every concept.
You have to go extremely rules lite - Fate, for instance, can accommodate pretty much any concept (I'm playing a sentient floating blob of infectious disease currently) but it actually limits actions, in my opinion, because it is so rules lite (my blob may have powers over disease but because the system doesn't clearly define them it often becomes trying to convince the GM to interpert things the way the player wants).
Alternatively, a well written rules heavy system provides clear guidelines on how things work. I've experienced this as being really helpful for players who aren't self confident or outgoing. It also keeps the loudest person at the table from dominating.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I guess I am part of what you could call the target group. Every company needs to expand its customer base not to stagnate. PF1 appeals to a group of 3.5 fans that didn't want to follow WotC on its path to 4e. This group was large at the beginning but years show, it will not draw new players into its fold and starts to dwindle. I also loved 3.5, but PF1 has too much bloat, I just have not the spare time to read into this bloat. I played 5e in the meantime and while it is oversimplistic and easy to learn but it can become bland and boring easily as well. When I heard of the PF playtest by coincidence I immediately jumped on board and yeah, it looks very promising to me and I had a ton of fun since.
Honestly, staunch PF1 fans will probably stay with PF1 anyways. And why not, you still have tons of material and adventures to play for decades. Your hope for PF2 is a minimally tweaked PF1 and will not accept less but this will not attract new players.
Contributor
|
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
Couldn't she have multiclassed Cleric? That seems totally in line with that character backstory. But to take that as a general complaint rather than a specific complaint, that is an issue of content not mechanics. When PF1 came out, there were many concepts you couldn't exactly replicate as well, even with its feat structure. In fact I don't think I know of any game that truly allows you to model every concept.
I would be very impressed with a PF2 paladin who could afford the 16 starting Wisdom necessary to multiclass into cleric at 2nd level while maintaining combat competence and the paladin class's needs.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
And why not, you still have tons of material and adventures to play for decades. Your hope for PF2 is a minimally tweaked PF1 and will not accept less but this will not attract new players.
As D@rK-SePHiRoTH- pointed out with the Monk a few posts back Pathfinder First Edition already got it's minimally tweaked update with Unchained. I didn't touch Unchained despite hearing good things - because I have new to TTRPG players in my campaigns and optional rules are inherently confusing. I did patchwork houserules for 3.5...but it had diminishing returns and ultimately wasn't worth the effort. If I'm going to create a mountain of houserules for a system it's going to be for thematic reasons...not to balance the system. I see a lot of opportunity in the playtest and I think the final product will fit my table's needs nicely.
|
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
I liked Paizo's decision-making better when they said they weren't trying to compete with WotC/D&D. They made decisions that made sense for them and their fanbase. Things seem like they took a turn they tried to spin-off an MMO. Maybe Paizo is becoming a victim of their own success.
I see a lot of the game design that's centered around what will work best for PFS. Since PFS is a public thing at conventions and has a good reporting system (not to mention all the advice Paizo gets from PFS VLs), it makes since that PFS would heavily influence the game design. I worry though, since Paizo doesn't get analogous feedback from the homegaming community, that what's good for home games is being marginalized, or left out completely. Even the playtest adventure that drives all the feedback data they're collecting is designed to fit in a PFS-style, single-run, 4-hour slot. PF2 will be optimized for PFS play.
Which is a strange thing to me because Paizo has always said APs are their best sellers and "bread and butter" when it comes to revenue.
-Skeld
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I asked my wife, and she says her goal as a player is "to be unpredicable." She has a reputation for derailing adventure paths, even among other GMs than me. I like how she improves the story because her derailments are from her characters having more realistic concerns and reactions than stereotypical adventurers have. For example, in Fires of Creation she played a young dwarf smith, an exceptional townsfolk with ordinary ambitions forced into exceptional circumstances. When they discovered a villain's base in town and could have broken in and claimed the villain's secret loot, they went to the town council and reported it like responsible citizens. The module did not plan for that.
You have to excuse me, I had to grin widely when reading this. I immediately thought of an adventure path around a horticultural show, where a cast of diverse gardeners compete to raise the biggest pumpkin.
But jokes aside, the town council should just have sent them back after chastising them why they did not return with the villain's secret loot like a loyal citizen would have done. Easy solution there! XD
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Things like Resonance make way more sense as optional-for-home-play, but mandatory-for-Society-play rules rather than being hard-coded into the entire balance of the game.Just my opinion:
Resonance (for consumables) is terrible for PFS. The current setup for healing really needs a Cleric in the party, and you can't guarantee that for PFS.
That really just brings us back around to "Resonance is a terrible mechanic". You can't force home-games to bring a heal-battery Cleric every time, either.
I'd, personally, like to see Resonance done away with entirely.
But if the devs feel they simply must include the Resonance mechanic for "balance reasons" then I think it should explicitly be limited to a required-for-Society-play and optional-for-home-games mechanic.