
Moro |

Toblakai wrote:So your Fantasy Ground link shows PFRPG at 80,000 games.
Looking at 2016 graph PFRPG accounts 40,000 games.
Seems like usage for PF is growing right alongside all the rest of the games. The pie is just getting a lot bigger.
Yeah, "winning" isn't worth a lot if "losing" means twice as many people are playing your game.
There's a strong argument that D&D's recent success is directly growing the size of the pie by bringing new players into the hobby. Which is good for everyone.
Which is great, if tons of these new players are purchasing your material. Which it seems to me from everything I am reading and hearing that they are not.

D@rK-SePHiRoTH- |
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D@rK-SePHiRoTH- wrote:...and the "designing APs is difficult when characters values can be vastly unpredictable"problem.
The game is designed around Paizo's needs, not ours.
Honestly, this is also OUR problem, not just Paizo's. I don't know about you, but I'm a Paizo customer who uses those APs, so if they have a tough time keeping it both fun and exciting, then it's MY concern, too.
It just so happens that a lot of things that changed are things my group was sort of doing, anyway.
Being able to choose to trivialize modules by optimizing is a feature.

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Many would disagree. The changes we’re seeing haven’t been made in a vacuum. Our individual perspectives can be myopic, especially since we are not privy to financial data Paizo can access and the larger gaming world has changed while our home campaigns have not. Systems that don't break when you hit the gas pedal appear to be very popular these days. The choice for any company to modernize is grounded in data, internal and external.

Azih |

Landon Winkler wrote:Toblakai wrote:So your Fantasy Ground link shows PFRPG at 80,000 games.
Looking at 2016 graph PFRPG accounts 40,000 games.
Seems like usage for PF is growing right alongside all the rest of the games. The pie is just getting a lot bigger.
Yeah, "winning" isn't worth a lot if "losing" means twice as many people are playing your game.
There's a strong argument that D&D's recent success is directly growing the size of the pie by bringing new players into the hobby. Which is good for everyone.
Which is great, if tons of these new players are purchasing your material. Which it seems to me from everything I am reading and hearing that they are not.
Considering they hired more people to double their output of Starfinder content to meet demand I really think they're fine.

Toblakai |

Which is great, if tons of these new players are purchasing your material. Which it seems to me from everything I am reading and hearing that they are not.
Where are you hearing this? I know there is a company (ICv2) that tracks games sales, but they don't have access to sales direct from Paizo. It has been many many years since I have bought a Pathfinder item not from Paizo, and if you notice I subscribe to most of Paizo's offerings.

Anguish |

Anguish wrote:Statement without any support..... I would love to see the statement supported, but you through something and and are trying to see if it sticks...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'm sorry, but I'm not understanding what you're trying to say. Could you please explain what you mean?

Lyee |
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D@rK-SePHiRoTH- wrote:Being able to choose to trivialize modules by optimizing is a feature.Rarely have I disagreed with anything as strongly as I disagree with this comment.
I'm somewhere in the middle.
Being able to push a skill well enough to skip the occasional fight or obstacle. Having a crazy utility skill/item/ability to half the boss difficulty, etc, is awesome in moderation. I want those situations to come up a few times per module.
But if there's a module about gathering power to fight a super-monster, and you can optimize so hard that you can walk up to it and out-combat it at the module start, then there are problems. If you have one uber-spell that removes teh concept of combat, or some diplomacy-based feat that means all intelligent creatures obey you, then there are problems.
I worry that PF2 will reduce the cool moments from my first paragraph to near-zero in an effort to kill the system-breaking from my second paragraph. I hope this isn't the case.

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As for not interacting with us, in the 6 years I’ve been on this site this is absolutely the MOST I’ve ever seen the Developers on the forums talking with people.
Very much this ^^
I've been tooling around here since the early lifespan of PF1 around when Council of Thieves dropped and in that time I've plenty of official Paizo input on these forums, but since PF2 Playtest news dropped the Dev participation here has dramatically increased from my perspective.
I'm honestly not sure how they could possibly communicate more often in a professional manner unless they decided to hire someone to hang out at the main office walking around with a Tablet all day just sharing and collecting feedback as a full time job.
BTW Paizo, if you ever need someone like this hit me up, I'm sure we could find a way to make it work for us both ;)

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Guessing at motivations is fun as long as we're not serious about it and remember that none of us are mind readers.
The negativity around Paizo using multiple means of communication is... odd...
It's 2018. Everything is scattered across twitch, youtube, facebook, twitter, instagram, websites etc etc etc.
Just because everyone does it, does not mean it's a good thing.

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh |
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Being able to choose to trivialize modules by optimizing is a feature.
The vast majority of published PF1.0 material is way too low level for being able to trivialise it by optimising to be anything other than a bug, and I have been hoping for a solution other than not welcoming hyper-optimisers at my table or extreme house-ruling.
The kind of narratives I want the game to support involve 1st-level terrified newbies growing to 20th-level world-shaking legends (at least), and that does need players not being able to trivialise anything level-appropriate; an orc being a bug on the windshield of a 10th-level character is fine, but not of a 1st-level character who has found a broken rules interaction. I have my doubts about some of the PF2.0 approach to how play scales with level, but I want to see playtest data for the higher-level parts of Doomsday Dawn before settling on a firm position.

Harry Canyon |

Andy Brown wrote:The Blue Fairy wrote: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.
Err... You can rule ANY way you like in a home game... No one can tell you what to do at your home table...
Sorry, I don't get this complaint at all...
Take care,
Harry
P.S. I've only read up to the quoted post so far when posting my response.

D@rK-SePHiRoTH- |

D@rK-SePHiRoTH- wrote:Being able to choose to trivialize modules by optimizing is a feature.Rarely have I disagreed with anything as strongly as I disagree with this comment.
I ynderstand that you disagree but you cannot deny that because it gives more choice, it IS a feature, wether one you like or dislike

Harry Canyon |

BryonD wrote:Yeah, I don't really think that is all that true. The way things are going, developers seem to think that "less complexity" is the way to go with every new game out. That thinking seems to imply that developers think young people nowadays are less intelligent or educated than before. I don't think I'd agree with that sentiment.Did I say anything about math?
I think 3E learned a great deal from the games that came before it and evolved to be a very modern game at the time. (Math issues and all)
A lot more has been learned about what makes a game great since then and 5E, for example, has learned (again). Shoulders of giants and all that.
Plus, I still love PF, but kids that were not gaming (or alive) 18 years ago have different tastes and different alternatives.
Things change. Age matters.
Different perspectives...
"Less complexity" to me means, that the GM had to make 'a call' and didn't have a rules system with overwhelming minutiae to help adjudicate the situation. <shrug>
NOTE: This is not an endorsement of either edition of Pathfinder. (Or any other game system for that matter.)

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh |
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MaxAstro wrote:I ynderstand that you disagree but you cannot deny that because it gives more choice, it IS a feature, wether one you like or dislikeD@rK-SePHiRoTH- wrote:Being able to choose to trivialize modules by optimizing is a feature.Rarely have I disagreed with anything as strongly as I disagree with this comment.
I have no problem at all regarding "more choice" as not necessarily inherently a feature, and as sometimes a bug, depending on how it interacts with other parts of the game and metagame.
More options => less time to test each individual option => more risk of trap options and gamebreakers being missed, for one thing. I'd much rather have less choice if it meant the options I did have available were overall better.

D@rK-SePHiRoTH- |
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One of the best features of PF1 is being able to calibrate my character to be exactly as good as appropriate for the group.
I play in different groups at vastly different levels of optimization and this degree of freedom is for me an extremely important part of what makes the system fun and rewarding for me.