An expression of exasperation towards the end of the playtest

[Colette Brunel]

I thought that it would be relevant to the general discussion subforum to share some of my frustrations with the end of the playtest, which I have posted here.

[The Once and Future Kai]

Thanks for sharing. I've appreciated your input here even though I've had a more positive experience with the playtest.

[CyberMephit]

One thing I am unhappy about that I think is relevant to Colette's experience is why haven't we received a Bestiary update so long after the devs acknowledged the issues brought up by DMW's analysis.
Surely if they would have just said "Monsters get -1 to skills per 7 levels and additional -2 to untrained skills along with the same change for the PCs" it would have instantly brought the monsters closer to the intended levels and would have improved the game for the players having a difficult time, without requiring a huge overhaul?

[Gorbacz]

Perhaps because statistics told them that the "the game is unplayable with monster stats as written, we're TPKing every game" was an outlier.

[CyberMephit]

Yes well there are survey statistics and then there are forum doom&gloom levels :)
I hope I am overestimating the latter but in this age of social media it seems to be at least as important for success as the actual player satisfaction rate - because people who read the rants before playing can decide not to even try.
And note that I'm not advocating for this change because of the rants - only because devs have gone on record saying they agree with the analysis proving the numbers wrong, and yet people have to keep playing with those.

[MER-c]

There is a reason why I tell all my new players to not even look up forums or social media regarding pathfinder of any kind, y'all can get so vitriolic about everything it makes me question if the average age on this forum is either 60, or 6.

[Vic Ferrari]

MER-c wrote:

There is a reason why I tell all my new players to not even look up forums or social media regarding pathfinder of any kind, y'all can get so vitriolic about everything it makes me question if the average age on this forum is either 60, or 6.

Yeah, I never recommend someone thinking about getting into this game to visit sites such as this, and posts such as the above are a reason why.

[The Sideromancer]

Interesting. I will frequently go to sites somewhat like this as a way of answering "is there enough here to be worth getting into?" To hear that somebody wanted that information not accessed would be suspicious, to say the least. Oh, I'd probably listen, but I likely wouldn't ever get beyond being a first-timer either.

[Vic Ferrari]

The Sideromancer wrote:

Interesting. I will frequently go to sites somewhat like this as a way of answering "is there enough here to be worth getting into?"

Going to sites such as this are not the way to entice.

[The Sideromancer]

There are better places to go to plumb the depths of what can be done with a game than places like this?

[Fuzzypaws]

Vic Ferrari wrote:

The Sideromancer wrote:

Interesting. I will frequently go to sites somewhat like this as a way of answering "is there enough here to be worth getting into?"

Going to sites such as this are not the way to entice.

I would tend to expect the official forums for a game to be the primary place to get info and impressions about that game, tbh.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like internet communities are never the best or most welcoming place to explore or discuss anything gaming related, they are simply the most readily available ones. For whatever reasons games related online communities, I find, are simply are less welcoming and friendly than like "baking forums" or "sports forums" or "beekeeping forums".

[MaxAstro]

...Although sports forums can get pretty toxic, too. :P

But yeah, there's a crazy amount of gatekeeping and badwrongfun accusing that happens in gaming in general, and often the official forums of a game are the den of the most entrenched.

I've been on forums for games that have lovely communities (Arcen Games comes to mind) but for every AI Wars there's an Ark, a League of Legends, and a Rust.

These forums overall tend to be positive and welcoming, but the playtest in particular seems to have brought out the worst of it. :(

[The Once and Future Kai]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like internet communities are never the best or most welcoming place to explore or discuss anything gaming related, they are simply the most readily available ones. For whatever reasons games related online communities, I find, are simply are less welcoming and friendly than like "baking forums" or "sports forums" or "beekeeping forums".

On this note... I was surprised to discover that the online miniature painting is refreshingly nontoxic when I started as a novice a couple of years ago. It was a stark contrast to the gaming communities I'd participated in for decades. Who knew - grimdark Warhammer 40k fans are actually supportive and encouraging of newcomers to their hobby.

[MER-c]

MaxAstro wrote:

...Although sports forums can get pretty toxic, too. :P

But yeah, there's a crazy amount of gatekeeping and badwrongfun accusing that happens in gaming in general, and often the official forums of a game are the den of the most entrenched.

I've been on forums for games that have lovely communities (Arcen Games comes to mind) but for every AI Wars there's an Ark, a League of Legends, and a Rust.

These forums overall tend to be positive and welcoming, but the playtest in particular seems to have brought out the worst of it. :(

Very much this.

I will say the Starfinder section is actually really chill, and pretty newbie friendly.

Oh yeah, warhammer hobbyists are awesome, they'll be the first to share how they paint things and what is a good idea to get the color you want, don't bother with people that only play the game though, they're the reason we get a bad rep.

[Vic Ferrari]

Fuzzypaws wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

The Sideromancer wrote:

Interesting. I will frequently go to sites somewhat like this as a way of answering "is there enough here to be worth getting into?"

Going to sites such as this are not the way to entice.

I would tend to expect the official forums for a game to be the primary place to get info and impressions about that game, tbh.

Well, unfortunately, that is a sad state of affairs, due to the toxicity levels.

[Chance Wyvernspur]

Gorbacz wrote:

Perhaps because statistics told them that the "the game is unplayable with monster stats as written, we're TPKing every game" was an outlier.

I could see that. The game in which I play has lately been cake-walking through fights. Colette reported TPKs in Affair at Sombrefell Hall and I was expecting troubles, but we crushed them. I'm pretty sure the difference is the DM and the way we're interpreting rules at the table. Given Colette's greater experience with the system, I suspect the game in which I play is messing up stuff. We've got a number of newer players and few of the veterans is able to dedicate a significant time to mining the rules.

An interesting example is Resonance. The DM expressed to me his frustration with the system and thought I might share his opinion. But alas, I haven't really encountered the Resonance system. I mean, Hero Lab Online tracks what gear I've equipped and I've never run out of Resonance. There have got to be things that I'm not spending Resonance on that I should be, but rereading the Resonance rules I don't think so. Do people ever run out? I've not used any one-shot items during the entire playtest, like a healing potion. Am I an outlier?

[Ssalarn]

Chance Wyvernspur wrote:

I could see that. The game in which I play has lately been cake-walking through fights. Colette reported TPKs in Affair at Sombrefell Hall and I was expecting troubles, but we crushed them. I'm pretty sure the difference is the DM and the way we're interpreting rules at the table. Given Colette's greater experience with the system, I suspect the game in which I play is messing up stuff. We've got a number of newer players and few of the veterans is able to dedicate a significant time to mining the rules.

Group tactics and luck will also play a significant role in how difficult many fights become.

The Lost Star anecdotes:

One group I ran pulled basically the entire dungeon (save for room specific threats) during The Lost Star and fought a pitched battle across area A6, using choke points to support each other and keep the number of enemies that could threaten them at any one point in time limited. Another group managed to get the jump on Drakus and knock him prone with a command spell; before he could get back on his feet both the ranger and barbarian scored critical hits (both would have been normal hits if he hadn't been prone) and dropped him before he ever got a hit in.

The Heroes of Undarin anecdotes:

So far I've played this once and GM'd twice. My play group and the second group I GM'd actually survived, despite the adventure being intentionally structured to cause a TPK. For the second group I GM'd in particular, their survival had a lot to do with the group using formations that kept them far enough apart to avoid too many of them taking damage from a given AoE while still being close enough to step in and assist each other or provide flanks. They also had a ton of party resources, with the monk having alchemical items to address his own healing, a very casting-oriented cleric of Sarenrae with lots of domain abilities, a gnome Angelic bloodline sorcerer, and a ranger who had multiclassed druid for some spellcasting (or possibly cleric? I'm unsure whether this was just before or just after the multiclassing update.)They played it tight, managed to save most of the cleric's heal / channel energy for the later encounters, and were really good about letting higher accuracy PCs set up other party members for their attacks with various debuffs.

Chance Wyvernspur wrote:

An interesting example is Resonance. The DM expressed to me his frustration with the system and thought I might share his opinion. But alas, I haven't really encountered the Resonance system. I mean, Hero Lab Online tracks what gear I've equipped and I've never run out of Resonance. There have got to be things that I'm not spending Resonance on that I should be, but rereading the Resonance rules I don't think so. Do people ever run out? I've not used any one-shot items during the entire playtest, like a healing potion. Am I an outlier?

YMMV, but in my experience running out of resonance is rarely an issue until you hit the higher levels of play. The first time it came up in any of my groups was when I ran The Heroes of Undarin, and that mostly hit the party monk who had a 10 CHA and was using alchemical items for buffs and healing. We had a dwarf fighter in another group who might have experienced it as an issue if he hadn't just decided to skip using potions for healing entirely.

[Jason Bulmahn]

Folks,

Lets not make threads to point to other threads.

This thread is locked.