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Here are my notes from Friday’s Twitch stream (November 9th). I haven’t seen a thread with watch notes yet and had a little time this morning so here you go. “Quotations” are not word-for-word accurate, just my best attempt to capture while typing along.
Where we’re at. Data from players will be collected till the end of the year. The “official” follow-along period of the playtest is coming to the close and the design team is now able to shift gears and “knuckle down and get a better focus on the things we need to do to get the game done.” More on this later.
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Surveys. They’ve just broken 30,000 survey results (total, across all surveys). Jason wants to talk about some of the general surveys (e.g., rules presentation). 7 observations, counting down:
7) Icons. 85% really like the icons. But common feedback that Reaction and Free Action aren’t easy enough to distinguish. In-house feedback on the surveys mirrored public feedback: a little skeptical at first and then after a couple weeks totally taken for granted and wished-for.
6) Organization. Number one feedback: conditions need to be in the back of the book! So that’s happening. (75% or more, overwhelming.) Powers will move out of the Spells chapter (this has already happened in the internal documents).
5) Monsters. 75% really love the new way of building monsters (i.e., not trying to mirror player stats). 95% love the unique monster abilities (e.g., steal shadow). “We think that the monster paradigm itself is on track” but the numbers need adjusting. Common feedback from Doomsday Dawn is that combats can be a bit of a slog because monsters are so resilient, so tough, so hard to kill. (Really?? *Not* my group’s experience!)
4) Spells. Many folks think that the Playtest went too weak on the spells. Many folks want more power for spells. Asked how to change spells, #1 response is to make spells have a higher success rate. #2 response was to enhance power of individual spells. All other responses were “leagues behind.” What spells were missing? Animate Dead was #1. Was written as a ritual but cut from playtest to save space (rituals lost 4 pages close to the end). Jason laughs about a forum joke about a spell called dinosaur fort, says that he will find a way to get this into PF2, maybe as a magic item, who knows—but at some point it’ll get into the game.
3) Magic items. Which item types are missing? Greatly requested: Artifacts and “Relics” (items that scale in power with you, Jason spoils the name for the system). Jason: “I thought people cared really an awful lot about how wands work. And a lot of systems were built on that assumption.” But the vast majority of people went “meh, not really” when asked. Players want wands in the game but don’t care about the “scrolls in a stick” format. So the design team is looking at that.
2) Resonance/Focus. Folks didn’t like the original system. Feedback on the Resonance/Focus test was very fractured, all over the place as to what folks liked and didn’t like. Jason: so if none of these options is attracting overwhelming support, then none is the obvious right choice. They might end up going with one of the options they’ve floated, but they’re going to take a hard look at it and see if it’s something we’ve seen or something else. They’ve got a couple “solid leads” and are working on it.
1) Yea or Nay? When asked, overall what’s your optimism for PF2, in light of the playtest rules and all updates through the playtest? Currently, only 4% of responses are negative about the direction things are going. 66% of responses are overwhelmingly positive. Jason says he’s pretty confident in the accuracy of that small 4% number.
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Once the playtest is done, Jason wants to do a major survey about the playtest itself and how it went. Also a macro survey about the playtest rules as they stand at the end of the playtest.
Talks about how they failed to communicate the nature of the playtest. “I’m worried some folks came to this thinking they’d be playtesting what was basically a finished game.” Wishes they’d just released Burnt Offerings (which they did internally) as a fun, relaxed adventure to go along with the stress-test of the rules like Doomsday Dawn.
Where we’re at. Been gathering feedback for three months now. Design team has been working hard to collect all feedback. Cataloguing every single problem that folks find. Some of the changes were big enough or testable enough that they went into update documents. Others couldn’t go into updates because either they were isolated “oh we need to fix that” or too big to release mid-playtest (e.g., fixing the underlying, fundamental math of the game—impossible to change because affects everything).
About a month ago, multi-day design meeting cataloguing every single problem each design team member had found by that point in all the feedback. This master list of problems has been maintained on an ongoing basis. Jason added something to the list “yesterday” based on forum feedback.
They know about the math problems, exploring some ideas (including based on some forum ideas they found “very interesting”).
Jason: I get the owners of the company coming to my office saying, what are you doing with this system? What are you going to tell the fans? But he doesn’t want to interfere with the playtest process by talking about next-steps when they haven’t gathered all the data they want from the playtest itself.
The updates “are such a small part about what we’re doing.” Just what they release for further testing. Behind the scenes, they’re at the point where they’re transitioning away from using the playtest rulebook itself because the game has changed so much.
Jason: Once the playtest is over, folks can expect us to talk much more freely and openly about what direction the game is taking. I almost want to do a “what have we learned” stream, and use that to springboard into showcasing what we’re doing for PF2. The playtest is not second edition!
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Stream transitions to Q&A.
On track for August 2019? Jason: nothing about our initial plan has changed at this point. There’s a *lot* of work to be done. Right now, on track. But if they can’t meet the deadline they’ll look to adjust.
Skills & +1/lvl? Jason talks about the fractional formula math in 3.5/PF1, add your level or a fraction of your level for everything you do. Easiest way to solve the problem caused by fractional math was to get rid of fractional math. There has been some negative feedback and they’re thinking about whether/how to change. E.g., they’ve looked at what happens if untrained doesn’t add character level. Would that be a dealbreaker? “The answer might not be no.” But they’d have to make sure that no critical defense is based on something that could be untrained. E.g., can’t have any attack target your Acrobatics DC if that would be 10 if you’re untrained. So would require adjustment but might be worth it for players’ sense of verisimilitude (I’ve never trained stealth—why at a high level am I suddenly good at stealth?)
Skill ranks? Jason: No. Not going back to skill ranks. (Maybe as an optional system later.) Everything in the game works off of proficiency, don’t want skills to work on an entirely different system. Makes onboarding for new players much tougher. Says the unified proficiency system has been *great* for new players learning. Weird for PF1 players because different from what we’re used to, but better for the game overall.
Animate dead? Looking at possibilities like the PF1 Troop rules. Talks about PF1 problems of controlling a ton of summons, dramatically slowing down play. (Jason: I wrote the summoner, blame me.)
Spells beyond 3 actions? No, we can’t allow in combat spells that take more than 3 actions to cast.
Dan complains a bit about how he didn’t have social media reach at the start of the playtest and it took a while to build up the visibility of the playtest. Says he should have started building out the online presence 6 months earlier. Jason: “There was a turning point that happened a few weeks in, folks started watching the twitch stream and live posting to the forums.” That’s when it started to break out a little bit.
Ancestries? Jason: what we’re going to look very hard at is making sure that every feat or option is worth taking. We just took the PF1 races and broke them apart and says, “that does it!” But the options are wildly variable in power. EVERYONE takes Halfling Luck. The split between heritage and ancestry was a step in the right direction. But need to balance the options against each other, make sure that each is “sexy enough for everyone to want” rather than some not being worth the investment to take.
Monday—No update or anything. There will be a blog recapping some of this, but Paizo has the day off for Veteran’s Day so it’ll be pretty light.
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Thanks for putting this together. I watched it after my Fate Core game on Friday but it's always nice to have someone put it in writing.
2) Resonance/Focus. Folks didn’t like the original system. Feedback on the Resonance/Focus test was very fractured, all over the place as to what folks liked and didn’t like. Jason: so if none of these options is attracting overwhelming support, then none is the obvious right choice. They might end up going with one of the options they’ve floated, but they’re going to take a hard look at it and see if it’s something we’ve seen or something else. They’ve got a couple “solid leads” and are working on it
I'm running the Resonance Test the Friday after Thanksgiving so, grain of salt, but this was my impression as well. For the most part, there's not a lot of interest/support for Focus for magic items....but there are some bright points. Like the Staff rules.
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As always, thanks to anyone who makes a thread summing up the Twitch streams. These are very helpful with trying to keep track of everything going on for those of us who haven't watched.
The solution for wands is extremely easy: invested like a permanent item, and with a limited amount of charges (like 10).
I mostly agree with what is recapped here, but there are a few very important points that I would like to know if they are getting addressed by the staff: magical weapon damage and exploration mode, for example.
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I mean, scrolls have always been for "I might want to cast that spell, but not often enough to bother preparing/learning it." So from that perspective a scroll-analogue which you can use over and over is an odd idea. If you are going to get a lot of use out of a spell you can just learn/prepare it. All wands really ever did was "allow you to circumvent the limit of spell slots" but my preference is to set that limit where it is minimally agonizing, rather that expecting casters to own the correct panoply of mystic gewgaws to make their lives easier.
I mean, if there is a type of magic item every wizard should own it is a staff not a wand. It's just that this did not happen in recent editions as wands were cheap while staves were extremely pricey.
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I wonder how that 4% takes into account people who gave up on the playtest to the point that they didn't take the surveys. (whether that be 'gave up after playtesting' or 'didn't even bother')
The problem with this sort of things is that there's bound to be a self-selection bias toward those in favour of the rules.
How would they even go about getting that statistic anyway? I'm guessing its 4% of the people who actually took the surveys.
It seems to me that they are just considering those people "lost" and are aiming to serve those that are self selecting here.
But then again, what are they even supposed to do about this? Other than maybe just guessing at what would have a broader appeal and designing for that, they would have to find a way to get a really broad representation of opinion, which I don't think they could do from gathering data from only this site, and in this short of a period of time.
I feel like they have an idea of what the want to do already, and just wanted some outside opinions to shape it a little. A lot different than the 5e playtest which went through many iterations and gathered data from a much wider audience. If this was a bad or good thing remains to be seen.
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Those people were told by a variety of different people and over a variety of different times that the only way they had a chance to get PF2 to match what they wanted was to stick around and fill out the playtest surveys. If they did not do so, that's pretty much on them.
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I got the impression from one of Mark Seifter’s chat comments during the stream that the devs are looking at possibly removing the +1/level for skills while keeping it in other places.
My overall sense is that they are seriously looking at all options here and nothing is off the table at the moment.
Anyone watching the stream should keep an eye out for his comment and see if you get the same impression as I. I believe it was during the Q&A portion.
Those people were told by a variety of different people and over a variety of different times that the only way they had a chance to get PF2 to match what they wanted was to stick around and fill out the playtest surveys. If they did not do so, that's pretty much on them.
Hey man, I agree with you, I'm just pointing out that the self-selection bias is real. Not much you can do about it in the end.
I am happy they are open to bigger changes, I just wish they gave more time for playtesting instead of making the changes after it has closed. What if one of their new changes ends up being really controversial? This is how you get super early errata.
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Those people were told by a variety of different people and over a variety of different times that the only way they had a chance to get PF2 to match what they wanted was to stick around and fill out the playtest surveys. If they did not do so, that's pretty much on them.
(A) We were also clearly told that certain changes were off the table.
(B) [and much more importantly] Blaming the customer is an insane approach and the best possible path to failure. It is hard to find anywhere with widespread enthusiasm. It seems in the hobby at large you can't even find people who will bother to complain. It seems 2E simply doesn't have the presence to get fans worked up the way a D&D edition does. So rather than complain, they just shrug and move on. But using a survey that appeals only to people who are still engaged in the system as an evaluation of acceptance is an truly eyeball rolling level of echo chamber. But when you do ask people who are hobbyists without a biased selection criteria, that 4% number moves by more than on order of magnitude.
There are great games out there. Nobody unhappy with 2E is going to be blaming them self two years from now. They just won't be thinking about it at all as they play something else. But, if history is a guide, the handful of people who do love it will be blaming those who walked away, rather than recognizing that they had a chance to call for a bigger tent game.
1) Yea or Nay? When asked, overall what’s your optimism for PF2, in light of the playtest rules and all updates through the playtest? Currently, only 4% of responses are negative about the direction things are going. 66% of responses are overwhelmingly positive. Jason says he’s pretty confident in the accuracy of that small 4% number.I wonder how that 4% takes into account people who gave up on the playtest to the point that they didn't take the surveys. (whether that be 'gave up after playtesting' or 'didn't even bother')
The problem with this sort of things is that there's bound to be a self-selection bias toward those in favour of the rules.
This is obviously a difficult question to assess.
As you note, it's likely that there's going to be some bias introduced by the fact that people who have been turned off aren't going to continue taking surveys.
But it's also likely that there's going to be some bias introduced by the fact that people who are relatively content with the status of things are less motivated to give feedback than people who are upset. (This is certainly true in other cases: upset customers are more likely to provide reviews on Amazon products than content customers, upset people are more likely to vote than content people, and so on. And, I'm embarrassed to say, it's certainly true in my case -- given the constraints on my time, I've only gotten myself to complete surveys on things that I thought were going seriously off-track.)
I'm not sure if we (or they) are in a good position to know how big each of those bias effects are. But perhaps they're thinking they more or less cancel each other out?
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Remember to not just focus on Ancestry feats. The base chassis of the ancestries really needs to be balanced first. A lot of the things nobody is picking can probably just get baked in. Cherry picking is problematic as it is.
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I feel like if we were to remove +level from untrained skills there would either need to be more opportunities for skill increases or we would need to create a category below "untrained" ("hapless" perhaps) for this to be in. Since "I cannot determine if this is a dragon or tell what color it is" and "I cannot tell the difference between a vampire and an ooze" are comedy beats, not failings we should see as common for mighty heroes.
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Yeah, I'm actually not a big fan of removing Level from Untrained Skills. The -4 penalty seems about right, in many ways.
If we're worried about verisimilitude, I'd make a few more things Trained Only rather than remove level from Untrained checks.
The rest mostly sounds pretty good.
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1) Yea or Nay? When asked, overall what’s your optimism for PF2, in light of the playtest rules and all updates through the playtest? Currently, only 4% of responses are negative about the direction things are going. 66% of responses are overwhelmingly positive. Jason says he’s pretty confident in the accuracy of that small 4% number.I wonder how that 4% takes into account people who gave up on the playtest to the point that they didn't take the surveys. (whether that be 'gave up after playtesting' or 'didn't even bother')
The problem with this sort of things is that there's bound to be a self-selection bias toward those in favour of the rules.
Jason was asked about this, and he's mathematically confident in that answer, with a variance of about 2.5%.
Remember that though there's the group of people that are "I hate this so much I don't even want to bother answering", there's also the "I like this but am too lazy to fill out the surveys" (more than half of my group) set. Despite the vast majority of my group having studied game design, it's extremely difficult to get them to fill out surveys, as a lot of them are also extreme procrastinators - the "I'll do it tomorrow", which never comes, type.
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I'm fine with adding a level based factor to skills and attacks and saves and everything else. It's a LOT simpler than all the different metrics of PF1. I just want it to be HALF LEVEL, not full level, so your actual proficiency modifier and ability scores are not so overwhelmed by level. :)
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I'm fine with adding a level based factor to skills and attacks and saves and everything else. It's a LOT simpler than all the different metrics of PF1. I just want it to be HALF LEVEL, not full level, so your actual proficiency modifier and ability scores are not so overwhelmed by level. :)
I would rather double the proficiency bonus, honestly. Half-level just matches up awkwardly with PF1 since you added level to a bunch of things in PF1- most notably BAB and skills you are maxing.
Plus with half-level you really do not improve very much on odd numbered levels and I would like every level up to feel important.
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Jason was asked about this, and he's mathematically confident in that answer, with a variance of about 2.5%.
Uh, thats nice. Did he pull that number out of somewhere or did he actually try and justify a completely unjustifiable statement (there is NO way that ANYBODY has any clue how well the surveys actually represent reality. At BEST, he has some vague evidence that suggests some kind of correspondence)
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There are entire fields of statistics focused on survey data...I am pretty sure there are statistical ways of factoring in changes in survey participation and their influence on end results.
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I'm fine with adding a level based factor to skills and attacks and saves and everything else. It's a LOT simpler than all the different metrics of PF1. I just want it to be HALF LEVEL, not full level, so your actual proficiency modifier and ability scores are not so overwhelmed by level. :)I would rather double the proficiency bonus, honestly. Half-level just matches up awkwardly with PF1 since you added level to a bunch of things in PF1- most notably BAB and skills you are maxing. Plus with half-level you really do not improve very much on odd numbered levels and I would like every level up to feel important.
I don't think how it matches up (or not) to PF1 is relevant, PF2 is approaching system math systematically and from scratch.
But doubling proficiency bonus - and stat bonus, allowing for odd stats to have equal +1 mechanical effect as even stats, is 100% equally viable in terms of his stated motive (proportionality of Level and Stat/Proficiency). The difference is ultimately in proportionality to d20 variance itself. Really, there is 3rd option of doubling stat/proficiency bonus AND halving +Level bonus, which would be different relative balance re: Level/Stat/Prof/d20.
The biggest impact of removing +Level from Untrained IMHO would be re: non-scaling / Objective DCs. It already was failing scaled Difficulties, so no change there, it is more about Objective DCs also failing to (automtically) become progressively more/auto-passable. The question being, would this change happen in context of Objective DCs becoming more central part of game? Objective DCs (/modifiers etc) near absence from Playtest is one of largest differences from 3.x/P1E, in way that really affects fundamental feel of game IMHO.
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Jason was asked about this, and he's mathematically confident in that answer, with a variance of about 2.5%.
I don't have the full context of this comment. But, it sounds like an entirely reasonably and likely valid response. But *only for the population represented by the survey*.
If you go to a MAGA meet-up you could find that Trump has an approval rating of 96% with a variance of +/- 2.5%. That would be quite reasonable.
On the other topic: +level is a real problem. For some it is a problem on its face, for others it emerges in wonky side-effects that don't have an immediately obvious cause and effect, and for other the issues will emerge over time. However, no matter how much +level is or is not a problem; ripping it out of this system is certainly not a solution. It is fundamental. Yes, you can mathematically back it out and then roll dice, add numbers and compare to DCs. But there is a huge gulf between mathematically functional and quality game-play.
They are in a bad jam and as much as I complain, I'm not taking the challenge lightly. It is just that the marketplace don't care.
Director of Game Design
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Folks,
Just a small note here before folks spend too much time debating survey percentages.
1. We know our approximate audience size, our sample size, and our desired confidence level, and from that it is not to hard to figure out our margin or error.
2. We also know that there is self selection bias, so almost everything we do comes with an asterisk.
That is what we have to work with. It's not perfect, but it is a far cry more reliable as an insight into audience opinion than anecdotal messageboard data (which is far better in other ways, such as conveying subtext and pointing at specific, fine grain issues). Both are serving their purposes in helping us make a better game.
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1) Yea or Nay? When asked, overall what’s your optimism for PF2, in light of the playtest rules and all updates through the playtest? Currently, only 4% of responses are negative about the direction things are going. 66% of responses are overwhelmingly positive. Jason says he’s pretty confident in the accuracy of that small 4% number.I wonder how that 4% takes into account people who gave up on the playtest to the point that they didn't take the surveys. (whether that be 'gave up after playtesting' or 'didn't even bother')
The problem with this sort of things is that there's bound to be a self-selection bias toward those in favour of the rules.
Yeah, this is sort of a lies-via-statistics moment*. Had there been a "will you buy PF2 based on these rules" or "is there at least one deal-breaker rule system in PF2" then you might be able to draw a conclusion.
In my case, as-is, my groups and I will not be buying in to this system. Again, accepting that the release product will see large change, that's where we're at. But as whole, there are parts of the playtest ruleset that are good, and there are many that are just change we don't really care about one way or another. So... did my survey responses put me in the 4%? Or in the 96%? 'Cuz I can't say my comments were "overwhelmingly negative", or "overwhelmingly positive", but lacking a "will you play this", what does my voice actually say to the survey-creators?
It's easy to crunch my honest answers into "not overwhelmingly negative" and conclude that it's smooth sailing... steady as she goes. But aside from a PDF to see the final rules... we're not customers of the new system, which is what really matters.
*EDIT: to be clear, I am not insinuating, implying, or suggesting that deliberately misleading statements are being made. This is just intended in the context of the truth that statistics can say almost anything depending on how their are crunched. Not saying anyone's deliberately manipulating these results. Number-gathering, easy. Number analysis for meaningful result, hard.
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If anyone from Paizo is reading this thread, here’s my feedback to add to the data: please keep untrained at -2 (or -4 as it currently is). It’s much more important to me that the underlying game system is functional than that it is flavourful or gives a sense of verisimilitude.
Removing the +level to untrained proficiencies requires a lot of work for very little gain. You would need to watch out for abilities that target skill DCs (or require skill checks to pass a DC), and your future design space is constrained because you’ll need to constantly be vigilant of this little snag that screws up the otherwise consistent math of the system.
And what does all this effort achieve? For players to be able to say “I never learned to swim, so I shouldn’t be good at it”? That argument breaks down when you consider how broad skills are in the playtest, as well as in other modern RPGs (5e being one). Athletics governs not just swimming, but climbing and jumping. Someone could be a world class athlete but never learned to swim, and the rules don’t have a way to show a difference between them swimming and someone else who isn’t at all athletic swimming. But that’s not a problem at all, because a player can choose to role play this one weakness (inability to swim) if they so choose.
The game is moving away from arbitrary penalties to players just because they are traditional and how things were always done. Why impose a core rule that brings this back? If you guys see no choice but to make untrained a synonym for “completely unable to contribute in any meaningful manner”, then please make it an optional rule that GMs can implement in their home games, not the standard to which all games are assumed to adopt initially.
Fwiw, I’m someone for whom +1/level is a major negative and it’s largely due to not being able to suck at something (and as an aside - having a swim score of +8 and just pretending I can’t swim doesn’t address my particular, aesthetic issue).
Having said that, I’m sensitive to opinions such as this one (both in terms of personal preferences and as it relates to how the RPG world has progressed). For me, I’d like an official way to suck, but think it would be good if it’s an optional rule under the DM’s control (we make those kinds of calls by consensus). I’m not demanding it be baked in, but “you can houserule it” is one of those sentences which seems to help but doesn’t.
I was encouraged by Jason’s comments on the twitch. They’re thinking about the issue that I have to see if they can address it without compromising the overall design goals. I can’t ask for more than that.
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I hope that Ancestries are fixed and vastly improved, definitely needs overhaul and some build up, we don't need to hold to the past on this, change what must be changed and make them interesting. The ideas presented on the blog post sounded awesome because it gave a mechanical representation to character variations, specially when you wanted to belong to other ancestry (which shouldn't require a feat, I might add, just GM approval, it's better than waste word-count on a thing that gives you other thing).
I would also like ask for a hard look on the insane amount of skills Rogues get. They don't need them. Compensate the changes in other areas, specially in combat, given them nimble reactions, benefits for moving in the round, action economy advantage for setting up sneak attacks, etc. Hopefully, this will lead to other martial characters, specially learned ones like fighters, having more skills that the Rogues are currently "stealing".
The other classes need some love, specially bards (I wouldn't mind if all of their abilities shifted from straight up spells to musical casting, similar to The Name of The Wind) and sorcerers (Great idea on allowing different spell lists, but grossly underpowered and restricted class), consider looking at fighters and rogues as the benchmark and focus on giving possibilities not creating unnecessary restrictions.
Also, before I forget, please go all out on the weapon traits, they have HUGE potential of creating nuanced combat and giving a lot of meaning to the choice of weapon, it's even better if there's no clear options like Greatswords, Battleaxes and similar. Make a trade off or buff the weakest ones, so we can actually have options instead of choosing flavor over effectiveness. Minor bonuses are nice, but nothing is better than having significant mechanical options given by the weapons themselves.
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Folks,
Just a small note here before folks spend too much time debating survey percentages.
1. We know our approximate audience size, our sample size, and our desired confidence level, and from that it is not to hard to figure out our margin or error.
2. We also know that there is self selection bias, so almost everything we do comes with an asterisk.
That is what we have to work with. It's not perfect, but it is a far cry more reliable as an insight into audience opinion than anecdotal messageboard data (which is far better in other ways, such as conveying subtext and pointing at specific, fine grain issues). Both are serving their purposes in helping us make a better game.
It is a far cry more reliable than anecdotal messageboard data at getting the opinions of people who are overall favorable in the first place. For gathering the opinions of people who are strongly pushed away, it would be fair to say that both methods are completely and equally useless.
But beyond that, it is not a good evaluation to hand wave everything into two columns: the "far cry more reliable" self selected, pro-2E survey results and the disdained "anecdotal messageboard data". It would be absurd for me to claim that me stating my personal tastes on a messageboard should be taken as anything more than a drop in a river. And a conversation with a friend of mine who also doesn't like 2E is the very definition of anecdotal.
But there is a point when anecdotes join together and become this thing known as data. And it is possible to set personal bias aside (in either direction) and dispassionately assess which way the wind is truly blowing.
Just because I don't have the tools to tell you that the wind is blowing an average of 13 miles per hour and 163 degrees from north doesn't mean I can't easily figure out that it is blowing south.
And having some data can blind evaluations from the big picture just as easily as putting too much credit in random anecdotes. Particularly if that data is partly censored. ["censored" in the statistics definition]
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snipIt is a far cry more reliable than anecdotal messageboard data at getting the opinions of people who are overall favorable in the first place. For gathering the opinions of people who are strongly pushed away, it would be fair to say that both methods are completely and equally useless.
But beyond that, it is not a good evaluation to hand wave everything into two columns: the "far cry more reliable" self selected, pro-2E survey results and the disdained "anecdotal messageboard data". It would be absurd for me to claim that me stating my personal tastes on a messageboard should be taken as anything more than a drop in a river. And a conversation with a friend of mine who also doesn't like 2E is the very definition of anecdotal.
But there is a point when anecdotes join together and become this thing known as data. And it is possible to set personal bias aside (in either direction) and dispassionately assess which way the wind is truly blowing.
Just because I don't have the tools to tell you that the wind is blowing an average of 13 miles per hour and 163 degrees from north doesn't mean I can't easily figure out that it is blowing south.
And having some data can blind evaluations from the big picture just as easily as putting too much credit in random anecdotes. Particularly if...
Come on, man, Jason came in and explained that they understand what their audience size is, how they're collecting their data through surveys and the forums, and margin for error. Politely, what point are you trying to make any more?
More on topic, I'm happy to see the ongoing work behind the scenes from Paizo and I'm wondering if these Twitch streams will continue after the playtest (which seems maybe excessive) or what level of communication there will be throughout 2019. I know that I introduced a number of new players to roleplaying through this playtest (with a caveat that we could switch systems if people weren't satisfied) and they have been eager to hear all the changes going forward.
My group is looking forward to the full release, but we'll be playing with the playtest rules until then.
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Yuck! Some people actually want skill ranks back? :{ :p :P
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So what I would do about the whole people not trained in stealth being stealthy thing that some people don't like it just refine the list of things you can do while untrained with a skill better. I think the -4 is fine just under the skill say for example performance before oen can play an instrument they would need at least trained but they could still sing maybe. Basically I'm saying restrict the skills more closely based on the lines of proficiency. That way you don't have to separate the skills that are necessary. some skill affects would be trained only and others would not.
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snipIt is a far cry more reliable than anecdotal messageboard data at getting the opinions of people who are overall favorable in the first place. For gathering the opinions of people who are strongly pushed away, it would be fair to say that both methods are completely and equally useless.
But beyond that, it is not a good evaluation to hand wave everything into two columns: the "far cry more reliable" self selected, pro-2E survey results and the disdained "anecdotal messageboard data". It would be absurd for me to claim that me stating my personal tastes on a messageboard should be taken as anything more than a drop in a river. And a conversation with a friend of mine who also doesn't like 2E is the very definition of anecdotal.
But there is a point when anecdotes join together and become this thing known as data. And it is possible to set personal bias aside (in either direction) and dispassionately assess which way the wind is truly blowing.
Just because I don't have the tools to tell you that the wind is blowing an average of 13 miles per hour and 163 degrees from north doesn't mean I can't easily figure out that it is blowing south.
And having some data can blind evaluations from the big picture just as easily as putting too much credit in random anecdotes. Particularly if...Come on, man, Jason came in and explained that they understand what their audience size is, how they're collecting their data through surveys and the forums, and margin for error. Politely, what point are you trying to make any more?
More on topic, I'm happy to see the ongoing work behind the scenes from Paizo and I'm wondering if these Twitch streams will continue after the playtest (which seems maybe excessive) or what level of communication there will be throughout 2019. I know that I introduced a number of new players to roleplaying through this playtest (with a caveat that we could switch systems if people weren't satisfied) and they have been...
What question are they getting this data from? I can't recall a "Do you like the direction things are going?" question for them to get this data from.
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I feel like "no ignore the thousands of data points you have, listen to me- the person who disagrees with your findings instead" is just never going to be that persuasive.
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Yuck! Some people actually want skill ranks back? :{ :p :P
Yes.
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What question are they getting this data from? I can't recall a "Do you like the direction things are going?" question for them to get this data from.
I don’t quite remember - I think it was from the most recent “general survey”(?)
Fwiw, I didn’t think they were taking it as “4% of gamers are pessimistic about the direction we’re heading”. It shows that 4% of the people still play testing and still completing the surveys are pessimistic.
I think they’re aware of the difference, but personally I think it would have been more use to have polled a random sample of survey takers from the first one onwards (ie with a final question only 5% of responders got or something). It would have been interesting to see how the pessimism measure correlated with the number of people completing the survey.
Having said all that, it’s pretty clearly only a “for interest” question. It might have shown something disastrously wrong, but not much else, in the big scheme of things. Unless the numbers were reversed, I doubt any result would have had much impact on the game (beyond that flowing from staff morale).
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Fractional math is the problem??
Who is in the target group? 1st grade of elementary school students?
And how often do you change stuff on character sheet? do you level up 2 or 3 times per session?
I really hope that they will give us optional rules in Core without +1/lvl treadmill.
I do not want skill ranks back like in 1stEd, and kind of like the intrained/expert/master/etc... system. but it could go with more levels(ranks)
I would got form 0(untrained) to +7(max) with no +1/lvl "free" bonus.
That way when you spend resource(class based, ancestry based, bonus feats, general feats) you increase skill bonus by +1
+2 max at 1st level(2 trainings used)
+3 at 3rd lvl
+4 at 7th
+5 at 11th
+6 at 15th
+7 at 19th
similar can be used for attacks, AC, spells, saves, etc...
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Fractional math is the problem??
Who is in the target group? 1st grade of elementary school students?
I’m pretty sure they weren’t suggesting we couldn’t handle fractions. I believe the implication is that with all the differing variables progressing at different rates, depending on class or monster progressions, whether the PC multiclasses, etcetera etcetera...the fractional progression can throw up some weird corner cases.
I don’t know the full thinking, but it certainly didn’t come off to me as being a judgement on facility with arithmetic possessed by the playerbase.
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75%? I'm so surprised at seeing so many people like the new way of building monsters. I have always thought monsters should have statistics more like PCs as they used to. But to my surprise people don't seem to prefer this nice old way.
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I have to say I'm generally disappointed by the poll results. Though I'm pleasantly surprised that a bunch of people weren't interested in maintaining wands as is. Still, people wanting artifacts in first printing, liking the icons, fixing spells by boosting success chance, and being cool with untethered monster creation, all leave me pretty baffled. I'm also a little concerned looking at the heap of concerns brought into existence by the proficiency system sitting along side the assertion that the proficiency system is here to stay.
Maybe it's time to go back into hybernation on these forums. I wouldn't want to spoil feedback if a consensus has more or less been reached.
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75%? I'm so surprised at seeing so many people like the new way of building monsters. I have always thought monsters should have statistics more like PCs as they used to. But to my surprise people don't seem to prefer this nice old way.
Yes, it's quite depressing, really. I still think it's THE POINT of playing with the d20 engine, anyway (compared to GURPS, preparation sanity slippage wise).
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Frankly, PF1 monsters didn't have statistics like PCs anyway.
Most monsters I saw had approximate stats decided out of nowhere, then hit dice, attributes, skill ranks, natural attacks, and feats picked to reach those stats as closely as possible, then arbitrary natural armour to get their exact AC target and special abilities PCs can't choose thrown on to to make the monster unique.
All PF2's system does is take out the 'hit dice, attributes, skill ranks, natural attacks, and feats picked to reach those stats as closely as possible' - you skip to having it matched without needing that fiddly middle bit. It's already how AC worked, due to natural armour being entirely arbitrary, and how the number/type of natural attacks worked for getting to DPR targets.
NPCs are a different argument, but I don't assume that's what people mean when they say 'monster'.
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#GiveUsDinosaurFort
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75%? I'm so surprised at seeing so many people like the new way of building monsters. I have always thought monsters should have statistics more like PCs as they used to. But to my surprise people don't seem to prefer this nice old way.
They're too restrictive. All fey have d6 hit dice, good R and W saves and 6+ skill ranks per level. All of them. All animals have the same base - mammals, reptiles, fish. All aberrations. You should not be able to look at an aberration of all things, decide it's got roughly so many hit points, d8, so x number of levels and then know it's BAB, saves and number of skill ranks.
They don't offer any diversity for statistics within the creature types