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So after my party did the first AP for 2nd edition we all lost all interest. It just did not feel good in our hands. I know there has been updates but I honestly lost so much interest in it that I could not keep up to date with the changes.
So, Now that the launch is announced for august 1st What is peoples current opinion of 2nd edition as we know of it and review of it. And if you would put whether you had a similar first impression and if it has changed and why, or if not I would appreciate that. My own lack of interest is making it hard to sell it to my players.
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You didn't do the first AP for second edition -- you did the campaign for the playtest. It was not designed first to be a "fun" or "balanced" campaign. It was designed to stress test various systems in different ways. Don't equate the Doomsday Dawn campaign to Second Edition AP. I do think Paizo did a poor job in communicating exactly what a playtest means and the polished publication for the playtest might have furthered that perception.
We can't know what 2e is yet. No one has seen it outside Paizo. We know from the livestream back in Jan? that resonance is gone. We known that skills/proficiency makes a bigger difference, and that the math has been loosend up a tiny bit. We know they are trying to simplify conditions a little bit.
One the whole everything that they have said they are changing from the playtest, sounds like a positive improvement to me.
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What he said. None of us have ever played PF2 at all. I will tell you what I think of it once I actually see it.
Based on the playtest, I disliked a number of things in said playtest, but most seem to be things that they have either explicitly said will be changed for the final version, or at least implied might be. That being the case, I'm quite optimistic for the actual game.
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You didn't do the first AP for second edition -- you did the campaign for the playtest. It was not designed first to be a "fun" or "balanced" campaign. It was designed to stress test various systems in different ways. Don't equate the Doomsday Dawn campaign to Second Edition AP. I do think Paizo did a poor job in communicating exactly what a playtest means and the polished publication for the playtest might have furthered that perception.
You misunderstand. I'm not rating the AP. I was not saying it was not fun or balanced or unbalanced or any of that. I am saying that the systems we tested we disliked immensely. Everything from the characters to the magic to the combat system was just unpleasant.
I did look up a little. Skills work differently and resonance is gone which sounds good. I feel like making untrained skills 0 and not based on level to some extent just means at high levels skills you have not trained will just be painfully horrible and will probably just be house ruled out if we pick up second edition. But I do agree, the changes did feel better but until we see how things like magic work I still feel like the game is going to be questionable. I and my party did not like the feel of low fantasy they seem to have pushed on magic.
Sadly I realize now that it appears that they are not gonna let us know what its gonna be like until after its released. I thought they would have a ongoing errata for us to test but it does not appear so. I really hope the game does well, but, right now I don't see much of a reason to change from PF1 and if I did it would probably just be back to dungeons and dragons 5th that I have not touched since 3.5. Still have high hopes though.
Feel free to ignore this thread because I now realize that there is no way to give a opinion on PF2 yet.
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There’ll be lots of previews before the game is launched. Plus plenty of convention opportunities that will let people there provide their impressions to the rest of us. There’s also an actual play demonstration starting up on twitch on Thursday lunchtimes in a few weeks - Jason Bulmahn is running some of the Paizo staff through their first game.
We’ll know a lot about the game before August, we just don’t know much yet. May through July will be the timeframe, I’m guessing.
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At this point you'd have around 20 1-star reviews from people whose feeling were hurt by the fact that a second edition is a thing and/or that their ideas and wishes weren't duly considered during the playtest.
None of the above having anything to do with the quality of the game.
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I'll also say, did you/your group try any of the PFS/demo content?
I played in three (~2 hour demo, 3rd level House of Ukmundi, 5th level Arclords Envy) and GM'd 1st level Rose Street Revenge. All four of those felt like Pathfinder 1e with faster & more interesting combat. The other rule changes/systems just faded away in the background of a fun adventure. All four left me feeling that the Playtest was a success (whereas Doomsday Dawn left me with a long list of things I hope they change, and they are changing.)
I would say for me it is a little early for reviews until Pathfinder 2 is released. There was allot of changes from the first Pathfinder Playtest and the finale rules. The base structure of the game would be the same. However; a big change they already said was Legendary is +8. So I will wait until Pathfinder 2 is released before any finale thoughts.
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At this point you'd have around 20 1-star reviews from people whose feeling were hurt by the fact that a second edition is a thing and/or that their ideas and wishes weren't duly considered during the playtest.
None of the above having anything to do with the quality of the game.
Not to mention around 20 11-star reviews (with bonus ponies!) from people who haven't seen the final release but are completely assured that it's the second coming and have been consistently dismissive of any criticism of the playtest on the basis that as long as they're happy, nobody else needs to be and everyone but them is an idiot who just needs to Git Gud.
Which yeah, have nothing to do with the quality of the game.
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TBH in the playtest we had far more apocalyptic posts than euphoric ones. Which was to be expected
Actually we had them right from the first previews before the playtest was launched
To the extent that it seemed Paizo would have garnered more goodwill if they had not involved customers in the design process for the new edition
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Sadly I realize now that it appears that they are not gonna let us know what its gonna be like until after its released. I thought they would have a ongoing errata for us to test but it does not appear so.
This goes back to the point of potential confusion over what the Doomsday Dawn and Rulebook were. They were not 2nd Edition. They were a loose version of the full Rules with hacked out systems that needed to be stress tested and a loose collection of scenarios that were designed to do the testing.
They can’t keep providing errata because they aren’t correcting/updating the Playtest Rules they’re incorporating those results into the 2e Rules.
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TBH in the playtest we had far more apocalyptic posts than euphoric ones. Which was to be expected
Actually we had them right from the first previews before the playtest was launched
To the extent that it seemed Paizo would have garnered more goodwill if they had not involved customers in the design process for the new edition
You know the thing that makes me most optimistic is that the push back on Pathfinder 1e was even worse. A lot of people were absolutely 100% sure they would keep playing 3.5 (me included!) and now look at us. I think 2e is gonna be a nice success and all of this whining and doomsaying will be faded and forgotten.
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This goes back to the point of potential confusion over what the Doomsday Dawn and Rulebook were. They were not 2nd Edition. They were a loose version of the full Rules with hacked out systems that needed to be stress tested and a loose collection of scenarios that were designed to do the testing.
They can’t keep providing errata because they aren’t correcting/updating the Playtest Rules they’re incorporating those results into the 2e Rules.
My point was that the new rules just did not feel good. I get its not a real campaign and its not all the rules, but, the changes they showed us just did not sit well. What they showed us of magic was the biggest put off for my group. It felt like they were pushing a low magic fantasy game. And that system is one of the things they wanted us to test since it was defined. I don't know. Some problems have been changed, others apparently are still the same and intended. But, we still don't know the final product (which I had thought we would know most of it by now)
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The playtest was brutal and I hope they changed rules to make the game more forgiving over what that showed, however I stand by that I had more fun in the playtest as a GM than I have in a long time as a GM for PF1.
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TBH in the playtest we had far more apocalyptic posts than euphoric ones. Which was to be expected
Actually we had them right from the first previews before the playtest was launched
To the extent that it seemed Paizo would have garnered more goodwill if they had not involved customers in the design process for the new edition
One thing I noticed is that the goodwill from the public playtest (vs say Starfinder which didn't have one) was much less than I thought, while the data from the playtest was seriously better than I initially thought (our playtesters kicked some serious butt this time around, even compared to the good job playtesters have done in other open playtests). So the game is massively improved for having the open playtest, but we didn't really get too much buzz from it (most PF1ers we find in person at conventions, etc, didn't know about the playtest or haven't tried it, rather than liking it or disliking it). It's a lot of work, but I think that's worth it, personally; better game means more fun for everyone down the line.
The playtest was brutal and I hope they changed rules to make the game more forgiving over what that showed, however I stand by that I had more fun in the playtest as a GM than I have in a long time as a GM for PF1.
I can see where you are coming from. I let my players rest before having a severe fight with a succubus and a few sahuagin. They were crushed, i can't even imagine what a Extreme difficulty fight is in that game.
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Some problems have been changed, others apparently are still the same and intended. But, we still don't know the final product (which I had thought we would know most of it by now)
Why did you think we’d know most of the details of the final product by now - it was always scheduled for last 2019.
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So you want the game to be released before its release? Uh-huh, sure.
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It would be nice to get our hands on some kind of final version of the rules before the game release so we can decide if we like the game enough to subscribe. Or have many of you already decided that?
That depends on how you define "rules."
You can still download the playtest rules and updates for free. That will give you a sense of where their going. Then you can read through the blogs and posts by Erik Mona to see what's changed since the last update. That will give you a sense of some changes since then.
But... really, what more do you need to know?
It's a d20 system RPG with tactical combat using a 3 Action Point action economy.
You want to know the final version of the ancestries, backgrounds, and classes? You want to know all the feats in the game? You want to know all the spells in the game?
This isn't super different than if some other company released a new game: you don't know if you want to buy it until the product is available to look at. Paizo just really likes to interact with their customer base so we're spoiled.
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But... really, what more do you need to know?
Uh, quite a lot.
I actively participated in the playtest as both player and GM. Played or GMed well over 20 games.
I only have a vague clue what the actual game is actually going to be like. Oh sure, I have an idea of the general approach. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. And it is those details that will decide where on the spectrum between "love" and "hate" the game lies for me.
Like a great many people there were parts of PF2 I loved, parts I hated, parts I needed to see more of, and parts that I was thoroughly "meh" about.
Some unknown subset of those parts will be changed in unknown ways, some unknown subset won't, and some unknown set of new rules will be introduced.
At this point it is possible that PF2 will be a game I love, possible it will be a game I hate, and possible that it will lie somewhere between those extremes.
Unless you're a Paizo employee or have access to the current version of the rules I'm pretty sure that statement above is true for the majority of players. We just don't know at this point.
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Plus, everyone will be able to access the rules for free off Archive of Nethys at some point after release anyway. So you can easily check out the game and decide if you want to support it with your wallet. I'm not really sure what more you could want for opportunity to try before you buy. Asking for something along those lines before the game is released just leaves me scratching my head.
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For those of us on the fence about PF2 after playtesting, a blog post highlighting or summarizing the key rules changes between the playtest and the final version would be extremely helpful in assisting us to decide whether or not to remain excited about the launch of PF2.
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Asking for something along those lines before the game is released just leaves me scratching my head.
Yes, exactly. That's where I'm at. You normally don't get to see a product before it's published to decide in the future whether you'll buy it. A product gets published, you flip through it at a store or borrow someone else's copy or read reviews, and then you decide if you'll buy it.
...not 5 months before it's published.
Is it video games and all the alpha, beta, free demo access? Not that those are bad things, but print media can't work like that and profit.
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There will be loads and loads of previews. Most of the big questions will be answered via blogs, actual,play sessions available on twitch/YouTube, game previews at Paizocon, panels, the banquet...
It won’t be complete, but there’ll be snippets, general impressions and the odd in depth explanation.
If you want to know it all before you buy, you’ll have to wait until the game is out. But if you just have a few nagging doubts (or a couple of “dealbreakers”) you should be able to get some broad strokes answers a month or two ahead of release.
They’re just not ready to begin that yet. Erik mentioned on the twitch that he’s just about finished his final pass of the CRB. Then it has some more development/editing passes. They won’t give previews until the book is finalised and off to the printers.
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But... really, what more do you need to know?
Uh, quite a lot.
I actively participated in the playtest as both player and GM. Played or GMed well over 20 games.
I only have a vague clue what the actual game is actually going to be like. Oh sure, I have an idea of the general approach. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. And it is those details that will decide where on the spectrum between "love" and "hate" the game lies for me.
Like a great many people there were parts of PF2 I loved, parts I hated, parts I needed to see more of, and parts that I was thoroughly "meh" about.
Some unknown subset of those parts will be changed in unknown ways, some unknown subset won't, and some unknown set of new rules will be introduced.
At this point it is possible that PF2 will be a game I love, possible it will be a game I hate, and possible that it will lie somewhere between those extremes.
Unless you're a Paizo employee or have access to the current version of the rules I'm pretty sure that statement above is true for the majority of players. We just don't know at this point.
The post you're quoting is responding to someone asking for a final version of the rules before the rules are released. Obviously, everyone on this forum is eager to know more about the final version of the game, and many of us will be researching the game more before making our purchases. Blake Tiger wants to know more too. But what was actually being put forward was a perplexing and unrealistic request to effectively move up the release date of the game.
You're missing the forest for the trees in this discussion.
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The playtest was brutal and I hope they changed rules to make the game more forgiving over what that showed, however I stand by that I had more fun in the playtest as a GM than I have in a long time as a GM for PF1.
This is definitely the feeling I got as well. My players were getting utterly stomped by Ramlock at the end, and then he rolled a natural 1 against Finger of Death and I learned he did not have any way of preventing instant death.
So he died. It was pretty great.
Another highlight was the Rogue getting tentacle-whipped into the Druid, and proceeding to crit succeed on the Reflex save while the Druid crit failed. So the person being flung took 0, while the poor airbag took something like 86.
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So you want the game to be released before its release? Uh-huh, sure.It sounds more like wanting the "Open Beta" type of thing you sometimes get in computer game circles where the game is released for people to play and test and review before the final version is settled on (although a lot of those turn into constantly evolving games, Minecraft for instance). So each iteration would be a bit different, eventually coming close to the final version. Easier, of course, for a computer game due to the nature of patching but it would hardly be impossible to do it with regularly updated rulebooks.
Apart from that whole having to actually having the book printed and shipped out to distributors part...
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I see (and have) some mixed feedback about the playtest, and there are some mechanics I still want to know how they are going to work before deciding if I like the game ENOUGH to subscribe since the beginning.
For example: the resonance system is now gone, but I don't know what is replacing it. I liked the idea of limiting the number of potions/scrolls/magic items and making charisma more useful. And personally don't like how in PF1 my players are like a Christmast tree with magic items for decorations, and so I'm waiting to see how they resolve this issue before deciding going full head on with this edition with a subscription since the start or just buying the CBR from Amazon to play a couple of games from time to time.
You see, subscribing from the EU is a bit of a hussle, that's why I want to make sure I like the game enough to be worth it, and thus why those details are important to me.
You can subscribe a month or two after release (you always have the option of commencing a subscription with the upcoming item or the one that’s just been).
So you can either wait a few weeks for reviews, Q&As, etcetera. Or you could even buy the PDF on launch day and then see the whole thing for yourself, adding a subscription if you decided you like it. The CRB PDF is likely to be quite reasonably priced.
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You can subscribe a month or two after release (you always have the option of commencing a subscription with the upcoming item or the one that’s just been).
So you can either wait a few weeks for reviews, Q&As, etcetera. Or you could even buy the PDF on launch day and then see the whole thing for yourself, adding a subscription if you decided you like it. The CRB PDF is likely to be quite reasonably priced.
I thought I had to be subscribed before the launch of the product... interesting. Thanks for the info Steve ;-)
Finally it happened. I am glad that a new edition will be released. But there are a couple of questions. Most importantly, will the publisher issue a license to translate the rules into other languages? And if that happens when?
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Finally it happened. I am glad that a new edition will be released. But there are a couple of questions. Most importantly, will the publisher issue a license to translate the rules into other languages? And if that happens when?
I believe Paizo will be happy to issue such licenses as long as a trustworthy and agreeable partners presents themselves. Which will likely mean a continuation of some previous arrangements and maybe some new ones.
So, Now that the launch is announced for august 1st What is peoples current opinion of 2nd edition as we know of it and review of it. And if you would put whether you had a similar first impression and if it has changed and why, or if not I would appreciate that. My own lack of interest is making it hard to sell it to my players.
I'm in a group that is just now playing the last part of the playtest. Feelings around the table are mixed. The DM and I talk quite frequently. He likes the system shown in the playtest and I don't.
As others have said, the real PF2 will be different in some way. He plans to buy the rules. I plan to read his copy. Time will tell.
Licensing Manager
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Our existing translation partners all have the option of continuing with Second Edition. In the unlikely event that any of them decline, we will seek out a new partner in that language.
We're also always open to discussing translations of Paizo products into new languages - we're currently in 10 languages counting English, but we'd love to have more! Our current partners are:
Chinese - Chengdu Starfish (formerly known as Guokr)
French - Black Book Editions
German - Ulisses Spiele
Hebrew - Monkey Time
Italian - Giochi Uniti
Japanese - Arclight
Portuguese - New Order Editora
Russian - Hobby World
Spanish - Devir
Each of these partners determines its own schedule for publication. We don't have a grand "worldwide release" that we coordinate with everyone, because it may not make sense in every market. So if you have questions about when a particular language will be available, I recommend that you contact our partners directly through their customer service contacts. Contacting them directly lets them know that you're interested, which is better coming directly from you than coming in aggregate from me. Though I'm happy to answer questions when I can!
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One thing I noticed is that the goodwill from the public playtest (vs say Starfinder which didn't have one) was much less than I thought, while the data from the playtest was seriously better than I initially thought (our playtesters kicked some serious butt this time around, even compared to the good job playtesters have done in other open playtests). So the game is massively improved for having the open playtest, but we didn't really get too much buzz from it (most PF1ers we find in person at conventions, etc, didn't know about the playtest or haven't tried it, rather than liking it or disliking it). It's a lot of work, but I think that's worth it, personally; better game means more fun for everyone down the line.TBH in the playtest we had far more apocalyptic posts than euphoric ones. Which was to be expected
Actually we had them right from the first previews before the playtest was launched
To the extent that it seemed Paizo would have garnered more goodwill if they had not involved customers in the design process for the new edition
The playtest generated goodwill with me. I have tested games, algorithms, software, and data before, so I knew that a playtest was a stress test. I was reassured by seeing the testing.
I had already customized Pathfinder 1st Edition with houserules that serve the preferences of my players. I will do the same with Pathfinder 2nd Edition, since I will have mostly the same players. Therefore, rules details and sometimes entire mechanics are optional to me. Pathfinder 2nd Edition has a solid foundation. That and the adventure paths are all that I need.
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One thing I noticed is that the goodwill from the public playtest (vs say Starfinder which didn't have one) was much less than I thought, while the data from the playtest was seriously better than I initially thought (our playtesters kicked some serious butt this time around, even compared to the good job playtesters have done in other open playtests). So the game is massively improved for having the open playtest, but we didn't really get too much buzz from it (most PF1ers we find in person at conventions, etc, didn't know about the playtest or haven't tried it, rather than liking it or disliking it). It's a lot of work, but I think that's worth it, personally; better game means more fun for everyone down the line.TBH in the playtest we had far more apocalyptic posts than euphoric ones. Which was to be expected
Actually we had them right from the first previews before the playtest was launched
To the extent that it seemed Paizo would have garnered more goodwill if they had not involved customers in the design process for the new edition
The playtest generated goodwill with me. I have tested games, algorithms, software, and data before, so I knew that a playtest was a stress test. I was reassured by seeing the testing.
I had already customized Pathfinder 1st Edition with houserules that serve the preferences of my players. I will do the same with Pathfinder 2nd Edition, since I will have mostly the same players. Therefore, rules details and sometimes entire mechanics are optional to me. Pathfinder 2nd Edition has a solid foundation. That and the adventure paths are all that I need.
Well great, because you and your group also gave us great data. Win/win!
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I also quite enjoyed the playtest process, and particularly appreciated the degree of responsiveness from you and the other designers, Mark. Just for the record.
Same, very positive experience - we might have yelled out a few complaints about the rules, but that’s because we wanted the best for P2, right?
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The playtest was run very well, the responsiveness on the forums and on Twitch was gold standard, and the quality and of the surveys and the actions taken in response to them were legitimate.
Comparing this playtest against, for example, a Blizzard beta is like comparing a warm hug with a punch in the teeth.
As far as my goodwill is concerned, the whole process has been a home run.
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I had already customized Pathfinder 1st Edition with houserules that serve the preferences of my players. I will do the same with Pathfinder 2nd Edition, since I will have mostly the same players. Therefore, rules details and sometimes entire mechanics are optional to me. Pathfinder 2nd Edition has a solid foundation. That and the adventure paths are all that I need.
Exactly this. I have ~20 pages of PF1e house rules (admittedly about a third of that is just explaining how the setting has diverged from the norm thanks to player choices in APs - I had a New Thassilon ever since Shattered Star, for example, but I digress), and I suspect that I will eventually have something like that for PF2e.
Solid mechanical foundation that is easy to tweak without breaking and continued stellar quality in the AP line are the "make or break" issues with 2e for me, and both of those are looking pretty good at the moment.
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Well, I certainly can't wait. I will buy every single product they release, day one. I love what they did with the stress test which was Doomsday Dawn, as it is probably the most rigorous public test ever conducted for a role-playing game. That means that the final product will be the most finely developed game released in the genre since the 1970s. If you listen to Jason's interview on Know Direction, he seems very confident, and I don't think he' just putting on. The game has great direction, and all of the future goodness we have to look forward to will all be based on this system. In my mind, you have to be crazy to not get on board. At the same time, though, I'll still be playing PF1 for years to come, because I want to play all of the amazing APs that I haven't finished yet.
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Thanks guys! Many of you who posted here were among our top playtesters in terms of detailed reports as well. You guys who "got it" did an amazing job helping us, and the largest group of people in the whole playtest played it once, liked it (Generally were Very Positive on a Likert scale) and then left the playtest to wait for the final book. But I think a lot of the online playtest buzz was more used to video game betas, which due to the realities of hours of programming generally have to be a game that is basically decided, the beta testers just find some obscure glitches or other unusual bugs. Whereas this was more like the PF1 beta or other playtests I've experienced for tabletop RPGs where there's a lot more flexible and time and distribution realities mean that you are able to test something and then rearrange substantially based on the result.
The playtest was run very well, the responsiveness on the forums and on Twitch was gold standard, and the quality and of the surveys and the actions taken in response to them were legitimate.
While the quantity of surveys we needed to produce meant that not every question was perfect, we've learned from other surveys, both Paizo and otherwise, and did a literature review on survey science this time around. That really helped, and the result was some really robust data, showing some changes people overwhelmingly liked (surprising me was that includes every monster change except some of the name shifts and pretty much every "big class decision" like sorcerers of four traditions and occult full caster bards), some changes people really didn't like that we shifted, some with a lot of uncertainty (anything about multiple resonance options split the field every time), and others that were contentious with strong opinions, not overwhelmingly one way but still with a clear decision (champion).
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The monster changes were far and away the best thing the Playtest produced. Not just that nearly every monster was interesting and unique, but that it completely changed how I think about monsters.
Instead of "what are this guys stats and abilities, what spell likes does he know?", I now think of terms of "what does this monster do in combat? How is fighting him different from fighting another monster? What makes him unique and memorable?"
I've started backporting that thinking into my PF1e games and the results have been very well received with my players. They recently encountered a drowning devil, and one of the tweaks I made to him was to give him the ability to reshape the area of his control water spell-like as a move action. The result was that while the PCs were fighting his minions he was constantly altering the battlefield with walls and pathways of water, which made for some very exciting terrain.
This is all to say, keep it up with the amazing monster design. :)