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Because one is new and the other is old? I don't expect a system rooted in d20 to move away from classes. But they made an effort to make classes less restrictive. At the same time, they created Backgrounds, which made a part of the system more restrictive than it previously was.
So by your perception, would it have been less restrictive for them to leave out backgrounds entirely, and simply not give you what a background does? Because I see backgrounds as 2 bonus skills and a bonus feat that a PF1 character otherwise would not have received to make a more interesting hook into the world.
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Because one is new and the other is old? I don't expect a system rooted in d20 to move away from classes. But they made an effort to make classes less restrictive. At the same time, they created Backgrounds, which made a part of the system more restrictive than it previously was.So by your perception, would it have been less restrictive for them to leave out backgrounds entirely, and simply not give you what a background does? Because I see backgrounds as 2 bonus skills and a bonus feat that a PF1 character otherwise would not have received to make a more interesting hook into the world.
Ah, but you no longer have a 1st level General Feat. The Skill Feat replaced that. And you no longer gain new skills at the same rate that you did in 1E. A Paladin in 1E had 2 skill ranks/level. They could choose to place them all into the same 2 skills, or they could choose to divide them up.
In 2E, you have the skills, and only the skills you have advance (get new ranks) by adding your level to them. You eventually can add new skills, but the 2 that you get from a Background aren't "extra." They are replacing part of the flexibility that the old system granted. Instead of being able to divide up skill ranks, we get more skills. It's a tradeoff, not a bonus. (Edit: Part of that tradeoff is no longer having "class skills." The +2 from Trained could be seen as replacing the +3 from something being a class skill, too).
To expand on that last post, in Michael's message far above in this thread, he talked about using Backgrounds to create a more modular system. That's what they did pretty much across the board with 2E, and that, taken by itself, was a good goal for the new game.
So classes get Class Feats to make more of their abilities customizable by the players. "Feats" were separated into General Feats and Skill Feats, to go along with the Class Feats and the new Ancestry Feats.
Backgrounds, presumably and based on what he said, were created to make that part of character creation modular as well. They can release the AP specific backgrounds and you have something ready to fit into your campaign.
We're good up until this point. Where I think the mistake was made is in not releasing or even stating in the rules, "You can come up with your own Background if you would like. Here are the things that make up a standard Background." Because they didn't include anything like that, the Backgrounds that they publish are the Backgrounds that exist (mainly in terms of PFS, yes, but only because home games can ignore the rules of the system).
Now, either that was unintentional, and they didn't mean to create that type of restriction. Or it was intentional, either because they were afraid some combinations would be overpowered, or they wanted to be able to publish a bunch of content that combines existing feats in new (and sometimes the same) ways.
Either way, we end up with a piece of the system that was previously available to build as you see fit now being defined and restricted in a similar way to how classes are. But you can have the modular design of Backgrounds and still have them be flexible by just introducing those simple rules to build your own. For all I know, PFS might still decide not to use them, but the base game system would be a better system.
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I mean yes you could technically divide your measely 2 ranks from Paladin into seperate skills but realistically you have to put one of those into perception and if you split the other you'd just be bad at 2 skills from level 5 onwards. To say that it was even really a choice and that a Paladin without backgrounds has a worse deal now is frankly ridiculous.
In PF1 keep up with two skills. In PF2, keep up with 2 skills, then decide if you want to keep up with a new skill every 2 levels or get above the curve in one you already have. That isn't an even trade before we even get into the fact that PF2 skills are consolidated with broader application than PF1 skills.
And while yeah you got a Feat in PF1. Not a general feat (they didn't exist) just a feat. You get (without background) a Class Feat AND an Ancestry Feat. So up there again.
Stripping Backgrounds out gives you (apart from stat) on par or better skills and on par or better feat customization compared to PF1. Backgrounds and their advantages are sheer boon.
We're getting into fairly complicated redesign talk at this point, but yes, you had a general feat in PF1 that was called a Feat. You no longer get that at 1st level.
You do get a Class Feat, but the Class Feats are in part replacing some of the regular class abilities that you would have gotten at 1st level. That is not an additional feat.
Same with the Ancestry Feat. That is replacing some of the racial traits that you would have gotten at 1st level.
The overall increase in the bonus to skills is compensating for a complete overhaul of the skill DC system.
You can't point to anything as "extra" in this big of a redesign. So much was removed and so much was added that everything is a tradeoff for something else.
What you can quantify is how big a part Backgrounds are relative to the choices you can make at 1st level in 2E. And they are a significant part of building a character now.
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So when the facts go the other way it is suddenly impossible to quantify. Oh I missed out Paladin also gets Religion and one other skill for free, so they are even higher up.
And Class Feats really don't make up for loss of features. Most classes actually gained features and Class Feats, even level 1 one tend to be more potent than the first feats you could get in PF1 (a Fighter can get the ability to move twice their speed and attack twice! What feature is that making up for?)
Being extra and being different aren't the same things. Backgrounds aren't "extra" they're "different." They changed the way that stats are assigned. They changed the way your 1st level feat is determined. They changed the way that some of your skills are determined. And, they tied those things to story in a way that they weren't before. 2E is presumably balanced around the idea that you will have the things that a Background grants you, so they aren't "extra." They are part of the balance of the system.
Feats in 1E were the thing that you could choose that didn't have to be tied to your class or your race (though might have had those as a prereq). If you met the prerequisites for a feat, you could take it.
The General Feats in 2E are what fill that role, and Skill Feats are a subset of those. For the majority of builds, the way that you have to choose something from outside of your class or Ancestry at level 1 is through your Background.
So the question to ask would be would I rather just be able to assign the stat boost how I want and have a General Feat (or Skill Feat) at level 1 and two more skills on every class? Essentially, yes, though I'm ok with grouping them together as a Background provided they aren't limited in the process in the way that they are now.
In regards to your edit, the whole critical failure/success system has been added to skills, which is directly tied into the DCs and what you are expected to be able to achieve with your rolls. That's a major change to the DC system.
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My issue with a generic pick 2 option as a common option, and not a GM controlled element is that it will encourage players to feel like they need to do stuff like pick 1 essential skill and a targeted monster lore to the campaign, while picking an essential skill feat not related to any character story, and then most players will see backgrounds as primarily mechanical options. That is certainly how I would do it.
Instead having “make your own” be a reserved/GM approved option pushes you to look through the options that are going to be best for your campaign, and then if nothing leaps out at you, you talk to your GM about making a new background that does help you accomplish your mechanical aims, but with explicit building towards the specific campaign.
Default options need to be more generic and limited because it is bad to design too specific a player background without consulting the GM and making sure it is a fit. I understand that half this conversation revolves around PFS, but it sounds like PFS will probably have its own set of specific backgrounds you unlock as well and that they will also help guide your characters backstories into different seasons.
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My issue with a generic pick 2 option as a common option, and not a GM controlled element is that it will encourage players to feel like they need to do stuff like pick 1 essential skill and a targeted monster lore to the campaign, while picking an essential skill feat not related to any character story, and then most players will see backgrounds as primarily mechanical options. That is certainly how I would do it.
Instead having “make your own” be a reserved/GM approved option pushes you to look through the options that are going to be best for your campaign, and then if nothing leaps out at you, you talk to your GM about making a new background that does help you accomplish your mechanical aims, but with explicit building towards the specific campaign.
Default options need to be more generic and limited because it is bad to design too specific a player background without consulting the GM and making sure it is a fit. I understand that half this conversation revolves around PFS, but it sounds like PFS will probably have its own set of specific backgrounds you unlock as well and that they will also help guide your characters backstories into different seasons.
And all of this is fine. Others share that opinion. What a few seem to not want to admit is that it is a desire to put limits on the decisions that players can make in building their characters. A large number of people feel that is a good thing, and they are entitled to that opinion. What you said in your first paragraph. But instead of explaining why they think the limits are good, people just keep insisting the limits don't exist.
What I'm largely trying to point out is the downside of doing so, partially from a character creation standpoint and the issues it's creating at the moment (which I've given several examples of), and partially from the standpoint of what this means in terms of the content that will have to be published going forward.
You can combine the skills, lore skills, skill feats, and stat boots in the core rulebook in an infinite number of ways (due to Lore being an open-ended skill). Even limiting Lore to a finite number, there are many, many, many combinations of those four things that can exist. The core rulebook gives us 35. That means we need more to be published in future books, and as more skill feats are released, we'll need even more.
This creates a situation where, instead of developers focusing each release on a few backgrounds that are really good and tightly tied into the lore that they appear alongside, we get several new backgrounds that don't have a lot of new information in their flavor text, but have to be included, because the expectation becomes that we'll get new Background options in every (most) book(s).
A good background? Rooted in lore in the same way that a prestige class is. Maybe not quite as much flavor text. I think this is mostly what we're seeing in the AP. Module, and PFS, though I wish that the AP and Module had done something similar to PFS and added something small and specific to the campaign on top of the standard items.
A bad background? You're a pirate from the high seas, but only the actual High Seas Region.
Or, from the Golden Road Region:
You know how to work the less-than-legal side of the region’s markets and know how to slip contraband past the authorities.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Wisdom or Charisma, and one is a free ability boost.
You're trained in the Stealth skill and the Underworld Lore skill. You gain the Experienced Smuggler skill feat.
Compared to this from the Core Rulebook:
As an unscrupulous independent or as a member of an underworld organization, you lived a life of crime. You might have become an adventurer to seek redemption, to escape the law, or simply to get access to bigger and better loot.
Choose two ability boosts. One must be to Dexterity or Intelligence, and one is a free ability boost.
You're trained in the Stealth skill and the Underworld Lore skill. You gain the Experienced Smuggler skill feat.
We had an entire Background published, tied to a specific region, that's only difference from one in the core rulebook is that you can choose WIS or CHA instead of DEX or INT.
The system encourages that type of thing to happen on a regular basis. This affects people outside of PFS, because these types of Backgrounds will continue to take up space in future books. Meaning you're not getting an actual piece of lore from the Golden Road for that word count, or a Background that grants you anything different than what you could already do with the one in the core book outside of PFS where you could just get GM approval to change the stat boost.
This is part of why I call it a bad design decision. Because it encourages publication of bad material in the future.
Not all of the Backgrounds in LOWG are this obvious of an issue, but they are very hit or miss. There are a lot of them that don't or shouldn't need to exist. Except they do, because we need something that lets you combine a WIS boost with those skills.
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I think probably the best you're going to get for PFS is the equivalent of "Themeless", a deliberately underpowered option. The suggestion I made upthread might actually wind up close to how it looks: by rolling most of Background into class (giving you two additional boosts to the Class step, and giving you an additional skill rank and skill feat at level 1), you'd get the freedom you want at the expense of the free lore and ability to hit 18 in your key stat.