| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't think the problem is the amount of errors in the books, even egregious ones (Mutagenist for instance).
I think the problem is the statements often made by Paizo supporters in threads that they can't put out errata because they are busy on other books.
Now granted, I've never seen an actual Paizo employee say that, but plenty of times I've seen fans say that.
BUT, if that is actually the case (which I will not say is the case, but often the same people saying "they are going the right speed" and the people saying "they don't have time for errata right now" are the same people) then yes, they need to slow down. Not because the books have errors, but because they don't seem to be allowing times to address those errors.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, errata is traditionally only issued when the book is reprinted (since it exists to bring older copies up to date with the newer copies.)
What we need is a pipeline to receive updates. PF1 had the FAQ system that I'm pretty sure they want to improve on. During the playtest they just released updates to download every couple of weeks, but the playtest audience was a lot smaller and it was easier to get them in the hands of people. On one of the friday streams a few weeks back they mentioned that they were still figuring out how to do this, so presumably they need to formulate a plan and execute it before they can start giving updates.
But "devs chime in on the forums to give official answers" is a bad way to go about it since that particular information would not disseminate very quickly among all people who would like to know it (most Pathfinder players are not here.)
But "devs chime in on the forums to give official answers" is a bad way to go about it since that particular information would not disseminate very quickly among all people who would like to know it (most Pathfinder players are not here.)
Boy-o-Boy - well do we need official answers? Is the game better if communication is only for official fixes and hard errata ok'd by committee to print?
Other editions of the game did just fine when rules questions were not answered and people were forced to invent solutions, or if there was an answer it was in a 3rd party magazine that not everyone had access to (nor was it easy to search until much, much later).
Now if there is a very bad issue (for sake of argument) lets say the mutagenest issue qualifies, then perhaps that is the way to go. I'd sure has heck like to see more frequent responses that aren't held to 'but the devs said x' - heck if we are going to opine (and what else are we doing here but that) consider this:
NEW FAQ SYSTEM/ERRATA for PF2 (suggested):
FAQ's (like old) answered quickly - but never as 'an' answer - always as 'we suggest using this as an answer - if you don't like X the dev team considers Y valid as well - and we saw solution Z in the posts that seems like a good fit - pick what works for your table until/if an official rule change is made
Errata: Released as Paizo feels the need - this would be reserved for big bad issues that actually change a fundamental fact or rule - crane wing nerf or changes to the shifter fall under these. Errata of this kind should be easy to find - and possibly kept in a single document for all products as a PDF - thus you could check a single source for anything owned.
And then we players could get the best of both worlds - simple answers on how to run the game on complicated or unsure wording - without the devs having to 'hard line' to answer a question - and real hard answers when the problem is actually affecting the health of the game.
/my two cents.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I personally prefer the brisk pace.
As others have said trying to achieve perfection would mean no book ever gets published. That, and there -is- such a thing as too much polish. At some point you have to declare it done and put it out. You can second, third, fourth, twentieth guess yourself into absolute stagnation.
Does a brisk pace mean a few more errors? Yes. I would much rather a few errors than waiting months or years down the road, for a product that didn't have those few errors (But absolutely would have different errors).
There is something to be said about quality over quantity. At this point the quality is there. So keep them coming nice and fast.
In my mind the -few- errors that the books have are far outweighed by the overall quality and pace that we're getting them.
Again, give me a book with a few errors -today- than a book with 2 or 3 less errors 6 to 12 months from now.
In business terms they have a "pipeline" of stuff they are releasing months from now. It is being finished, proofed, etc., put on the schedule for printing.
That takes at a minimum months. I wouldn't expect any slowdown as that would have needed to have started months ago to slow anything down.
I would appreciate an official errata soon, but we know it's coming.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Killing off the player companion line is the slow down. To be honest I'm a little worried about the opposite. Some of the groups I run with have gotten bored of waiting for Starfinder (and 5e) to print new material after becoming accustomed to PF1's content pacing and it's kind of turned them off to those systems and I'd hate to see PF2 end up in a similar space in the long run.
FAQ's (like old) answered quickly - but never as 'an' answer - always as 'we suggest using this as an answer - if you don't like X the dev team considers Y valid as well - and we saw solution Z in the posts that seems like a good fit - pick what works for your table until/if an official rule change is made
Why? "Table solutions" are already a given with the nature of the game itself. Being vague or wishy washy just leaves people who for whatever reason are looking for clear official guidance with nothing to really work with.
I think one of the goals of PF2 is to make official rules answers less important by making the intent of a rule or a mechanic clear and well understood. Understanding the intent, individual GMs are thereby empowered to make the appropriate rulings so that things work the way they are supposed to.
A lot of the thorniest rules problems in PF1 (e.g. Bardic Masterpieces, Gauntlets as weapons) were because "well, how is this supposed to work" was wholly unclear.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm fine with "at table fixes", but there are still things that are clearly just wrong. Like the cost of something being different in two different spots in the book. Or the Mutagenist ability literally doing nothing.
At the table fixes should be for things that are a bit vague, not for things that are clearly messed up.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm fine with "at table fixes", but there are still things that are clearly just wrong. Like the cost of something being different in two different spots in the book. Or the Mutagenist ability literally doing nothing.
At the table fixes should be for things that are a bit vague, not for things that are clearly messed up.
Yeah. This.
I'm all for table fixes for vague bits, but things that are clearly and objectively incorrect and result in characters being unfairly punished or the like need direct solutions and need them relatively quickly.
Now, as I said much earlier in the thread, per Jason Bulmahn, solutions for that sort of thing are probably coming by October so they'll be in place for the APG playtest. That's soon enough for me, but we do need them.
FAQ's (like old) answered quickly - but never as 'an' answer - always as 'we suggest using this as an answer - if you don't like X the dev team considers Y valid as well - and we saw solution Z in the posts that seems like a good fit - pick what works for your table until/if an official rule change is madeWhy? "Table solutions" are already a given with the nature of the game itself. Being vague or wishy washy just leaves people who for whatever reason are looking for clear official guidance with nothing to really work with.
If you want official hard code answers to things - then experience would say you will get to spend much time without any answers.
To be fair to the PF2 ruleset - so far there are less ambiguous areas of the rules, but it's new and shiney - ask again in 3-4 years when the first set of tires needs to be changed and there are a couple of leaky gaskets :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think they should rush to release an Unchained book to fix the Alchemist and maybe even rush to release a 3rd edition which would be the 5e of Pathfinder (PF2 being its 4e so far) /s
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the society needs a weekly FAQ type deal to fix the most pressing issues and typos, because those games can't use house rules. For everyone else, getting a society FAQ would likely answer the most pressing questions and then they could house rule anything that's left until we get a reprint errata.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think what you have to look at is whether or not you like the rules/intent of the rules for A game and go from there. I liked the changes in Pathfinder 2. Some errata does not bother me. I do not know of an Rpg book that has not had errata. I think people are more forgiving of errata if you like the rules/intent of rules than if you do not. The more you are on the extremes of like vs not like the more or less forgiving you are. As far as the pace of releases I do not think it is that much different than PF1.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think they should rush to release an Unchained book to fix the Alchemist and maybe even rush to release a 3rd edition which would be the 5e of Pathfinder (PF2 being its 4e so far) /s
Tried 5e. It was icky. This is much more enjoyable so far.
I think they should rush to release an Unchained book to fix the Alchemist and maybe even rush to release a 3rd edition which would be the 5e of Pathfinder (PF2 being its 4e so far) /sTried 5e. It was icky. This is much more enjoyable so far.
Edition wars are really not helpful. I do bring up old editions, and I try to do so in context to stop these 'it was never this way' arguments that ignore old farts like me and want to make our feelings about changes invalid. Change is a process and does require people time to 'feel' the change to process it - trying to stifle every negative voice doesn't bring them around to how you think - it just shoves them away.
That said - 5e is a fine game, and if you played it you should easily see how many of the new shiny bits from PF2 are iterations on themes from 5e. The two bits of the game that are brightly unique are the 3 action combat system and the rigid design language. Both I think are great additions to the genre.
It's not a bad thing to be influenced or to borrow from you know - most songs are just past songs with new bits (for example) it's not the influence or idea that is borrowed - it's what you do with them, it doesn't hurt PF2 to acknowledge these things.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the society needs a weekly FAQ type deal to fix the most pressing issues and typos, because those games can't use house rules. For everyone else, getting a society FAQ would likely answer the most pressing questions and then they could house rule anything that's left until we get a reprint errata.I know a lot of folks I gamed with would use the Additional Resources and clarification pages for the various product lines, and what they said for PFS, for "official" rulings in their homegames. The pages say they aren't official errata, but the counterpoint was always, "But it's on the site tho." It seemed to work out alright.
I haven't had a game where this didn't happen. I also think we need to come to terms with Society being a big deal and that it requires faster movement on rules and FAQs because of the pace and scale of it. I know one of my GMs biggest complaints about the system in Society play is that there's a lot if built in table variance that makes consistent play experience difficult - not counting actual rule issues that make the problem even bigger.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That may not be what's happening, but in that case, I'm curious why there's been so much radio silence.
It could be that they just aren't that interested and don't see it as necessary.
Again, for all the fretting about Paizo's pacing now, PF1 had several times the pace when it came to publishing new material and still at least tried to have things like weekly FAQs and the larger blocks of rules clarifications coming a few weeks after a book.
The fact that Paizo has slowed down on both fronts seems to point to something else to me, because if the two were so intrinsically linked together it would follow reducing one would increase the other.
|
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
*NECRO'ED HARD CORE*
I'm going to change my vote to "yes" at this point... In the first couple months, I understood things being slow. At this point though:
* We've gotten one Errata that has left a bunch of stuff unresolved. Perhaps one day Battle Medicine or Shifting Runes will have an answer :-P.
* We have no FAQ system and don't seem to have developers answering questions on the forums either, leaving everything unaddressed for people to wonder (and debate fiercely) about.
* PFS hasn't gotten any of the new material sanctioned, and clarifications on that front have been hard as well. They've blown past their previous "3 week" announcement by about double that now with no statement on where things are in the process.
* There seems to be no consistent way to tell people about what's going on outside of the occasional blog post and some of their Paizo Friday videos. I like the videos, but not as a substitute for informing the community what's going on or clarifying rules.I understand there are kinks to work out in the process, but burying themselves in technical debt just to get the next book printed just seems like a bad idea... That may not be what's happening, but in that case, I'm curious why there's been so much radio silence.
We're at, what, 4.5 months or so now... I don't expect things to be perfect, but I expected things to be moving towards better, rather than kinda stagnating...
5E has no FAQ system, no forum, the last errata of any sort is from November 2018, no dedicated developer-playerbase interaction channel (save for some devs using Twitter, but let's face it - real dev-fans comms is Usenet...I mean, forums). From your perspective, it's agonizingly failing at addressing any burning concerns of invested community members. And it's doing so despite being much larger than Paizo, having a crapload of money and a snail's pace of product release which should guarantee plenty of time to Get Things Right and Respect The Community.
And yet it's eating Paizo's lunch five times over. There's a lesson to be drawn from this.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There's a lesson to be drawn from this.
Never underestimate the power of brand recognition?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Tbh, Stranger Things had a non negligible marketing effect on DnD 5e, since it was a smash hit show and the game is at the center of the story line. It was two years after the launch, but it brought DnD to a much wider audience and with its beginner friendly style mechanics was effective at appealing to that market.
Pathfinder first edition just wasn’t that kind of game and PF2 is way too young to tell where things will shake out, IMO. I doubt they’d overtake it in sales though, it’s just not designed to be that appealing to laypersons. DnD, along with games like Gloomhaven, are the “gateway” TT imo.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not concerned, I want more options. Frankly, 2e is really thin on decent build options. Particularly for casters, who are mostly awful.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not concerned, I want more options. Frankly, 2e is really thin on decent build options. Particularly for casters, who are mostly awful.
And even thinner if you play Society - you know, one of the big draws for the system, despite the system seemingly being written for completely opposite goals to organized play.
The other issue is that the classes in the CRB and even the ones announced in the playtest are a bit...cookie cutter. All the frontline melee classes seem the same, and the casters seem the same. Don't get me wrong, I still really like 2e, I just feel that there are many different types of classes and playstyles that haven't even been explored.
For example, a melee caster (or Gish). The closest 2e comes to this type of character is the Warpriest, which is pretty badly designed. Actually Cleric in general was poorly designed. In 1e you had plenty of choices if you wanted to go that route: Inquisitor, Hunter, Bard, Occultist, Magus, Alchemist, Spiritualist, Skald, etc.
Even with the new APG classes, this type of character doesn't exist. That seems like a pretty big void that could be filled in the somewhat near future with a new book.
|
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
In 1e you had plenty of choices if you wanted to go that route: Inquisitor, Hunter, Bard, Occultist, Magus, Alchemist, Spiritualist, Skald, etc.
And how many books did all those take?
Core Rulebook, Advanced Player's Guide, Advanced Class Guide, Occult Adventures, Ultimate Magic.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In 1e you had plenty of choices if you wanted to go that route: Inquisitor, Hunter, Bard, Occultist, Magus, Alchemist, Spiritualist, Skald, etc.And how many books did all those take?
Core Rulebook, Advanced Player's Guide, Advanced Class Guide, Occult Adventures, Ultimate Magic.
While I generally agree with your point, worth noting that APG is the 2e book we're getting next. So there's an obvious parallel to draw there (at least if you stick to the Inquisitor).
Tho I also question HHM's blanket assertion that the warpriest is terrible, too.
I'm not concerned, I want more options. Frankly, 2e is really thin on decent build options. Particularly for casters, who are mostly awful.And even thinner if you play Society - you know, one of the big draws for the system, despite the system seemingly being written for completely opposite goals to organized play.
How are the options restricted for society? I haven’t seen the guide. Is it crafting again ?
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
How are the options restricted for society? I haven’t seen the guide. Is it crafting again ?I'm not concerned, I want more options. Frankly, 2e is really thin on decent build options. Particularly for casters, who are mostly awful.And even thinner if you play Society - you know, one of the big draws for the system, despite the system seemingly being written for completely opposite goals to organized play.
Crafting is in, though it's not really worth the effort. Last I checked only Plaguestone was sanctioned - so the thinness is entirely from there being basically no sanctioning happening. People want more options for 2e? Society is still 2 books behind.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In 1e you had plenty of choices if you wanted to go that route: Inquisitor, Hunter, Bard, Occultist, Magus, Alchemist, Spiritualist, Skald, etc.And how many books did all those take?
Core Rulebook, Advanced Player's Guide, Advanced Class Guide, Occult Adventures, Ultimate Magic.
I agree Rysky, that's the point I'm trying to make. There's plenty of ideas for additional content, Paizo doesn't need to slow down or stop making books, as some people seem to think.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As I've said before, the main reason a slowdown is worth considering is technical debt and a backlog of issues that would cause cascading problems if fixed - which would lead to systems left broken or ambiguous. And I think Core is the best place to make sure everything works.
There's a lot of room for growth, definitely. But I think there's a lot that still needs setting up behind the scenes - FAQ/ratta, information dissemination, additional resources (to name the big ones). Without those it looks like running before you can walk and I don't want to see a trip.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm not a first edition guy and came over from 5e world. This pace is magnificent. A setting book with varying degrees of mechanical implementation every three months, then a full rulebook and bestiary every year? That's wonderful for now, assuming I'm understanding the intended pace.
There are tons more ancestries, classes, spells, and other concepts to bring to the game! Existing ones and new ones alike. If at some point they have exhausted a lot of their ideas and are just spitting out half-assed concept splats, that will be a problem. But they're working to build the core of the game right now, so the pace is very welcome.
Yeah, they're gonna trip a bit mechanically. That's okay. Taking risks and moving forward means some errors. It's worth it so much more than just having a perfect, completed game we can all admire. Let's keep pushing forward and building the game up. Whoo.
Instead of (or in addition to) a PDF download of errata when they feel they have enough, I like the idea someone had of just putting an ongoing errata link on the website. That could be updated weekly.
Just click on the link, and the erratas people have found would be added to the errata page.
But I think the pace is fine.
I love getting new campaign books.
And rulebooks have come out at the pace of.... well, none since launch. So I think we're doing okay.
|
A setting book with varying degrees of mechanical implementation every three months, then a full rulebook and bestiary every year? That's wonderful for now, assuming I'm understanding the intended pace.
I do believe the current pace is one Rulebook every quarter (The Beastry 1 could be considered the fall quarter hardcover, though was released at summer/launch of 2e) and a setting book every quarter as well. (On top of APs every month, and the occasional standalone adventure when it makes sense :) )
Not sure how much this will continue in future though, but I do think it is a nice pace, a bit slower than 1e, but alot more meater then 5e.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think there's a lot that still needs setting up behind the scenes - FAQ/ratta, information dissemination, additional resources (to name the big ones). Without those it looks like running before you can walk and I don't want to see a trip.
Okay, but having read this argument now for the umpteen billionth time since the Playtest (not counting the myriad restatements of it related to PF1)... who does have all of these things in place? Wizards doesn’t. Modiphius doesn’t. Fantasy Flight doesn’t. Onyx Path doesn’t.
So why do you and others have the expectation that Paizo meet a standard they never needed to meet before, and that almost no one else in this industry meets currently?