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I am hoping that there is very little errata for this game. Unless it is something that is really broken leave it be...so the wizard gets an extra class feat? Who cares if the dueling sword is 20 gp as opposed to 20 sp? Neither of these thing break the game..so leave them be. I am sure there is a host of things people want changed but in reality it matters very little to actual game.
So I think Paizo should clarify things in a FAQ, fix those things that really cause issues but leave all the rest alone.
Just wondering other peoples thoughts?
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How do you see Paizo "fixing those thing that really cause issues"?
Reprinting the Core Rule Book?
Not reprinting the physical books, but re-editing the PDF and issuing a new version?
Not editing the PDF, but having a webpage you can download that lists all the errors and how to change the wording from what is in the CRB?
Not having a an errata document, but having a pinned thread in one of the forums that lists the errors, the corrections, and allows anyone to post newly-discovered errors.
There are different levels of "fixing" involved, and some of them seem to be exactly the same as issuing a FAQ
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I think there are about three levels to this:
- FAQ: something is unclear and people keep asking about it, so explain it better in an FAQ entry.
- Errata: there's a mistake somewhere, such as a 20GP that should be 2GP. Or something is missing a trait. There was a plan, but what's actually printed isn't quite according to plan. Next printing, fix it. Meanwhile, have a list of "mistakes we found that will be fixed in the next printing" because it can take a while. This also covers fixing inconsistencies between things in different chapters seeming to contradict each other.
- Design changes: overhauling how something works because the original design is causing problems. This is basically Paizo saying "we changed our mind".
I would say that the first two categories are certainly desirable. The last category is sometimes needed, but preferably only if it really improves the game. I think it was this category that caused the most pain last edition when some option was found overpowered and nerfed hard in a next printing.
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I mean, why? I certainly won't necessarily agree with every change Paizo makes but I don't really get the logic behind "It's broken... but eh, dw about it" as a way forward.
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I think errata is really inevitable, because in the original sense "errata" is "errors made in printing"- things which were not intended but made it to print via the vagaries of the process.
If you're ordering a new print run, why wouldn't you correct those errors once you've become aware of them?
As a result, you have to issue an errata document for people who bought the earlier printing so they can update their books to match the current (and correct) ones.
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I honestly can't see a reason NOT to fix every error and to clarify confusing areas. I hope everything gets fixed and if that requires lots of errata, then that's fine with me. IMO, far too many things that were errata got 'fixed' in PF1 by using an FAQ and that's something I'd rather not see for PF2.
For the OP, if you don't care about the fixes as "it matters very little to actual game" the it shouldn't matter one way or the other to you as neither way changes how you play.
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I think there are about three levels to this:
- FAQ: something is unclear and people keep asking about it, so explain it better in an FAQ entry.
- Errata: there's a mistake somewhere, such as a 20GP that should be 2GP. Or something is missing a trait. There was a plan, but what's actually printed isn't quite according to plan. Next printing, fix it. Meanwhile, have a list of "mistakes we found that will be fixed in the next printing" because it can take a while. This also covers fixing inconsistencies between things in different chapters seeming to contradict each other.
- Design changes: overhauling how something works because the original design is causing problems. This is basically Paizo saying "we changed our mind".I would say that the first two categories are certainly desirable. The last category is sometimes needed, but preferably only if it really improves the game. I think it was this category that caused the most pain last edition when some option was found overpowered and nerfed hard in a next printing.
I agree. Especially on the third point. There should be some quality check for such errata, so we don't get things nerfed into uselessness.
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I'm waiting for the 2nd print run because I want Errata that hard.
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I want no errata.
Because I want a perfect product with no errors.But, given the choice between a product with unfixed errors and a product with errata, I'll take the latter everyday of the week.
Paizo does not have a good reputation for their handling of errata in the past, and with PF2, it seems to be getting worse.
At least with Pathfinder, developer's rulings ended up split between the faq and the errata documents.
Now, we need to refer to random comments that they're making on whatever podcast or promotional video that they have appeared on.
Yeah,that part is especially frustrating because they have a central location to state those things on, the most official location, and they ignore it? Like, I knew they aren't organized great but it's not even funny anymore.
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I want no errata.
Because I want a perfect product with no errors.But, given the choice between a product with unfixed errors and a product with errata, I'll take the latter everyday of the week.
Paizo does not have a good reputation for their handling of errata in the past, and with PF2, it seems to be getting worse.
At least with Pathfinder, developer's rulings ended up split between the faq and the errata documents.
Now, we need to refer to random comments that they're making on whatever podcast or promotional video that they have appeared on.
Where do you get the “seems to be getting worse” from?
When was the first errata for the first printing or the 1E core rulebook released?Was it within 2 months of release?
I have tried to find online and the best I can see is end of May 2010 - so almost 10 months after the release . If (and that is a big if) that is true then we have 8 months before we know if it is getting worse
Of course I wasn’t following errata back then and maybe they did come out earlier
It seems the problem is some errata have already been acknowledged which has given people arguably unrealistic expectations
Of the points that were mentioned I believe most were things that seem like they could have been design choices until confirmed as errata (wizard feat, sorcerer saves and unarmed proficiency). There were questions and doubt but no certainty
They are primarily working on the GMG and then getting classes ready for the APG playtest right now
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Even if they prefer to take longer to release an extensive errata, I’d rather they address some critical issues sooner than later (mutagenist, I am looking at you).
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I think there are about three levels to this:
- FAQ: something is unclear and people keep asking about it, so explain it better in an FAQ entry.
- Errata: there's a mistake somewhere, such as a 20GP that should be 2GP. Or something is missing a trait. There was a plan, but what's actually printed isn't quite according to plan. Next printing, fix it. Meanwhile, have a list of "mistakes we found that will be fixed in the next printing" because it can take a while. This also covers fixing inconsistencies between things in different chapters seeming to contradict each other.
- Design changes: overhauling how something works because the original design is causing problems. This is basically Paizo saying "we changed our mind".I would say that the first two categories are certainly desirable. The last category is sometimes needed, but preferably only if it really improves the game. I think it was this category that caused the most pain last edition when some option was found overpowered and nerfed hard in a next printing.
Oh that third category definitely caused the most pain in the latter years of PFRPG.
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For the OP, if you don't care about the fixes as "it matters very little to actual game" the it shouldn't matter one way or the other to you as neither way changes how you play.
It matters in that correcting errors, clarifying confusing points and revising a design philosophy which has resulted in some undesirable consequence is work and effort the design team aren’t spending making new stuff.
I’m resigned to the fact the errata/FAQ process will continue (I think those of us who don’t care are in the minority of the Paizo fanbase). However, it’s not true that it makes no difference to us - opportunity cost is a real thing.
For the OP, if you don't care about the fixes as "it matters very little to actual game" the it shouldn't matter one way or the other to you as neither way changes how you play.It matters in that correcting errors, clarifying confusing points and revising a design philosophy which has resulted in some undesirable consequence is work and effort the design team aren’t spending making new stuff.
I’m resigned to the fact the errata/FAQ process will continue (I think those of us who don’t care are in the minority of the Paizo fanbase). However, it’s not true that it makes no difference to us - opportunity cost is a real thing.
I'm not seeing how fixing "the wizard gets an extra class feat" or "the dueling sword is 20 gp as opposed to 20 sp" [the OP's examples] is a big impediment as far as new stuff is concerned. I'd be more with you is we were talking about tracking down every spelling error, grammatical error and such that didn't impact anything but things that actually affect players and are easy fixes? It doesn't seem a big ask.
Secondly, as the OP was suggesting that issues instead should be dealt with FAQ's, the design team would STILL be taking the same amount of time dealing with the issue: the difference would be someone adding an FAQ to the site or editing the book/pdf and that doesn't have to be the design team.
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I'm not seeing how fixing "the wizard gets an extra class feat" or "the dueling sword is 20 gp as opposed to 20 sp" [the OP's examples] is a big impediment as far as new stuff is concerned. I'd be more with you is we were talking about tracking down every spelling error, grammatical error and such that didn't impact anything but things that actually affect players and are easy fixes? It doesn't seem a big ask.For the OP, if you don't care about the fixes as "it matters very little to actual game" the it shouldn't matter one way or the other to you as neither way changes how you play.It matters in that correcting errors, clarifying confusing points and revising a design philosophy which has resulted in some undesirable consequence is work and effort the design team aren’t spending making new stuff.
I’m resigned to the fact the errata/FAQ process will continue (I think those of us who don’t care are in the minority of the Paizo fanbase). However, it’s not true that it makes no difference to us - opportunity cost is a real thing.
The opportunity cost comes in setting up a process and devoting resources to ongoing management of the issue. You don't know how easy the problems are going to be to fix ahead of time. Plus, when you find the inevitable "big problems", it's going to be weird if they don't then devote resources to fixing those as well but rather say "No, no. We're only correcting the minor problems. Major problems with the game that we've identified with our error-checking process are fine."
As ever, I think people who ask for more FAQs and errata generally underestimate the time required, but that opinion isn't strictly relevant. Those of us who wish Paizo wouldn't devote resources to the FAQratta process are missing out on something when it doesn't go the way we'd like - the volume we're missing out on is a matter of opinion that's pretty much impossible to diagnose from outside the company. All I was saying was that it affects us and the amount of resources Paizo devote to errata-ing and FAQ-ing is just a matter of quantifying that affect.
I think some form of errata/FAQ process is going to continue to happen and some in the community will think Paizo are too slow while others will think they're doing too much. I don't think either group should tell the other it doesn't affect them.
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Steve Geddes: I was mainly saying that I don't think there is much difference in DEV time between errata and FAQ: both are going to require a meeting to go over it. The only difference is who deals with the consequences of what they decide. So I don't think a focus on FAQ vs errata is a time saver: this was the idea of the OP, to focus on FAQ's.
As to more/less or faster/slower, I agree everyone is going to have a different idea on the ideal amount. Myself, I'd say I'm in the middle as far as amount: fix things that are different from what was intended [wizard extra class feat/dueling sword cost] while grammatical/spelling/ect issues aren't a worry for me. As to time, I'd like to see it as fast as possible for a core book as everything coming later is building on that base so the quicker we get things right, the easier it is for other to build on it by referencing the correct info. The last thing we need is an error multiplied by being referenced and used in future books: it takes less time to fix it right now than push it off until later.
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I honestly can't see a reason NOT to fix every error and to clarify confusing areas. I hope everything gets fixed and if that requires lots of errata, then that's fine with me. IMO, far too many things that were errata got 'fixed' in PF1 by using an FAQ and that's something I'd rather not see for PF2.
For the OP, if you don't care about the fixes as "it matters very little to actual game" the it shouldn't matter one way or the other to you as neither way changes how you play.
Thrre are two categories of issues:
1) Flat out errors2) Deliberately interpreting rules in the most extreme way possible, fighting everyone on the boards who disagrees with you and then declaring that clearly the issue is confusing and needs to be fixed.
#1 is worth the devs time. #2 isn’t.
Steve Geddes: I was mainly saying that I don't think there is much difference in DEV time between errata and FAQ: both are going to require a meeting to go over it. The only difference is who deals with the consequences of what they decide. So I don't think a focus on FAQ vs errata is a time saver: this was the idea of the OP, to focus on FAQ's.
Ah, gotcha. I missed that subtlety.
so the wizard gets an extra class feat?
Yeah not sure i agree with you that this isn't a fairly big deal and one that wouldn't get worse as the game progresses.
But hey, you can play the game you want by ignoring errata... other folk like me being denied errata like "simple weapon proficiency increases unarmed proficiency" because you want a book to never change is a bit... weird.
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John how do you know its "extreme" and not worth the devs time? Also, this thread doesn't need that derail.
By listening to their argument, looking at the rules and applying logic.
One person's "clearly this is what the devs intend" might be another person's "this is the most extreme possible interpretation". But if someone wanted to, they could deliberately misinterpret the majority of the rules. Eventually there will come a point where a line must be drawn and the devs say "this is worth clarifying" and "this is not worth clarifying". Otherwise there will be no time to develop new rules or they'll have to expand the dev team and increase the cost of the products which impacts their commercial viability.
My comment also wasn't targeted at any single person. Some people might fit the description, but it's a phenomena far bigger than one person within our community.
For what little it may be worth John’s comment resonated with me.
Since I have started using the boards far more to aid GMing especially when my players are using a few complex / unclear choices or in some cases clearly looking for loopholes I have noticed the “second” phenomenon quite a lot
It is also always players posting with a very extreme interpretation that is almost alway not reasonable or correct that they are hoping to have validated to force down a GMs throat. Now clearly I have noticed this through the eyes of a “forever GM” and have some bias
But there you go
Of course this further adds to the derail in some people’s view so they can ignore it as mentioned :-)
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It is also always players posting with a very extreme interpretation that is almost alway not reasonable or correct that they are hoping to have validated to force down a GMs throat. Now clearly I have noticed this through the eyes of a “forever GM” and have some bias
Mostly yes, generally GMs don’t need to stretch the rules to suit them because they are given authority to change them. So most of the conversations I’ve seen around that is when it’s gone poorly or wasn’t discussed at session zero. It’s definitely not unique to Pathfinder, I see it in the 5e subreddits and Facebook groups too.
But then you get the real Joe O’Brians of the world who always seem to have the incorrect interpretations that that go against him and his allies all the time.
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It was my impression that errata/faqs were just normal. In the edition of Hero Games' "Champions Complete" that I have, there are a number of errors in the text that are addressed by errata. There are a couple versions of Axis & Allies I've played that had errata/faq issued, which were pretty important to a consistent read on the game.
I'm thinking any sort of complex rule set is going to have issues that need to be clarified or fixed, that's just life. I'd rather have an official, written clarification/fix from the devs than rely on different interpretations at different tables, personally.
It's pretty normal to have an FAQ for a complex game, just about any serious RPG or boardgame has one. They tend to cover a couple of different degrees of things:
- Simply clarifying something that people had trouble understanding. If a question gets asked frequently, apparently it's not as obvious as the writers thought.- Plugging holes that weren't known before. Someone came up with a complex rules interaction that wasn't anticipated in development and how you should handle that in the game is ambiguous. Fans are asking the game developers to use their professional skills at game design to come up with an answer that's best for the game overall.
- Rebalancing, sometimes an option turns out stronger than it was meant to be, or crippled by a rule elsewhere that the developers didn't intend to limit this thing. As a result the game is worse, because there's a dominant or useless option.
You also expect several of these things to be incorporated in the next printing of the game, along with typo fixes.
Rebalancing is the tricky one. Sometimes an option is very good and taken by many people. For example, the resonance effect of the Clear Spindle ioun stone essentially gave you Protection From Evil against enemy charm, compulsion, possession and domination effects, all day long. It was pretty cheap too. It was so good that it was considered highly irresponsible for any martial character not to take it. But it created problems:
* It didn't protect against the deadliest spell PF1 NPCs had, Confusion, and in fact gave license to not invest in Will because you were covered against most of the bad mind-affecting spells.
* It created a stark divide between people who knew about it and paid for the books, and more casual players.
* It caused an arms race with scenario writers, where you get suspiciously Chaotic Neutral villains who are up to their elbows in evil acts but are just not evil enough for the item to work. Or you run into plot items that specifically ignore these immunities. Because.
* If the writer didn't want to resort to cheese to overrule this item, then there were whole series of classic monsters that basically couldn't do their job, reducing the richness of the game.
So it was too powerful. It got nerfed hard, going from all day protection to once per day activated (if you knew you needed it) or once-only emergency activation as immediate activation (with lots of questions about whether you could activate it if you didn't know what was about to happen). So it went from a 4000gp permanent item to a 4000gp consumable. And there was much angst on the forums.
The thing is, people rarely complain when a previously too weak to use option gets upgraded. I remember when monks' ki strike was altered to provide special material damage earlier, and to also count as magical for hitting incorporeal creatures. And nobody complained. And the amulet of mighty fists was re-costed from 3x the price of a magic weapon (for wildshape druids with lots of claws) to 2x (for monks who essentially 2 weapon fight with their fists). And nobody complained.
So I think much of this discussion is actually about "we don't want our toys nerfed into the ground anymore". I can sympathize with that, I wouldn't want to see a previously good thing made so much worse that it's now a trash option. But I do think that sometimes it's necessary to take down an item that's being too dominant.
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For the OP, if you don't care about the fixes as "it matters very little to actual game" the it shouldn't matter one way or the other to you as neither way changes how you play.It matters in that correcting errors, clarifying confusing points and revising a design philosophy which has resulted in some undesirable consequence is work and effort the design team aren’t spending making new stuff.
I’m resigned to the fact the errata/FAQ process will continue (I think those of us who don’t care are in the minority of the Paizo fanbase). However, it’s not true that it makes no difference to us - opportunity cost is a real thing.
Well this is a sliding scale isn't it? Suppose due to some layout accident the last page of a class got chopped off and they didn't get any class features beyond level 12, would you want it fixed then? Suppose an item accidentally got listed as 20 bulk instead of 2 bulk, making it impossible to carry, would you want that fixed? If Paizo is printing a new run of the CRB, do you want them to fix the typos they know about?
There's a variety of tradeoffs. Does Paizo want to be known as a company that doesn't care about quality control? Does Paizo care if there are rule problems so severe that you can't really have an organized play campaign, because everyone is implementing their own house rules to fix them?
You seem to be proposing a very absolutist position, that Paizo should never work on improving existing products but devote all energy to churning out new content.
I don't think that's a good idea. I think a balance needs to be struck between maintaining the quality of existing product and adding new. Obviously new product is needed to drive sales. But quality of existing product is also important, otherwise people will start quitting the game because it's so broken. Which is also bad for sales.
I also think devoting a certain amount of time to maintaining existing rules helps in honing the design team's mind on what works and what is problematic, and thus makes them much sharper at catching potentially problematic submissions by freelancers working on new stuff.
Compare Paizo to a software company. How would you feel about a software company that only focuses on new products, never fixing bugs in existing software no matter how severe? Would that really result in software you enjoy using?
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So I think Paizo should consider for each proposed bugfix:
- How hard is it to perform Fixing a typo is straightforward. Adding a missing trait is not hard. Making a class feature table and a list of class features agree is also straightforward. Re-costing an item takes a bit more thought but then it's just a matter of changing a number. But overhauling the stealth rules is hard (which is why it was attempted but not actually changed in the CRB in PF1).
- How much value is created / anti-value removed by the fix Fixing a typo usually doesn't make the book a whole lot better, although it looks sloppy leaving them in. Fixing a completely broken class is quite valuable.
- How painful is it to people currently using the item. People didn't complain when the amulet of mighty fist was re-costed. They hated how the Jingasa was nerfed into the ground. Crane Wing was tricky because the original was broken, the first fix didn't work, but the final version is a good compromise.
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I think that was a very thoughtful comment and that my responses to it wouldn’t really help this thread. I did want to mention though that:
You seem to be proposing a very absolutist position, that Paizo should never work on improving existing products but devote all energy to churning out new content.
I’m not actually advocating that. It would be close to my preference, as it happens but I don’t think that’s what Paizo should do.
I think there is a lot of demand from the Paizo community for regular FAQs, errata and “background thoughts behind the rule” comments from the designers. Additionally, from speaking directly to a few of the designers, I think their view is that it is almost nonsensical to not try to make PF2 the absolute best game they can and that that includes correcting errors when they find them and propagating such corrections as widely as possible.
(I did like your reply though. Cheers.)
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I've certainly found some errata annoying, but it also seems pretty necessary; particularly at the beginning of the game's life. My main concern is an errata like the 2015 errata series that worked on rolling back a portion of the game's previous design philosophy. If they start making revisions on that scale, they'd be better off working on PF3 instead.
The rarity trait gives them a soft fix for things that are deemed inappropriately powered for organized play, so I hope they are able to leverage that in order to keep the game stable without rewriting things constantly.
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Thanks for your feedback everyone, and all your ideas and thoughts. We want errata that's best for all of you, the community of players not just here but across the world, and for the game as a whole. In many cases, we know that means getting it out in a timelier and more easily digested fashion; after all, sometimes when we had to change something we knew was a mistake, it was after years without mentioning that fact, and the community had time to form a different opinion of what was normal or intended, so the negative reaction was quite understandable. That plus the power level disparity present between various groups in PF1 in general meant that curbing something that was an exploit or loophole that caused significant gameplay issues for most groups meant removing one of the few viable options for extremely high-optimization games battling against suped up foes, like my own PF1 games. Naturally that would be frustrating for those groups as well, and people like us playing those high-op games are more common on passionate communities like paizo.com.
Just because we are using the release of the new edition as an opportunity to make errata work better than it did last edition doesn't mean we're putting the brakes on getting it documented and decided. The ball is rolling, but the design team did lose Stephen just after GenCon, and we also want to make sure we get you the Gamemastery Guide and the APG playtest on time if we can.
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Thanks for your feedback everyone, and all your ideas and thoughts
Thanks for weighing in Mark. Just having someone say "we hear you, and we're working on it" does a lot to restore faith.
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Just because we are using the release of the new edition as an opportunity to make errata work better than it did last edition
I honestly hope you manage to.
Last edition, at some point, a lot of effort was spent on trying to find a way to make the Stealth rules in the CRB work better. In the end, it was shelved because it was not possible to accommodate the required extra text in the next printing of the CRB without disrupting page numbering, which would have meant that all page references into the CRB from other books would be thrown into chaos. But seeing a very serious attempt at fixing a difficult issue get shot down on that, was rather heartbreaking.
Last year I ran into Logan Bonner at PaizoCon UK, where he was carrying the book that everyone wanted to look at. I had a short talk with him about what kind of plans you guys had to make it easier to handle changes in the future. Because, to my mind, RPGs need change and maintenance. They're a lot like software, run on the wetware of human brains. They need patches and updates, and if you want to have a long-term product, you need to think about how you can make it easy to do that in the long run.
doesn't mean we're putting the brakes on getting it documented and decided. The ball is rolling, but the design team did lose Stephen just after GenCon, and we also want to make sure we get you the Gamemastery Guide and the APG playtest on time if we can.
All I want is a healthy balance between feeding our hunger for new stuff, and maintaining, even polishing, the existing stuff.
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Only real improvement I'd like to see for the FAQ/errata system over PF1 is better organization. Errata was fine, but FAQs felt all over the place and hard to navigate.
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I'm just going to say that I value early and strong Errata more than getting APG print product on schedule.
Mark mentioned how long-delayed Errata impacts player understanding, but it seems like it also impacted DEV understanding,
since after all if they are writing auxiliary rules, their understanding of core functionality will impact how they construct them.
And it seems like a hot mess to try to manage editing new rules content against vague undertanding of actual rules intent,
when concretely formulating actual rules errata would give solid basis upon which to build and judge new rules content.
All the more so considering the constraints of errata on already printed product, where ideal wording won't always be achieved,
which will necessitate "bandaid" wording in other places, so knowing that bandaid boilerplate is really really important.
With exit of Stephen, I honestly can't imagine how original schedules can be met while pursuing strong Errata process,
so I'm very hopefuly management can see and accept that, and allow devs to do what they need to do for best game system,
recognizing that staying on top of Errata early on for Core Rules is not comparable to "normal" book scheduling needs,
but in fact is about establishing a strong base which can help prevent rules problems in the future.
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I'm just going to say that I value early and strong Errata more than getting APG print product on schedule.
Mark mentioned how long-delayed Errata impacts player understanding, but it seems like it also impacted DEV understanding,
since after all if they are writing auxiliary rules, their understanding of core functionality will impact how they construct them.
And it seems like a hot mess to try to manage editing new rules content against vague undertanding of actual rules intent,
when concretely formulating actual rules errata would give solid basis upon which to build and judge new rules content.
All the more so considering the constraints of errata on already printed product, where ideal wording won't always be achieved,
which will necessitate "bandaid" wording in other places, so knowing that bandaid boilerplate is really really important.With exit of Stephen, I honestly can't imagine how original schedules can be met while pursuing strong Errata process,
so I'm very hopefuly management can see and accept that, and allow devs to do what they need to do for best game system,
recognizing that staying on top of Errata early on for Core Rules is not comparable to "normal" book scheduling needs,
but in fact is about establishing a strong base which can help prevent rules problems in the future.
If you change “APG” in your post to “GMG” then that may be reasonable
But they are not missing the Gencon release of the APG regardless of the errata situation . They are far more likely to compromise on errata quality (despite Mark’s comments) than the APG timetable
The APG is the flagship product for GenCon 2020.
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Comparing a RPG to a video game is an unfair ability. Video games almost universally now are downloaded or connected to machines that download new content and patches automatically. Much of it happening without the user particularly noticing.
A table top RPG requires players to learn certain aspects of the rules system and changing that too often (I.e. the playtest) is more than your average table is going to be able to keep up with.
Also, the RPG is exceptionally mod-able. Fix the things that feel broken at your table. If “official” errata comes out that you like more than your fix, use it. If not, don’t.
“But Society...”
Rules for streamlining official play will certainly happen, but again, should not be changing weekly or even monthly. It will lead to chaos at the gaming store. There are things I want to know too as far as design intent, but thankfully, the developers have been around to talk about that and mistakes, even if they don’t want to rush out all the solutions before they are vetted with the other content.
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I think if they just hazard an errata with every new big book (APG, ACG, ARG, the Ultimates), then that gives the ability to re-evaluate how the underlying engine functions whenever they add something new on top of it. That would also make it a regular process, but not so constant that the devs are getting burnout and tables can also keep up with what iteration the system is on (maybe not a full reprint errata requiring a new book, but just a clarification/adjustments). But that's just my guess/suggestion, Paizo can do what they want/feel the need to be done
I'm just going to say that I value early and strong Errata more than getting APG print product on schedule.
Mark mentioned how long-delayed Errata impacts player understanding, but it seems like it also impacted DEV understanding,
since after all if they are writing auxiliary rules, their understanding of core functionality will impact how they construct them.
And it seems like a hot mess to try to manage editing new rules content against vague undertanding of actual rules intent,
when concretely formulating actual rules errata would give solid basis upon which to build and judge new rules content.
All the more so considering the constraints of errata on already printed product, where ideal wording won't always be achieved,
which will necessitate "bandaid" wording in other places, so knowing that bandaid boilerplate is really really important.With exit of Stephen, I honestly can't imagine how original schedules can be met while pursuing strong Errata process,
so I'm very hopefuly management can see and accept that, and allow devs to do what they need to do for best game system,
recognizing that staying on top of Errata early on for Core Rules is not comparable to "normal" book scheduling needs,
but in fact is about establishing a strong base which can help prevent rules problems in the future.
I hear what you are saying, Q, and having an efficient and timely errata process in place would be wonderful.
But I feel like we are not quite taking reality into account here. I think we may want to look so ... Delay new products, and you won't make payroll, then you will lose more than Stephen. My sense is that is the reality of the situation.
More people (an overwhelming majority I would bet) are impacted by new products, then they are by errata.
So we could halt everything to get errata out, and have one over-worked designer left, which then would delay anything new even more. This one designer would like have to spend time in the warehouse packing boxes as well, because of the need to tighten the budget because the new products were delayed. And so on, and so on.
Don't get me wrong, I think the errata and FAQ system has room for improvement, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that the simple solution is to change the "normal" book schedule.
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...meant removing one of the few viable options for extremely high-optimization games battling against suped up foes, like my own PF1 games.
FUN ISN’T SOMETHING ONE CONSIDERS WHEN BALANCING THE UNIVERSE.
BUT THIS… DOES PUT A SMILE ON MY FACE.