Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I'm expecting that the quantity of scenarios will be kinda pyramid shaped - more 1-4s than 3-6s, more 3-6s than 5-8s and so forth.
But because the overall setup of the game system is a bit more controlled, it won't be as hard to write high-level scenarios that get the difficulty right in a fun way.
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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Going up to higher levels is going to be dependent on sales. Typically, higher level content has fewer sales and often is not producing enough revenue to pay for the cost of development. If we want higher level content, we have to be certain to purchase what there is so that there is a financial incentive in producing it.
Organized Play Developer
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We actually don't have a hard cap on what level scenario support is likely to top out at. In PFS1, 12 was kind of the soft cap, but there were paths beyond that and the final special went up to 16th, and anecdotally I retired my original PFS character at 17th with Witchwar Legacy, so even in PFS1 twelve was mostly just a limit on the level we could reach with monthly scenarios while maintaining a healthy program.
Organizationally, it's hard to design a program that goes consistently past 12th because we need to make sure there's plenty of support in the system for new players joining every quarter. That means we have to have 1-4s at least twice a quarter minimum, and if we have 1-4s we need 3-6s, which means we need 5-8s, etc. Even with 24 scenarios, 2 specials, and a dozen quests a year, simple campaign maintenance means that anything above 12th level has to be relatively rare.
That being said, there's likely to be many years of this new campaign ahead of us and as we build out a broad base of adventures over the course of several seasons we'll develop more flexibility in how we can schedule our seasons, so scenarios reaching 14th level or beyond are certainly not outside of the realm of possibility. High level content in general is vastly more accessible for players and GMs alike in PF2 than it was in PF1, and I'm not ready to take anything off the table just yet.
I wouldn't expect content above 12th level to be included in the first two years' of content, however. We'll be wrapping up this season with a pair of 5-8s and at least one of the year 2 launch adventures needs to be a 1-4 so we have new entry level content at the big conventions like GenCon, so 7-10 is looking like a very probable ceiling for scenarios through the end of year 2.
You never know though. PF2 is off to an astoundingly strong start and there's no saying what could happen if that trend continues apace. Our goal is to do our best to keep providing people with exciting new adventure content and a robust campaign that can keep the community of organized players growing, and there's a world where a couple years down the road that could mean content higher than 12th level. There's also a world where that's not the case, and at this moment in time I genuinely don't know whether either of those worlds is the one we live in.
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FWIW, I haven't played any high level pf2 yet, but I hope those scenarios are able to match the epic scale and heart pumping excitement of some of the best PF1 scenarios ala Salvation of the Sages or the Waking Rune.
I loved those "battle of the gods" style fights, and I hope that sensation remains at high levels. I'm a little nervous the gated math and nerfed spells will neuter that sensation. I'm not saying I worried the fights will be too easy, hell about 90 percent of the battles in the 1-4 scenarios wind up with two PCs unconscious. I'm just worried it will lack that world shaking sensation. Hopefully I'm just paranoid though.
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Organized Play Developer
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Anecdotally, my home group is tackling the last book of Age of Ashes and the common refrain from all the players is "this is so much better than PF1!"
That's not to rag on PF1 (which is still one of my favorite games and one I still support with 3pp content), but what I've been hearing from my players is that the fighter feels more heroic and like his impact on the fight is a lot more meaningful as he tanks and dishes out crits right and left, the barbarian turns into a dragon when she rages (often accompanied by villainous cackling and phrases like "Flee puny mortals!"), the sorcerer's favorite trick is yelling "Continuous energy bullets!" while flying before unleashing 15 magic missiles, and the druid spent most of last session transformed into a phoenix.
So at least from their perspective, high level is super epic and they all love that they're still only taking a couple minutes per turn so that we're finishing at least two fights per session (which never happened in high level PF1 games).
What is the average xp/level a group gets from one scenario?
I've never played one. And, frankly, this whole organized play thing confuses me.
But, I have all the PF2 ones, and was thinking of using them for an episodic home game.
Will a character get a level from one adventure?
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Organized Play Developer
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What is the average xp/level a group gets from one scenario?
I've never played one. And, frankly, this whole organized play thing confuses me.
But, I have all the PF2 ones, and was thinking of using them for an episodic home game.
Will a character get a level from one adventure?
Three scenarios gets you 1 level. While we abstracted this down to 4 XP per scenario and 12 XP to level up, you can also multiply the numbers by 100 and you'll get the expected slow track progression from page 509 of the CRB. Quests (the adventures designed to be run in an hour) grant 1 XP (100 XP if you're using standard XP progression).
So the short and simple is:
3 scenarios = +1 level
1 quest = 1/4 scenario
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And, frankly, this whole organized play thing confuses me.
In a nutshell, you can build a character that you can play and level up anywhere in the world that Organized Play is offered, regardless of who your GM for each game happens to be.
Games are tracked by sheets that list the rewards you acquire, and everything is (ideally) backed up online. Options are standardized (no randomized stat rolls, for example) so everyone has a level playing field.
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Anecdotally, my home group is tackling the last book of Age of Ashes and the common refrain from all the players is "this is so much better than PF1!"
That's not to rag on PF1 (which is still one of my favorite games and one I still support with 3pp content), but what I've been hearing from my players is that the fighter feels more heroic and like his impact on the fight is a lot more meaningful as he tanks and dishes out crits right and left, the barbarian turns into a dragon when she rages (often accompanied by villainous cackling and phrases like "Flee puny mortals!"), the sorcerer's favorite trick is yelling "Continuous energy bullets!" while flying before unleashing 15 magic missiles, and the druid spent most of last session transformed into a phoenix.
So at least from their perspective, high level is super epic and they all love that they're still only taking a couple minutes per turn so that we're finishing at least two fights per session (which never happened in high level PF1 games).
This gives me a lot of hope! I'm assuming your players aren't ROFL stomping encounters and that the enemies can match roughly match their power level. I love high level, high power combat in PF1 (I primarily play PFS), but I can't deny the final fights of some of my favorite scenarios took several hours to resolve.
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Organized Play Developer
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This gives me a lot of hope! I'm assuming your players aren't ROFL stomping encounters and that the enemies can match roughly match their power level. I love high level, high power combat in PF1 (I primarily play PFS), but I can't deny the final fights of some of my favorite scenarios took several hours to resolve.
My general experience is that 1st level is the most difficult level of play because you're still in that range were a lucky crit from a same level enemy can take a character from full health to dying, and then the degrees of difficulty in combat are pretty stable by 5th level and stay relatively consistent through the course of play (with some levels that are a little bit harder than others depending on party composition).
From my end that means that I typically see at least 1 party member get reduced to at least dying 1 in just about every boss fight, though they haven't really gone down much in moderate difficulty fights since around 8th level; I'm not sure how much of that is party tactics improving and how much of that is characters just getting stronger compared to on-level challenges thanks to their pile of options, but I'm inclined to think that the party learning how to coordinate better with each other and using more tactical movement is the biggest piece of that.
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I'm looking forward very much to playing around once more options become available. The three action thing is cool, but at low levels there's only so many choices. I don't think our tactics will get much better due to it being PFS (No fault on any dev or designer, just the nature of pick up games), but hopefully that doesn't doom us.
The only other (major) issue/concern I've had is how bad it felt to play in the higher tier when you're a level below. I played a level 2 monk in the 3/4 tier of Burden of Envy and while it was fine for most of the scenario, I felt real useless in combat; I couldn't even grapple a wizard despite a 10 on the die and +8 modifier. And getting no extra money despite increased risk was a feels bad moment.
I might be worrying over nothing of course since it's just low level, since being level 7 in an 8-9 tier or whatever usually isn't nearly as bad since you'll have more options.
BTW, I know it sounds like I'm nervous/critical, but I have definitely had some fun experiences in 2E so far and think it's got a lot of potential and the exploration mode seems to run a lot smoother. I'm amazed how much easier it seems to play adventures that take place over several days and how all the skill checks really make a difference.
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I'm looking forward very much to playing around once more options become available. The three action thing is cool, but at low levels there's only so many choices. I don't think our tactics will get much better due to it being PFS (No fault on any dev or designer, just the nature of pick up games), but hopefully that doesn't doom us.
The only other (major) issue/concern I've had is how bad it felt to play in the higher tier when you're a level below. I played a level 2 monk in the 3/4 tier of Burden of Envy and while it was fine for most of the scenario, I felt real useless in combat; I couldn't even grapple a wizard despite a 10 on the die and +8 modifier. And getting no extra money despite increased risk was a feels bad moment.
I might be worrying over nothing of course since it's just low level, since being level 7 in an 8-9 tier or whatever usually isn't nearly as bad since you'll have more options.
BTW, I know it sounds like I'm nervous/critical, but I have definitely had some fun experiences in 2E so far and think it's got a lot of potential and the exploration mode seems to run a lot smoother. I'm amazed how much easier it seems to play adventures that take place over several days and how all the skill checks really make a difference.
I gotta agree, the scaling on scenarios needs a tweak. Every time we sit down here and play I feel punished for not doing the playtest and being left behind by the people that did, while not having enough people to split the table. Our level 2 Fighter is almost always crit and down after every hit due to the scaling, and the level 1 who started late basically just seals the deal of a bad scaling for it. Sometimes the scaling is good, sometimes it gives the enemies 200% HP. It's all over the place, I hope it gets hammered out for season 2.
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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As more and more players learn the rules better, I'm finding I'm dropping fewer and fewer characters in battles. I still have yet to permanently kill a character. The only issue I see with the Challenge Points is when the party consists of six characters with most being L2 or a L4 with five L1s. Otherwise the Challenge Points have made the sessions interesting and not boring romps like so many in PFS1 were.
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Organized Play Developer
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As more and more players learn the rules better, I'm finding I'm dropping fewer and fewer characters in battles. I still have yet to permanently kill a character. The only issue I see with the Challenge Points is when the party consists of six characters with most being L2 or a L4 with five L1s. Otherwise the Challenge Points have made the sessions interesting and not boring romps like so many in PFS1 were.
We've begun looking at creating a split around the 16 Challenge Point marker to address this. The biggest issue we've found with the scaling is when a large group of lower level characters just barely crests into the higher subtier scaling, so the idea we're working on implementing (which you'll see in some of the most recent scenarios) is creating two scalings that kick in at that point value, one for a larger group of low-level characters and one for the base 4 player party of high subtier appropriate characters. That should give the GM the ability to properly slot a 6-player group into a "high end low subtier" scaling without having e.g. a party composed primarily of level 2 characters suddenly finding that they need to deal with level 5+ monsters.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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As more and more players learn the rules better, I'm finding I'm dropping fewer and fewer characters in battles. I still have yet to permanently kill a character. The only issue I see with the Challenge Points is when the party consists of six characters with most being L2 or a L4 with five L1s. Otherwise the Challenge Points have made the sessions interesting and not boring romps like so many in PFS1 were.We've begun looking at creating a split around the 16 Challenge Point marker to address this. The biggest issue we've found with the scaling is when a large group of lower level characters just barely crests into the higher subtier scaling, so the idea we're working on implementing (which you'll see in some of the most recent scenarios) is creating two scalings that kick in at that point value, one for a larger group of low-level characters and one for the base 4 player party of high subtier appropriate characters. That should give the GM the ability to properly slot a 6-player group into a "high end low subtier" scaling without having e.g. a party composed primarily of level 2 characters suddenly finding that they need to deal with level 5+ monsters.
I'm very happy that you're experimenting with "wide" subtiers for wide parties, I think it's something we need very badly.
One request though. Right now, it's becoming rather confusing how to scale each adventure. When I hand a scenario to a new GM I find that I have to inspect the scenario just to see if it's using yet another new scaling method that may not be immediately obvious.
#1-12 for example has this 5+ player low tier mode, which is awesome. But it's only by careful study of the scaling boxes in the 1-2 subtier appendix that you'll notice that.
Also, there's some confusion about "real" and "virtual" five/six player mode. #1-12 has instructions based on the real number of players at the table. But in earlier scenarios, the challenge point table could tell you to run a "five player low tier with level bump" with six players who happened to add up to 15 points. So when you then get a scenario like #1-10 that has tables telling you what to do based on the number of players, is that real or virtual players?
So: if a scenario's tier setup is different from the Guide, could you please put a note in the beginning of the scenario?
I realize that it's a new system and we have to discover this as we go along, but a well-placed scaling box can be a matter of life and death :P
Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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That should give the GM the ability to properly slot a 6-player group into a "high end low subtier" scaling without having e.g. a party composed primarily of level 2 characters suddenly finding that they need to deal with level 5+ monsters.
That is a good start, but as a player I see a LOT of 7 player tables (as there is quite a bit GM shortage/domotiivation to GM PF2 over SFS) so addressing 7-player tables would alos be nice.
These tables work fine in "normal" encounters but they can fold in single enemy (mostly boss) encounters.|
Organized Play Developer
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That should give the GM the ability to properly slot a 6-player group into a "high end low subtier" scaling without having e.g. a party composed primarily of level 2 characters suddenly finding that they need to deal with level 5+ monsters.That is a good start, but as a player I see a LOT of 7 player tables (as there is quite a bit GM shortage/domotiivation to GM PF2 over SFS) so addressing 7-player tables would alos be nice.
These tables work fine in "normal" encounters but they can fold in single enemy (mostly boss) encounters.
We will be addressing 7 player tables.
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...Organizationally, it's hard to design a program that goes consistently past 12th because we need to make sure there's plenty of support in the system for new players joining every quarter. That means we have to have 1-4s at least twice a quarter minimum, and if we have 1-4s we need 3-6s, which means we need 5-8s, etc. Even with 24 scenarios, 2 specials, and a dozen quests a year, simple campaign maintenance means that anything above 12th level has to be relatively rare.
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Emphasis added by me.... Does that mean I can keep dreaming about seeing a 1-99 @ PaizoCon and 2-00 @ GenCon this year? Instead of arguing with myself as to which solo option is more likely?
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Premier Event Coordinator
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Based on the info I have for premier plus event planning, the PF2 1-99 scenario will be released at PaizoCon and restricted to Origins and Gen Con, after which it should be opened up for community play in some fashion. Not sure yet if it will be on the UK Games Expo schedule, but the con qualifies to offer it.
With respect to Gen Con, I am fairly certain we will have:
PF2 1-99 on Thursday night
PF2 2-00 on Friday night
SFS 3-00 on Saturday night
Pretty standard Gen Con schedule given recent history
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Is your party making use of the faction boons that help out low level characters in a part of higher level characters?
My GM's understanding of the level bump is that it applies to players who are the lowest possible level for the spread. Hence, you if I was level one I would get the bump, but because I was level 2 in the 3-4 tier I did not. Is that incorrect? Either way, still feels bad to get zero extra reward for playing with heightened danger.
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I am not talking level bump, which would apply also. There are faction boons that can be purchased by higher level characters that helps low level characters.
The Low level characters do get access to the high tier rewards, if any.
Said boons improve the level bump given to characters at the lowest level...
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(as there is quite a bit GM shortage/domotiivation to GM PF2 over SFS)
May I ask why? Don't you get a chronicle sheet for the adventure to apply to your own character in both settings? So why would there be less interest? Is it harder to prepare Or is there just a lot of starfinder around your area? (Don't get me wrong, Starfinder is great, I'm just curious why there's less motivation for PF2E)
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Around here we have fewer GMs for a couple reasons, one being that it's a new system to learn, run on a different day. Then there's the other things, like the setup being very different from 1e scenarios (treasure, scaling and lack of tactics stand out, along with some scenarios using rules that aren't printed yet like haunts) and then the core rules aren't very friendly to organized play - so many rules are "idk, ask your GM."
Personally, I'm not keen to GM a system I barely know, with variable rules at my discretion, and runs fights without guidance, that uses unique rules frequently and has everything oh a sliding scale - and then I need to talk to the other GMs so we can strive to deliver on the consistent play experience that makes PFS worthwhile for a lot of us? I don't blame anyone else for not being eager either.
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There are rules for haunts (they're functionally identical to traps except for spotting skill and theme of disarming), they just aren't obviously written--I had to dig and cross-reference within the hazard section and they only give one example--but I understand your point. I feel the problem is less the rules and more the scenario writing/editing process. It looks like edition confusion is playing into most or even all of the rules situations I've come across: writers and editors think something is the same in PF2 so they write an encounter or challenge like the PF1 rules applied, the the GM is stuck with, "Wait, the PCs can't do the thing the scenario assumes they can."
I should take my own advice, but in those cases, the review feature in the store is a very important feedback tool for the OP team.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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(as there is quite a bit GM shortage/domotiivation to GM PF2 over SFS)May I ask why? Don't you get a chronicle sheet for the adventure to apply to your own character in both settings? So why would there be less interest? Is it harder to prepare Or is there just a lot of starfinder around your area? (Don't get me wrong, Starfinder is great, I'm just curious why there's less motivation for PF2E)
Most of the GMs have more interest in SF, and while they play PF2 they are not motivated to prep and GM scenarios for it.
Also there is a BIG aversion against running cold so if there are 7 players it is hard to convince them to prepare it beforehand (especially if they might not need it if there are no randoms showing up.)|
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There are rules for haunts (they're functionally identical to traps except for spotting skill and theme of disarming), they just aren't obviously written--I had to dig and cross-reference within the hazard section and they only give one example--but I understand your point. I feel the problem is less the rules and more the scenario writing/editing process. It looks like edition confusion is playing into most or even all of the rules situations I've come across: writers and editors think something is the same in PF2 so they write an encounter or challenge like the PF1 rules applied, the the GM is stuck with, "Wait, the PCs can't do the thing the scenario assumes they can."
I should take my own advice, but in those cases, the review feature in the store is a very important feedback tool for the OP team.
Got the Haunt pages? Every time I ask someone I just get told to wait fit the GM Guide book to come out.
I can sort of see what you're saying, like when a scenario handed out fatigue like candy then broke exploration mode rules by letting us still do things - that one had the worst scaling on enemies too.
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There are rules for haunts (they're functionally identical to traps except for spotting skill and theme of disarming), they just aren't obviously written--I had to dig and cross-reference within the hazard section and they only give one example--but I understand your point. I feel the problem is less the rules and more the scenario writing/editing process. It looks like edition confusion is playing into most or even all of the rules situations I've come across: writers and editors think something is the same in PF2 so they write an encounter or challenge like the PF1 rules applied, the the GM is stuck with, "Wait, the PCs can't do the thing the scenario assumes they can."
I should take my own advice, but in those cases, the review feature in the store is a very important feedback tool for the OP team.
Got the Haunt pages? Every time I ask someone I just get told to wait fit the GM Guide book to come out.
I can sort of see what you're saying, like when a scenario handed out fatigue like candy then broke exploration mode rules by letting us still do things - that one had the worst scaling on enemies too.
Looking at the stat block in the adventures, haunts are listed as hazards which starts on page 520 of the CRB.
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Premier Event Coordinator
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the core rules aren't very friendly to organized play
I would disagree, but it’s an opinion I hear periodically. I find that the rules are no more complicated that 1E, quite the opposite in fact, but they are new and different which can make it feel mysterious. Given some time to become familiar not only with the rules, but the methodology of the rules and I believe most players will warm up to the edition. Personally, I think 2E is better than 1E, but that is a subjective evaluation so I’m not going to suggest it is universally true. 2E is different and a good portion of our community dislike change. I think that is the biggest issue, moreso than whether or not the rules are actually harder or less user friendly. YMMV
Explore! Report! Cooperate!
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the core rules aren't very friendly to organized playI would disagree, but it’s an opinion I hear periodically. I find that the rules are no more complicated that 1E, quite the opposite in fact, but they are new and different which can make it feel mysterious. Given some time to become familiar not only with the rules, but the methodology of the rules and I believe most players will warm up to the edition. Personally, I think 2E is better than 1E, but that is a subjective evaluation so I’m not going to suggest it is universally true. 2E is different and a good portion of our community dislike change. I think that is the biggest issue, moreso than whether or not the rules are actually harder or less user friendly. YMMV
Explore! Report! Cooperate!
I think you may be misunderstanding my point, it's not that it's complicated or difficult - it's not. It's that every part of the game which relies on GM fiat instead of a concrete rule is a variable, and there are too many for PFS to run consistently. Sure, there are guidelines on some of them, but not others. Unless the guide to play plugs all of those (which I don't reasonably expect) that's a lot to ask out of a GM just to get a less consistent outcome.
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Premier Event Coordinator
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every part of the game which relies on GM fiat instead of a concrete rule is a variable, and there are too many for PFS to run consistently
That is not my experience. Can you share some of these rules? Perhaps there are clarifications you are not aware of, or maybe someone is making some RAI assumptions that are inconsistent with the designer comments.
The only rule that I’ve seen a meaningful amount of chatter about is how Battle Medicine is supposed to work, but if you follow the strictest reading of the text, and ignore “logic” of how something should work, then the adjudication becomes much easier.
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Recall Knowledge - what skills, what to tell people. People have surprisingly different ideas of what that means - and different opinions on what is useful.
Persistent damage - to start, duration. Sure, there's the guide of "about a minute" but that's a guideline, not a rule.
Tactics - not really a rule, but boy do we miss those from scenarios.
Those are the big ones.
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Organized Play Developer
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Tactics - not really a rule, but boy do we miss those from scenarios.
Tactics are included for every combat encounter of every scenario. They're just discussed in the running text of the encounter description in the appendix rather than in a stat block entry so that the stat blocks flow better and so that we have more room to discuss the tactical elements and actions most relevant to each encounter.
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Recall Knowledge - what skills, what to tell people. People have surprisingly different ideas of what that means - and different opinions on what is useful.
Persistent damage - to start, duration. Sure, there's the guide of "about a minute" but that's a guideline, not a rule.
Tactics - not really a rule, but boy do we miss those from scenarios.
Those are the big ones.
Recall Knowledge is no more of a GM fiat than it was in 1e.
Persistent damage is well defined. I use the cards so it makes it easier I guess.
Persistent damage is a condition that causes damage to recur beyond the original effect. Unlike with normal damage, when you are subject to persistent damage, you don’t take it right away. Instead, you take the specified damage at the end of your turns, after which you attempt a DC 15 flat check to see if you recover from the persistent damage. See the Conditions Appendix on pages 618–623 for the
complete rules regarding the persistent damage condition.
Persistent damage occurs at the end of your turn. After you take damage, you attempt (note, this is mandatory) a flat DC15 to clear. Additionally, others may take two actions to give you another flat check. You may take two actions to clear on your turn before the damage would hurt you.
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Tactics are included for every combat encounter of every scenario. They're just discussed in the running text of the encounter description in the appendix rather than in a stat block entry so that the stat blocks flow better and so that we have more room to discuss the tactical elements and actions most relevant to each encounter.
I really like the new layout! And adding the modifications based on the number of characters in the appendix is a great help.
Now if only we could get the reporting sheet fixed....
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Columbia
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Tactics are very much part of the game. I haven't had any issues with monster tactics in PFS2.
Recall Knowledge is actually pretty simple. The real trick is for the GM to decide just how much information that character would know. We had a nice conversation about Recall Knowledge on Tuesday's Arcane Mark.
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Tactics are included for every combat encounter of every scenario. They're just discussed in the running text of the encounter description in the appendix rather than in a stat block entry so that the stat blocks flow better and so that we have more room to discuss the tactical elements and actions most relevant to each encounter.
Tactics - not really a rule, but boy do we miss those from scenarios.
Thank you, I will definitely mention that to our GMs who haven't been able to find it. My games should be 25% better now.
Tactics are very much part of the game. I haven't had any issues with monster tactics in PFS2.
Recall Knowledge is actually pretty simple. The real trick is for the GM to decide just how much information that character would know. We had a nice conversation about Recall Knowledge on Tuesday's Arcane Mark.
Simple =/= consistent, easy, or clear. If I need to watch something to understand it, it was not sufficiently detailed in the book. Beyond that, you haven't actually addressed my problem with it - which is that it's entirely GM dependant.
Organizationally, it's hard to design a program that goes consistently past 12th because we need to make sure there's plenty of support in the system for new players joining every quarter. That means we have to have 1-4s at least twice a quarter minimum, and if we have 1-4s we need 3-6s, which means we need 5-8s, etc.
Repeatables really seem like the way to go for the issue of providing content for new players. If you create maybe 10-12 well-written repeatable 1-4s with somewhat more "introductory" content in the first two seasons, those can be constantly reused to introduce new players to the game and level them past those first few less interesting levels. GMs can have a few of those prepared to be run on short notice should a new player show up, existing players can replay them easily to level up a new character (or even just play a pregen to make sure the new player actually has a legal table to play at), etc.
Introducing some new content even for 1-4 from time to time would of course be nice, but the availablity of a sufficient number of low-level repeatables should significantly trim down the amount of new low-level content that would otherwise need to be published, and allow authors to focus more on higher-level content.
It's not like new players care too much about the current meta-plot when starting out a new game, so I don't think each season needs to ensure it also provides up-to-date content for new players.