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So, I can get behind the idea that we shouldn't be losing our minds just because our Starfinder games don't play like Pathfinder, which thankfully nobody seems to be doing. I similarly agree that if we're going to be playtesting, it would be more interesting for the purpose of useful data collection to use a variety of battle maps and make use of the full range of tools given to us. While PF2e and SF2e are meant to be compatible with one another (more so than Pathfinder and that other wizard game), Starfinder definitely ought to feel like a game that's fresh and different where it counts, so we should definitely lean into that gun-based combat and those flying ancestries.
However, a large part of the above post also reads as "please contrive your scenarios and have your players bend over backwards to paper over the glaring problems of some of the playtest classes", which to me sounds like the exact opposite of what a playtest should entail.
Specifically, the OP talks about the Solarian and the Soldier, which as more people have been sharing their playtest experiences are standing out as the two least functional classes in the crop. It's not difficult to read the between the lines and see the issues the OP is trying to redirect us away from: when I read "make sure to build maps with lots of cramped spaces and side routes so the Solarian can sneak up on the enemy", I see "the Solarian can't adequately close gaps by themselves, and will need help from the GM, perhaps even specially-drawn battle maps, just to function in that respect". This is the kind of problem I want to highlight through playtesting, not hide, and any QA tester worth their salt will tell you that one of the most important aspects of making sure a product is fit for purpose is to specifically test out edge cases and see how the product holds up to scrutiny.
So please, do in fact place your Solarian in a field 100 feet away from a sniper and see how they fare. Have your Solarian face up to some of the level 1 ranged flying enemies given to us, position those enemies out of reach, and see how they fare. Spread out your enemies when it makes sense to and see how often the Soldier gets to make use of their AoE (this is already something that will occur naturally in most encounters). See what you need to do to make these classes break, and report your findings, because that data is arguably a lot more important than playtesting only under perfect conditions. If it takes very little to break these classes, or otherwise make them feel incapable of operating properly (or, by contrast, make them far too strong), then that is something very much worth reporting for the content in this playtest to improve.
I don't know why thinking differently will help, instead of all is melee, it's all is ranged. I don't see a huge difference between Sf-2E and PF-2E, they both operate the same just the core weapon group is switched so we can see what an mostly gunslinger (like) party can do and so far it seems more free-form when ti comes to shooting/attacking things. Which makes casters at 6 hit points more of a liability then before but that is the nature of giving everyone a boom stick that shoot far! Expecting Dex to be king over Str instead is the only major change I feel.
What do you mean with contrived scenarios? (not really a spoiler but be warnde) There is a flying enemy in the playtest Adventure "A cosmic Birthday" in a room with a ceiling height of 40 feet. Assuming your Solarian is at least 5 feet tall and the enemey is at least 5 feet tall as well we have a maximum distance of 30 Feet which is exactly the range of your ranged option (and all short range spells) thats what i mean when i say we need to think about this game when we design our maps. If the Designers had chosen 50 feet ceilings the enemy would easily outrange 30 feet cantrips and the solarion. But a 40 Feet Ceiling is fine.
That is what I mean by contrived. Had the ceiling been even 5 foot higher, the Solarian's abilities would have shut down entirely. Even then, my Solarian's experience of using nothing but their Solar Shot the whole time against that particular opponent was not terribly great.
I understand your point about focusing on data. But white room scenarios are not everything. I don't think you will find 100 feet of empty field anywhere on Aballon, Absalom or any other planet. And if you have that much free space you would probably not walk around but sit in a hover car or whatever. But this is not the point.
I think its important to actually play the game in a variety of adventures to see situations and encounters which naturally come up during play. You can always fabricate a horrible scenario for any class.
It is your own best-case scenarios you are suggesting that form the "white room" in this particular case. The intent isn't to pretend that every combat will take place in a vast, featureless space, the intent is to see how a melee-dependent class like the Solarian deals with large distances between themselves and their opponent, and how other classes similarly fare in scenarios that don't work in their favor. You can make it a 120-foot corridor if you like, the end conclusion is the same.
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So, I'm not going to be a jerk or anything, but I'll just leave Paizo's official word from the first (non-table of contents) page of their playtest here for your perusal.
This means that we expect to see parties of adventurers where classic fighters and wizards play alongside soldiers and witchwarpers—pretty Drift, huh? In the same way, Starfinder gives Game Masters more
content and control than ever before, by allowing immediate use of existing hazards and monsters from the Pathfinder line, without any finicky retooling or reworking. If you want to put a mirage dragon in your Starfinder game, all you need to do is pull out Pathfinder Monster
Core and run it from the book. If you want to spice up your Pathfinder game with a scary cybernetic zombie or a big ol’ security robot, all you need to do is get the statblock and drop it in your game.
Director of Sales
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I removed a post that was a little needlessly combative, to avoid sparking off a pointless argument going into the weekend.
Please remember the human on the other side and keep the discussion focused on the rules and the playtest, and not on the other posters or their preferred playstyle.
I don't want to die on this hill. All im saying is that we should try to give this a fresh look and that we should try to play to the systems strenghts. I mean you could "break" all of PF2es casters by playing an entire campaign in 24 hours (ingame time) because none of them would get their spell slots back. But you wouldn't do that would you? And if you have a player who loves the idea of speaking with animals you wouldn't design a campaign where no animals live. You obiously would make sure that there are enough animals for your player to interact with.
Thats what i mean with designing proper Starfinder playtests scenarios for your players.
I'd say this is actually sound advice for a campaign, but not for a playtest, and I'm starting to get the impression that there might be a conflation of the two here: you are 100% correct that in an actual campaign, in which players are there specifically to enjoy themselves in a collaborative gaming experience, the GM should make the effort to accommodate their players, and should certainly not deliberately try to ruin their experience.
What we're dealing with at the moment, though, isn't a fully-fledged campaign designed purely for personal enjoyment, but a playtest, whose purpose is to collect useful data that will inform future design. Although it is good for our playtest sessions to be enjoyable, the objective is to collect useful data first, and have fun on our own time second. This means that if we know or suspect that there is a design problem, I don't think it helps produce the best data to try to disguise that problem through crafty GMing, unless it's to isolate it from a separate bit of design being tested. If Paizo says the game is meant to be compatible with Pathfinder, I'm going to take the developers at face value and report the bits that I think harm compatibility in unintended ways, and in the case of specific classes like the Solarian, the Soldier, etc., Paizo specifically wrote sidebars asking lots of targeted questions for us to consider as we play, including the Solarian's ability to close gaps, the Soldier's key attribute, and so on. It is worth giving feedback on these points too, including critical feedback, just as it is worth allowing that feedback to happen in the space made for it without reflexively trying to invalidate it. This is the time to actually try out those white-room scenarios, not exclusively, but as part of stress-testing certain features and game elements, and if someone ends up not having a fun time playing a certain class or using a certain game option, that is a valid (and valuable) bit of playtesting data.
I think you can do both.
My group is starting ours in the playtest, and its going to be the same campaign as when the final book comes out. Just we'll update all the stuff after it releases, and give feedback in the meanwhile with what we have now.
This may perhaps be splitting hairs, but it is likely worth noting that the quoted bit of text about not including Pathfinder content does not mention spells, despite covering an otherwise exhaustive list of character options. It would be difficult to exclude those in the first place, given that several Mystic subclasses and one Witchwarper subclass explicitly require picking spells from Player Core 1. If we really want to play it safe, we could stick to just those spells and the ones listed in the playtest material, but PF's cantrips do include some 60-foot ranged options that might be relevant in determining how much or little exposure casters can make themselves have in Starfinder encounters.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to state that Player Core 1 spells are valid for use in this playtest. The text merely recommends trying out the new spells too, which makes sense given that we're meant to collect data on those too.
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So, I'm not going to be a jerk or anything, but I'll just leave Paizo's official word from the first (non-table of contents) page of their playtest here for your perusal.
[snip]
I do agree, but also, there's a bit of interesting mixed messaging going on there, since the blog post about the playtest period mentions this instead.
Players should avoid using Pathfinder Second Edition ancestries, backgrounds, classes, equipment, and feats that aren’t explicitly included in the playtest.So really, which is it in this current Playtest enviroment we find ourselves in?
There . . . There's no contradiction here. Play the playtest classes because . . . that's what we're here to playtest. But it's okay to compare them against PF2 classes. Is the solarian roughly on par with a ranger or a fighter? Little less powerful? More powerful?
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The thing is, I fully intend to make most if not all PF classes and ancestries fully accessible in any future SF2e games I run as I think it makes the game much more open to different concepts and play styles plus making it feel much more like the same universe as PF2e. I suspect many GMs will do the same, potentially a majority of them. As such, playtesting with that scenario in mind is a smart thing to do.
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I know I plan to. Wizards as arcane experts in their fields make sense. Druids being the main Xenodruids makes sense. Rockstar and Popstar bards. Some mercs are fighters, ranger bounty hunters. Investigators getting to get much more noir. Clerics and Champions are running around in the name of their lords using guns instead of melee weapons. There are things a Gunslinger can do that an Operative still can't, so an actual revolver-wielding space cowboy is on the table now. Lashunta Psychics, and it goes on and on.
There are so many character archetypes that are distinctly scifi that simply cannot be emulated with Starfinder classes alone.
Exactly, especially since it's science fantasy and all the same stuff from PF still exists. In a setting where dragons rule a huge chunk of a whole planet, dragon bloodline sorcerers won't stop being born. Supernatural patrons won't stop making deals with witches. It all just feels much more natural and immersive than 1e in a way that has me really excited to run 2e so I think that's a feature that needs to be reckoned with and assessed at this stage.