SwingRipper's playtest feedback video

[Driftbourne]

SwingRipper's playtest feedback video.

Curious what others thought of this video, think he's got some good points but not sure I agree with all of them.

[Jekcedo]

SwingRipper brought up the Glitch Gremlin using thunderstrike was too powerful for a -1 CR creatures on a script fail Thunderstrike can do 32 points of damage, that does seem like a lot for CR -1

I know the Glitch Gremlin came up during the field test, but I'm not sure what happened to the old field test forum.

One thing that SwingRipper brought up that surprised me was he had a player playing a mystic who didn't like vitality network because they didn't like having to tack how many HP they could heal. I thought using the vitality network was great, but I had only used it at 1st level and they had tested it at 5th level. For me being able to split up the healing and having to choose who got it made for interesting choices. Whereas SwingRipper described his player as using it all up every turn on one PC just so they didn't have to track the HP pool. I can only assume that the player is not a shirren, because I love the options Vitality Network gives.

[Justnobodyfqwl]

I really enjoyed the parts of the video where he talked about the big picture of how guns feel and they change up the game. I feel like people have only been approaching the game as a PF2E supplement, and not the core pitch of "how entirely different is this game once you change all assumptions about its combat". I've always had trouble getting into PF2E, but something about Sf2E's combat and cover system clicks for me more. The books emphasize long ranges, verticality, hazards, and cover as defining combat, and the more I designed my encounters around those strengths the more fun I have.

I think his idea for making the power of the system be more gear-based than class-based is nice and intuitive. I agree that damage is VERY swingy at low levels, and it feels like classes are expected to pick up the slack for that. However, when players want to play SF2E and PF2E stuff together, I think i think it's a lot more intuitive to tell people "you can interchange classes as you like, but SF2E guns are much more powerful and you should only have them in a SF2E context". People are going to want to play with entire classes more than specific weapons.

I think he has a fair point that Bombard Soldiers get two features which feel so meaningful and impactful, that they should maybe be incorporated into the core class chassis. I have a hard time justifying picking things other than Bombard, and I dont even need to guess that it's Bombard + Stellar Cannon. I actually AM one of those people that felt like Soldiers were on the weaker side when it came to damage and accuracy, but then again...they should be, compared to Operatives and Solarians. (I'm starting to think that a lot of bad Soldier experiences are because It Came From The Vast has you fight enemies in a really tiny room with enemies resistant to common Soldier damage). I think the bombard ability to suppress on a failed save could easily become a core class feature to communicate to players "it's more important that you debuff than it is that your numbers are big".

Even tho they're really minor parts of the video, I was kinda shocked to hear him say that Mystics need their vitality network to be simpler and that Operatives need more flexibility in the action economy. I think those are already achieved, actually! The way his player described dumping the entirety of the vitality network at once was NOT my experience playing a Mystic, where I really enjoyed the raw flexibility of being able to heal EXACTLY as much as I needed to, compared to typical spellcasting. The fact that its just a raw number made it SO much easier to keep track of, especially for later feats that have Transfer Costs like "half the prevented damage" or "twice as much as you healed".

Similarly, I find that the Operative is actually the most flexible action economy class in the game. While the class immediately presents you with the core inflexibility of aim + fire, I think its' easy to miss that the rest of the class really leans into compressing the action economy to make up for it. This is also why the Operative is a great tutorial class- high flat damage, but it teaches you all about the effectiveness of action compression. At level 2, it's entirely possible to take 6 actions in one turn! (Reload + free Stride, Stride + free Aim, Strike + free Take Cover).

Overall, nice video tho!

[Perpdepog]

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I think his idea for making the power of the system be more gear-based than class-based is nice and intuitive. I agree that damage is VERY swingy at low levels, and it feels like classes are expected to pick up the slack for that. However, when players want to play SF2E and PF2E stuff together, I think i think it's a lot more intuitive to tell people "you can interchange classes as you like, but SF2E guns are much more powerful and you should only have them in a SF2E context". People are going to want to play with entire classes more than specific weapons.

I'm in agreement here, for sure. I don't recall if I always was, but I've been getting more on that bandwidth as time goes on. Keeping classes comparable in what they can do, but making the gear environments different is even a core assumption of the game; why not push that further with things like weapons?

Granted, it also needs to be handled delicately, otherwise you end up with the inverse of a problem I've seen folks complain of in SF1E; rather than having melee be king, buffing weapons too much could totally kill someone's desire to mix it up in melee.

[WatersLethe]

Ranged attacks feel better at higher levels due to more dice, flat bonuses, and more feats and options. It's the low levels where your entire party is rolling flat, unmodified d6s and d8s, that ranged feels straight up bad.

What if guns got one more upgrade slot, and there was a very low level version of things like Flaming Module that gives you a flat couple damage. Maybe even have most guns start with one built in.

It won't outshine melee damage, but does close the gap a bit, and doesn't really affect balance past the early levels.

[Teridax]

Guns already get a starting upgrade slot, which lets them slot in an extra damage upgrade when those come online, so I don't think they need yet another one. I also really dislike the Pathfinder model of adding more damage to weapons via property runes/upgrades, which are supposed to be about nifty, optional utility rather than yet more raw damage output, and I think that is one of the points from PF2e where Starfinder 2e would benefit from a clean departure. I think it's fine for those upgrades to change your weapon's damage, but adding damage makes them straight-up more powerful than all but the upgrades essential to a particular playstyle, such as retrieval boosters for a thrown weapon.

When I wrote some feedback regarding guns, my suggestion was to have each grade also add an extra damage die: you'd therefore immediately start dealing two damage dice at level 2 with a tactical weapon, three dice with an advanced weapon, and so on all the way up to seven damage dice with a paragon weapon. This would provide that extra boost in damage at very early levels, while eventually mirroring the seven dice of damage you'd be inflicting in PF2e with every Strike (which are often of different sizes, but the difference is lessened for guns). You'd always get the benefit of more damage with every increase in weapon grade, and would instead alternate between a tracking bonus and an extra upgrade slot. This would require adjusting the fatal trait, and accounting for any other effect that upgrades your weapon damage dice, but would otherwise provide fairly smooth damage progression for martial classes.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

It's a solid video, but I really did not vibe with that feedback about the mystic, though I can fully admit that the current method is not sacred.I can totally see that you could remake the pool with charges that heal X per charge and recover a charge per turn etc. though personally I really want to keep the aspect of recharging the pool.

The way the recharge scales is may be something to consider.