Tracking Down The Dev Comments: Kineticists, Fighters, and Area-Fire

[Justnobodyfqwl]

Hi everyone! This is a total longshot, but if anyone can help me, it's you guys. I've been on the Paizo forums since the Starfinder Playtest began, and there is one developer comment I saw here that has made SO much make sense for me- and whenever I mention it to everyone else, they want a screenshot or a link that I just don't have! I was really hoping that someone can help me track this down, so I can prove I'm not crazy.

It was during a discussion about Area Weapons not using weapon proficiency, and a developer explained why that was. While they admitted the flavor might be odd, it's to keep mechanical niches. By making area weapons, you make every class now able to do at-will AoE damage. That's something that typically only a Kineticist can do, and is their strength.

Meanwhile, if you make it tied to weapon proficiency, then all of a sudden a FIGHTER is the new best class at dealing at-will AoE damage- and that's an intentional WEAKNESS of theirs. They're a single target damage class.

So, even tho it's a little silly that Kineticists are just REALLY good at using rocket launchers, it's just to keep the mechanics consistent and the classes distinct.

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To help narrow it down:

1) I'm like 90% sure it was here on these forums, but it might have been on Reddit

2) Contextually, I'm fairly sure it was on a now-archived SF2E playtest thread. It might be even earlier, from the Field Tests and the ORIGINAL soldier design. However, it very well could have been on the Pathfinder boards.

3) I have a faint memory of it being James, with the t-rex avatar? But I'm less sure about that, since he's a Pathfinder dev. It very well could have been a Starfinder dev- but I've ONLY ever seen the Starfinder developers post on Reddit, never here. (Which, y'know, earned)

If anyone knows what I'm talking about, or knows a way to search old posts here effectively, I would be forever in your debt! It makes so much make sense, and I really would love to be able to source my claims.

Thank you all for reading, and even more for helping!

[Ectar]

This one?

[Justnobodyfqwl]

Ectar wrote:

This one?

Ectar, I could kiss you right now

That's ALMOST the post I was looking for... But Thursty then directly said the EXACT post that I WAS looking for!

Pathfinder Dev Michael Sayre said it on a REDDIT THREAD, an old one Terridax did.

And then Starfinder 2e dev Thurston Hillman reinforced it in that very post....and I'm glad he did, because Michael Sayre DELETED HIS REDDIT ACCOUNT, which I'm assuming happened when he left Paizo earlier this year. The post still stands, and the responses and his text confirm who it is... although since the account is deleted, I guess there's that 00.01% margin of error.

I can't believe you found it so fast, thank you so much! What a sweetheart you are!