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I know that no company is ever perfect, but Paizo seems to be making more unforced errors than usual after the remaster than they were before it. Even the much-promised rework of their online shop hasn't been without its issues. My question is: Has this change in quality worried you, and if so, how might it affect your purchases going forward?
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It's the company who's put out the best version of the game to date and continues to pump out great content. They have my support, and I'm happy to send them money when I make purchases.
Their rules are free on AoN, and they continue to invest in Foundry support. Wins all around for me. What's to gripe about?
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I feel the change in quality is more of a symptom than the main problem itself, but yes, I'm a bit worried. I definitely feel like there's been a shift since the remaster, and the part of the shift that I have experienced has been a decline in product quality due to less consistent balance and more frequent poor design, but also less customer-friendly practices. The new storefront not factoring in store credit is an example of the latter, and making books opt-out rather than opt-in on the subscription model I think is a subtle yet predatory change that is particularly effective at targeting people with memory issues, ADHD, or other circumstances that might make them less likely to pick up on the reminders or remember to opt out. I also homebrew frequently and share my content online, and there was a debacle where Paizo briefly tried cutting out the Community Use Policy when reworking their licenses to then pressure third-party content creators into sharing their work exclusively through Infinite. Thankfully Paizo restored the CUP following negative feedback, but it kind of tarnished the idea that Paizo was standing up for creative rights post-OGL crisis.
The flipside to this is that, from what I've been seeing, developers have been expressing burnout and talking about working eleven-hour workdays, so if this is true, then the situation isn't great at Paizo either. There's been recent issues as well with a distributor going bankrupt and refusing to pay the company for their stock, so if I were to hazard a conjecture, my guess is that the company is struggling financially and compromising on both quality and ethics as a result.
I also imagine this thread is being written as a result of the Dark Archive remaster, and specifically the changes to the Psychic. I'm personally not planning on purchasing the remaster, because despite the positive changes to the Thaumaturge I don't think I'll be getting a better or more functional product than the version I already have.
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There have been a lot of wrenches thrown in the works, between the OGL crisis, tariffs, and Diamond Distributor bankruptcy. Each of those needed to be responded to quickly in big ways. Paizo had to rework their schedule for years to fit remastered books into the lineup, fit remastering old material in between regular work as much as possible, get the store up as quickly as possible since their distributor folded, and deal with some of their already-ordered books being seized by that distributor while prices manufacturing prices jumped abruptly.
My other gaming hobby company got shut down abruptly by its parent company because of the tariffs situation alone. Most of all, I'm glad that Paizo is still making content I enjoy, and that makes it easier to focus on the positives.
Guardian and Commander, the latest classes, have been great- I've been playing the latter, and the former got a glow-up from the original playtest that bumped it up to a class I consider for new characters. I've seen multiple people rework characters to Animist, and an upcoming campaign segment will have two of us playing Exemplars. I'm eagerly looking forward to both Necromancer and Runesmith. The remaster fixed Witch, added flexibility to Champion, made Alchemist more manageable, made Oracle more accessible to new players, let Sorcerer be better at what a lot of people used it for, made Barbarian actually play like one would expect, and patched up some issues with Thaumaturge that I've personally run into.
In comparison, Psychic, a class I already didn't play because it has too few slots, didn't get changed much but fixed the one mechanical issue I've seen in play, Wizard needs more GM permission to focus on the spells you like, and Oracle is a blander powerhouse with ambiguous spells known. Of those, Wizard is the only one I played, and my play experience actually got significantly improved because of the changes to Conceal Spell.
Over on the store front, I know it's been rocky especially for subscribers, but I'm now getting benefits for purchases despite not being a subscriber- I have eight to twelve free PFS scenarios to pick out over the next ten months. The new "subscriber day" means that I can reliably look forward to when new info will come out, and the new store has fixed longstanding issues with limited payment options.
All in all, I'm not really worried from a consumer standpoint. Worried for the writers and developers of the game with all the stressful stuff going on? Absolutely; it has been a lot, all in a row. I'm hoping that with the last of the remastered classes off to the printers soon and the changes in AP structure, things can get back to a more reasonable pace for them.
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Not in particular, no. I haven't noticed any significant change in quality since I started paying attention to Pathfinder 10 years ago, despite many claims to the contrary.
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I feel like my expectations changed from new content being more tightly designed and fitting into the game's very controlled vision to new content being a much more scattershot experience.
It's hard to say where in the process things have changed, from the outside, but there's a lot of design decisions now that just don't match the initial balance of the game, and abilities, spells, and class features with basic errors (be those templating, formatting, or proofing errors). Two examples from battlecry that immediately stick out to me are Helpful Reload and Shock and Awe.
Helpful Reload is, bluntly put, a wild cheater spell and I have no idea how it got printed. It fundamentally upsets Gunslinger balance and action economy. "Spend a reaction and a rank 2 spellslot to reload an ally's weapon" should never have been printed.
Shock and Awe, just... there's a lot going on here.
-The save block refers to a "target" even though it's a 50 foot burst.
-The duration is 1 round even though the effect is instantaneous, and it makes no mention of what happens to enemies that enter after the initial effect.
-This is more subjective, but the spell itself just feels wrongly tuned. It's 3A for a 50ft burst that only targets enemies, inflicts frightened 1 on success, frightened 2 and stunned 1 on failure, and frightened 3 and stunned 2 on a crit failure. It also has keyword soup (auditory, emotion, fear, illusion, mental, visual). This is... weird.
--> The nearest comparison to this, imo, is synaptic pulse. 30ft emanation, 2A, stunned 1 on success, 2 on failure, stunned for 1r on crit failure, mental and incap traits. So compared to synaptic pulse, +1A buys you... a decrease in how good it is at stunning enemies (it's like it has incap even against lower level enemies), but better targeting, and you staple third rank fear onto it.
----> Those improvements come at the cost of a whole lot of keywords that enemies can resist the spell with, though, and the increase in AoE size is honestly not that helpful. And frightened and stunned have a degree of anti-synergy, because you're debuffing fewer actions and thus making the frightened less valuable. This doesn't really matter in practice (as yeah, I'd rather inflict stunned than not), but it kind of muddles the usecase of the spell compared to Synaptic Pulse.
--> A second comparison is freezing rain. Freezing Rain is a good mark for what a 3A spell might provide at Rank 5, and it's also about action denial. It creates difficult terrain in a movable 20ft burst, and deals damage against all creatures inside and makes them save against slowed (slowed 1 for 1r on fail, slowed 2 for 1r on crit fail) on sustain.
----> Shock and Awe provides an alarmingly large amount of instant value compared to freezing rain, mostly mitigated by the keyword soup and the fact the AoE on Shock and Awe is pointlessly large. In comparison, Freezing Rain can provide more value over the course of an encounter, has damage as a rider, and works via mechanisms that are more difficult to circumvent.
The spell just feels off. It's like it's being actively nerfed with keyword soup in exchange for this massive AoE it has and just doesn't need. And the usecase for the mechanical effect is less clear than most comparison spells even if the effect is quite strong. I just feel like it's tuned wrong along multiple dimensions just looking at it. I don't feel like I saw much of this sort of "it's just off in weird ways" design in larger books, before.
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Yes there been changes in quality. Despite what some might be saying there has been a drop in that quality. It is very confusing because you notice it more on the weaker end of classes and the best of classes. Rogues and Barbarians got buffed, while Wizards and Psychic got nerfed. Witch and Oracle got heavily changed for the better and Alchemist is still the weakest martial which makes it's dedication just as good to steal as before.
Why did Psychic & Monk Dedication need nerfs? Then as soon as they nerfed Monk's Flurry fo Blows they reintroduced it with Spirit Warrior's Combination Strike....It may not be as OP as Tiger Stance Agile, D8s but It's close enough where it is a nice pick up. D6 with any Finesse weapon?
Gunslinger's Remaster has a feat which improves their Ammo creation feat to give them quick alchemy but that feat doesn't work when you consider special ammo needs 1 action to activate. You need to make ammo, activate the ammo then reload your gun...Opps we're at 3 Actions, sure it can work with Risky Reload but like every build requires risky reload to make this work.
It's hard to point a finger at but it feels like classes who got buffed needed no buffs and the classes which got changed people wanted that but the OGL stuff got nerfed aka Wizard.
- Did anyone ask for Barbarian to get free rage at start of initiative?
- Did anyone ask for Rogues to get crit success on all 3 saves, add dex to damage on unarmed strikes as a Thief, and a buff to Ruffian racket?
- Did anyone ask for Alchemist Toxicologist to be this cheesy? (I.E, put poison on everyone's weapon
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Hm
Yes and no.
Scattershot balance, editing issues, and odd design choices are always a little bit worrying and I always hope Paizo figures out how to do better.
But change? There's been a version of this thread every few months since PF1. I'm not sure I'd really agree there's been a significant shift anywhere.
If anything maybe the opposite? Every APG class needed substantial alteration because they were all written so badly. Stuff after that has mostly been fine. Not always satisfactory, strong, or exciting, but pretty fine.
There's always room to squint at an option and decide it's a little bit overpowered maybe or cherry pick specific good/bad things... but again we've been doing that with every book.
Like it's a travesty the Oracle spell entry still hasn't been correct... but the first CRB errata had Paizo trying to gaslight their consumers after changing how the finesse trait works and people are still confused about what an instance of damage is. PF1 holdouts are still waiting for the Shifter to turn into a functional class and a bunch of feats to be rewritten to even work at all.
So I'm not sure how much of a change there is here and tbh Remaster content is just a better product so maybe even lean the other way a tiny bit.
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I don't sweat small to medium mechanical details. Pursuing balance has diminishing returns that I think kick in WAY earlier than a lot of people complaining seem to expect. Quality control issues are not that big of a deal for me either, since a few typos or RAW flubs are easily fixed.
What would concern me are things like lack of creativity, tunnel-visioning on approaches to products, employee burnout, major disconnects between teams, corporate policy or investment changes, or other doom portents.
I think they need to shake up adventure design, should explore new product categories, and could afford to branch out into other styles and themes. Overall, I'm not worried however.
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It's hard to point a finger at but it feels like classes who got buffed needed no buffs and the classes which got changed people wanted that but the OGL stuff got nerfed aka Wizard.
- Did anyone ask for Barbarian to get free rage at start of initiative?
- Did anyone ask for Rogues to get crit success on all 3 saves, add dex to damage on unarmed strikes as a Thief, and a buff to Ruffian racket?
- Did anyone ask for Alchemist Toxicologist to be this cheesy? (I.E, put poison on everyone's weapon
I can pretty easily say "yes" to at least half the stuff on here, the stuff that I didn't see being asked for was either just outright baffling (the Rogue saves) or just a natural result of not getting the fix that would have made an "intended" playstyle actually functional (Toxicologist, with Alchemist's non-bomb action economy being absolutely abysmal). The key there though is that the stuff being asked for was also usually in tandem with hoping for positive changes to classes that (IMO) absolutely needed it more than Barbarian and Rogue.
My experience with the Remaster is that the ceiling of quality has felt much higher, but the consistency of it has definitely gotten broader. A lot of restrictions being loosened in many areas has renewed my interest and gotten me more excited, but the design misses and almost random-feeling tightening of restrictions in other areas counterbalances it and makes me start to remember the days of PF1e at its height, where I needed to keep documents dedicated to either the laundry list of homebrew, or for keeping track of stuff that got errata gutted so hard my friends wanted easy access to the old versions.
All of that still kind of results in an overall improved experience for my ttrpg circle granted, but seeing stuff like devs semi-regularly cycling out tends to make me furrow my brow and get why the consistency feels worse. I like when things have a consistent "vision", even if I maybe don't agree with that vision, you know?
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I mean... yes and no? There's a lot of factors.
1. How Remaster Oracle was handled was a debacle. Some of that was inevitable because changing a class that drastically was going to alienate people that liked it and wanted a Swashbuckler style upgrade. Anytime you change a class this drastically, some folks won't like it, and some folks will. That's just how it is.
But the awful way it was forced on PFS players even to the point of creating bricked characters, and the casual disregard for the problems that created? Those were unforced errors that were easy to avoid.
Likewise, the fact that we're at 13 months and counting without being able to answer "how many spells are in Oracle's repertoire?" is a a farce. There's no excuse for this whatsoever and nothing drives my perception of the decline of product quality more than how long this has been allowed to go on when their own errata fix to a similar problem is what created it.
Even if you accept that the first error in text vs table mixup happened (probably due to the remaster causing people to be overworked), the errata should have fixed it. It should not have created another problem by only half-fixing it and that should not have been allowed to go on for over a year. Pathbuilder is on its THIRD implementation of this, for crying out loud.
2. No single release disappointed me more than War of Immortals' mythic rules. Lots has been said there already, but that was just a massive letdown and it's clear it wasn't playtested enough.
3. Course, that's not actually new. The Kingmaker kingdom rules are a total mess and they weren't playtested at all. That's also do to a too-tight schedule, except it's not a new thing. This was years ago.
4. You can go back even farther. PF2 has had lots of weird stuff come out over the years and some of it just never gets fixed. Some other parts of it never get explained, like instances of damage. Arcane Cascade literally didn't work RAW and that took three years to fix. Course for that one we all just collectively ran it RAI because it was obvious.
5. And you can go back even farther. Like, how did Sacred Geometry in PF1 even get printed? That feat is absolutely bonkers and also a disaster for table flow if you don't automate it, making it pretty much the most commonly banned feat in the game. It's literally the thing I hold up as the counterexample when people say "I don't use third party books because they're not balanced like Paizo books."
PF1 also created a Summoner that was so whacked that they banned it in PFS entirely and did a do-over in Unchained Summoner.
6. I think a big factor is that the "new" factor of PF2 is gone and the goodwill from the OGL mess is also gone. A new game this complex is going to have issues and when everyone is having fun learning it, you don't notice or forgive that stuff because it's inevitable and doesn't tend to impact things as much. But with six years of system mastery, that stuff stands out more. Especially when they actively refuse to fix or explain it.
7. As others mentioned, I definitely see burnout as a factor. Paizo folks are overworked and stuff isn't getting the attention it needs to let them do their best work. That comes through when more stuff gets released where we just look at it and wonder what they're thinking, or when it just doesn't work properly, or when feels like the left hand isn't talking to the right hand. That last one comes up with stuff like "nerf Monk archetype and then release a more busted Exemplar archetype right afterward and also a Spirit Warrior archetype that lets you do the thing you just nerfed on Monk archetype."
8. In IT, we refer to "technical debt" when over time decisions build up problems that will need addressing at some point in the future. Most IT shops have this accumulate over time due to the drive to do new stuff, but the good ones all set aside time to chip away at technical debt because it helps things improve and move forward later. It's an investment in long term health over short term "ship it now".
We're seeing the TTRPG equivalent pile up in PF2 as more and more content accumulates, but Paizo wasn't putting enough effort into addressing it before they cut errata... so now there is even less. The mess that is Psychic's update also reflects on this as it's clear it didn't get the time it needed to actually address the core issues of the class, several of which could have been done even within the page layout limitations.
And that's the part that is really what drives this: when errors and problems pile up and don't get addressed, it drives the impression that Paizo is just churning out content and moving on without much care into how well what they're making actually works. That lowers the perceived product quality.
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I'll just say that I very much enjoyed Battlecry, as well as the Draconic Codex. I don't forsee much issues in the future, and I think 1 class getting a lackluster pass through with the remaster is being spun into this portent of doom, which imo is hilarious.
Their store issues do suck though, but that seems to be getting addressed to bring it back to the standard expected. They do deserve to get raked across the coals a bit for it, but with the promise to address the issues I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
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I'll just say that I very much enjoyed Battlecry, as well as the Draconic Codex. I don't forsee much issues in the future, and I think 1 class getting a lackluster pass through with the remaster is being spun into this portent of doom, which imo is hilarious.
I can’t speak for everyone, but my own worries stem from a series of issues rather than one isolated incident. Given how others on here have also explicitly cited different examples of things they’re not happy about, I don’t think the above is really a fair assessment, and in fact it comes across more as an attempt to dismiss the opinions of people you disagree with by disparaging them and their judgment.
It's hard to say where in the process things have changed, from the outside, but there's a lot of design decisions now that just don't match the initial balance of the game, and abilities, spells, and class features with basic errors (be those templating, formatting, or proofing errors). Two examples from battlecry that immediately stick out to me are Helpful Reload and Shock and Awe.
Uh, Blister Bomb is standing right over there and you talk about these two first?!
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Honestly, besides the treatment some classes got in the remaster, the only thing that worries me in the future is everything but classes. I think Paizo is getting much better at designing classes with each book, with the only time I remember being disappointed by the classes was in the APG.
With the rest of the content, however, I have my doubts. I feel they barely playtest the archetypes and variant rules they put in new books and that usually results in most of them being...not good. If they print 8 archetypes in a book its very likely 6 of them are bad, 1 of them is good in a very specific build, and the last one is the only one I would consider taking. Variant rules are almost universally bad though, and are often poorly implemented as well, working more like a basic blueprint for the GMs to take and tweak them themselves. New subclasses also tend to be hit or miss most of the time.
Now that the remaster is over they don't have excuses now. I don't expect every piece of content in each book to be top notch, but personally its been a while since I been excited to see the content from a new book when it isn't a class.
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It's the company who's put out the best version of the game to date and continues to pump out great content. They have my support, and I'm happy to send them money when I make purchases.
Their rules are free on AoN, and they continue to invest in Foundry support. Wins all around for me. What's to gripe about?
Just because the rules are free on AoN doesn't mean that you cannot criticise the current lower quality of their products that they still charge for. Even if they didn't charge for it, you could still criticise it.
Criticism is healthy for the game.
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I can't say I'm worried but that's because I'm mainly checked out of PF2. I started with getting all the book but as the years went by and basic questions like 'what's an instance of damage' and 'what can minions do outside encounter mode' don't get answered, I started getting less and less and now I'm just borrowing books from a friend now or use nethys; I've gone from active buyer to passive player.
Seeing things like the oracle spell list STILL unanswered and the newly set schedule errata being lackluster to say the least isn't encouraging me to start buying again. There has been remaster issues but they are just amplified issues that have been around since the start. I'm kind of sad as I've been giving them money since the dragon magazine days and have mostly enjoyed my purchases.
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This is something I’ve been wondering, and I’m going to type out a long response, almost as a way of getting my thoughts in order. I’ll break it up into sections.
This is the key thing to answer for me. What would “decreased quality” look like? I moved over from 5e in 2023, so it makes sense to consider what made me choose pathfinder over 5e. One was the fact WOTC attempted to destroy the industry, which I’ll get back to later. Thinking about it, there’s three major factors.
- I can trust the books to not blindside me with something comically overpowered or disruptive. In my mind this would be something like 5e’s hypnotic pattern. A spell that allows a player to completely swing a fight without any real effort.
- The books provide adequate guidance, inspiration and new mechanics for GMs to play with, rather than just being more options for players
- I don’t need to excessively meddle with the system to get it to do what I want, and any homebrew I do want to make is simple to integrate and balance.
So, has that happened yet? Points 2 and 3 still hold true. The only exception would perhaps be the mythic rules, which if you’re playing with certain class combos, you’ll need some GM fiat to get to work. The rest of the system however remains pretty good at eliminating ambiguity (certain options notwithstanding) and will often call out when something needs GM fiat. Uncommon and Rare are still being used appropriately with the possible exception of exemplar dedication, and that puts a lot of control in my hands as a GM, and I appreciate that.
Option 1 is perhaps a bit more difficult to answer. Pathfinder does still have swingy options, but it always has. The closest we get to a hypnotic pattern would be spells in the vein of slow or synthesisa, but those aren’t post-remaster. Blister bomb comes close, maybe. But otherwise, there’s nothing I’ve seen that’s player-facing that is screaming at me to disallow. Spells are certainly starting to trend stronger but given how the number 1 complaint about the system is that casters don’t get to be powerful, I’m willing to play ball a little longer and see if this causes problems down the line. After impossible magic, I think I’m going to be able to form a more solid opinion on that, as we’re going to see SOM spell reprints, and seeing how those change will be informative.
I am going to count Player Core 2 as the start of the “post remaster” period, as any book published after that will have been written with the entirely of the remastered core in mind. Saying that, here are the books I’ve purchased since then.
- War of Immortals
- Battlecry!
- Tian Xia Character Guide (+World guide but that was before PC2)
- Divine Mysteries
- Rival Academies
The only book I have been disappointed with was WOI, mostly because I think the mythic mechanics missed the mark. The flavour is excellent but I’m not a fan of having the calling system. I would have rathered just pick the destiny at level 1, perhaps with destiny-neutral feats that relate to given skills. If we were to talk about slipping quality control, I think this is an example of something that really needed a playtest, because there’s so many small issues that needed ironing out, and because of how big they are, I don’t know if we’re going to see clean errata for it. Exemplar dedication is also a questionable decision, but I don’t allow exemplar dedication in my games, so I’ve never seen it in play.
We’ve also seen playtests be used to great effect. Guardian was a fantastic 180 from its playtest state, and it does keep me optimistic for other class books, as it seems Paizo do listen to feedback enough to fix the biggest issues.
Otherwise, I’ve adored every book I’ve bought, and I’m eager to get my hands on draconic codex. Whatever minor mistakes each book has, and there are some, I don’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary. Remember that arcane cascade didn’t work RAW for years.
I also haven’t bought any starfinder books yet, but I have no major objections to anything that has been done over on that side. The classes are well done, and the errata was also mostly excellent and fixed some of my personal pain points with the system.
This, I suspect, was the impetus for making this thread. There have been some major stumbles in Errata. Spring 2025 was a major disappointment compared Winter 2024, which was generally excellent and fixed many real problems (Including some massive magus buffs, which I think people have forgotten Paizo did). Then, the lack of any Winter 2025 errata stung, especially since it seems Paizo didn’t feel there were any issues worth fixing. While I am normally on the side of “A lot of these issues are probably not that big a deal”, there are a couple of issues like Oracle Spells that are not so clear cut. The handling of imaginary weapon has also given me pause, because it doesn’t feel very intentionally done. I feel like three fixes were proposed and all three were thrown at the problem, rather than taking the cleanest option of disabling amp cantrip + spellstrike.
Communication has also been annoying. Maya has done a great job since she joined the team, but even then xe can’t really tell us what we want to know sometimes. (No disrespect to Maya there, it’s the nature of the job. If Xe spoiled everything, or told us things that are in progress, it’d be a bigger problem), especially in relation to the things we really want to know, such as what’s going on with Tech Core and the Starship playtest, or whether certain pressing errata candidates are being considered. The worst offender for this was rogue saves, which really needed to be cleared up much sooner. The fact that announcements often do not go up on the website until days after Paizo lives is also frustrating. Twitch is not a good medium for scanning for specific bits of information, and as I refuse to use reddit, I’m often out of the loop for a few days.
There’s also been a couple things Paizo the institution has done. The CUP scuffle was unnecessary and while it ended okay, I’m still side-eyeing that entire situation. I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that it was an OGL-imposed hasty decision, but I do not owe companies my loyalty and it is something I’m going to keep an eye on.
I don’t use the store at all, but the second-hand opinion I’ve gained of it is also poor. The Opt-out instead of opt-in for the subscription is bad and doing it before a book people may not want to buy is scummy.
I’m also alarmed by the comments I’ve read that Paizo staff are working 11 hour days, and I think that should stop. Businesses need to make money, and I understand that, but this shouldn’t happen, and if it costs us an extra book a year, that’s fine with me. This is probably the thing in this post that would make me quit soonest, as it’s already in an unacceptable, though tragically common, state.
So, am I worried? I don’t know. I am genuinely delighted with probably 90% of Paizo’s output, but the concerns remain around that 10% which gives me a lingering sense of doubt. I would be curious to hear from some of the long-time players around here, as I suspect by the standards of the forum, I am quite young, with a tiny TTRPG career. Are these concerns things that have happened before? Not to overshare on a forum, but I'm a very anxious and paranoid person, so I'm very much prone to thinking everything is about to go wrong, but this writeup seems to me to not be the most dammning indicitment. As I said, I'm conflicted.
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Are these concerns things that have happened before? Not to overshare on a forum, but I'm a very anxious and paranoid person, so I'm very much prone to thinking everything is about to go wrong, but this writeup seems to me to not be the most dammning indicitment. As I said, I'm conflicted.
Very well thought out post! I just wanted to comment on this part specifically as someone who has been into TTRPGs in some form or other for like 35 years. Yeah, I remember the Satanic Panic era.
The short answer is yes, a lot of this has happened before. TTRPGs are a hard business and by the standards of the space, Paizo is actually a pretty big company. WotC/Hasbro is obviously the Godzilla of the space, but most companies doing this are tiny. Paizo has done pretty well and is bigger... but it's still a tough business. Tariffs, COVID, Diamond, and all of that haven't made it easier.
Errata and quality have always been scattershot. D&D 3.5 was famous for releasing stuff that was absolutely whack all across the spectrum, ranging from "this is game breaking and you should ban it" to "this is useless even in the case it's intended for" to "this literally doesn't function as written". We used to have tier lists of classes so that GMs could understand that if players are optimizing, you can't put a Druid and a Samurai in the same party because one of them will be so drastically outclassed by the other that it'll be a bad time. ("I have special features more powerful than your entire class!" was a joke in a comic based on the reality of the system.)
Errata was inconsistent, to put it politely.
PF1 inherited a lot of that. It had a much needed FAQ that PF2 lacks and the developers were much more active in answering questions, but it also put out an absolute ton of content, some of which clearly got more attention than other stuff. It created this bloated mess of options where edge cases and problematic interactions were everywhere and it was hard to deal with without years of system mastery. If you introduce someone to PF1 now, they will need to use a guide to create a functional character. It's just not feasible for anyone who doesn't already know the system to navigate all of that and come out with something that can keep up.
Part of what feels like a quality slip in PF2 now is IMO actually just that: we got spoiled by early PF2 not needing things like class tier lists (the gaps between classes are microscopic vs 3.5) and having so much less bloat that it was easy to navigate. I can hand Player Core to someone experienced in TTRPGs but not in PF2 and they can make a character that will be totally functional without looking up a guide for help. That's great. I know this because I've done it recently.
What's happened over time is that option counts have gone up, and bloat has gone up. More stuff means more stuff that has issues. Questions that people had early on have lingered without answers.
None of that is really new, but the "shiny and new" has come off the system over time and has this stuff has accumulated. That's normal.
Paizo's continual retreat from interacting with anyone or answering any questions (James and Maya aside) is not normal for Paizo. The company was WAY more talkative in the past and has gotten less so over time. Some of that is that some of the more talkative folks like Mark Siefter have left. Some of it seems to be overwork/burnout (though I don't know that for sure). Some of it is due to negative reactions when they have talked about stuff. And some of it is... I don't know.
The errata thing galls because they started this new errata policy a couple of years ago in order to improve the errata process. Folks were excited about that because it was a problem back then, especially for non-core books. But it seems like it's been abandoned and there's no communication on what is going on or what to expect going forward.
The lack of communication is a real problem. Rogue's Resilience was such a thing because people legitimately thought it was an error, as Rogue was already one of the best classes in the game and buffing it like that was (and still is) baffling. No one understands the reasoning and it took like a year to get confirmation that it wasn't an error, which came from an email someone sent Paizo and then posted on Reddit of all things.
that kind of thing creates its own problems, because the games industry has changed and gamers these days expect more communication and more frequent updates. "Throw a book over the wall and never talk about it again" isn't really the way things are going. Like, messing up Oracle's repertoire in an errata and then ignoring it for 13 months is below the standard people expect these days, especially since this could be fixed instantly with a literal one sentence forum post before it makes it into official errata.
And that's really the part that worries me. Like, books having bad subsystems happens in every TTRPG now and then. Stuff not being playtested due to a deadline happens. An overtuned spell happens. That kind of thing is just the harsh reality of a difficulty industry with tight margins, high production costs, and fierce competition.
But not bothering to fix a fundamental problem like that after 13 months? That is worrysome. The way the rollout of remaster Oracle screwed over people in PFS when Paizo went back on their previous FAQ and forced it on people, and the casual contempt shown to the people that raised the problems it was causing? All of that was easily avoidable.
It's the easily fixable stuff that they can't seem to be bothered to fix that worries me more than the other stuff, because a lot of the other stuff is just how this industry is. But Paizo can and has done better than what they're doing now on the easy wins like avoiding shooting themselves in the face for no reason, and maybe occasionally answering a long running rules question that the community just can't answer on its own.
And I'm not sure the rest of the company understands just how much heavy lifting James and Maya do in terms of community goodwill. Because it's a lot.
I didn’t buy war of the immortals because it didn’t feel like a book for me and I had enough of “mythic” the first time around. I am unlikely to buy impossible magic unless the book itself is a spectacular as secrets of magic was in design, as I will probably never play a necromancer or a rune smith and would take quite a bit of convincing to allow as a GM. I love everything about battle cry.
Basically, we are way too deep into PF2 for me to worry about whether every book is for my table or not. The core is solid. I want more setting and adventure content at this point way more than rules content. The game is probably ready to release an Unleashed/Hack book that just reveals some different ways to do things.
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I just wanted to comment on this part specifically as someone who has been into TTRPGs in some form or other for like 35 years. Yeah, I remember the Satanic Panic era.
I went to D&D camp in the 80's and started out gaming with the blackmoor supplement to Chainmail. Good to see people that have been around gaming since the olden times. ;)
Some of that is that some of the more talkative folks like Mark Siefter have left.
I miss Mark. :(
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No. I have not noticed any change in product quality. Usual hit and miss material. I use what I like, avoid what I don't. Never been any other way throughout all my years of gaming with any gaming company.
The system plays better for me and brings more enjoyment to me than when I first picked it up in 2019 sooooo, no, I don't think it's going downhill
My recent purchases have included the Starfinder launch/Society adventures and the Curtain Call adventure path. I can't say I've noticed a decline in quality.
I just wanted to comment on this part specifically as someone who has been into TTRPGs in some form or other for like 35 years. Yeah, I remember the Satanic Panic era.I went to D&D camp in the 80's and started out gaming with the blackmoor supplement to Chainmail. Good to see people that have been around gaming since the olden times. ;)
Chainmail is before me (a friend of mine has a copy, amazingly), but some of our parents wouldn't let us play AD&D. They would, however, let us have sleepovers in tents outside unsupervised. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. ;)
TBH - for all the modern conveniences of things like Foundry bring to the hobby, the ambience of playing by flashlight with the threat of being caught looming over us was unbeatable.
I miss Mark. :(
Yeah same. There was a lot of turnover among folks who were comfortable interacting with the community and they're really missed in the silence that has taken their place.
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Everything's been headed downhill for a while now including the quality of the printed material. Corporate rot setting in I guess. I think especially Michael Sayre leaving was a big blow.