Pathfinder 2E How is Pathfinder doing?

Parmandur · May 15, 2022

Yardiff said:
Isnt Roll20 one of the worst platforms to play PF2e on? Thats why alot of PF2e players use Foundry?

That's what they say...but the relative amounts seem to converge with other metrics, like PF1E vs. PF2E Subreddit engagement.

Retreater · May 15, 2022

Yardiff said:
Isnt Roll20 one of the worst platforms to play PF2e on? Thats why alot of PF2e players use Foundry?

Yes, and I currently run PF2e on Foundry, but...
When Roll20 is the number one VTT and its numbers of PF2e are very low, that is showing that PF2e isn't engaging players on the very biggest online platform.
But by comparison, looking at the percentage of system installs on the Forge (the biggest hosting site for Foundry)...
D&D 5e is installed in 76% of all accounts.
PF1e is installed in 5% of all accounts.
PF2e is installed in 18% of all accounts.
(Granted PF1e was already no longer being produced by Paizo by the time Foundry VTT got out of beta testing.)

Philip Benz · May 15, 2022

Yardiff said:
Isnt Roll20 one of the worst platforms to play PF2e on? Thats why alot of PF2e players use Foundry?

I would generally agree - especially if you place a premium on automation.
And I say this even though I have used Roll20 to run a PF2 campaign over 62 sessions. My method is probably atypical, though. DMing on Roll20, I have all creatures and NPCs detailed on paper, make all rolls for them with physical dice, and take notes on damage and conditions on paper, just like I would in a normal face-to-face session. Only the PCs are fully integrated into the Roll20 interface, and they also have to keep notes on damage and conditions on the side.

Roll20 works fine to display maps and movement, which is all I really use it for.
But it does mean that any statistics referencing use of Roll20 for various games is certainly misleading and not indicative of overall game use trends.

grankless · May 15, 2022

There's also the fact that the Orr report does not actually measure campaigns played in any way - it measures games created. The five 1e campaigns that I created that never got past session 0 count for as much as the 1e campaign I gmed to completion.

Roll 20's Pathfinder 2e support is abysmal - it took them a year to get some supplements on there, and they've already announced they're not even going to carry the most popular 2e adventure path, Abomination Vaults which is getting a robust Paizo-official release on Foundry. The PF2e community writ large actively de-recommends Roll 20 for the game, because their support is just that abysmal. After 2 years, they don't even have spell heightening automated for cantrips. And the sheet is hideous. Fantasy Grounds gets more support both from the community and officially (from both Paizo and FG), and Foundry has the heaviest community support currently and just got a bunch of official stuff released and incoming while still having a much lower barrier of entry, cost wise, than R20, since you don't have to buy every last book to use the stuff - it's all from the SRD, with only the true adventure content costing anything.

Staffan · May 15, 2022

grankless said:
And the sheet is hideous.

One thing that really, really bothers be about Roll20 sheets is that if I as the GM wants to look at a player's sheet and I switch the sheet to a different tab, it also switches the tab on that player's screen. Similarly, if I check the "whisper roll to GM" checkbox because I want to make a secret Arcana roll or something, I have to remember to uncheck it because otherwise the sheet will keep sending stuff as whispers.

JThursby · May 15, 2022

In a recent update video to the Foundry VTT PF2e system, system developer TMun shared with us that 40% of all tables at Paizocon this year are going to be using Foundry VTT. That's combining the in-person tables with the online tables. So if you ever wanted a statistic to back-up the generally accepted notion of where all the Pathfinder players are, there you go.

Green Onceler · May 24, 2022

Has Paizo discontinued their Pawns line? According to PathfinderWiki it looks like the last release the Abomination Vaults Pawn Collection in June 2021.

grankless · May 24, 2022

Yes. The actual last one to get them was Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, but the wiki being out of date is nothing new.

They've indicated there's going to be some kind of replacement product, iirc?

dirtypool · May 24, 2022

I don't know that the Orr report and Reddit engagement really gives anything approaching a clear picture of how PF2e is doing. The Orr report only measures engagement on a VTT platform that is not the preferred VTT of PF2 players, and contains a HUGE uncategorized group of games that could indeed include a lot of people's non AP PF2 campaigns that were created.

Reddit engagement is purely anecdotal, and most discussion about Paizo product - old and new - happens on Paizo's forums.

Meanwhile, ICV2 numbers show that PF2 is back in the #2 sales slot and Paizo themselves claim PF2 is selling better at this point in its life cycle than PF1 was in terms of raw numbers. Which seems perfectly reasonable given how much large the sales pie has grown in the wake of the increasing popularity of 5e.

gss000 · May 24, 2022

dirtypool said:
I don't know that the Orr report and Reddit engagement really gives anything approaching a clear picture of how PF2e is doing. The Orr report only measures engagement on a VTT platform that is not the preferred VTT of PF2 players, and contains a HUGE uncategorized group of games that could indeed include a lot of people's non AP PF2 campaigns that were created.

True, but without an idea of how many total are using Foundry, I'm not 100% convinced that the best supported PF2 platform is the one the most players are using. When I deal in my work with situations like the uncertain number of players you mentioned in the uncategorized group, I assume its percentages are distributed just like the other groups.

dirtypool said:
Meanwhile, ICV2 numbers show that PF2 is back in the #2 sales slot and Paizo themselves claim PF2 is selling better at this point in its life cycle than PF1 was in terms of raw numbers. Which seems perfectly reasonable given how much large the sales pie has grown in the wake of the increasing popularity of 5e.

Because ICV2 numbers only show relative ranking, I don't put too much stock into the rises and falls. For instance, if PF2 drops to #3, is it because of a sales decrease or another game having a banner quarter? There's no indication of the reason or even what #2 means one quarter versus the next.

Meanwhile, could you point to that Paizo claim? Last one I saw - and this was a bit ago - ~~they said it was doing as well as PF1 in 2015, which was not a great sign.~~ What you mention is a much better one. As always, we're dealing with limited amounts of information so any bit helps when answering a question like the OP.

Edited to strike out statement that is wrong now that I see the actual quote I misremembered.