Pathfinder 2E How is Pathfinder doing?

[ReshiIRE]

I don't think PF2 was quite the success on launch that Paizo was hoping for. But it is clear that PF2 is now attracting 5e players willing to look for something more, and it is finding its feet on VTT platforms not roll20.

Genuinely wonder how much of that is down to a combination of:

1) Early AP issues. Age of Ashes is notorious now for its difficulty. Having your first major adventure be so difficult was probably not a wise decision, especially when the game requires a more tactical mind than the main competition. It would have been wiser to be much more of an ease in campaign.

From what I understand, Extinction Curse did not have quite the same issues, but it might have somewhat gotten off theme a bit too quickly, and it is a less universal theme than soemthing like Age of Ashes.

And then there is Agents of Edgewatch which has quite a lot of issues that, partly due to them being fairly political, I won't go into here.

In my opinion, it probably doesn't help that they didn't get their first three book Adventure Path - in the form of Abomination Vaults - out the door until January 2021. That one has been extremely successful, and while that is also down to the fact that they really improved Adventure Path design by then by all accounts, I wouldnt' be surprised if the fact it is a level 1 to 10 adventure helpful.

2) Controversy over YouTuber opinions. I'm not going to delve deep into this so as to not cause drama, but there were a number of not so kind and somewhat misleading reviews released by some YouTubers early in the system lifecycle that may have scared people away.

3) The Pathfinder community splitting between those staying with Pathfinder 1e, those switching to Pathfinder 2e, and people new to Pathfinder coming in. There does not seem to be the same exodus as there was from 4e to 5e for a wide variety of reasons, so Pathfinder 2e needed to wait longer to attract enough word of mouth and a base to start expanding.

 

[payn]

Genuinely wonder how much of that is down to a combination of:

1) Early AP issues. Age of Ashes is notorious now for its difficulty. Having your first major adventure be so difficult was probably not a wise decision, especially when the game requires a more tactical mind than the main competition. It would have been wiser to be much more of an ease in campaign.

From what I understand, Extinction Curse did not have quite the same issues, but it might have somewhat gotten off theme a bit too quickly, and it is a less universal theme than soemthing like Age of Ashes.

And then there is Agents of Edgewatch which has quite a lot of issues that, partly due to them being fairly political, I won't go into here.

In my opinion, it probably doesn't help that they didn't get their first three book Adventure Path - in the form of Abomination Vaults - out the door until January 2021. That one has been extremely successful, and while that is also down to the fact that they really improved Adventure Path design by then by all accounts, I wouldnt' be surprised if the fact it is a level 1 to 10 adventure helpful.

2) Controversy over YouTuber opinions. I'm not going to delve deep into this so as to not cause drama, but there were a number of not so kind and somewhat misleading reviews released by some YouTubers early in the system lifecycle that may have scared people away.

3) The Pathfinder community splitting between those staying with Pathfinder 1e, those switching to Pathfinder 2e, and people new to Pathfinder coming in. There does not seem to be the same exodus as there was from 4e to 5e for a wide variety of reasons, so Pathfinder 2e needed to wait longer to attract enough word of mouth and a base to start expanding.

I would probably reverse #1 and #3, but yes those would be my view on the factors of PF2's release.

 

[JThursby]

I think some Paizo folks have talked about this, maybe even James Jacobs

On this forum even.

I would probably reverse #1 and #3, but yes those would be my view on the factors of PF2's release.

I concur with it as well. Paizo should also be setting aside more money to make their brand known, they did almost nothing to promote 2e among non-Pathfinder players when it came out. They're a staple of the industry and things like GenCon, but that's peanuts compared to the wide recognition that the D&D brand gets. Marginal increases in brand awareness among the now huge 5e player base would have a dispraportionately large increase in Paizo's revenue.

 

[Retreater]

From what I understand, Extinction Curse did not have quite the same issues, but it might have somewhat gotten off theme a bit too quickly, and it is a less universal theme than soemthing like Age of Ashes.

Having run (at least the beginning) Age of Ashes, Extinction Curse, and Abomination Vaults, I will give my opinion (which is only my opinion, and not indicative of the entire hobby):
1) Age of Ashes was difficult. Way too difficult. There was an unimportant, throwaway encounter midway in the first book that is legendarily TPK-territory. (My group averaged a TPK every 3 sessions until we abandoned the campaign, the system, and even the gaming group that had been together for around 8 years.)
2) Extinction Curse is also too difficult. I had a TPK, again to an unimportant, throwaway encounter midway into the first book. It is also commonly a TPK-point (according to posters on the Paizo forums). This was after our first 3 sessions, and we abandoned the campaign and the system. The group nearly folded as well.
3) Abomination Vaults, having the virtue of being written after the other two modules, didn't seem as deadly. It was still difficult and challenged the players (who I think were more tactically proficient) more than they'd probably enjoy. Speaking only for myself, I think the group lost interest because it was so repetitive and the dungeon crawl didn't hold their attention.

I'm not suggesting 5e players should be Paizo's target audience, but there are a lot of 5e players who could be interested in PF2. Like I suggested early in the life cycle of the system, they should make a "beginner's adventure path" that teaches how to play the game and how to run it. (Even the Beginner Box has a - spoiler alert - a devastating final boss that frequently TPKs parties.) Even their free demo adventure includes an encounter that is well beyond what most groups would be able to handle. And that's not a way to get fans.
The challenge and difficulty of encounters is not the selling point of Pathfinder: it is the tactical depth, the customization, the world. When players are constantly at risk of getting their characters killed, they are not going to try new tactics. They aren't going to learn how to customize their characters when they constantly die. They aren't going to become engaged in a world when they rage quit Adventure Paths.

It might be better now. From what I've heard, Strength of Thousands is excellent and they've largely gotten the challenge level figured out. Of course this comes at a point that we're now three years into a system - and a lot of the initial goodwill and excitement has been spent. There are many groups that won't have a positive first impression of the system.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Right, folks tend to have issues right out the gun with PF2, but they iron out at higher levels and with more experience. Typically, its the opposite where things are fine early, but get worse at higher level and with system mastery.

Can you expand on this Payn? I'm thinking there's a word missing somewhere, because these two sentences read contradictory to each other to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The only other thing I can think of, from a reading but not having played perspective, is that the Incapacitation trait for spells is somewhat harsh, but that area is tricky to balance regardless, and spellcasters and martials both are extremely useful, just for different situations.

Its a very contraversial mechanics decision, and as some passing discussion earlier in this thread shows its not clear some other solution couldn't have worked, but I'll say outright its better than the fishing-for-failure in takeout spells you had with a number of 3e and earlier era ones. Some spells working poorly in uphill encounters is better than that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Genuinely wonder how much of that is down to a combination of:

1) Early AP issues. Age of Ashes is notorious now for its difficulty. Having your first major adventure be so difficult was probably not a wise decision, especially when the game requires a more tactical mind than the main competition. It would have been wiser to be much more of an ease in campaign.

I know I harp on this, but I'm going to repeat something I'm fairly certain of: initial adventure writers for new editions of games in the D&D sphere are always "fighting the last war"; by which I mean they're subconsciously (or maybe sometimes not) designing adventures the way they would have for the prior edition, and unless the changes in mechanics are pretty minor that just doesn't work. But I've seen it with early D&D3 adventures, early D&D4 adventures, and early PF2e adventures now (basically, AoA was written by people who'd gotten used to CR being kind of a joke at upper level because you could bake a cake in character generation and development to make them much more powerful than CR assumed. You really, really can't do that with PF2e (and that's a sticking point with some people)).

3) The Pathfinder community splitting between those staying with Pathfinder 1e, those switching to Pathfinder 2e, and people new to Pathfinder coming in. There does not seem to be the same exodus as there was from 4e to 5e for a wide variety of reasons, so Pathfinder 2e needed to wait longer to attract enough word of mouth and a base to start expanding.

Well, besides a lot of lesser issues, as I reference above, one of the things that becomes abundantly clear with playing PF2e is that you have actually engage with the game in a somewhat focused way for it to work for you if used at the difficulty levels described. That was not always (or frankly, at higher levels, usually) true with D&D 3e or PF1e and it actively puts some people off. Its one of those things that there's no real splitting the difference possible.

 

[payn]

Can you expand on this Payn? I'm thinking there's a word missing somewhere, because these two sentences read contradictory to each other to me.

Sure, I meant the typical experience being D&D whatever edition hides the pain points, you dont discover them until you dive in. PF2 you tend to hit the wrinkles sooner than later. Some folks get past it and like the system, others might take it as a bad sign and move on early.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, I meant the typical experience being D&D whatever edition hides the pain points, you dont discover them until you dive in. PF2 you tend to hit the wrinkles sooner than later. Some folks get past it and like the system, others might take it as a bad sign and move on early.

Ah, okay, that makes a lot more sense.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Its a very contraversial mechanics decision, and as some passing discussion earlier in this thread shows its not clear some other solution couldn't have worked, but I'll say outright its better than the fishing-for-failure in takeout spells you had with a number of 3e and earlier era ones. Some spells working poorly in uphill encounters is better than that.

This is compounded by dms coming from other systems where on-level combats are too easy to be worth running. So playes are never in combats where Incapacitation doesn’t mean “useless” which feels stupid.