Pathfinder 2E Is It Time for PF2 "Essentials"?

[S'mon]

Yup, so we just don't know, we know that most pathfinder 2e players aren't using roll 20, but not their size on the platform they are using (or what percentage of players of other systems are using Foundry)

Is there a reason why Roll20 is worse for PF2e than for 1e? My expectation would have been that Roll20 support would correlate with popularity both ways - popular games get more support, and support affects popularity.

Edit: Checking the Roll20 marketplace I thought the support for both PF1e & 2e looked pretty sketchy, with only a few APs, some abandoned half-finished, and such. Price also seemed offputting, with a single book of a PF AP comparable to the cheaper WoTC 5e campaign books. So only Rise of the Runelords really looked like a good deal for most people.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Is there a reason why Roll20 is worse for PF2e than for 1e? My expectation would have been that Roll20 support would correlate with popularity both ways - popular games get more support, and support affects popularity.

Not sure, it might be that it never really caught on there in the first place-- under normal circumstances people wouldn't have had much choice until demand caused them to actually support it, but Foundry became available with superior support at just the perfect moment. Few Pathfinder 2e players had invested much in roll 20 (for their Pathfinder 2e games anyway) so it wouldn't shock me if people just never took their Pathfinder 2e games to roll 20 to cause the demand in the first place.

I also kind of think that roll20 would rather the community be centralized around 5e, so isn't going much out of their way to support the games competing with it directly-- they have to spend less money supporting multiple games, I don't know how much that kind of thinking affects them. There was Pathfinder 2e support, but I heard a lot of complaints, so they might just be giving up since the game isn't working out for them, per say.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Edit: Deleted because as others have noted, this is just turning into a pissing match.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yup, so we just don't know, we know that most pathfinder 2e players aren't using roll 20, but not their size on the platform they are using (or what percentage of players of other systems are using Foundry)

And while Roll20 has the reputation as being (and may well be) the big dog, there are quite a number of alternatives these days. Heck, the PF2e game I'm in uses Maptool and Hero Labs for it. I have no idea how common that or one of the other pay options is, but that's kind of the point; at this time there's no good way to know.

 

[kenada]

Sadly there don't seem to be such a thing as Foundry published play % reports. I guess maybe the system does not compile numbers.

Foundry is software you download and run locally (or on a server). To collect metrics, they’d have to phone home which systems and modules you’re using as well as when you’re running sessions. I expect that would go over poorly with their user base.

 

[kenada]

And while Roll20 has the reputation as being (and may well be) the big dog, there are quite a number of alternatives these days. Heck, the PF2e game I'm in uses Maptool and Hero Labs for it. I have no idea how common that or one of the other pay options is, but that's kind of the point; at this time there's no good way to know.

The biggest thing I missed moving to Foundry was how well Hero Lab Online tracks buffs and stuff like that. It’s really clunky doing anything in HLO, but that stuff worked great once you set up all the conditions and adjustments. On the other hand, HLO could be really buggy at times, and support for homebrew was terrible compared to Hero Lab Classic or even D&D Beyond.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Foundry is software you download and run locally (or on a server). To collect metrics, they’d have to phone home which systems and modules you’re using as well as when you’re running sessions. I expect that would go over poorly with their user base.

Huh. I didn't realize the Foundry was run locally. I may have to give it a look at some point, then (I, for the most part, don't do things that are especially dependent on someone else's server).

 

[Thomas Shey]

The biggest thing I missed moving to Foundry was how well Hero Lab Online tracks buffs and stuff like that. It’s really clunky doing anything in HLO, but that stuff worked great once you set up all the conditions and adjustments. On the other hand, HLO could be really buggy at times, and support for homebrew was terrible compared to Hero Lab Classic or even D&D Beyond.

I'm not a big fan of HLO, but it appears to be all they're doing moving forward, so it is what it is. If they had a version of HLC for PF2e, I might well have bought it by now.

 

[Retreater]

Is there a reason why Roll20 is worse for PF2e than for 1e? My expectation would have been that Roll20 support would correlate with popularity both ways - popular games get more support, and support affects popularity.

I haven't tried PF1 on there, but my issues with PF2 has been some big adventures and Adventure Paths aren't on there. There is no character builder. The drag and drop from the Compendium doesn't work for everything. There are several things that automate on the character sheet and others that don't - so you never know what is going to work correctly.
The implementation of 5e is leagues better.
Hell, if they'd let me share it, I would give them my adaptations of Age of Ashes and Abomination Vaults just to help out Paizo and their fans.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is why I say other people are fussier about VTTs than I am. All I expect is something that holds maps and allows me to move tokens around. And maybe a dice roller.