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

[transmission89]

But that's also the systems greatest strength, some gamers like having a lot of decision points and tactical choices. If you read the subreddit threads on why people left 5e in the first place, you see a lot of people actually value this kind of depth. Raw Complexity isn't a benefit, but the depth that can only be achieved by a little complexity used efficiently, as it is in Pathfinder 2e, is very desirable.

Indeed, this for me is what makes it a “better pathfinder”. It’s still complex. But the complexity has shifted from piecing together all of the rules and kludges from the modified 3.x system (IMO) to meaningful choices with feats and actions in encounter situations. .

 

[JmanTheDM]

Surely Amazon sales or Roll20 % played, while far from being precise measures of success, are at least objective measures. Which you can hardly say about a company's own reports of how well it's doing.

[wow emoji] [bulging eyes emoji] [crying emoji]

Holy CRAP! this is a DISASTER!

** For Public Release **

Dear Lisa Stevens, CEO Paizo Publishing.

Re: my contribution to your corporate ruin.

Lisa,

It has come to my attention that I am assisting in the ruination of your company. I sit here at my computer screen aghast at the certain harm I have caused. I would like to formally and publicly apologize, and I hope that by surfacing my... malfeasance... I can be a guide to others to not do the same.

I have learned that your company is in dire financial straights. that you have produced a product in which there is no market interest. it has also come to my attention that the sole metric that you, as CEO, with all the available insights and metrics that you have regarding your business and sales volumes, that you rely solely on Amazon Sales ranking and Roll20 usage statistics. I was shocked to learn this, but have come to realize to my chagrin that these 2 tools, and only these 2 tools are to be considered the universal truth regarding the success (or failure) of any Tabletop Roleplaying Game.

I buy your 2nd edition products. like a lot of them. But I buy them wrong! As I type, I sit here looking at my RPG games, and I see that I have physical copies of the CRB, B1, B2, APG, GMG, LO:G&M, LO:WG, LO: PFS, LO: CG, LO: L, GM Screen, all spell cards, chase cards, critical hit/miss cards, AP:AoA1-6, AP:EC1-6, The slithering and Plaguestone on my shelf. To be clear, Before the release of 2nd edition Pathfinder, I have never purchased a single Paizo product, though with a quick look at my shelf I estimate to own over 400 non-paizo TTRPG physical gaming products. So its only recently that my actions have started contributing to your loss.

As a Canadian, I order these products through my FLGS or through Canadian online book sellers and NOT through Amazon.com. Not many are aware but international shipping is exorbitant. In many cases, to ship a product from the United States after paying for duties, taxes and shipping it could easily cost 2x the MSRP of the product. but this is wrong, and I see that now. Unless we order through Amazon.com, there is no way you can economically survive let alone thrive in a world with D&D as the dominant player.

Worse, last night I was on the Fantasy grounds web-store and I purchased the Age of Ashes book 2, Cult of Cinders from Fantasy Grounds. I have been running The Slithering, to my horror, using Fantasy Grounds. My friends and I have truly been having a blast but little did we know the direct harm we were causing. Last night I continue with this harm. I decided as we start chapter 2 of The Slithering "The journey to Holy Xatramba", the part where we are semi-hex crawling, that book 2 of Age of Ashes would be a FANTASTIC add-on by incorporating its hex crawling chapters (chapters 1 and 2 specifically) and giving my players more options during this part of the adventure. Immediately after this purchase I went to your website, logged in as myself and downloaded the PDF copy of this module as part of the Fantasy Grounds purchase. I believe that as part of my $33.00CAD purchase last night, Paizo receives some % of this sale, but I am now highly suspicious of this financial arrangement based on everything I have learned on Internet discussion forums where people are authoritatively discussing your business. I know it need not be pointed out, but nowhere did this transaction hit Roll20 or Amazon's ranking mechanism's. This was an outright denial of recording into the analysis tools that only matter for your business.

To make matters worse, in order to even start running The Slithering in FG, I have had to take the additional steps of: Paying $150.00USD for an ultimate license to allow my friends to play for free. I have purchased the CRB, APG, LO:CG, B1, and B2 so we can create characters, and I can build encounters and show images. Obviously, those purchases were directly in support of my additional purchase of a FG edition of The Slithering as well. As with the purchase last night, each of these allowed me to download from your store a PDF copy of each. When downloaded, I added them to my PF2 folder on my computer, which when counting officially purchased and licensed Paizo content sold to me, has a count of 18 purchased PDF's along with a number of free official downloads like AP players guides.

I cannot believe the harm this has caused! I was so blind for so long! I acknowledge the actions I took negatively impacts your business. That with people like me, who choose to Eschew Amazon's US web store for all physical purchases, who, through years of... dare I say indoctrination? was told that we should support FLGS' by buying product directly from them to help grow and nurture our hobby? who purchases PDF's directly from your own web store and who has the gall to use Fantasy grounds due to their fantastic support of Pathfinder 2's system, even though Roll20 does a middling job as well.

I acknowledge all of these actions, without reservation or excuse for the harm they caused.

I understand that for an apology to be true, one must also describe the work I'm prepared to put into fixing these mistakes. I would like to simply state, publicly, that henceforth; A) I shall play all my games online using Roll20, I have already informed my friends that we will be stopping the Slithering immediately while I retool this campaign for Roll20. B) That all my purchases shall be made using the International Amazon website. I will gladly pay the shipping, duties, and taxes for the privilege of ordering in an ascribed manner, and C) I further pledge to never again purchase a PDF from Paizo's website as the opacity of that purchase helps no one and only serves to obscure the true nature of your business to the constituency that matters most, Internet Discussion forum members.

Finally and with enthusiastic commitment, I pledge to you, that anyone I see making a similar mistake I will do the work necessary to help them also see the direct harm they are causing to your organization.

While words are the first step, I hope that with time you will see that my actions match this commitment I make today and that I, like many who are equally misguided will demonstrate a material improvement and can, with time, earn your forgiveness.

Truly, and with my deepest apologies,

JmanTheDM

 

[Zardnaar]

While not a massive fan of PF2 it's still one of the larger rpgs that's not 5E.

Anyone expecting it to dethrone 5E is basically an idiot. PF1 caught on due to WotC actively shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[S'mon]

[wow emoji] [bulging eyes emoji] [crying emoji]

Holy CRAP! this is a DISASTER!

** For Public Release **

Dear Lisa Stevens, CEO Paizo Publishing.

Re: my contribution to your corporate ruin.

Lisa,

It has come to my attention that I am assisting in the ruination of your company. I sit here at my computer screen aghast at the certain harm I have caused. I would like to formally and publicly apologize, and I hope that by surfacing my... malfeasance... I can be a guide to others to not do the same.

I have learned that your company is in dire financial straights. that you have produced a product in which there is no market interest. it has also come to my attention that the sole metric that you, as CEO, with all the available insights and metrics that you have regarding your business and sales volumes, that you rely solely on Amazon Sales ranking and Roll20 usage statistics. I was shocked to learn this, but have come to realize to my chagrin that these 2 tools, and only these 2 tools are to be considered the universal truth regarding the success (or failure) of any Tabletop Roleplaying Game.

I buy your 2nd edition products. like a lot of them. But I buy them wrong! As I type, I sit here looking at my RPG games, and I see that I have physical copies of the CRB, B1, B2, APG, GMG, LO:G&M, LO:WG, LO: PFS, LO: CG, LO: L, GM Screen, all spell cards, chase cards, critical hit/miss cards, AP:AoA1-6, AP:EC1-6, The slithering and Plaguestone on my shelf. To be clear, Before the release of 2nd edition Pathfinder, I have never purchased a single Paizo product, though with a quick look at my shelf I estimate to own over 400 non-paizo TTRPG physical gaming products. So its only recently that my actions have started contributing to your loss.

As a Canadian, I order these products through my FLGS or through Canadian online book sellers and NOT through Amazon.com. Not many are aware but international shipping is exorbitant. In many cases, to ship a product from the United States after paying for duties, taxes and shipping it could easily cost 2x the MSRP of the product. but this is wrong, and I see that now. Unless we order through Amazon.com, there is no way you can economically survive let alone thrive in a world with D&D as the dominant player.

Worse, last night I was on the Fantasy grounds web-store and I purchased the Age of Ashes book 2, Cult of Cinders from Fantasy Grounds. I have been running The Slithering, to my horror, using Fantasy Grounds. My friends and I have truly been having a blast but little did we know the direct harm we were causing. Last night I continue with this harm. I decided as we start chapter 2 of The Slithering "The journey to Holy Xatramba", the part where we are semi-hex crawling, that book 2 of Age of Ashes would be a FANTASTIC add-on by incorporating its hex crawling chapters (chapters 1 and 2 specifically) and giving my players more options during this part of the adventure. Immediately after this purchase I went to your website, logged in as myself and downloaded the PDF copy of this module as part of the Fantasy Grounds purchase. I believe that as part of my $33.00CAD purchase last night, Paizo receives some % of this sale, but I am now highly suspicious of this financial arrangement based on everything I have learned on Internet discussion forums where people are authoritatively discussing your business. I know it need not be pointed out, but nowhere did this transaction hit Roll20 or Amazon's ranking mechanism's. This was an outright denial of recording into the analysis tools that only matter for your business.

To make matters worse, in order to even start running The Slithering in FG, I have had to take the additional steps of: Paying $150.00USD for an ultimate license to allow my friends to play for free. I have purchased the CRB, APG, LO:CG, B1, and B2 so we can create characters, and I can build encounters and show images. Obviously, those purchases were directly in support of my additional purchase of a FG edition of The Slithering as well. As with the purchase last night, each of these allowed me to download from your store a PDF copy of each. When downloaded, I added them to my PF2 folder on my computer, which when counting officially purchased and licensed Paizo content sold to me, has a count of 18 purchased PDF's along with a number of free official downloads like AP players guides.

I cannot believe the harm this has caused! I was so blind for so long! I acknowledge the actions I took negatively impacts your business. That with people like me, who choose to Eschew Amazon's US web store for all physical purchases, who, through years of... dare I say indoctrination? was told that we should support FLGS' by buying product directly from them to help grow and nurture our hobby? who purchases PDF's directly from your own web store and who has the gall to use Fantasy grounds due to their fantastic support of Pathfinder 2's system, even though Roll20 does a middling job as well.

I acknowledge all of these actions, without reservation or excuse for the harm they caused.

I understand that for an apology to be true, one must also describe the work I'm prepared to put into fixing these mistakes. I would like to simply state, publicly, that henceforth; A) I shall play all my games online using Roll20, I have already informed my friends that we will be stopping the Slithering immediately while I retool this campaign for Roll20. B) That all my purchases shall be made using the International Amazon website. I will gladly pay the shipping, duties, and taxes for the privilege of ordering in an ascribed manner, and C) I further pledge to never again purchase a PDF from Paizo's website as the opacity of that purchase helps no one and only serves to obscure the true nature of your business to the constituency that matters most, Internet Discussion forum members.

Finally and with enthusiastic commitment, I pledge to you, that anyone I see making a similar mistake I will do the work necessary to help them also see the direct harm they are causing to your organization.

While words are the first step, I hope that with time you will see that my actions match this commitment I make today and that I, like many who are equally misguided will demonstrate a material improvement and can, with time, earn your forgiveness.

Truly, and with my deepest apologies,

JmanTheDM

Wow!

 

[Teemu]

This is well tread ground, Roll20 is infamous in the Pathfinder 2e community for supporting the system badly. People who google "Pathfinder 2e VTT" have a list of links pointing them directly to foundry, and discussion posts discussing how bad Roll20 is for it, and also suggesting Foundry. The entire community, as a whole, has rejected Roll20.

In summary, the Roll20 data is specifically bad for a measurement of Pathfinder 2e's success, because Pathfinder 2e players, as a rule, don't use it.

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)

Oh come on, this is massive hyperbole. The enthusiast crowd online favors Foundry, but that’s the enthusiasts—the minority. We have no way of knowing how many people play PF2 on Roll20 vs Foundry vs Fantasy Grounds. I’m just starting a PF2 game on Roll20, and I received just as many applications as my two 5e games did (a lot).

Keep in mind that most VTT users are ”casuals”. Just like most PF2 players are.

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.

To be fair, 5e is a lot easier to translate digitally. Fewer moving parts.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Oh come on, this is massive hyperbole. The enthusiast crowd online favors Foundry, but that’s the enthusiasts—the minority. We have no way of knowing how many people play PF2 on Roll20 vs Foundry vs Fantasy Grounds. I’m just starting a PF2 game on Roll20, and I received just as many applications as my two 5e games did (a lot).

Keep in mind that most VTT users are ”casuals”. Just like most PF2 players are.


To be fair, 5e is a lot easier to translate digitally. Fewer moving parts.

Doesn't matter, the enthusiast crowd has popularized it enough that Foundry is all the shows up when you Google for a Pathfinder 2e VTT. Casuals Def look into what people are saying about different choices, so they're finding the foundry web page and the reddit discussions about roll 20.

Reddit is also pretty casual, especially when we're talking about a game like Pathfinder.

 

[Teemu]

Doesn't matter, the enthusiast crowd has popularized it enough that Foundry is all the shows up when you Google for a Pathfinder 2e VTT. Casuals Def look into what people are saying about different choices, so they're finding the foundry web page and the reddit discussions about roll 20.

Reddit is also pretty casual, especially when we're talking about a game like Pathfinder.

I agree with you that Foundry is the go-to VTT for PF2, backed by the opinion leaders (the enthusiast crowd). That’s absolutely true. But we don’t know how popular it really is compared to Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, as far as PF2 numbers are concerned.

Us enthusiasts often overestimate the number of people who participate in the hobby at our level. Things like following the latest news, talking about the hobby online, watching videos, etc. We’re the minority, and the majority (the “casuals”) just play the game. Active Reddit users on the PF2 subreddit are not the casual crowd.

 

[transmission89]

I agree with you that Foundry is the go-to VTT for PF2, backed by the opinion leaders (the enthusiast crowd). That’s absolutely true. But we don’t know how popular it really is compared to Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, as far as PF2 numbers are concerned.

Us enthusiasts often overestimate the number of people who participate in the hobby at our level. Things like following the latest news, talking about the hobby online, watching videos, etc. We’re the minority, and the majority (the “casuals”) just play the game. Active Reddit users on the PF2 subreddit are not the casual crowd.

So what you’re saying there is the Roll20 numbers are useless without context?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I agree with you that Foundry is the go-to VTT for PF2, backed by the opinion leaders (the enthusiast crowd). That’s absolutely true. But we don’t know how popular it really is compared to Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, as far as PF2 numbers are concerned.

Us enthusiasts often overestimate the number of people who participate in the hobby at our level. Things like following the latest news, talking about the hobby online, watching videos, etc. We’re the minority, and the majority (the “casuals”) just play the game. Active Reddit users on the PF2 subreddit are not the casual crowd.

It's a counterargument about the validity of the roll 20 numbers, not an assessment of its popularity.

 

[Teemu]

So what you’re saying there is the Roll20 numbers are useless without context?

It's a counterargument about the validity of the roll 20 numbers, not an assessment of its popularity.

I'm not disagreeing with the uncertainty of drawing conclusions about the Roll20 numbers. For example, my Roll20 PF2 game drew just as much attention as my 5e games did, whereas my 3.5 game and 4e games attracted less. Judging by the Roll20 numbers, I expected to get fewer player applications than a 5e game, but that wasn't the case.

But I want to dissuade you from drawing conclusions about enthusiast behavior and projecting those on the majority of the player base. Roll20 is completely disregarded by the PF2 userbase? That's massive hyperbole, especially since we know that Roll20 is considerably more popular than Fantasy Grounds or Foundry, particularly among the more casual players, since the barrier to entry for Roll20 is way lower. Way, way lower.