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

[Thomas Shey]

I mean, let's get serious here: generally speaking D&D has been the big dog in the RPG market for its entire lifespan (there's some question as to whether Vampire the Masquerade and White Wolf in general were surging ahead of them during the peak of the latter, but there's no really solid information on it). 4e was very much an aberration because it was simply not the game the D&D fans apparently wanted as a group (note this says nothing about the quality of the game; I think it did what it was trying to do generally pretty well, but that's a different question).

So is PF doing less well when its new edition is up against a strong (market-wise) version of D&D and forging generally new ground, then it did when it was up against a weak version and riding the coat tails of the prior D&D version? Shocker.

 

[dave2008]

Amazon sales data means very little. That’s a fact. I work there. With the algorithms sales bounce and Amazon is primarily a soft lines distributor now. With Paizo having a very, very strong direct RO consumer subscription service that includes PDFs and Foundry VTT data it’s a steal. That’s part of why Roll20 is a bad measure for how PF2 is doing. You are basing your assumption on a single source whereas Paizo has never been forthcoming with numbers. It’s the number 2 game on the market well over a year after release, it’s not going anywhere. Most other games, when they release a new edition, get a temporary spike for about six months and then fade out of the limelight. Vampire, Shadowrun, etc. the only games that stick? D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder and Cthulhu.

While that is true, it was also true when PF2 launched. The amazon numbers have go down consistently and significantly over the 2 years of its release. I think that is what @Retreater is referencing. And it is clearly not the only data he/she as the basis for argument, many examples where given.

Now, that doesn't mean Retreater is correct, it just means most of the data we can collect suggest that he/she might be right.

 

[dave2008]

My argument is nothing was going to make all that be true. The only time new editions sell as well or better than the prior edition of a game are usually when the prior edition was notably problematic to a large part of the market (i.e. the D&D 4 to D&D 5 transition). Otherwise you almost always lose some of your market in such transitions.

The question ends up being, does what you suggest seem likely to improve this loss? And I don't have any evidence that's particularly likely. To the degree there's a market that wants some of that, they're either diehards staying with PF1e and unlikely to change anyway, or are 5e fans who already have what they want.

Its basically a categorical error to assume that anything, absolutely anything, was going to get much better result than they have now, and the comparison to 1e is problematic because 1e was a success to at least some degree because it was carrying through theD&D 3e fandom when D&D 4e came out and went in a different direction.
I also consider the VTT question to be so muddied it doesn't really demonstrate anything.

The APs not being as well received is an indicator of the fact the D&D sphere has been notoriously bad about not fighting the last war when new editions of games come out; take a look at the history of early D&D3 modules (where people were, effectively writing for AD&D2 rather than the game at hand) or the attitude toward the first couple D&D 4 adventures (where they didn't apparently understand their own math). Paizo had the advantage in their early PF1e adventures that they were transitioning to a game very similar to D&D 3.5, which they'd been doing adventures for for quite some time; any problems were likely to be things that were largely system independent. The first two Adventure Paths for 2e, on the other hand, were the same old "writing adventures for the new game system like it was the old game system, with accompanying problems". Any issues people have mentioned with any of the successors have, again, been things that would be problems whatever the game system was.

So your argument only makes sense if you assume there's any practical way they weren't going to have some contraction of market given the current RPG environment, and I have little sign that's true; nothing they did was going to prevent that. To a large extent quite how big a chunk they had was a historical accident and them taking advantage of same, and I suspect they knew good and well when going to 2e it was going to happen, but it was better than the alternative.

Is @Retreater's argument not about preventing the contraction of the market, but what can be done now to expand it? I feel like your looking at it from a different perspective than the OP.

 

[dave2008]

I mean, let's get serious here: generally speaking D&D has been the big dog in the RPG market for its entire lifespan (there's some question as to whether Vampire the Masquerade and White Wolf in general were surging ahead of them during the peak of the latter, but there's no really solid information on it). 4e was very much an aberration because it was simply not the game the D&D fans apparently wanted as a group (note this says nothing about the quality of the game; I think it did what it was trying to do generally pretty well, but that's a different question).

So is PF doing less well when its new edition is up against a strong (market-wise) version of D&D and forging generally new ground, then it did when it was up against a weak version and riding the coat tails of the prior D&D version? Shocker.

I don't think that is the point. The point is less about what happened and more about whether or not something can be done to expand the reach of PF2. At least that is what I'm getting from this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, but notice his suggestion is "a revised, streamlined PF2". If that's the suggestion, it requires support that "streamlining" would actually help, when the detail and involvement is already a big part of setting PF2e apart from D&D 5e; expanding your market by trying to fish in the pond already dominated by a bigger player is almost always a fool's game. Its like the people who suggest the Hero System would do better if it was simplified, when the truth is, games serving a similar purpose but simpler already have that part of the market (Savage Worlds for example), so why would someone assume this is somehow going to help?

Essentially, you have to ask yourself what underserved part of the market that is supposed to pick up.

 

[Retreater]

Yeah. I don't have Paizo's budget reports, and I'm not an industry expert. All I can comment upon is my experience and observations with the new edition. I see more activity on the Paizo forums about PF1 than PF2. I see difficulty in getting anyone to play in my game. I see lack of support on the dominant VTT, which has caused me some frustration. I have scoured the publishers trying to find good 3PP adventure content when I didn't like my choices of official APs or anything to hook my players (who I think are pretty easy to please, generally speaking).
I have seen players get frustrated with the complexity of character creation and a poorly organized rulebook, and I've thought a streamlined version would be helpful.
So yes, these are my opinions. I think there is evidence to support my stance, which I've shared above. I'm not discounting the experience of anyone who loves this game. However, I think the experience can be improved, and if Paizo has the ability to improve the status of PF2 and the experience of would-be players, I think they should do that.

 

[Retreater]

Essentially, you have to ask yourself what underserved part of the market that is supposed to pick up.

The people who want to play Pathfinder 2 but find the organization of the core rules in need of improvement, the writing bloated, the conditions easily streamlined, etc. The players who tried PF2 but abandoned it after a few sessions.

 

[transmission89]

Yeah. I don't have Paizo's budget reports, and I'm not an industry expert. All I can comment upon is my experience and observations with the new edition. I see more activity on the Paizo forums about PF1 than PF2. I see difficulty in getting anyone to play in my game. I see lack of support on the dominant VTT, which has caused me some frustration. I have scoured the publishers trying to find good 3PP adventure content when I didn't like my choices of official APs or anything to hook my players (who I think are pretty easy to please, generally speaking).
I have seen players get frustrated with the complexity of character creation and a poorly organized rulebook, and I've thought a streamlined version would be helpful.
So yes, these are my opinions. I think there is evidence to support my stance, which I've shared above. I'm not discounting the experience of anyone who loves this game. However, I think the experience can be improved, and if Paizo has the ability to improve the status of PF2 and the experience of would-be players, I think they should do that.

I think whatever the stance, a pathfinder essentials would not help. I shudder in memory of these very boards when 4e essentials was a thing.
Numerous posts asking what the difference was, is it compatible etc (reflecting consumer confusion) and posts decrying the “dumbing” down of 4e vs those that liked the product. Basically it got ugly (uglier as there was already bad blood and harsh words between pf/3.x vs 4e at the time)

 

[Thomas Shey]

The people who want to play Pathfinder 2 but find the organization of the core rules in need of improvement, the writing bloated, the conditions easily streamlined, etc. The players who tried PF2 but abandoned it after a few sessions.

And the people they lose because some of that would probably involve reducing engagement? How many of each are there? How many of the latter group are people who really are more wanting the D&D 5 experience anyway?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think whatever the stance, a pathfinder essentials would not help. I shudder in memory of these very boards when 4e essentials was a thing.
Numerous posts asking what the difference was, is it compatible etc (reflecting consumer confusion) and posts decrying the “dumbing” down of 4e vs those that liked the product. Basically it got ugly (uglier as there was already bad blood and harsh words between pf/3.x vs 4e at the time)

One of the things I thought but didn't say was "Yeah, 4e Essentials ended up saving the 4e line really well, didn't it?"

I mean, sure, as Dave2008 says, every company would like more market. But the usual problem is "How do you get new players and buyers without losing the ones you have?" Or alternatively, "Will the new people coming in exceed the old ones going out?" Until you have evidence this is the case, you have to show how you can make the two pieces of string meet in the middle, and usually people coming in with these questions are, effectively saying "I think people should make the game more like what I want" without asking whether that can be done without making it less like what people already playing it and buying the products want. Often without realizing some of what they view as flaws other people view as virtues.

I mean, almost everyone likes more clarity in their rules. And as a rule set gets more detailed, this can become more and more of an issue, as it becomes progressively harder to do. But that does not mean everyone wants simplification, and among those that do, you have to ask the question whether there's other games on the market that would just end up competing for their attention anyway.

That was really my point; there's not really signs that Retreater and the people he's talking about would be happy with any PF2e version that also made many of its current fans happy. So how does his suggestion make any sense for Paizo?