Are there details out on PF2's system? If yes please link it.
Yea I get that, but what I was saying is that they should have just improved the 3.5 formula, but for reals this time (PF tried but it was really just D&D 3.75).
I guess they did, a lot of people love it. Is it better? I personally think its a rigid system, with very little character customization, specially post creation. But hey thats just me. If it appeals to new players and people who were scared of 3.5 "complicated" system, I'm all for it.
Representing people who like 5e as "scared" of 3.5's complexity is a pretty biased and overly simplistic stance. People's tastes just differ from yours.
And, they may also see it as the reverse, and think you fear the deeper complexity of not using your character sheet to decide what you do on your turn, but rather your imagination which is less limited by the rules structure of 3.5. That, by stating a rule for most things, 3.5 naturally influences people towards playing within all those rules and not try to do anything which was not already covered by the rules.
I'll offer an example: "Jump off the banister, swing on the chandelier, to kick over the barrel of lamp oil onto the torch on the wall."
3.5: Theoretically possible but first you have to know if there is already a feat which can do this specifically and, if there is, then not just anyone can try it without the feat as that would be stepping on the toes of players who chose that feat. But, if there is not a feat, then the complexity of the jump rules, acrobatics rules, movement rules as they combine with acrobatics, attack to kick the barrels, check barrel weight and barrel hardness and material breaking rules, oil splash pattern to strike the fire, fire damage and spread, etc.. All that is just a lot of rules to look up, and most players would probably get bugged you're not just attacking with your bow and multiple attacks and known set of attack and damage routines from your character sheet.
5e: Probably just an acrobatics check and role damage with DM deciding on the fly anything unclear. The rules don't discourage that sort of procedure and are streamlined such that a player could reasonably do that with a single check, and so are less inclined to always look at their character sheet to decide what to do. It's a more complex decision for the player to make those choices, but it's less
rules complexity than
imagination based complexity.
The background section is a joke.
Why? I love the backgrounds. That's where some deep role playing complexity comes in at character creation. You no longer need to class to reflect "I am a pirate" or "I am a noble", and can do it with any class.
The rules are (try to make it fit your character):
*Choose 2 Skills to gain proficiency in.
*Choose 2 languages, 2 tools or 1 of each to be proficient in.
*Make up feature that doesn't effect the game mechanically but help the character out in situations that are not all that important.
Those situations, while limited in frequency, are often very important when they do come up. Why do you think they're not?