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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8203867" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>Thank you.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps I should clarify my point. PF1 was arguably just as cluttery and filled to the brim with rules, and that game did just fine.</p><p></p><p>So my point isn't that Advanced Squad Leader games are inherently evil or some such. </p><p></p><p>My point is that Paizo badly misread the market by completely failing to see where the wind was blowing despite having access to the mega success of 5E for several years. Correct me if I'm wrong but I would say the success of 5E and its mechanical solutions must have been evident a full year before PF2's ruleset even bagin taking on their final shape.</p><p></p><p>PF2 comes across as a game that's developed in a bubble where 5E simply does not exist. If you compare the game against PF1 and 4E it is unquestionably a success, no matter how you look at it. </p><p></p><p>But the game wasn't released in a post 4E world. It was released in a post 5E world. </p><p></p><p>And that makes its grossly overengineered rules feel instantly antiquated, since by the standard of 2015 they're actively user hostile.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The solution is clearly to release a version of Pathfinder 2 that has been ruthlessly de-cluttered and given a badly needed rules do-over. There must be a secret fan of 4E working at Paizo, and that person needs to be let go. Paizo needs to admit that while, yes, PF2 was written with the explicit intention to clean out the morass of pesky little rules exceptions that plagued PF1, the exact same situation persists in PF2, with loads and loads of feats and class abilities that work the same, except they have very slightly different wordings. Then they need to own up to the fact the game's individual parts don't work well together. To pick just one example - why have so elaborate and detailed rules for Treat Wounds, when the encounter system so clearly has ditched the resource management style of 3E/PF1? (Why force players to make all those little decisions and die rolls when you in the end still need to sit tight until you're fully healed??)</p><p></p><p>The Core Rulebook is 642 pages. I would submit it would be a task of Trivial difficulty to shave off 50 pages. Just drop the most obscure and byzantine spells and feats. And it would be a Moderate challenge to shave off 100 (dropping subsystems whose main effect is to make gamers' eyes glaze over). A system so complicated gamers who have played for well over a year still believe it does things it does not do (craft items) should appear as a variant in a GMG-type product, not be included in the core rulebook. (It's the Kickstarter disease).</p><p></p><p>I am firmly convinced a CRB of 500 pages or so would be strictly better, and straight up attract more customers.</p><p></p><p>And don't get me started on how Paizo just blithely kept doing a PF1 era rollout of supplements, again learning nothing from 5E. The game has been out for 18 months or so and the already-large amount of feats has already been doubled (tripled?). No mountain of feats can't conceal the fact that yes, you theoretically have many many MANY options, but the amount of real power to customize your character is severely curtailed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 8203867, member: 12731"] Thank you. Perhaps I should clarify my point. PF1 was arguably just as cluttery and filled to the brim with rules, and that game did just fine. So my point isn't that Advanced Squad Leader games are inherently evil or some such. My point is that Paizo badly misread the market by completely failing to see where the wind was blowing despite having access to the mega success of 5E for several years. Correct me if I'm wrong but I would say the success of 5E and its mechanical solutions must have been evident a full year before PF2's ruleset even bagin taking on their final shape. PF2 comes across as a game that's developed in a bubble where 5E simply does not exist. If you compare the game against PF1 and 4E it is unquestionably a success, no matter how you look at it. But the game wasn't released in a post 4E world. It was released in a post 5E world. And that makes its grossly overengineered rules feel instantly antiquated, since by the standard of 2015 they're actively user hostile. The solution is clearly to release a version of Pathfinder 2 that has been ruthlessly de-cluttered and given a badly needed rules do-over. There must be a secret fan of 4E working at Paizo, and that person needs to be let go. Paizo needs to admit that while, yes, PF2 was written with the explicit intention to clean out the morass of pesky little rules exceptions that plagued PF1, the exact same situation persists in PF2, with loads and loads of feats and class abilities that work the same, except they have very slightly different wordings. Then they need to own up to the fact the game's individual parts don't work well together. To pick just one example - why have so elaborate and detailed rules for Treat Wounds, when the encounter system so clearly has ditched the resource management style of 3E/PF1? (Why force players to make all those little decisions and die rolls when you in the end still need to sit tight until you're fully healed??) The Core Rulebook is 642 pages. I would submit it would be a task of Trivial difficulty to shave off 50 pages. Just drop the most obscure and byzantine spells and feats. And it would be a Moderate challenge to shave off 100 (dropping subsystems whose main effect is to make gamers' eyes glaze over). A system so complicated gamers who have played for well over a year still believe it does things it does not do (craft items) should appear as a variant in a GMG-type product, not be included in the core rulebook. (It's the Kickstarter disease). I am firmly convinced a CRB of 500 pages or so would be strictly better, and straight up attract more customers. And don't get me started on how Paizo just blithely kept doing a PF1 era rollout of supplements, again learning nothing from 5E. The game has been out for 18 months or so and the already-large amount of feats has already been doubled (tripled?). No mountain of feats can't conceal the fact that yes, you theoretically have many many MANY options, but the amount of real power to customize your character is severely curtailed. [/QUOTE]
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