So a while back we had this prediction/thread about RPGPundits video on Pathfinder 2e: Postulating that PF2 will split the base and cause Pazio problems:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UDEQCJEWKo
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/pathfinder-2e-or-will-pundit-be-proven-right/msg1072157/#msg1072157

(By all means feel free to ruthlessly berate each other for inaccurate predictions.)


So it's about 18 months since PF2 hit the shelves and this is what we know so far:

Baizuo currently employs 73 people, which is larger than it's ever been.

Pathfinder is declining in popularity since 5E came out. Activity on Paizo's forums is way down, adventure paths get far fewer reviews than they did 6 years ago, very little fan content is being released on Youtube, etc.

Pathfinder 2 was an attempt to stem this tide.

Oh, wait a minute, the same things still apply to Pathfinder 2.

So some things are pointing to PF2 not being the great POC hope that Baizuo might have been banking on.

But where is the evidence?

In the time of the Kung-Flu, online gaming has taken off!

But maybe not so much for PF2...

PF1 is still in the lead on Fantasy Grounds: PFRPG vs. PFRPG2




PF2 games are less than half of the PF1 games on Roll20



Of course over time I do naturally expect PF2 to overtake PF1 on these platforms.

But almost a year and a half in a lagging PF2 is suboptimal.

But there is good news as well!

Pinnacle is doing a SAVAGE WORLDS version of 1e pathfinder adventure paths...
https://www.peginc.com/big-surprise-for-savage-worlds-announcement-thanksgiving/

Wait what? Well, it is a good way for Baizuo to monetize some old product.

I guess that's good if you want to play through PF1e AP with a system that Fucking Sucks.

But why don't they do more 5e conversions?

Maybe beacause Baizuo is not quite ready to raise the white flag just yet...

As of 12-7-2020
https://subredditstats.com/r/pathfinder_RPG

The PF1e 1e subreddit averages 36 posts per day.

https://subredditstats.com/r/pathfinder2e

The PF2 subreddit averages 19 posts per day.

Best Sellers in Fantasy Gaming (amazon listing 12-7-2020)
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Fantasy-Gaming/zgbs/books/16211/ref=zg_bs_pg_2?_encoding=UTF8&pg=2

#89 Call of Cthulhu Rpg Keeper Rulebook:
#90: PF2 Tome of beasts 2
#91: Baizuo PF2 core

Beaten out by a game released in 2016 is not a good look. (Even if it is a temporary sales spike from CoC)

Naturally this is all relative. HERO games would love to have PF2 sales figures.

But Baizuo is no HERO games. They have things like sales projections, and a marketing budget.


Of course, in a post Nov 3rd 2020 world; Proof is the new Evidence.

And not having access to internal Baizuo financials no one can say anything for certain.


So have the tea leaves been read wrong?

Or are we seeing a train-wreck in slow motion...

Pathfinder is still gay.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 07, 2020, 09:43:36 PM
So have the tea leaves been read wrong?

Or are we seeing a train-wreck in slow motion...

My verdict is a slow train wreck with the proviso that WotC is also going down and it is just a matter of who is going to self destruct first.

Pros:

Paizo has a better more experienced management team.

WotC has Magic money propping them up.

In before Shasarak tells you how unfact-like your facts are. Edit: LOL, he posted while I was writing!  But to his credit, he didn't defend Paizo.

Seriously, Paizo was in a no-win situation.  Pathfinder grew as much because most D&D converts to PF hated 4e more than they liked PF.  D&D 3e had its own issues, which PF mainly papered over (or declared features, instead of flaws).  Once 5e came out, folks who were playing PF because they felt 4e had strayed too far from the roots of D&D had a home to come back to, without a bunch of the kludge.

Aside: I don't care what your opinion of 3e, 4e, or 5e are, 3e is objectively harder to prepare custom NPCs, monsters and encounters for than 5e.  The necessity to build NPCs using the same rules as PCs (at least as far as the rules encourage the GM to do so) adds a ton more prep time.

So Paizo couldn't just sit on its position as it bled players.  So PF2 was necessary, with concessions towards ease-of-use and modern RPG sensibilities (granted, in some cases they just doubled-down on the 3e legacy, but there are some forward looking changes, too).  But any changes would likely alienate those who were playing PF because they liked the mechanics of the 3e line.  So they started burning their base to chase the folks who were only playing their game as a second choice.  There's just no way to win that...

I think a lot could have been done to simplify and clean up Pathfinder 1 without making it fundamentally unbackwards compatible.

The other thing they really needed is good online support for monster building and character building and the like.

The biggest complaint for 3.5 and Pathfinder was always GM prep time.  That's something that could have been significantly improved with technology.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 07, 2020, 10:17:40 PM
In before Shasarak tells you how unfact-like your facts are. Edit: LOL, he posted while I was writing!  But to his credit, he didn't defend Paizo.

Your mind reading skills could do with a level up or two.

Quote from: Shasarak on December 07, 2020, 10:12:56 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on December 07, 2020, 09:43:36 PM
So have the tea leaves been read wrong?

Or are we seeing a train-wreck in slow motion...

My verdict is a slow train wreck with the proviso that WotC is also going down and it is just a matter of who is going to self destruct first.

Pros:

Paizo has a better more experienced management team.

WotC has Magic money propping them up.

WOTC had a book in the top 5 of all books for sale in the nation. This week!

Their D&D books are like printing money at this point.

I went to Barnes and Noble last week and they had moved the D&D books to the front of the store where you walk in. Because...almost all of them have been best sellers.

What's a Baizuo?

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 08, 2020, 12:08:49 AM
What's a Baizuo?

From the Alt-right, conservative, right-wing racist website - Wikipedia:

"Baizuo (/ˈbaɪˌdzwɔː/; Chinese: 白左; pinyin: báizuǒ, literally White Left) is a Chinese neologism and political epithet used to refer to Western leftist ideologies primarily espoused by white people. The term baizuo is related to the term shèngmǔ (圣母, 聖母, literally "Blessed Mother"), a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being guided by emotions or a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy."

Pazio / Baizuo, I make a funny at pazio's expense.

Ha ha.

Quote from: Jaeger on December 08, 2020, 12:23:20 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 08, 2020, 12:08:49 AM
What's a Baizuo?

From the Alt-right, conservative, right-wing racist website - Wikipedia:

"Baizuo (/ˈbaɪˌdzwɔː/; Chinese: 白左; pinyin: báizuǒ, literally White Left) is a Chinese neologism and political epithet used to refer to Western leftist ideologies primarily espoused by white people. The term baizuo is related to the term shèngmǔ (圣母, 聖母, literally "Blessed Mother"), a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being guided by emotions or a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy."

Pazio / Baizuo, I make a funny at pazio's expense.

Ha ha.

So, it's Chinese for BOZO! I get it, Knee-How! 
When it comes to Pathfinder, I think 3-3.5E has run it's course. I am under the belief that they need to do something radical, like build a new system from the ground up to support new product. Call me crazy, but I was never enamored with 2E through 3.5E, as both seemed to forget what their roots were. However, I only ever watched 4E and it was combat. I mean, it was awful. Made me wanna cry with all the modifiers and such! Oh, well, who needs fun when you got rules, right?

Quote from: Jaeger on December 08, 2020, 12:23:20 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 08, 2020, 12:08:49 AM
What's a Baizuo?

From the Alt-right, conservative, right-wing racist website - Wikipedia:

"Baizuo (/ˈbaɪˌdzwɔː/; Chinese: 白左; pinyin: báizuǒ, literally White Left) is a Chinese neologism and political epithet used to refer to Western leftist ideologies primarily espoused by white people. The term baizuo is related to the term shèngmǔ (圣母, 聖母, literally "Blessed Mother"), a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being guided by emotions or a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy."

Pazio / Baizuo, I make a funny at pazio's expense.

Ha ha.

Greetings!

Fucking awesome, Jaeger! It's so funny, too, because the Chinese term Baizuo is so encompassing, and yet *precise* for all the stupid, SJW Libtard morons, that love to clutch their pearls about everything while they sob hysterically.

Paizo is definitely fucked if they think their game business will survive catering to the sobbing SJW cuck bitches.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: consolcwby on December 08, 2020, 01:14:05 AM
So, it's Chinese for BOZO! I get it, Knee-How! 
When it comes to Pathfinder, I think 3-3.5E has run it's course. I am under the belief that they need to do something radical, like build a new system from the ground up to support new product.

That's what PF2 was supposed to be for them... but they attached to the same woke garbage setting it had before.

I would argue that Goloron itself has run its course. It's every corner has been documented so all the new rules can do is re-cover the same things as the previous edition. So it's not even a fresh woke garbage setting; it's a reheated woke garbage setting.

There's something to be said for having to abandon the familiar surface dross and be forced to either dig back into the original myths and legends for a fresh take or to have to start from scratch. New worlds with new frontiers and new take on ancient lore are just more interesting than the fourth iteration of Forgotten Realms or the second of Goloron.

I may have said it before yet the writing was on the wall for a new edition long before PF 2E was announced. Pathfinder Unchained a product that wa never on their release schedule suddenly appears a few months after 5E was announced. It took the core rules and it changed some aspects of the game completely like removing the action economy. Which they then in turn included a big part of Unchained in Starfinder core. Yet somehow the 3.5. Die hards lied to themselves that a new edition was never on the horizon.

The whole bending of the knee apologizing for having a police themed Adventure Path. Except their is a difference in apologizing and bending the knee. Another when it comes off like a low level mob flunky begging for his life from the Godfather. They not only fell on the floor and showed their belly. They offered up the knife to carve it open. Deleting and closing threads and banning posters who felt differently also did not help matters. Wotc with 5E and older editions did the same thing yet they did not insult the fanbase who actually worke in law enforcement.

Stubborn unwillingness to release good rules at least with PF 1E. Either something was too good or so useless to be worse than a trap option. Made worse when they changed stuff that they had no real reason too except because Pathfinder society whined long and hard about. This and the above in the list is not going to sell books or keep the fanbase.

Making the core setting as inoffensive and Vanilla as possible. While also making it as SJW as possible. They had their version of Africa colonized by whites in the setting. Of course in 2E the natives overthrow and slaughtered them all and took their country back. Every country with a ruled by a male member of royalty suddenly has female members of royalty. Evil races and the word race is removed because SJW members of the hobby may have their feelings hurt. It's to the point that they refer to a Succubus as aLust Demon in the 2E Bestiary yet she has more cloths than an 18th century Victorian era model.

It's just the overall arrogant feeling that no matter what they do the majority of the fanbase need to sometimes eat shit and like it. Good luck with that. One could get their way of thinking if 5E was not taking away their sales and fanbase. I guess go woke and broke is what they want to do.

Is this why they're releasing PF1 rules and APs for Savage Worlds - to forfeit the arms race and go with licensing their old stuff?

Quote from: sureshot on December 08, 2020, 08:34:37 AMMaking the core setting as inoffensive and Vanilla as possible. While also making it as SJW as possible.

All those changes and still less than 1/3 of the players made the switch. Clearly Paizo is listening to the wrong segment of their player base (if the SJWs are actually playing the game which is doubtful).

People said that Paizo was in a lose/lose situation but it seems like choice was lose or lose a while lot more.