Pathfinder Is Still Bad

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 4:11 pm

Archmage Joda wrote:So basically, it sounds like I'm better off sticking with my original plan of being a normal wizard, and just using feats to cherry pick a word or two, like that diet Celerity one

Even spending a feat for access to a single wordspell is debatable in terms of usefulness, if you ask me. But that's way better than restricting yourself to the Words of Power list, full stop.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 5:23 pm

The only reason I can fathom to use words of power is that you want to nerf spellcasting in Pathfinder and you don't want to put in the effort to do it smart. On the other hand I think the mechanic has potential, if you wrote up some houserules it could make for an interesting game.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 6:20 pm

Juton wrote:The only reason I can fathom to use words of power is that you want to nerf spellcasting in Pathfinder and you don't want to put in the effort to do it smart. On the other hand I think the mechanic has potential, if you wrote up some houserules it could make for an interesting game.

The main reason I can think of for using Words of Power is it adds a bit of variety.

Having said that, I think the Words of Power druid class list is about as interesting as the normal (core) druid class list. Mostly because the core druid list is full of chaff like Diminish Plants and Reduce Animal.

GâtFromKI · Post by **GâtFromKI** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 8:17 pm

There is an update for mythic rules!

Now, mythic points are even less poweful than hero points. And instead of +20 Init, mythic characters have a shitty bonus. Hooray !

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 3:04 pm

codeGlaze wrote:
hogarth wrote:
codeGlaze wrote:Does it seem to anyone else that the kickstarter is going very slowly for them, now?
For Pathfinder Online? The Kickstarter for the demo raised ~$300K, and I wouldn't be surprised if they got just as much from the new one. From the same people, no doubt.
Yes, but their goal is a tad bit higher than that, and it hasn't grown much in the past several days (if memory serves).

Update: Since I'm on the Paizo mailing list, I've been peppered with emails basically saying "Please give some money to the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter! Pretty please?"

I'm pretty sure their $1 million goal is a pipe dream.

Niles · Post by **Niles** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:05 pm

The rpgnet thread mocking discussing it is fairly amusing.
According to the MMO players there, Ryan "Steve Jobs" Dancey's press releases/adcopy brags that the Pathfinder MMO will have all the "features" of Ultima Online that made people drop it in favor of Everquest.

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 7:30 pm

With 9 days to go they are at 600,000 of 1,000,000. That's a lot of money admittedly. It's interesting to note that the average PFO backer is in for about $122, compared to the average Shadowrun Returns backer is in for about $50. Shadowrun Online had about the same number of backers (6000) with an average pledge of about $93. It seems people who like MMOs are ready to shell out a lot of money to play one, but the market for MMOs that aren't the big AAA titles is pretty small.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:04 pm

Wasn't Ryan Dancey the guy who in 2009 or smt said that ttrpg's were dead and the future was purely in computer rpgs?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:38 pm

Juton wrote:With 9 days to go they are at 600,000 of 1,000,000. That's a lot of money admittedly. It's interesting to note that the average PFO backer is in for about $122, compared to the average Shadowrun Returns backer is in for about $50. Shadowrun Online had about the same number of backers (6000) with an average pledge of about $93. It seems people who like MMOs are ready to shell out a lot of money to play one, but the market for MMOs that aren't the big AAA titles is pretty small.

Even mmo players are capable of learning behavior. Even if they hate WoW, they want <whichever mmo they support> to _last_ like WoW has. And generally speaking, non-AAA titles don't. Even some of the AAA titles spiral really close to the bin these days, as the publishing companies haven't quite figured out the magic formula to keep people sticking around and giving money.

They're pretty sure the free to play is the way to go, but what to monetize and how seems to escape a lot of them. EA almost killed the fucking Star Wars mmo because the initial ftp transition was ass-buggeringly awful, and they've been scrambling to make it suck less. And the previous SW mmo did die a horrible death.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 2:27 am

A game on the ipad made by six finnish people makes a million dollars a day through the freemium model. Clash of Clans.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 10:54 am

Freemium is basically where 1% of the players fund the game because they're wealthy enough to not notice the money they're spending on literal nothingness, and the other 99% encourage them to keep logging in by not being complete assbags all the time.

The trick is to make a game where people want to be nice to each other. Or, like the Seven Heavens where the only way to even cross the street is to be selflessly nice to random strangers. Farmville without the begging, just the rewards.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 11:04 am

tussock wrote: The trick is to make a game where people want to be nice to each other.

Clash of Clans makes money from a desire to get revenge on the guys who kicked your ass because they've been playing longer/paid more, or to catch up to friends in your clan so you can properly help each other.

But it's very well polished in execution. Those Fins have a golden touch on mobile games.

sake · Post by **sake** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 3:49 pm

Niles wrote: releases/adcopy brags that the Pathfinder MMO will have all the "features" of Ultima Online that made people drop it in favor of Everquest.

But Everquest was a horrible game compared the Ultima Online.

Sorry... I used to read Lum the Mad a lot...

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:40 pm

Niles wrote:According to the MMO players there, Ryan "Steve Jobs" Dancey's press releases/adcopy brags that the Pathfinder MMO will have all the "features" of Ultima Online that made people drop it in favor of Everquest.

I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I think it makes some sense to target a particular niche that's unfilled at the present, rather than saying "Pathfinder Online is a less popular version of D&D Online which is itself a less popular version of World of Warcraft, so please give us the crumbs from the crumbs from WoW's table, thanks!". But on the other hand, I have no interest in playing the game that Ryan Dancey is all het up about (I have no interest in PvP or Minecraft-style shenanigans in my video games, for instance).

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Tue Jan 08, 2013 12:55 am

So I was discussing haunting mists with a friend. How exactly does it work?

Figment part: It is an illusion figment spell. Illusion rules tell me those can't deal damage, but this spell does do damage so I guess specific case overrules the general case.

Range part: It has a range of 20, but the spell itself says that the fog arises around you. Can you cast it 20 ft away, so the fog is only between that point and yourself (so you are not in it) or does it appear around you and the range is only so a widen spell doesn't have any effect on it?

Illusion part: what happens if for example a sorcerer casts this spell on an enemy wizard, enemy fighter and herself, and the wizard identifies the spell with a spellcraft check,
1: Do people get disbelieve saves, if so are they will saves?
2: Does the sorcerer auto-disbelieve?
3: Is the spellcraft check enough proof for the wizard to auto-disbelieve?
4: At what point may the fighter disbelieve?
5: Would anything change if the fighter was blind?

Spell itself: Does everyone have to save vs the 1d2 wisdom damage every round?

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Jan 10, 2013 1:27 pm

The range on haunting mists is for the emanation. Spells effect can't exist beyond their range, so things that radiate out from you have a range equal to their radius. They've badly labelled it.

It's shadow, so it's partially real and can do damage and such. Disbelieving a shadow doesn't make it go away, just lets you see it as a shadow which can still do damage and have other effects. You could treat the given save as disbelief, or not, reads to me like an obvious illusion anyway.

1: They get the given will save to avoid stat damage and fear.
2: You are considered to automatically save vs your own illusions without action.
3: Interesting. I'd say nothing, but +4 for knowing isn't too bad.
4: Gets the given save to avoid stat damage and fear.
5: It's "all creatures in the mist" not "all creatures seeing the shadows".
6: Level 2 mid-duration spell, probably not intended to be 1d2 per round.

Basically, it's a shadow and fear spell. The figment tag just means non-affected creatures see the same thing, and thus you have concealment from those outside the radius. A glamour would only cloud vision for those directly affected.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 7:43 pm

Got another beg-mail about Pathfinder Online. They're almost at $750K (out of a target of $1MM) and I'm surprised they got that far. I'll eat my hat* if they get to $1MM in the next three days, though.

*Not really.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:45 pm

You're not even wearing a hat. Matbe if you ate your mustache...

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 8:53 pm

Looks like the pathfinder mmo kickstarter did succeed after all.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:39 pm

I'm sure they cheated.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:45 pm

Rawbeard wrote:I'm sure they cheated.

I was wondering about that. If you're running a Kickstarter, can you donate money to your own project to make it look more popular than it actually is?

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:55 pm

No idea, circumventing such a rule would be doable and worth it, I guess. I distrust established publishers begging on kickstarter. "Free money? Yes please!"

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 10:30 pm

I doubt there's any way to stop them... I'd be interested to see a donor breakdown, but I doubt Pathfinder actually needs to get someone handing them thousands of dollars.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jan 14, 2013 11:23 pm

Kickstarter takes a portion of the money donated. So plopping some money down on it is like spending a portion of the money allocated for advertising.

Of course, if you are near your funding goal, then it might make sense to push yourself over the limit. After all, if the funding drive fails, you don't get all the money. So if you had to spend a thousand dollars to unlock a million dollars in donations, it would be a no-brainer.

Paizo has played fast and loose with popularity indicators before. Remember when they solicited pre-orders, then solicited up a print run, then announced that the initial print run (that was for the number of pre-orders they had) was sold out on the pre-orders alone (as indeed, it could not possibly have been otherwise)?

I have no evidence that they fiddled the order numbers on the kickstarter. But I do know that they absolutely would do that if they thought it would benefit them in any way.

-Username17

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:08 am

3,400 pledges for $100. That's interesting. The plurality of pledges is pretty high for a MMORPG.

I would imagine that if you looked at the number of pledges per price point for most kick starters it would form a bell curve. Maybe a non-symmetrical bell curve but a bell curve none the less. The Pathfinder kickstarter looks like it has bulges. Not necessarily proof that Goblin Works kicked in the last few Ks themself, but it may indicate that their player base is weird.