Opinions on Starfinder please.
From what I've seen, the game has some interesting underpinnings, but lacked a lot of playtesting and has some unfortunately half-baked mechanics that undermine the experience. The mechanics are kind of a weird mix of trying to go towards other game styles, but have to be compatible with all of the old rules so things feel a bit out of place and strange. It's stuck in a bad place. I admit that I'm not an expert, I more bounced off of the game than became a deep diver, but these are opinions anyhow ha ha.
A few more specific examples of messy mechanics include the leveled items thing someone mentioned earlier. In theory this is fine, but in practice it also means that at certain levels classes don't have proper upgrades, meaning power levels vary widely between classes. If you're playing a melee rogue/ninja type, you may just not have properly leveled weapons, and you'll fall behind. Additionally, the skill progression was poorly implemented, and with DCs increasing at a faster rate than player skill levels. This means that during higher level play characters become less competent, especially at things like Hacking or Starship combat. Casters still reign supreme, although it's a bit better than in normal Pathfinder.
The lore and world is fun enough, although the science and fantasy aspects aren't always convincingly meshed. It also has the high art quality and professionalism that one would expect from a major publisher, and it's easy to find too. That being said it's hardly more interesting than the myriad other Sci-Fi games out there like Shadowrun, the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars titles, or Fragged Empires. It's an interesting experiment, but like lots of Paizo's mechanical experiments it's kind of a mess. If you're really into in Pathfinder it might be worth a shot, but sadly enough it's not exactly the preeminent science fiction adventure game it wants to be. I'm not terribly fond of Pathfinder anymore, but was looking forward to Starfinder since it was supposed to be different and new. It was more of the same, and not terribly well done either.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:38, Fri 21 Dec 2018.