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Starfinder and Pathfinder 2E in Herolab Classic?

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darkops

Member
Is there a company roadmap or timeline for when starfinder and pathfinder 2e will come to herolab classic?

I've had great success with my two main gaming groups in pathfinder 1e by having everyone purchase hero lab classic licenses. It really expedites character creation (something I usually have to do for about half the players who don't have system mastery, who are not tech savy, or who don't have the time to do this). Everyone in these groups are so used to the ease of use of Hero Lab that it would be an unthinkable amount of effort to maintain paper and pencil characters. At least one of my two groups wants to play starfinder, but no one wants HLO because it is unstable, doesn't work offline, and we all loathe subscription model services for products. Now that we're approaching a likely second season of SFS and the Pathfinder 2e playtest, I'd love to get my players into one or the other but we all want adoption in Hero Lab classic.

Since HLO is a non-starter for 100% of people I know with Hero Lab, is there any official plan 1 year after starfinder's HLO announcement/launch to bring these data packages to Hero Lab Classic? I guarantee 100% you'll have a minimum of 10 people just from my tables buying into it (please give me a product we can use so you can take my money!). Judging from these online forums you'll have a lot of your user base follow you into classic than those who are following you into HLO.
 
darkops said:
Is there a company roadmap or timeline for when starfinder and pathfinder 2e will come to herolab classic?
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No roadmap so for HLC because this is not currently happening. I would plan that all future systems will be HLO only not classic.

If this changes I am sure LW will post the info all over...
 
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vardeman said:
So, in other words, don't hold your breath.
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It's more like "Screw you."

HLO needs to be optional and not the default. Not everyone is willing or able to pay a monthly fee. It's a bad business model and something that makes me like Starfinder and Pathfinder 2 less than I do now.

It makes me really not like Lone Wolf.
 
This kind of reminds me of the "edition wars".

I haven't switch over to HLO because of no ability to create custom material. I know it's coming and once it does, I'll sign up. I like both HLO and HLC but that is the hold up for me.
 
Until they solve the unsolvable problem of 'offline access' HLO isn't an option for me or my group (many of our sessions are at a literal cabin in the woods with no internet access, which is by design and not something anyone intends to change).

Even when we're playing locally, though -- strangely enough, we enjoy sitting at a table without a bunch of gadgets distracting us from each other, and just getting ourselves immersed in the game and in conversation and interacting with each other.

I guess I'll wait to see which happens first : HLC offering P2e, or SomeOtherSoftware doing so, and decide what to do then. Bummed that this delays my P2 playtesting a bit, but whatever, there's still plenty of PF1 content to go. :-)
 
Jobe00 said:
It's more like "Screw you."

HLO needs to be optional and not the default. Not everyone is willing or able to pay a monthly fee. It's a bad business model and something that makes me like Starfinder and Pathfinder 2 less than I do now.

It makes me really not like Lone Wolf.
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It is not a screw you. Desktop apps like this are becoming relics. Browser based is the way everything is headed. They needed to make a choice on what is best for their company. I suspect that starfinder did very well for them so they went the same route for pf2. If they had a larger development staff they may have went both, but they seem to be limited there.

Change upsets some people and I am sure LWD knew there would be some attrition because of those who don’t like change.
 
Toblakai said:
Change upsets some people and I am sure LWD knew there would be some attrition because of those who don’t like change.
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No, no, no, don't victim-blame here.

This isn't "don't like change", this is "The new product LWD has created doesn't fit my needs as a consumer, and is therefore useless to me."
 
dballing said:
No, no, no, don't victim-blame here.

This isn't "don't like change", this is "The new product LWD has created doesn't fit my needs as a consumer, and is therefore useless to me."
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There is definitely a group of people who don’t like change. Just read the forums.
There are the very small group of people that live in the sticks and have crappy internet (not sure what they do to update hlc maybe drive into town?)
There are the people that can’t afford 25/yr but they shouldn’t be buying hlc then either.
There there are a few that, um, not sure what they don’t like.


HLO is more accessible too, usable on any device with a browser. Not sure if lwd is going to make apple’s 64 bit cutoff date so may lose Mac support for hlc too.
 
Toblakai said:
There is definitely a group of people who don’t like change. Just read the forums.
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OK, fair, but it sounded like you were painting everyone with a broad brush.

Toblakai said:
There are the very small group of people that live in the sticks and have crappy internet (not sure what they do to update hlc maybe drive into town?)
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Well you might well have "I have internet at home, but not where we play", or the parallel "We specifically try to keep people offline while playing so they can be engaged with each other and not be distracted. (and one can argue "police yourself" but in the modern era, it's easier to avoid the distractions when you simply don't already have the devices in your hand.

Toblakai said:
There are the people that can’t afford 25/yr but they shouldn’t be buying hlc then either.
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Well, if you buy HLC, you pay, what was it? $40? once. Now, I'll certainly contend that's not a good long-term business model for LWD (who should be more aggressive about charging for upgrades, etc., to keep a revenue stream there) but HLC is essentially a one-time purchase rather than an ongoing expense.

Toblakai said:
HLO is more accessible too, usable on any device with a browser. Not sure if lwd is going to make apple’s 64 bit cutoff date so may lose Mac support for hlc too.
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"more accessible" for you perhaps. Less accessible, as noted, for places with bad connectivity, etc. I know plenty of folks who've spent a lot of time playing D&D, PF, etc., on downtime in combat zones. Sketchy-as-hell internet access there.
 
If you don’t allow gadgets at the game table why are you upset with HLO? I mean you use HLO at home to make a character and then you print the character sheet. Exactly like you would for HLC.

I am totally confused based on your comments what you are upset about. Without emotion can you explain logically how HLO works different for your group than HLC would?
 
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ShadowChemosh said:
If you don’t allow gadgets at the game table why are you upset with HLO? I mean you use HLO at home to make a character and then you print the character sheet. Exactly like you would for HLC.

I am totally confused based on your comments what you are upset about. Without emotion can you explain logically how HLO works different for your group than HLC would?
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Well, as I mentioned upthread, we do from time to time go play at a remote cabin in the mountains (gaming weekend). Updating a character between sessions there (while using HLC) is painless. Updating a character between sessions there (with HLO) is impossible.

I can see how my referencing two different "plusses" for HLC (remote site as well as no-devices-at-the-table) might've been accidentally conflated.
 
dballing said:
Well, as I mentioned upthread, we do from time to time go play at a remote cabin in the mountains (gaming weekend). Updating a character between sessions there (while using HLC) is painless. Updating a character between sessions there (with HLO) is impossible.

I can see how my referencing two different "plusses" for HLC (remote site as well as no-devices-at-the-table) might've been accidentally conflated.
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Ok yeah leveling a character would be hard. Our group always levels between games so either version works for us.
 
ShadowChemosh said:
Ok yeah leveling a character would be hard. Our group always levels between games so either version works for us.
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Even applying various modifiers "on the fly" wouldn't be possible. This means manual work with the paper character sheet to update everything affected by a particular condition or other modifier.
 
Farling said:
Even applying various modifiers "on the fly" wouldn't be possible. This means manual work with the paper character sheet to update everything affected by a particular condition or other modifier.
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Yeah but he said several time gadgets not allowed at the table. So they where already using paper sheet not HLC when gaming. Meaning the other features like spell adjustments and conditions where done manually.

Hence my question on if only useing 10% of the software anyways why did he care it was online only. :)
 
Sounds like one should create a few versions of the character (at level +1, +2, +3, etc) before heading to the cabin? Personally, I would love to also ban laptops & phones at the table but the #1 use of HL at the table is for the "conditions & buffs" as I don't want to figure all that out in real time.

Coming home from GenCon was a love/hate relationship with HLO for me. It went from:

"Ok, this is cool, making up a paladin on my phone as we drive home!"

to

"!&#$*!@ I65 and it's dead spots...I just hope traffic doesn't slow down to a crawl while in a Sprint dead zone..."

and back to

"Ok, this is cool, making up a paladin on my phone as we drive home!"

Another in my group did like the HLO for Starfinder events at GenCon as he ditched his huge/heavy laptop for an Android tablet using his phone as a hotspot... Although running that hotspot for 8+ hours is a major drain on the battery...
 
dballing said:
Until they solve the unsolvable problem of 'offline access' HLO isn't an option for me or my group (many of our sessions are at a literal cabin in the woods with no internet access, which is by design and not something anyone intends to change).
Click to expand...

But it is not unsolvable. DnD Beyond has an app for offline use, for example. HTML5 offline storage may be another option.

It is a matter of development priorities. The number of people who will refuse to use HLO because of no offline storage, while not insignificant, is probably a minority and probably less than the number of people they can attack with online HTML5 compliant access that works on any device with a modern Web browser.

I would guess that if HLO is successful that they will eventually come up with a solution for off-line access.
 
MNBlockHead said:
I would guess that if HLO is successful that they will eventually come up with a solution for off-line access.
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I would imagine their main complication on that point would be converting lots of existing code from C or an adjacent language into Javascript. Not only is a lot of the basic philosophy dramatically different, but to do it right you need people deeply familiar in both languages, which is pretty rare these days. The server-driven approach has its downsides, but it's let them have a usable-on-all-devices service up and running in a fraction of the time I'd expect a full port to take.
 
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