What are your thoughts on the latest Barons Club “State of the Game” Podcast?

[Flapjackson.1596]

Recently three well known community members, Guild MM, Mukluk, and Teapot chatted about the state of the game. They discussed IBS, class balance, EoD, and community events, among other things. I don’t want to link any of their YouTube videos on it here as I’m not certain if that’s allowed on this sub-forum (I’ll post one in Community Creations) but for those of you who listened to the discussion or will do so: what do you think of the conversation?

 

I think it’s good to see deeper discussion on how the game is right now. I didn’t agree with everything discussed, like pessimistic views on adding a new race in EoD, but I appreciate the genuine effort here to push upcoming community events and grow the game through player participation and collaboration between streamers. 

[AgentMoore.9453]

I'll be real with you, I don't know who any of those people are or what that podcast is. I've maybe heard the name Teapot flung around, but only in the context of people on the forum insisting he's important because reasons.

 

The forum's got flaws, but one nice thing about it is that singular members of the forum aren't looked up to or put on a pedestal that makes their opinions matter more than anyone else's. It's that kind of thing that prevents me from caring overly much about podcasts and streams, because I don't like the idea of basing my opinion on what someone popular thinks. My opinion of the game is and has always been rooted in my own personal experiences with it.

 

If you want to take in the greater community discussion of the state of the game and its future, I suggest broadening your horizons past small groups of 'important' players and instead browse multiple outlets such as Reddit, Twitter comment chains, the official forums, and even map chat inside the game itself. Or just trust in your own judgment of things - no one knows better about your opinion of the game than you.

[Flapjackson.1596]

4 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

I'll be real with you, I don't know who any of those people are or what that podcast is. I've maybe heard the name Teapot flung around, but only in the context of people on the forum insisting he's important because reasons.

 

The forum's got flaws, but one nice thing about it is that singular members of the forum aren't looked up to or put on a pedestal that makes their opinions matter more than anyone else's. It's that kind of thing that prevents me from caring overly much about podcasts and streams, because I don't like the idea of basing my opinion on what someone popular thinks. My opinion of the game is and has always been rooted in my own personal experiences with it.

 

If you want to take in the greater community discussion of the state of the game and its future, I suggest broadening your horizons past small groups of 'important' players and instead browse multiple outlets such as Reddit, Twitter comment chains, the official forums, and even map chat inside the game itself. Or just trust in your own judgment of things - no one knows better about your opinion of the game than you.

I agree, keeping perspective on your own opinion is important. I’m not try to parrot their opinions, I am reaching out to the broader forum to ask for your opinions on the topics discussed in the podcast. These three are players who play a lot more than the average player. Their views come from places of lots of experience with the game and it’s content. My point in discussing it here is because I see the value in a broader discussion on the state of the game. The game can’t be carried by just three players. We need everyone to be thinking about the game and what we want to push it to be.

Edited May 9, 2021 by Flapjackson.1596

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Why not express your opinion (or theirs) and ask for feedback.

I'm not inclined to watch some player's podcast/stream.

[Flapjackson.1596]

2 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

Why not express your opinion (or theirs) and ask for feedback.

I'm not inclined to watch some player's podcast/stream.

My opinion is that the game is making good improvements in terms of establishing different tiers of content and the roadmap looks promising, but that the game still does a terrible job of encouraging more players to try instanced content and that the social aspect of the game is awful. 
 

The entire point of this post is to stimulate discussion among this community. If you don’t want to watch any of the points they make to discuss then sure but then why are you even posting on this? We can discuss the state of the game regardless of whether podcasts are made on this but to go at them for encouraging a wider conversation seems silly.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Because, you may engender more responses if you don't direct posters elsewhere.

 

But, whatever works for you.  Good luck. 

[AgentMoore.9453]

Just now, Flapjackson.1596 said:

If you don’t want to watch any of the points they make to discuss then sure but then why are you even posting on this?

Conversely, if you don't want to list any of the points they make to kick things off, why are you even posting here?

 

I ask, because this is the Guild Wars 2 official forum and not Dudebro's Latest Stream forum (which, if it exists, is the best place to hear from people who are aware of it). Most of the threads here are about things that happen either in the game or that come directly from the devs themselves. What you've asked for is an opinion on the opinions from the latest episode of something that isn't produced by ArenaNet without providing context for what those opinions are. Furthermore, it sounds less like a discussion starter and more like an advert.

 

Even though the podcast you're talking about is GW2-themed (maybe?), it'd be a lot more helpful if you just presented the topic you want to talk about directly instead of hoping we've seen the latest episode of Guys & Friends. Give people a summary of the discussion, list some of the points they made, and let the discussion evolve from that for best effect.

[Flapjackson.1596]

4 minutes ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

Conversely, if you don't want to list any of the points they make to kick things off, why are you even posting here?

 

I ask, because this is the Guild Wars 2 official forum and not Dudebro's Latest Stream forum (which, if it exists, is the best place to hear from people who are aware of it). Most of the threads here are about things that happen either in the game or that come directly from the devs themselves. What you've asked for is an opinion on the opinions from the latest episode of something that isn't produced by ArenaNet without providing context for what those opinions are. Furthermore, it sounds less like a discussion starter and more like an advert.

 

Even though the podcast you're talking about is GW2-themed (maybe?), it'd be a lot more helpful if you just presented the topic you want to talk about directly instead of hoping we've seen the latest episode of Guys & Friends. Give people a summary of the discussion, list some of the points they made, and let the discussion evolve from that for best effect.

There are three separate opinions going on in the podcast but to the best I can summarize:

IBS and the ending:

1. The ending was lackluster on a story level but the GW2 story in general has not been that engaging
2. IBS was likely messed up by a shifted dev schedule having to suddenly work on an expansion
3. Dragonstorm is a decent piece of content and the early IBS maps show a polish that the later parts of the saga, and especially Champions, did not receive

Class Balance (I believe this was discussed prior to the latest hotfix):

1. The May 11 patch has some questionable changes that don't feel justified or fully understood
2. Some specs are better designed than others in terms of trade-offs (ex. Reaper)
3. The resistance and resolution changes are healthy and good for the game

End of Dragons:

1. End of Dragons needs to be a big success but it won't be a cure all for the game's problems
2. The Heart of Thorns dev cycle is similar to this current staging of content in preparation for EoD
3. The gameplay introduced in EoD needs to be solid to keep people engaged

Community Collaboration:

1. There is a severe lack of collaboration between communities and content creators to encourage greater community involvement
2. Guilds are pretty dead and there needs to be more of a push to get people playing together and interacting together
3. Community collaboration is critical to the continued growth and vitality of the game

That is a pretty barebones summary of a 3+ hour discussion, but I would be interested in hearing forum discussion. From your perspective at least, there is a wide rift in views regarding the game and I would like to see more people talking about the game, more people seeking out ways to collaborate. 

 

[Faline.8795]

34 minutes ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

1. Guilds are pretty dead and there needs to be more of a push to get people playing together and interacting together

If I was good at playing with others, I wouldn't be spending my time in a video game, so goes the argument.

 

I just don't want to see GW2 become another World of Warcraft where we are forced to play a certain way, channeled toward a certain content.

 

So no, I don't want to see a "push" to get people playing together.  Let it be optional, and let single players continue to be included in the reward structure.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Each of those topics is discussed pretty widely, in other threads/sub-forum.

If interested in said topics, the 'Search' feature (or just a cursory scan of the first couple of pages in the pertinent sub-forum) should provide said threads.

 

It's best to separate each topic into its own thread. 

[AgentMoore.9453]

47 minutes ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

That is a pretty barebones summary of a 3+ hour discussion, but I would be interested in hearing forum discussion.

First of all, thank you; I appreciate the write-up.

 

Secondly, on the topics of Icebrood Saga, The game's future, and EoD, quite a few threads already exist that might be worth your browsing, and I think I've already posted in a good handful of them. No joke, I spent about half an hour starting to type a long point-by-point of my personal takes on the topics you've listed when I realized I've already talked about them and it hit me how futile it would be to try and cram them all into one thread.

[Infusion.7149]

You failed to mention the brief discussion about Steam release. They theorized it would be after End of Dragons' expansion. The Steam release is supposed to bring a large influx of players and as Guild MM stated something along the lines of : E.O.D. needs to drop all old story characters in order for a new player to avoid having a major lack of knowledge of the background cast of characters.

Between the three of them, Guild MM seems to think GW2 needs a major feature as a selling point for the expansion. Random thoughts about player housing and fishing were mentioned, which I feel are more suitable for a game that is more focused on roleplaying than action oriented combat.

The best part is when Teapot noted that GW2's WVW is probably the only unique part of it besides the combat system. (Trolling ensued in the chat by people mentioning the grindfest "p2w" BDO with its node war.) If Alliances come out it would be a major selling point for EOD. In addition, he also noted other MMOs do the PVE raid experience better albeit also expressing his experience carrying raids including one person that just hit level 80 and was in soldier's gear.

Teapot usually has a solid grasp of the game (of course he likes to do theatrics like flailing around for his viewership re: balance patches), Mukluk has a decent grasp of the game as far as PVE goes but only seems to play ranger exclusively in PVP so he has a huge bias and I'm pretty sure he doesn't WVW much if at all since he likes condi ranger. Guild MM seems to be more about playing markets than the game, but who knows... I don't really pay attention to his content.

As far as things I noted:
I don't agree with Teapot in that scourge is meta in WVW, when an enemy team has many scrappers you're better off with other sources of boon rip such as spellbreaker or chrono. Scourge has poor mobility and the boon corrupt is less viable than stripping boons vs heavy scrapper comps. That's not even including the off chance a group is running DPS warriors with Warrior's cunning in tactics traitline.

I don't think they touched on the chrono nerf much if at all ; the viability of scrapper was dismissed (reasonably so) ; the nerf to boon thief was mentioned and I think Teapot said that it was used in only a few raids (correctly so) but none of the three actually suggested something constructive other than the brief joke that EOD might have a heal spec for thief or warrior. People that made diviner gear on thief are going to be quite annoyed after patch if they don't have legendary gear on their thief. Luckily I did not invest in that.

Edited May 9, 2021 by Infusion.7149