Thoughts on the state and direction of PSO2: New Genesis

A long rant and general thoughts about what I feel are some of the main problems with PSO2: NGS. This isn't entirely about the latest Headline, but that was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back and the final push for me to actually write, record, and edit this.

There's not a lot going on visually (just b-roll I recorded last night while ranting to friends on Twitch and a clip I stole from one of Thrift's videos (❤️)), so feel free to put it on in the background or whatever as you listen. I'm not in practice with editing videos and Sony Vegas was all I really knew or felt comfortable with.. diving into DaVinci Resolve today just for this proved a little frustrating so I really didn't spend a whole lot of time.

I didn't put much effort into breaking things into well defined bits, several things are brought up or referenced multiple times and topics bleed into one another. I do want to make it easy to refer back and discuss certain parts in case anyone actually wants to do that so here's probably too many timestamps.
01:02 How PSO2 became great
02:20 Is change necessary? Open world, comparison to GW2/FFXIV with world bosses and interesting, dynamic events
03:40 Instanced content into 'conversation' about loot distribution across content types
05:00 Some suggestions for moving loot around to bring value to existing content types and systems
06:55 Gearing/itemization is poor. Fixas suck, SGA's don't.
07:50 Crafted weapons and units
09:20 Multi-weapons, customize everything except how you approach combat
10:20 Class design and skills are boring
12:16 Anti-consumer changes from base game
13:20 PR blunder
14:30 "What kind of content do you even want? Players will never be happy"
15:50 Best thing about the game being playing other games

Twitch - twitch.tv/ballspocket
I stream somewhat often, usually base PSO2 and some other games like Noita recently.
Big shoutouts to my few regulars over there, super good vibes.

Music:
"Crossing3084"
"Day Dawns"
"Chaotic Bar"
"Healing" (ironic)
All from the original Phantasy Star Online OST.