UFR #22 - Covering "Why

What's the DEAL with matchmaking?!
#tf2 #teamfortress2 #savetf2
We have a discord! / discord
Donate to support the show! --- streamlabs.com/thelucidletter...
Video covered: • Fixing TF2's Terrible ... - ‪@HeyGrouch‬
• Why FixTF2 is a joke t... - ‪@Monkey_XDD‬
Featured guests: ‪@HeyGrouch‬ ‪@ZestyJesus‬ ‪@tonyallentf2‬ ‪@_indii‬ ‪@SpaceGuyOnline‬ ‪@DEWILL‬ ‪@DrDerpGamer‬
Disclaimer: UFR is a show about sharing ideas and criticisms about art, media, and content. As such, there will be a variety of different backgrounds, opinions, and perspectives presented through the people featured on the show. The views of individuals on the show are not necessarily shared by the show's creators, other guests featured on the show, or any other person related to UFR. The perspectives proposed during the show, as well as off air, should be confined to the individual sharing those views and not be projected upon the show's creators. Thank you for your consideration, and we hope you enjoy the conversation.
00:00 Intro
48:03 Fixing Weapons
2:04:10 Intermission
2:17:21 Why FixTF2 is a Joke
3:24:13 Leadership and FixTF2
Tags:
upon further review, lucid letters, lucid, tf2, team fortress, lucid video essay, podcast, lucid dreaming, lucid letters, lucid, tf2, team fortress, team fortress 2, team fortress two, team fotrees 2, tem fortress two, team fort two, tg2, taem fortress 2, team fortre too, overwatch, overwatch pve, mvm, mann vs machine, overwatch two, overwatch 2 fortress 2, team fortress two, team fotrees 2, tem fortress two, team fort two, tg2, taem fortress 2, team fortre too, overwatch, overwatch pve, mvm, mann vs machine, overwatch two, overwatch 2, fortnite, overwatch 2 pve, origins easter egg, video game easter egg, easter egg, tf2 summer update, deep rock galactic, minecraft, antvenom, minecraft tutorial, how to, anarchy, 2b2t, monopoly

[@HeyGrouch]

Thanks for having me on, this was a lot of fun!

[@Ichiro_Manlalaro]

It's da Grouch! SCRAM!

[@HeyGrouch]

@TechnoBear2099 This is actually a really good point. I didn't think about the angle of bots purchasing premium accounts. Really interesting. Something I wish we had time to do during the episode would be to define the word "hate." I argued that it's not okay to hate Valve for these poor decisions, but I think everyone in the call was operating on a slightly different understanding of that word. I used it to mean actively and verbally directing mean-spirited comments towards the company or individuals within the company. I don't see it as productive. In fact, I believe it's counter-productive. If we really want to get Valve to help the game, hateful Tweets/comments only serve to distance the community from Valve. I think most people in the call were using the word hate in a more inactive sense, as in "to quietly dislike something."

[@Ichiro_Manlalaro]

@@HeyGrouch it was pointed out by TheWhat on his fix TF2 video but was brushed off. I think this is a great angle that we should be aware of: Valve profiting off from bots.

[@redline841]

​@@Ichiro_Manlalaro Bleed proc. Take 11 damage per second

[@SukacitaYeremia]

Thanks for trying to understand the fundamentals of the movement and pushing through the awkward disagreements and confusion. I find the discussion very enlightening

[@PurpleColonel]

Some day I will successfully return to this show and not have some weird unforeseen event prevent me from hopping on at the last minute

[@LucidMakesVideos]

One day...

[@ACEM1A1]

*loud incorrect buzzer sound*

[@BreadTeleporter1968]

TerribleopiniononblackmesaColonel was gonna be here? No way!

[@jimbob5026]

Every fixtf2 discussion devolves into clique vs clique and people being mad about who is and isn't in what discord server.

[@manhoovy193]

Ah finally, the 22nd UFR VOD

[@RayLilith]

now things are beginning to make sense

[@AshleysBrother]

@@RayLilith i understood that reference

[@crunchylettuce5446]

This isn't discourse, it's just 2-3 people either not listening or choosing to be annoying and going against actual constructive conversation that is taking place. It eats up so much time lol, if there were some sort of ground rule that kept people focused like maybe a rework of how you guys format this sort of live-video-commentary content that would be amazing. I'm 110 minutes in and it feels like 30 was taken up just by Dewill being aggressive and contentious and another 40 was taken up by people not listening or just misunderstanding base factor of tf2 gameplay, like tracer rounds.

[@Ichiro_Manlalaro]

Yeah Mönkey harrased Shork for us 😂.

[@Ichiro_Manlalaro]

We're all here for the second part.

[@Thomas-vn6cr]

Sounds like Mönkey is venting his frustrations from the first #saveft2 protest.

[@chippedtoothentertainment]

3:42:31 HE'S UPSIDE DOWN NOW!

[@MrGrinn228]

Aey, wha happent to the new stream? Its just gone while I watch in it.

[@BossKnight]

3:38:11 to give the benetfit of the doubt, there used to be a new "tf2 is dying" video every week pre bot crisis, so seeing a new probably similarly titled one would probably make them just leave the comment and leave y'know?

[@WillieDangerously]

2:21:20 "Denying access to funds" is a wild way to frame it. I'm not stopping money that you already made from entering your bank account, we as consumers are electing our rights to support or fund what we want. Valve isn't entitled to my money, I choose what I do with it.

[@Pseudo_Notfound]

I love the video of Grouch because I wanted to see some fun changes (not just changed numbers) so I had the vision that Grouch wanted I think. I played on the server and I loved it and I continue to play it. I totally understand people who don't like video, we didn't have the same vision.

[@FlameEliwood]

I doubt grouch is going to see this but I feel like the one thing is, while I understand your perspective of "they're not evil" it would be like if Valve sold you some cups from suppliers and they knew there was a problem where the cups had holes poked into the bottom of them so they're unusable but still sold them to you anyways. Community members also bought the cups have a custom 3D printed fix that can plug the hole in some the cup is usable, but Valve is still selling you a broken cup. Even if you somehow don't think that's evil that is at least a little morally wrong. Sure, Valve isn't making the community made items, but they still profit off of crate keys and anything purchased off the Mann Co store. They're still making money, passive money at that. They should have to do something to make sure the game they're selling you is at least functional.

[@HeyGrouch]

I totally see where you're coming from. But with the cup analogy, we have to at least admit that the buyers _know_ there are holes in the cups and are choosing to buy anyways. If the seller was lying about it, then yes, that's wrong. But we all know there are holes in the cups. :P Nobody is getting ripped off in this situation. If they don't want to keep working on the game, that's their choice. I don't think it's _evil_. It's an old game, and they want to move on. And if our goal is to encourage them to come back to the game, I doubt insulting them online is gonna help in that regard. (I'm not saying you're doing that of course. But people do it, and it's very counterproductive.)

[@FlameEliwood]

@@HeyGrouch Valve is doing something now, so my thought on this is different, but I do wish they'd take down official servers if they knew they didn't want to work on it still since at least community members could continue to support and it and do that treadmill work instead while still selling hats and stuff.

[@jetsflyingoffatrain4338]

I feel sorry for Weezy, he's the only one of the three going public and is just getting dogpiled for it

[@vadim_65rus]

So, grouch made a fool of himself once again. People shouldn't complain when they don't like something? Hopefully this is his first and last appearance on ufr

[@HeyGrouch]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rqepi52larWafZI

[@greenoftreeblackofblue6625]

This leadership stuff does matter but at the same time not at all because it's whatever works works, at the end of the day. This for once has work to a certain extent

[@spirit_jelly8330]

been loving the videos. great to see this kind of constant productive discussion with so many people involved about everything that's going on

[@mikhailsalamanca2405]

Товарищи на совете народных комиссаров, 1918 год. Фото в цвете

[@lamegamertime]

1:00:57 oof, gonna have to disagree with Grouch here, as a game designer... If you do not have a good enough understanding of the thing you are designing, sure? But if you understand the purpose of what you are creating deeply then you should know these things.

[@Aaroning]

1:47:48 so here is a weird thing with wepon balance in games like tf2 a wepon is balanced by the standerd right so if something deviates from the standard its eather a buff or nerf ooooooooor, if a standard is added that is a indirect buff i agree with the thought that heatmaker is not differentiating it enoph on paper but i think there was alot of miss communication

[@LurkingAround]

Every time I hear about Minecraft I want to recommend Vintage Story to people. So yeah, I recommend it to you, guys :D

[@Ledplous]

So... Shork uploaded, a response

[@broktroll3035]

get richter overtime in here

[@snibag]

hell nah broktroll3035 you tweaking

[@snibag]

hell nah broktroll3035 you tweaking

[@alvanegra253]

Nah

[@derpysquid6595]

i should be invited to these streams. ill add the hasan like qualities this is missing. every so often ill say play the video and then just sit there and watch and ignore the conversation.

[@BossKnight]

2:59:25 i think they definitley intended Resource to mean strategy rather than like mining coal lol, or like how you can call a life line in something like a gameshow is also a resource rather than dehumanizing them, since they do have direct ability to contact people within valve others don't that can actually speak to someone if all else goes to shit, someone can speak to someone at valve cause they aren't just sedated and kidnapped and brung to the recording room, they are reeahed out to, meaning to some degree they do have connections to people who are in valve, fuck if i know if its any useful ones, but they are connections regardless

[@BossKnight]

@TechnoBear2099 it is wrong to expect them to do more, but from the wording I kind of interpreted as a last resort/not plan A, if nothing else works you’d still have people able to communicate with valve to some degree, That may be giving them too much leniency though, since Resource and tether can be interpreted a few ways, Tether even can mean like pulling everyone back in, through morale, or a tether to pull on when all else fails, Its very vaugue sleeply wording, And if someone is too tired that its messing with their functioning, especially in a case like this, you should most definitely just end the talk there, not suggest it y’know?

[@yerderlol9314]

At this point, if Valve really doesn't want to do anything, they could just shut down the Servers and publish the Source code, just saying "You do it then, but leave us alone"

[@SaintRedFox]

everyone clearly likes it!

[@funnydude69]

bleed for 8 seconds

[@JAIBADRIVISHAAL]

ZESTY IS BASED

[@ukyoize]

What makes crossbow META is utility, not damage, so to make other syringe guns viable you need to give them utility. Make stock syringe gun build uber, and remove regeneration nerf from bludsauger.

[@TheTdw2000]

That is a profoundly stupid idea.

[@christiancinnabars1402]

@TheTdw2000 Absolutely _unshakeable_ supporting points and explanation there.

[@PaisiosOfGOAOA]

As a player on grouch server I love. The way the guns feel. I feel like the game should be more fun than balanced anyway. Because who cares that the game is balanced that's not fun. balance does not equate to fun so I would much rather each gun have something new and fun

[@Sleepy_Cabbage]

One thing people overlook is if a weapon feels fair to counteract

[@HeyGrouch]

glad you're enjoying the server!! :)

[@torchy9030]

in that case overwatch 2 might be the perfect game for you

[@JhonasGamerYT]

off-topic but 3:40:17 best moment of the stream

[@d.i.ch.1501]

This video be like: we did meet your match but worse

[@TheSangreT]

🙂

[@JAIBADRIVISHAAL]

yoo spaceguyonline I LIKE MILK !!

[@Boomrainbownuke9608]

maybe weezy is sooo addicted to mvm tickets that he cant boycott the game. he must get his mvm tickets he neeeeds his precious mann up.

[@donanilao7724]

TF2ubers going through a discorse. Meanwhile, me chilling this summer, giving Valve the middle finger with spending until they prove that the lack of bots stick.

[@jimvaneemeren6675]

Mönkey is totally correct here. Valve is not gonna care about this fixtf2 thing, bots are already back

[@MaxAndrew]

Then keep on pressuring Valve?

[@kl2g84]

@@MaxAndrew the game has around15k people playing, its over

[@sejt23]

@@kl2g84most games could never even DREAM of that kind of a playerbase, let alone after so long

[@MaxAndrew]

@@kl2g84 That’s still pretty good for a 16 year-old game.

[@kl2g84]

@@MaxAndrew it isnt for what we always thought it was

[@scrittle]

Grouch's defense is so painfully arrogant. Here's what I got out of it: - "I clickbaited people by jumping onto an unrelated trend", - "Everyone knows who I am, why should I add a disclaimer?", - "My tone of voice is very easy to pick as sarcastic, I totally don't look like an idiot with a platform", - "I apologised in the next video directed at all my turned away fans", - "I own my own server but I can't test bad weapons on bots because I will win", - "I'm a game developer, I don't have time to trial my own changes (derp)". Grouch's defense is arrogant. The original video is less offensive than the defense he made for it here, arrogance is the most annoying emotion to witness especially if it comes at the detriment of my viewing experience. "Drama is good for engagement" drama is childish, if you're not funny or informative I'll make a mental note to avoid your videos. Modern KZbin is full of recycled, low-quality content, it's very easy to alter my feed to avoid bad content. 1:28:10 There was no apology, there doesn't need to be an apology. My outrage originates from immaturity, and I was already sick of getting clickbait added to my feed no matter how often I selected 'do not recommend'. Speaking to the apologist who donated, I'm always in awe at the minority who grasp at somebody else's hatred, mark it as their own, and throw it away when confronting the source. It's spineless. Edit: Criticism with the podcast: "Can we jump to the important parts I'm on a schedule" "Don't fret, we won't stare into the camera like [reaction streamer]" *stares into the camera like [reaction streamer]* You can't make this up.

[@ERRORNAME_h]

Holy mother of strawman fallacy. Grouch points these out elaborating on what his thought process is in the creation of the video but he admits that he was wrong and should have had a different approach. Not once does he say or imply he should be shielded from criticism for those reasons. The bits about testing are completely reasonable too. He has a video to make and he can't spend an extended period of time on every single item. He was unable to test on actual players before the release of the video because he was using the video as a way to get the players to test those changes. Although he communicated this incorrectly, which he admits, his idea was to make fun and experimental changes and continue to balance those concepts. Within this context, this is completely understandable.

[@scrittle]

@@ERRORNAME_h He's really stubborn with his reasonings, more time is spent debating why he was wrong than time spent on apologising, not that forgiveness is the problem here. "He can't spend an extended period of time on every single item" that's the problem. The video is framed as a solution to TF2's weapon balance, you can't balance TF2 if you're only balancing a fraction of it. There are dozens of balancing videos out there that go over the entire catalogue thoroughly, remaining inconclusive because it's a community project is not only misleading and deceitful for clickbait, it's bad because obviously most of these solutions aren't very good. His video restarted the commentary that TF2 KZbinrs shouldn't be in charge of balance changes. These commentators get the wrong end of the stick like you say, however again, the video's biggest flaw is it fails to highlight how these changes aren't completely serious AND goes into depth *why these solutions are more fun than vanilla.* For example, I like Scout's Bonk Soda and Boston Basher, both aren't competitively viable and bad, but they're really fun tools. Bonk is a free 'get-ou-of-jail' card plus free map traversal for ~10 seconds, while the Boston Basher adds bleed (lol) on hit on the enemy OR YOURSELF IF YOU MISS! What's so fun about flying Snipers, thumbtack shooters, and sprinting Heavies running you down with Natasha? They're just not. It's quirky, contrarian nonsense. Not everybody was mad because it's clickbait, I'm betting another reason for mass outage was how unfun these changes are, and if they aren't fun then what's the point? *Why would you make an unfinished "WiP" video an hour long when it could've been a 10 minute server announcement, and once the community has decided on the changes, THEN make a video about community improvements to TF2's balancing.*

[@yerderlol9314]

You should get Weezy on the show and just collectively make fun of him.

[@buggerofallhell1153]

Monkeys brother died of a drug overdose he can convince Weezy to get of Adderall

[@KEK714]

Zesty would've roasted Grouch for being stupid. Being polite with Valve is just repeating #SaveTF2 fate. We've already told them how much we love the game and it didn't work. You shouldn't care for corporation and vote with your wallet. Don't buy things from Steam or from TF2 at least.

[@MajorZero61]

I don't understand the issue you guys had with Monkey saying to not harass Shork and Weezy etc as if he's being some massive hypocrite. It's not hypocritical to shit talk someone, whether true or false, in your own video and the condemn harassment because harassment requires at least two instances of direct interaction because direct interaction is a significant action being taken above and beyond mere shit talking. Frankly, I don't think you're even responsible for your audience harassing someone if you do make an inflammatory video against someone. For example, that guy that made a video where he basically schizoposted about Wendigoon, Brandon Herrera, Internet Historian, shoeonhead, Donut Operator and others. I would call him a spiteful, petty, effeminate mental midget, but I would never lay the charge of harasser against him.

[@MajorZero61]

Of course, if he's starting shit with them on Twitter by replying or @ing them, that's a different story, but within the scope of the video, what he did is not harassment and condemning him as hypocritical is frankly insanity.

[@SpaceGuyOnline]

​@@MajorZero61 Monkey quite literally did a livestream where he continued to insult and criticize Shork's efforts within the movement however. Shork saw this and asked to come onto the stream to set the record straight since Monkey was using 2nd source evidence to back up his points. Monkey declined and continued to harass Shork for wanting to set the record straight. The issue stems from using someone else's account of events as the truth. Monkey is actively blaming and criticizing Shork's role and presence because someone else had a conversation with Shork and is repeating what Shork might have said. Whilst also denying him to actually and properly say what he actually said in that conversation.

[@CeoOfSheeps]

video so bad they got the whole squad reacting

[@Malumultimus]

I think I'm on Grouch's side. Valve still makes money off the game, but that's because they're giving content creators a way to monetize their work and get it into the game officially. The content creators don't have to do that, plenty of people play with mods. For normal players, the game's free and has been for over a decade. The anomaly here isn't Valve being so passive, it's that people still make and buy content for a 17-year old game. Valve's obligation to keep the game running from its initial release is over by this point and the only reason they continue to make money is because content creators want to use their platform to make money themselves. From Valve's perspective, it's completely within their rights to just tell them, "No," and they could even shut down official servers if they wanted to, it's been 2.5 console gens since TF2's release and console servers have already been shut down; or alternatively, they could allow anyone to put their stuff in the game - for free or for a price - and let the community do what they want with the game, which would be an absolute shitshow. I guarantee that none of you actually want either of these, what you want is for a group of developers to work on a game they already moved on from a long time ago; most of today's Valve employees probably never even touched TF2. Do you think the CS guys or Campo Santo or IceFrog are obligated to work on TF2? No, so who is? Boycotting the game is fine, but why even call it a boycott? Just stop spending money on dead games. And you're lying if you say you want Valve to put the game out to pasture; no, what you want is to force people to do stuff they don't want to do and you're trying to use morality to guilt trip them, but they don't feel guilty - the game's fucking old and most of the planet has moved on. If you think Valve is immoral, I wonder how you feel about other game developers. Square-Enix hasn't added new content to Final Fantasy XI in 4 years and hasn't added REAL content in a decade, but they still charge a $12 monthly subscription. Multiversus sold $20 skins back in 2020 while the game was in "beta" then stopped updating the game for half a year, completely took the game down for a full year, then relaunched it with fewer features and worse gameplay, with half a dozen new in-game currencies and progression bars all of which can be paid for with real money (of course). And these aren't even the worst developers. If Valve's immoral, what does that say about the average dev?

[@HeyGrouch]

Really interesting points here, especially in your 2nd paragraph. I might make a video talking about Valve and this stuff, but, you know. The internet.

[@BossKnight]

2:33:21 I think its generally cause TF2 is not a Money maker for Valve and is free to play, so it does pose more risk boycotting when we don’t know how valve views the situation, Cause if you read valve wrong snd they’re just waiting for it to stop making money to shut down the servers very easily it could immediately kill Casual and possibly the item servers, (this is a Edit since this covers a later point in the video too 2:51:42 ) And since TF2 is not a massive money maker there isn’t as much leverage aswell to get it back to a money making state, And it also just isnt a lot of leverage at all, For some context Tf2 in 2023 made Valve about 1 Million, maybe more CS2 in 2023 made valve 1 **Billion** usd, And Valve in total made **10 Billion** usd in 2022, And I think some also hesitation comes from the fact to have any actual monetary leverage you would need to bring in the CS2 Communities aswell, And even with something not as less serious as review bombing People just started review bombing all valves games and pissing off other communities, So with a very volatile group of stupid heads running around it could make the movement seem worse if not played right, And there in general wasn’t too much hesitation to boycott atleast from a outsiders perspective, it seemed much more like the community itself was hesitant rather than the people running Fixtf2

[@BossKnight]

And by outside perspective I do mean as in when learning about the movement and viewing it for the first time

[@redline841]

Valve can't really shut the game down even if we boycott the fuck out of it. TF2 was the first economy they have, and if Valve shuts it down because of a boycott that will send ripples to Counter Strike and DOTA.

[@BossKnight]

@@redline841 except we don’t know if current valve actually cares at all about their communities, And that is also wishful thinking on its own, why would 2 separate communities care about tf2’s, it would most likely have no effect on those communities until they get to a similar state, Also the item servers being shut down would just mean you cant use any of them anymore, this means no weapons, hats, spellbooks, etc, And the game would effectively be completely community run until it gets too old to run on modern pc’s and dies unceremoniously, or loses more and more players like TFC

[@redline841]

@@BossKnight First segment is that I'm saying it's a sign that Valve will kill them if it does get to that similar state. The item servers dying and nobody can use their items would kill the trading market TF2 has and would cause ripple effect to Valve's other economy games

[@BossKnight]

@@redline841 it would only affect the tf2 community, and people tend to only care when it comes for them

[@AshleysBrother]

Omg space guy is so insufferable

[@HeyGrouch]

i thought he was a nice guy

[@scrittle]

Wait, aren't you the guy who "fixed" TF2 weapons, and most of those solutions included things like giving Sniper the ability to fly and transforming a bad Spy revolver into a single-shot thumbtack shooter? Tut tut man, tut tut....

[@rudolph2937]

2:26:22 >"I don't know him" >immediately corrects himself nervously >"uh, I mean, I don't know who *they* are" LMAO You're allowed to talk like a normal person dude, stop mentally policing youself like that

[@sugardaddy2157]

We just need go chill and actually make tf2 videos interesting more people more money valve gonna keep this game alive

[@MariaFloresRopeLover]

HeyGrouch stayed overly defensive for 2 hours and didn't want to listen to anyone's criticism, and kept dismissing everyone's opinions by just saying things like "you just don't get it" and "you don't understand".

[@cmc4448]

what are you talking about he was very chill and just stated his case while respecting the other members opinions

[@HockeyM.M.]

had a constant full of himself shit-eating grin ahh attitude too

[@modestlatios5553]

yeah especially when the concept of the "third option" was brought up and his response was just "that's overly nitpicking"