I am VERY Concerned About Throne & Liberty

okay listen we get maybe uh one new traditional MMO per year if we're lucky there's a lot of other semi MMOs that come out but if we're talking about a classic style old school MMO RPG we don't get many it is a rare occasion so when one does come along it's a pretty big deal I love the genre I enjoy playing new games I want them to be good shocker thrown in Liberty is one new MMO we've been keeping track of for a while the game showed promise with some cool features of content huge open world and great looking visuals which C certainly doesn't hurt as you may already know it launched in South Korea last year and that went well actually not too bad initially early reception of the Korean release was overall positive this was mainly due to the fact that the core of the game was actually pretty good like NC soft ended up delivering on a lot of those promising looking features and content the game does in fact have a massive open world with thousands of players sharing a single server they don't do phasing either so at times you will see hundreds of people bobbing around in a single area there are open world public events non- instance large scale dungeons solo challenge tower climbs World bosses open world PVP tons of varied Guild activities and plenty of character account and power progression to grind for then beyond the generally nice visuals the game has this massive draw distance a good variety of biomes and lots of traversal options making it a fun space to explore and it all runs pretty well to boot so the content side of thrown in Liberty like as an MMO as a game actually appeared pretty solid it was pretty solid people seemed to enjoy it there was also a fact that many of the gamling systems complaints people had during early beta testing had been addressed combat was overhauled from its previously static nature with no Mobility you literally stood completely still staring at people spamming attacks if you moved at all you did zero damage uh this was changed to a more Dynamic and fluid system more in line with modern day tab Target MMOs it's now more balanced you can move while doing basic attacks there's also many skills that have built-in movement or can be cast while on the gun and finally they removed the autoplay feature called astral hunting where you could click a button and the game would play itself farming and grinding for you while you were AFK in removing that they also retuned a lot of the progression and farming speeds to be more in line with the fact that people would actually be playing uh so yes thanks to the game actually having a decent core Foundation of systems features and content the initial reception to throny Liberty's Korean release online and in reviews on message boards it all seemed pretty darn good however once the honeymoon phased faded and people started diving into the endgame some of the bigger issues started cropping up near the top of the list unsurprisingly from a game developed by NC soft hey it was pretty pay to win turns out pretty pay to win the power progression via gearing is both heavily time gated and about as pay to win as it can get with direct ties into the game's monetization so for starters gear can be leveled up similar to how it works in many MMOs you will start with the base level version of a piece of gear and then using items and currency you will make it stronger longer in thrown in Liberty this is done via what are called growth Stones which are acquired by completing various activities and doing contracts which are sort of like a daily quest in the game or you can purchase gems that convert into growth Stones using real money on the auction house this auction house will come up a few times here as it exclusively uses a currency called Lucent which is The Game's premium currency so you spend real money you buy a bunch of Lucent in the cash shop and then you use that Lucent to buy stuff from other players in the auction house so then there's enchanting your gear via the trait system this is one of the main endgame grinds traits provide massive power boost to your gear so you get traits by finding multiple versions of the same piece of gear which you do by playing the game and farming for drops doing things like Dungeons or you can purchase traits directly from the auction house with real money also the main way you get gear and the components to upgrade it is by running dungeons every day the number of dungeons you can run is limited by dungeon tokens so you get a set number which is 9900 per day this lets you run about two to three dungeons depending on the tier of dungeon that you're running but then once you've spent all of your dungeon tokens you can no longer do any more runs you are finished or if you purchase a blessing from the cash shop you get more tokens to run additional dungeons every day this equates to nearly nine additional tier 2 dungeons per week this lets you drastically speed up one of the biggest bottlenecks for progression in the game because running these dungeons are how you get the gear to power up your stuff andwhere limited by day and you can buy this blessing that let you run nine more tier 2 dungeons every single week then there's also the fact that skills have progression getting a skill to its highest Rarity and level provides another big boost and power you level up skills by using training books which are acquired through various means playing the game or you guessed it you can make books by purchasing gems with real money in the auction house basically you can pay to acquire and speed up nearly every aspect of the endgame power progression you do have to play to get things like the base level versions of gear to get in certain resources and to level up certain things but that is all relatively easy everything else about progressing your power the gear leveling the gear trading the dungeon runs you can do per day and the leveling of your skills that can all be accelerated greatly just by spending money so the tldr is this game is very pay to win even its most Ardent offenders so people who love this game and still play the Korean version every day they all agree it's pay to win you got people saying yeah I'm pretty near max level I almost got all my traits done I got full purple gear but also yes the game is pay to win people who swiped got there way faster than I did now it is still the case that for a lot of these things the gates to getting this stuff is the fact that it needs to be farmed by someone some rail player somewhere has to get them the real power increase comes from stuff that yes you can Farm takes a long time or you can buy it to extremely accelerate it by spending real money essentially not even essentially you spend real money you get Lucient you trade that loose it there's there's one step removed from you buying power you're not actually buying the pieces of gear directly from the developer you're buying them from players but you're giving money to the developer to get the currency to buy it from the player so you're buying power basically right from the The Source right and something you need to realize is this is definitely one of those games where the power discrepancy between someone who is fully geared fully traded out fully maxed out skills versus those who aren't in any of those categories it's a pretty big difference a maxed up player can mow down hordes of undergeared ones in PvP the counterargument that I will often see to this is the fact that this is a game that is primarily focused on large scale group PVP tens if of hundreds of thousands of players running around so the fact that like one pay to win whale guy can smash to like 10 20 people no problem it doesn't matter because once 30 people show up that guy's screwed so so it's not really pay to win right because the game revolves around Group Play It's like yeah but yeah but what if everyone in One what if like most the people in one group are all those whales and they're just smashing everyone like you you only need all right so if you got 300 whales you only need 3,1 other players and then they've tipped the scales it's like dude bro no I'm sorry it's clearly pay to win like I said though there doesn't seem to be a lot of push back against this even from the people who are really into the game they they seem to mostly agree at least from what I've seen what I've read the people I've spoken with people I again people I know who play this every day they're like yeah I like it it's super pay to win but I do enjoy any any who so yes you can get just as powerful as a free-to-play player it just takes a much longer time weeks of grinding and also worth noting it it pretty much requires you being part of a big dominant Guild on your server so just bear that in mind if you want to play throne in Liberty and I do if you're not probably going to play hardcore from day one if you're not going to be part of this big massive Guild that's dominating your server giving you access to all the best stuff and the best drops you're going to fall behind pretty quickly to the swipers this is not really a game that you can Solo or even play with your group of buddies you're five you're five dads who like gruning MMOs in the weekends unless you guys get in a big hor players you're probably pretty screwed in this game as well in the sense that you will fall behind there's still a game to play and maybe that's what you do right but yes throwing in Liberty is a large scale PVP Focus game it is a guild Focus game and if you're not grinding non-stop if you're not part of a big group or if you're not swiping you're going to fall behind there is PVE to be enjoyed though but that does only go to a point that is not the main focus of Throne in Liberty you should realize that once you finish leveling it's all about large scale group activities specifically slanted towards favoring the PVP stuff because there's a lot of it there's a big Focus and that can be fine right and this is probably what I'm going to do like if you just want to explore the world if you want to see some content you want to level up maybe play for a few weeks or something throw in Liberty looks like it actually will deliver on that front but if you had any inclination towards playing for an extended period of time towards being anywhere near the top and doing much of that end game just realize everything that we just talked about will be part of your experience now beyond all the pay to win stuff um it seems like one of the bigger issues that is plag Thor and Liberty since its release has been the massive amounts of botting so bots in any MML that can be annoying right right uh they're online farming 24/7 this can be messing up the economy they can be clogging up grind spots preventing you from getting drops that you're looking for maybe if you're MMO that you're playing has mob tagging they can be tagging Quest mobs which screws you up that could be happening nobody likes having any MMO overrun by Bots right it doesn't matter what game it is but it's a bit of a bigger issue in thrown in Liberty specifically for how it affects endgame because thrown in Liberty does have a big focus on competition with its ranking and leveling system for players and guilds so in the Korean version of the game guilds with players using autoplay macros Andor Bots have been gaining a significant lead over guilds who don't as they are able to constantly Farm materials and currency with those Bots running all day and then use that into feeding their and boosting their ranks and levels why do Guild ranks matter well they actually matter quite a lot because the number one Guild on every server will gain exclusive access to a castle which if defended rewards them millions of solent and Lucent solent is the in-game currency think just like gold equivalent or something whereas Lucent is is that premium currency that we mentioned earlier guilds who have just normal players playing they are at a big disadvantage because you know they have to sleep they might go to work or school or do anything else that pulls them away for a PC for a period of time which means they will fall behind in their rankings against those who are online playing 24/7 either playing themselves or running their bot when they're not playing since the game released botting has been a constant issue in thrown and Liberty on on the Korean servers many of those servers are run by guilds the top guilds on the servers are full of players using ball in addition to their playing to keep that grind going to maintain their high rank putting them out of reach against guilds that aren't full of players who are running 24/7 you know what I mean it's pretty obvious right and the thing to keep in mind here is that is on the Korean servers which require a Korean phone number in order to register an account that requirement isn't going to exist globally you can just make it it's a free-to-play MMO so seeing as the game is free to play it is likely that Bing is going to be an even bigger issue in the global release unless they crack down on it and do more Bans because you can ban a b right but unless those are Hardware bans they're just making a new account and they're coming right back and they won't even have that Obstacle of requiring a phone number to make an account like they do in Korea which just means it's going to be that much easier for botting players to populate new accounts and start over and you know the funny thing is the game had a built-in bot system when it was first coming out that astral hunting that they removed from the beta due to beta tester feedback uh only for the game to then end up being full of players botting anyways wow it's it's almost like they knew right it's almost like they knew this game is probably going to have Bots we probably won't be able to stop them so we'll just put botting in the game but then they removed it cuz people were upset but now Bots are here anyways just can't win can well we could maybe if they they were better at detecting and or Banning or if they cared enough to get rid of all the bers whatever combination of those uh elements it is so despite the relatively positive initial Impressions that we saw online like in those first few weeks or whatever when the game first launched in Korea between the pay to win between the Bing and for other reasons throne and Liberty's Korean launch was a major flop for NC soft how do I know this well they pretty much told us themselves in their financial reportings for Q4 2023 the period in which throne in Liberty released it was revealed that the company saw a 31% overall Revenue drop year-over-year so things were not going so hot clearly for the company as as a whole during these calls NC soft typically also presents earnings broken down for each individual game during the quarter however for the first time in 8 years they neglected to do so here in fact they didn't even mention thrown in Liberty a single time during the reporting now when asked by their investors why the company responded saying that thrown in Liberty had underperformed falling below expectations and they were working on sorting out the game's rough launch while also putting their efforts in the upcoming Global release and then most recently in may we got the first quarter 2024 Financial reportings this time they brought back the per game Revenue figure breakdowns for every game except thrown in Liberty all of their other major IPS were listed here they said hey here's how much money we made with lineage with Lineage 2 with Aon with Blade and Soul with Guild Wars 2 and that was it thrown in Liberty apparently did so poorly they didn't even bother putting it on the chart NC soft reiterated at the end of the call that the game wasn't doing well but they had high hopes for the global launch now I need you to think about this after over a decade in development hundreds of millions of dollars in funding they launched a brand new MMO and they didn't even bring it up in the reportings of the quarter that it came out in they didn't even bother putting it in the bar Graft in the most recent reportings a quarter later next to lineage and Aon and Blade and Soul like are people even still playing those games lineage came out in '98 after all Guild Wars 2 it gets MD a lot but I like the game I actually think it's a pretty great MMO it's just really dated at this point at the very least I think they need a visual overhaul but apparently they're working on Guild Wars 3 anyways it must be doing well enough because Guild Wars 2 constantly gets brought up on as NC soft's highest earners unlike thrown in Liberty and so just out of curiosity by the way knowing all this I decided to put all five games into Google Trends and oh boy you can't even see thrown in Liberty on the timeline It Is dwarfed by every other NC soft game barely registers as a line clearly the game is not doing very well and then just the other week we saw the resignation of throne and Liberty's producer so as a producer he was the one in charge of the business side of the game's development him stepping down maybe not all that surprising considering all of the above now some things have happened since the Korean launch besides NC soft saying that it wasn't doing well financially the devs have actually made quite a few updates to the game and based on the community response these have been mostly positive they remov some of the pay to win for the endgame specifically with the tier 2 gear you actually have to play in order to acquire this highest sense stuff although the problem with trading and powering up still does exist so it is still pay to win and then also there's the fact that with one of these updates they added that monthly subscription which was very pay to win with huge convenience features including that is where you get that bonus to to the number of daily dungeon runs that you can do and as we discussed earlier that means a lot more access to more gear to power yourself up faster it is a direct bottleneck that they are letting you circumvent with giving them money so I'm sure the line of thinking here by the way was with that uh sub they're probably thinking hey barely anyone's playing and those who have stuck around have been tolerant of all the Pay to Win thus far so what's a little bit more so yeah they're already addicted to the game right let's give them a monthly subscription with bonuses that are too good to pass up so we can boost Revenue at least a tiny bit uh that is probably more or less what they were saying to themselves when they added this in now with all of that covered with all that said I don't want this game to flop as I said at the beginning we don't get a lot of traditional MMOs launching maybe one a year if we're lucky we got a lot of quasa MMOs we got a lot of shared world games but a lot of traditional old school style MMOs you don't see them very often this is one of the few coming out I want it to do well and presumably Amazon also wants it to do well as they are publishing the global version of Throne in Liberty later this year they don't want this to flop either um I assume that they are planning and are interested in making changes to ensure that that doesn't happen at the very least they probably want it to do well enough so they make their some money they don't have to shut the game down and they can eventually Port it to consoles adding a new raid or something right maybe something like that is what they're thinking uh so let's talk about how they can make that happen content wise it actually looks like thrown in Liberty is pretty good as we said at the very least it has a decent foundation for a new MMO obviously as an MMO we expect them to continue expanding and adding stuff over time but yes that early reception was fairly positive because because throne and Liberty has a decent core to it there's a few pretty obvious things that they can do to help make sure throne and Liberty doesn't flop globally number one remove the cash shop that's right get rid of the cash shop just make it buy to play have a battle pass if you want if you want to sell some Cosmetics whatever I don't love it but you can do it but get rid of everything else bam just like that the game is way more likely to be successful in the west it's that easy but since we all know that is absolutely not happening let's talk about some other things I would say removing the paid currency player auction house or any form of paying for power would be a good start in fact in general I I would say I don't even dislike how they are doing power progression in the game if most of it wasn't tied to the cash shop but it is and that's the problem I would say they need to remove the ability to purchase with real money the growth stones to level your gear the trait extracts for making your gear stronger and the training books for leveling up your ranks and your skills if you want to keep something like an optional subscription right with like huge incentives that make it not really optional for the people who really want to play but maybe optional for the people who want to play Super casually just make it so that the non-subscribing players can still experience all of the content and make the bonuses gained via the subscription convenience only and not tied to power speaking of which hey remove the ability to purchase additional dungeon runs that's just crap nobody wants that time gated farming is fine most MMOs do it with things like daily and weekly resets for different types of PVE content so people don't max out their gear in just a couple of days I get it that's fine but attaching it to the cash shop that is not fine that as crap get rid of it and then as for the bot issue well uh ban the Bots duh right but then beyond that I would suggest retooling the guild ranking system so that it doesn't incentivize AFK macros and botting come up with another way to rank the guilds Beyond them farming for activity points which can be done by Bots 247 I don't know how you're going to do it I'm sure there are other ways thinking it up that's not my job like figure out a way to rank the guilds that doesn't incentivize people using bots so that their accounts are running and farming 24/7 bumping up their ranks and making it pretty much impossible for anyone who's not sleeping 3 hours a day even those people they're going to fall 3 hours a day behind like it's crazy make it so that the guild rankings uh aren't impacted or or can't be boosted by people just running 247 I don't know come up with something else right just come up with something else to influence the guild ranking system with how big of a deal it has in this game as of now we've really not gotten any concrete details on what if any major changes to expect between the Korean and Global versions of thrown in Liberty I would say that if little to nothing changes I expect we'll be looking at a MMO launch probably similar to that of what lost araw the game will release and attract a decent number of people especially here in the west I would I wouldn't expect it to reach exactly lost ARS Peak player counts but who knows maybe you'll see lots of people playing for those first few days that first week maybe the first two weeks it'll be doing pretty well getting some steady numbers right but then it's going to drop off pretty darn hard in subsequent weeks as players start running into all of that time gated progression that you can Skip by swiping in the cash shop maybe it does well enough to finally show up on NC soft's Financial charts but hey who knows at this point it hasn't been off to a really good start they have said they're focused on the global release and hopefully what they've been focused on isn't just the localization hopefully they've also been focusing on the various aspects of the power progression of how the game is just laid out for people and how they experience it the user experience of the game hopefully they've been more focused on that how it pertains to the cash op or rather preferably how it doesn't pertain to the cash op I don't expect this game to take off like I don't expect it to be the next great MMO as of now yes I am thinking it will be fun enough for a week or two and then then that's probably all but hey who knows maybe Amazon has some big surprises we shall see that is all for today thank you as always for watching hope you enjoyed I'll continue to keep you guys up to date as we near thrown in Liberty's release uh but until then see you next time

Channel: Force Gaming

Views: 87,109

Keywords: Throne and Liberty gameplay, throne and liberty impressions, throne and liberty preview, throne and liberty MMO, throne and liberty release date, throne and liberty beta, is throne and liberty good, throne and liberty what you need to know, throne and liberty review

Id: uHoOgnq2RZs

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2024