Final Thoughts: Throne and Liberty Global Beta

 At the surface Throne and Liberty is a very polished game.  The graphics are amazing.  Performance is top notch.  It is massive and nails multiplayer with masses of players running around everywhere.  Quality of life features abound.  However just below the makeup there is some things we need to talk about.  Here are my final thoughts after 15 hours with the Throne and Liberty global beta. 

Welcome to Throne and Liberty

 First I do want to reiterate how amazing this game looks and how well it runs.  I am still amazed how they are able to get the game to run without any loading screens.  That alone is worth recommending the game as it is so refreshing to boot up a game, select a character, and then a few seconds (not minutes) later you are in the world.  The same goes for teleporting.  Add in the performance both in how it runs on your machine and how it seemingly maintains a lag-free world with hundreds of players running around it is clear they have some magic sauce!

 The problem, for me, comes in that the game didn't hook me.  For comparison I hit 50+ hours played in both the New World open beta and more recently in Once Human's open beta which both ran shorter than Throne's beta where I hit 15 hours. I did keep coming back to play Throne but once I got past how amazing the world feels, the shock of teleporting around without loading screens, and how fun it is to chase after the giant flying whale at some point I had to interact with the story and engage in the combat.  That is where the game started to lose me (but not entirely).

 I'll admit in my older age I am not one for sitting around dialogue screens or cut-scenes in RPGs.  For a while now I've felt that if a game can't deliver the story content without having to stop and bring me to a separate screen that the story probably was click through material. 

  Throne delivers some of it's story via interactive mechanisms but there is still a lot of time spent in dialogue screens or cut scenes.  By the end of the beta I was pressing F and ESC as fast as I could to get out of them.  The story is just not interesting and most story quests are monotonous. Seriously; one of the last quests I did in beta had me talk to someone, walk a few feet to pick up a burlap sack, then walk a few feet and put the sack in a fire, and then just turn to talk to the person again!  That was it.  Nothing more.  I don't need to be doing mundane quest steps in 2024!

F, F, F

 Dotted between the mundane story questing are instanced solo encounters which provide more meaty content usually focused around some sort of combat encounter. These are better than the burlap sack burning experience but aren't anything to write home about.  I just don't have the patience for story in MMORPGs anymore.  Get me to the world and interacting with other players!  With that said Throne is not much different from other games in the genre and at least it has some cut scenes worth watching.

 There are parts of Throne where the game does a better job of delivering information to the player. For example in the world events, as you are doing the event, a fully narrated set of updates for the event appear on your screen.  They don't require you to interact with them and go away all by themselves.  I found it a good way to keep me engaged in the event progress.

 Additionally I think the team behind Throne realized that many players are like me and click through content as fast as possible.  After most story moments or tutorial quests the game has a fully voice narrated "here is a summary of what just happened" that plays for you while you go about your business.  Personally I feel they could have just done this vs much of the mundane dialogue screens in the game.  In fact I really liked the after-the-fact narration (I know some testers did not).

 Also in the story quest there are points where you interact with items and have to go to another screen to manipulate the item.  This is it's own screen (again, taking you out of the world) and you have to flip the item around and then click on the right spot to unlock the next part of the puzzle.  The first experience with this was a "fake" book that really had a key hidden inside.  I did not find it interesting at all and felt like it was wasting my time.  

 It is rare enough to have to inspect an item that it's not a headache but it brings up a question of consistency.  Why not make all quest items work like this?  Why just here and there?  I am a big believer in games being consistent and this just seemed like a tacked on feature used some of the time.  The screen itself that you use is also not intuitive at all.  I had to look up help on how to do it because clicking was doing nothing (you have to hold your click down when the cursor changes icons which means you can really just fake your way through it vs it being some sort of puzzle).

The item inspection puzzles are few and far between and aren't needed

 

 The quests and events in the game do offer variety.  I did enjoy some early quests such as the one where I morphed into a mouse and had to literally play "cat and mouse" dodging a cat only to find out the cat was a morphed bad guy.  However, too much of the main story was just run here do this then run there.  I honestly think the game may have been better without the main story and instead just focused on the world events.

 I say this because there are so many freaking events happening in the world in this game.  It was refreshing to see a world that looked alive! Hitting the "schedule" button and seeing all the possible events occurring was cool.  I barely scratched the surface of events and had fun in every event I jumped into.  My only disappointment was missing an event and having to wait hours for the next time. I didn't even get to PvP yet and there are tons of PvP events!

A busy map.  Events.  Events everywhere!

 

 I did get to try the level 20 dungeon a few times as well and it was OK.  I'll talk more on combat later and the state of combat was part of why I say it was just OK.  The game does have a group finder which was nice as it made it easy to get into a group and get going on the content.  As a more solo-ish player I tend to prefer this way of getting into group content.  

 The dungeon was mostly trash enemies and a couple bosses.  The end boss was difficult to follow and I really didn't understand why some groups failed at that boss while others seemed to do just fine.  I was "one shot" multiple times at this boss and still don't know by what or how I was supposed to dodge it (probably because I was staring at the hotbar UI vs the boss).  At the end of the dungeons you have to spend a currency you gradually gain each day to get rewards and once that currency is gone I am not sure why you'd run a dungeon.  That was disappointing to learn as its basically a "daily" but I get it being a way to prevent farming.

The first dungeon's end boss summon

Group finder with match making for dungeons

 Next I want to touch on combat. I never got over the hump with it.  It just doesn't feel as good compared to the rest of the game around it.  The biggest issue I have is that it feels static with too much time watching the UI.  I've said in the past that New World changed how I perceive MMO combat.  In New World you rarely are looking at the UI and are almost always engaged with the combat encounter in front of you.  

 In Throne I kept missing things going on because I had to be either looking at a bar of 12 different possible skill cooldowns or trying to find whatever status message on screen I needed to find or having to swing my camera around to find the enemy.  This leads to a lot of time with your character just standing in place while you hit the buttons and honestly 12 skill buttons + 4 consumable + 4 function keys is just too much.

 Speaking of skills. I really don't get why the game starts players off with access to so many of the weapon skills.  I don't want to sound like a newbie and say it is overwhelming but it honestly is and removes an aspect of progression and learning a game that I didn't realize I'd miss until I played Throne and it wasn't there.  Aside from the first tutorial scenario that teaches you the defense timing mechanic there is nothing to walk a player through the hundreds of skills in the game.  Players are expected to open the skills screen and figure it out; including figuring out what order you should use them in (i.e. rotation).

 And it's needed because skills are complicated. There isn't simple "fireball goes boom" skills.  Every skill is "does X% damage + applies Y effect and then has % chance for Z".  Oh and then based on time of day it may do something entirely different.  All I want to do is scream.... "why!?".  

The skills screen can be daunting.  An example skill that increases block chance and then also counterattacks but the counterattack isn't affected by critical or heavy hit chance.  Then on being upgraded does even more.  And you will have 12 skills of this complexity level in front of you at any given time in combat!

 

 I really had to dig through skills to make sense of what goes together well and what order to fire them off in.  I can see learning your rotation being a huge part of success in this game.  That is fine but just not something that hooked me.  I'd much rather have been gradually introduced to skills and had the game give me more guidance on what works together. Don't even get me started on the fact you can have multiple hot bars of skills set up and swap mid fight.

 I also felt there was little identity with the weapons.  You can equip any two weapons and from their array of skills you can equip 12 (again feels like too many).  All of them sort of had the same feeling.  If it was a ranged attack it was a ranged attack.  If it was a melee attack it was a melee attack.  Wand, staff, sword, dagger... I didn't get a sense they were all that much different or maybe the game failed to explain to me how they were working differently.  I really wish the game would have limited active skills to, at most, five at one time.  That would have made it much more impactful to choose between the array of skills two weapons brings the player.

 Ultimately whether its the skills bonanza or the stationary state; the combat in Throne and Liberty is it's weakest part.  It didn't lose me but it didn't hook me.  I really dislike that you have to focus so much on the UI and thus lose focus on the amazing game world in front of you.  Less would be more in this game's combat.

You get a cat for your inn room

 

There are some other areas of the game to touch on.

 The guild system seems well fleshed out. I joined a random guild and was immediately helping complete guild contracts and getting rewards for the guild doing activities.  I also had multiple ways to contribute to the guild via game mechanisms vs having to manage contribution outside of the game.  I think this game will be a good home for guilds looking for MMOs that reward guild play.  It will also be good for the less hardcore guild members (i.e. solo players) to be able to contribute to the guild.

 Crafting is not really crafting so much as just a set of screens you use to combine things together.  There is upgrading gear via enchanting but again its just a set of screens you use to progress gear vs any sort of crafting as you would think from most MMOs (i.e. you don't craft a sword hilt and blade to make a sword).  Some crafting, like cooking, is coming in the launch apparently (and is available in the Korean version as of this week).

 One of the biggest "oh really?" moments was when I realized the game has no in game economy. Zero.  None.  The only auction house is the one for the premium currency (which I am fine with).  However, that auction house is limited in to just some specific named items.  You can't, for example, craft potions and sell them (or at least that I could see).  That was really disappointing as markets of online games is one of my biggest attractions.  This may change since they are adding more life skills to the game like cooking.

 Another point to make in Throne's favor is the quality of life bits.  There is a lot of polished features in this game.  I was amazed to find that I could save my preset skill build outs and I didn't have to buy any slots from a cash shop for the privilege.  The same goes for armor and weapons.  It is just there in the UI.  The map is amazing and full of info.  The schedule that details events really helps connect players to the active world.  While there is probably too many overall screens in the interface I can't deny that each screen is still clean and super functional.

The quintessential MMO experience: the crowded town alleyway

 The end question is whether I will play the game at launch and I'll give an honest "I don't know" answer.  Is it possible?  Sure.  I like to jump into MMO launches to get that launch day feeling but I'm not sure it would be much different than what I got out of the open beta here.  The game did grow on me a  little the further the beta went on and I used the extra day to play some more when they extended it.

 I can tell you that this beta was nothing like what I got out of New World's open beta or more recently Once Human's.  Both of those games hooked me and I ran out the clock on their betas and was happy to repeat at the launch of both.  With Throne something just didn't fit together as well.  The combat being mediocre and the lack of an actual game economy are not great selling points.  I will end with "maybe" on whether I'll play.  I really don't think the game is going to do much better in the west than it did in Korea.  I can see now where many folks are coming from after they tried to the Korean version and now had access to the global beta.

Goodbye beta