Throne and Liberty: Beta testers break NDA, criticize state of MMO
As is well known, it was in February the final closed beta test for Throne and Liberty is scheduled. Now the newly confirmed publisher Amazon Games still has a little more than two months to release the MMO hope – as announced by NCSoft – in the first half of 2023 in the West and in Japan.
But wait for us Lost Ark (under review) actually another really good online role-playing game from Korea, which here in the west can not only work in a small niche? The development of Throne and Liberty (buy now ) was finally … let’s put it this way: turbulent – including name, franchise and perspective change. And often something like this has a negative effect on the quality of a game. In addition, Amazon Games now has remarkably little time to prepare the MMO for the western market. The Porting Lost Ark is said to have taken almost a year.
Beta testers are not very enthusiastic about T&L
Although it is forbidden by a non-disclosure clause (short: NDA) to report on the experiences in the beta mentioned at the beginning, there have been reports on social media in the last few days and on Reddit various reports from players who were apparently allowed to take part in the playtest (via my MMO). Above all, the combat system of the MMO is heavily criticized.
We’re apparently expecting a tab targeting system, where you target enemies and then abilities and spells automatically hit the target (affected by character and enemy stats), similar to World of Warcraft. Many attacks are said to have AoE and column effects, which also hit opponents who are close to the targeted target. None of this has been criticized yet.
The problem, however, is that most abilities have long casting animations and you have to stay in place to avoid the animations cutting out prematurely, and this applies not only to ranged combatants but also to frontline soldiers. At the same time, abilities that allow you to increase your own mobility (such as a charge attack) should be rare. On the one hand, T&L should play very sluggishly and statically, on the other hand it should be difficult for melee fighters to land a hit on moving targets.
Story, PvP focus and payment model
The supposed testers also criticize other areas of the MMO. Although the developers had announced in advance that one wants to attach great importance to the story and its staging, this should – as far as we have seen so far – turn out to be quite disappointing. In addition, there seems to be quite a big focus on PvP. The testers report on PvP events in which you can fight other players. In addition, you should be able to hunt other players in the night phases of the game (which make up about a quarter of the game time) without consequences and restrictions (normally there seems to be a karma system that allows you to pay for PvP kills outside of PvP content will be penalized).
There is also talk of (buyable?!) boost options that give you more experience points or a better chance of getting loot, and that you can “buy time” as part of the Free2Play model – this is probably the time saved by the shop -Items meant for time-consuming grind content (like the aforementioned boost options).
However, there is praise for the game’s great graphics, details such as realistic facial animations and the variety of options in the character editor. In all of this, keep in mind that there is no certainty that the supposed testers actually participated in the beta. As soon as we were allowed to play Throne and Liberty ourselves, we will of course tell you whether there is anything to the criticism.
Reference-www.buffed.de
