Throne and Liberty Global's close beta test has just ended. It was under a very strict NDA, so nobody was and still isn't allowed to post, talk, or share any information about it. I have spent all seven days playing and grinding so that I can give quality feedback to Amazon. While I'm not able to say anything about the closed beta test, I'm just going to leave you with this so you can interpret it however you want.
Revisiting Korean Jal Liberty
Nice, but there is a version of the game I'm allowed to talk about. In this video, I'm revisiting Korean Jal Liberty after two months of not logging in to see what has changed and show you how the game will look like. In case you didn't know, NCSoft and Amazon had agreed to have one global version, which means that everything currently available in Korea will also be present on the global release.
Initial Impressions and Promotional Offers
Upon logging in, I was instantly greeted with a promotional offer. This is something that's always bothered me a little bit when games just shower you with offers and pop-ups. The game has daily login rewards, and that thing doesn't even pop up, but whatever, it's not that big of a deal. Opening the menu, I did notice a few different options there, or maybe they were just rearranged a little bit as I couldn't really pinpoint exactly what was different. The Throne and Liberty Lucent shop has stayed pretty much the same. Don't worry, nothing new was added that could increase pay to win and break the game. Only new cosmetics are added, and these ones I found cool and quite unusual at the same time.
Cosmetic Feedback and Developer Response
It's still crazy to me that even after several requests and feedback for more revealing cosmetics, after five months, the developers are still not releasing any cosmetics of that nature. I'm hoping that they're being saved for the global release, but knowing Western censorship and Amazon, it is likely not going to happen.
Exploring the Auction House
Next big thing to check was the infamous auction house, a place where the pay to win happens, or so people say it does. I was honestly baffled with the prices. Everything was cheap. I wasn't sure if this was due to the server and the game being kind of low populated so the supply of these Throne and Liberty Lucent and materials was much higher than the demand or was there something else in play here. Precious marins used to cost 200 Lucent; now you can get 15 of them for 200 Lucent. Heck, even purple heavy attack chance traits cost 200 Lucent now. Well, I had to pay 3,000 Lucent to unlock the slot and then feed it with blue ones, but then I realized that some purple gear was obtainable in much easier ways and also new craftable and lootable gear with much better bonuses and stats was introduced, so that could have had an effect on the prices. But it's probably due to low population, low demand, and high supply.
PvE Content Updates
The PvE side of the game has had quite a few noticeable changes and improvements, clearly showing that MMOexp is serious in pushing more towards PvE content. Gate of Infinity was introduced, which is a much harder and more challenging version of solo Total Tower where bosses rotate every week. These bosses have somewhat different mechanics, they have more HP, and they deal more damage. It is also time-based, where if you kill the boss in a specific amount of time, you get purple skill books as rewards and your name can also appear on the leaderboards. But if you check the leaderboards, you can see that a very specific weapon setup and build dominate in that type of content, and a lot of other builds and setups will have a much harder time in it. For example, I'm playing Longbow and Dagger, which is not so great for this type of content, and even with full purple gear, I couldn't even kill some of those bosses. That's how hard it is for me, at least.
Party Finder and Matchmaking System
Party Finder has had quite a bit of a rework, and now it actually works, but people still choose to spam LFG in the world chat and not use it. The biggest addition to finding a party for dungeons was the matchmaking system. I expected it to be cross-server, but apparently, it's still in the works, and the server matchmaking simply just never popped as nobody really uses it to queue for dungeons. It is really good, though. You can select a dungeon, and then it asks you to pick your role from three options: tank, DPS, or healer. Then you queue up and wait for another five slots to fill up. You can do other things while you sit in the queue, but in my case, even after waiting several minutes, not a single person joined the queue for any of the dungeons. Quite disappointing, but once cross-server matchmaking becomes a thing, I'm sure that it will become the preferred way of finding parties for dungeons.
Increased Dungeon Difficulty
To add more difficulty to already existing dungeons, NCSoft added a harder, more challenging option for those same dungeons. I have tried all of them, and there is no difference in mechanics. These dungeons are only harder in terms of monster and boss HP and the damage they do to you. It requires decently upgraded gear as the DPS check is much higher, and the bosses do enrage quicker. The main difference is an increased chance for a purple drop, while the loot table is almost identical. It is an okay way to spice things up a little bit by making existing dungeons harder, but I would have expected something unique and different that you could get from them, like a specific piece of gear that wouldn't be available in the normal versions of the dungeon. But then NCSoft kind of did just that with the introduction of Tier 2 dungeons. These dungeons are still almost the same reskins of the Tier 1 dungeons, except the mechanics have been completely changed. They are much more difficult, require a lot of team play where one person can wipe the party, the bosses hit like a truck, and it actually has some gear requirements.
Tier 2 Dungeon Challenges
Despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to even join a group as there is quite a bit of justified gatekeeping. Main gatekeeping is that you are required to link an achievement that you have cleared it at least once. This is immediately giving me PTSD from Lost Ark. Please no. But the justified gatekeeping is gear. DPS check is very tight. You need to have over 10,000 HP, and of course, you need to understand the mechanics. The reason for 10,000 HP, to my understanding, is that the bosses have certain attacks that are part of mechanics which you are supposed to eat and take huge amounts of damage. Of course, if your HP is low as mine, you get one-shot by those attacks, and your team cannot complete the mechanics as some of them require all six players to be alive. It is quite difficult once you try it for the first few times, but with time, you will get used to it. I completely understand the gatekeeping, but the fact I wasn't even able to join a learning party, not because I was denied, but because there simply wasn't any as the server is quite low populated, and of course, nobody actually queues for these Tier 2 dungeons. The gear that drops is very powerful with some very strong and unique bonuses. The gear is also craftable, but to craft one piece would require a lot of clears, and this is only the normal version of Tier 2 dungeons, so it is expected that the hard version will also be introduced somewhere in the future. But these already got nerfed in the most recent patch.
Dungeon Design and Variety
Personally, I would like to see different and unique designs of bosses in dungeon areas. Right now, all dungeons are just reskins of the same one with added difficulty, which isn't something I would have expected when NCSoft said they plan a shift towards PvE. If you want to shift the majority of content towards the PvE side, you need to create challenging and unique PvE content, not recycle all the dungeons. But those will probably come when the new parts of the world are unlocked, bringing new bosses, new events, new content, and legendary gear.
Weapon and Skill Balances
A lot of weapons and skills over time have received numerous balance changes. Some were buffed significantly, some were nerfed, but overall a nice balance has been created, in my opinion. You don't have one weapon setup with a specific skill build that can perform in every type of content. Every build will be strong in one but fairly weak in other types of content. Like a Longbow Dagger, for example, it is considered very strong in PvE and smaller scale PvP where you can pick off and isolate enemies one by one, but it is fairly weak in any type of solo content. Doing Gate of Infinity is a pain in the ass. You will get absolutely smoked in a 1v1 or very small scale PvP where melee assassins thrive, and you will be very mediocre in mass PvP and castle sieges where AOE builds are the kings. Every weapon also received two new active skills with more planned, and apparently, the spear and hammer will be added to the game in the near future, adding more ways to build skills and synergize two weapons together. More variety in weapons, skills, and builds for global release would be a fantastic way to get more people interested and hooked into the game.
Instanced PvE World Bosses
Another very big and quite an important change was the introduction of instanced PvE world bosses. The reason for that was very obvious, and I'm glad it happened.
Choosing to buy cheap TL Lucent from MMOexp is the best choice, it is safe and reliable without any worries. Happy gaming.
MMOexp Throne and Liberty Team