THRONE AND LIBERTY
Last updated: 2025-03-19
- Vast world with lots of content to explore.
- Engaging combat system with great audio.
- Visually stunning with detailed customization options.
- Aggressive pay-to-win mechanics heavily impact gameplay.
- Excessive gear grind feels unrewarding to players.
- Repetitive daily tasks become time-gated.
Verdict
Mostly negative
Summary
Positive 41% · Negative 59%. Score: 59 / 100
Positives:
- The game offers a vast open world with plenty of content and activities to keep players engaged. Reviewers appreciate the freedom to explore and the variety of things to do.
- Reviewers consistently praise the engaging combat system, often describing it as dynamic, fluid, and customizable. The game also features high-quality sound design and music that enhances the overall immersive experience.
- The game boasts impressive graphics, a vibrant world, and detailed character customization. Many reviewers highlight the visually stunning environments and smooth performance. The game also offers extensive options for creating unique characters.
- The game is considered relatively free-to-play friendly, allowing players to progress and acquire items without spending real money. The in-game market allows free-to-play players to earn premium currency by selling items to paying players.
- Joining a guild is essential for fully enjoying the game's features, especially additional boss monsters and loot opportunities. The guild system fosters a strong sense of community and teamwork.
Negatives:
- The game is heavily pay-to-win, with real-money purchases providing significant advantages. The auction house uses premium currency, and many essential items are locked behind paywalls. This creates an uneven playing field and frustrates free-to-play players.
- The game features excessive grinding for gear and resources, often with very low drop rates. This grind feels unrewarding and time-consuming, pushing players towards spending money to progress. Many reviewers mention that the time commitment feels like a second job.
- The game features repetitive daily tasks and time-gated content, limiting player freedom and creating a sense of obligation. This design makes the game feel like a chore and restricts progression for those with limited playtime. Many reviewers express burnout due to this.
- The game's story and world-building are generic and uninspired. Many reviewers found the characters forgettable and the plot unengaging. This contributes to a lack of immersion and overall disappointment.
- The game lacks meaningful PvE content and build diversity, diminishing its RPG elements. Many reviewers note the absence of engaging side stories, a well-structured crafting system, and meaningful skill expression. This leads to a repetitive and uninspired experience.
Gameplay:
- The game's combat system is a mix of tab-targeting and action elements, with some players finding it clunky or uninspired compared to other MMOs. Some reviews mention a rock-paper-scissors mechanic or heavy reliance on crowd control. The skill level required is perceived as lower than in some other MMOs.
- The game features a flexible, weapon-based class system where players combine two weapons to define their role. This system allows for diverse builds and playstyles, but some combinations may be imbalanced. The combat system blends tab-target with modern mechanics, offering strategic gameplay.
- The game features both PvP and PvE content, with varying degrees of emphasis on each. Some reviewers feel the game is primarily PvP-focused, with PvE serving as a means to gear up for PvP. Others note that PvP is often instanced or scheduled, and open-world PvP may not offer significant benefits.
- The game's leveling process is relatively fast, allowing players to quickly reach the endgame content. However, some reviewers feel that the story content is minimal or uninteresting, and the game truly begins at the level cap. The endgame consists of repetitive tasks and grinding, which is typical for MMOs.
- Guilds are an important aspect of the game, offering benefits such as guild coins, raids, and rewards. Some content is only accessible through guilds, making community involvement essential. However, guild contracts can feel like a grind, and some guilds may have activity requirements.
Performance:
- The game's optimization is inconsistent, with reports of both smooth performance and significant lag, FPS drops, stuttering, crashes, and freezes. Performance varies greatly depending on hardware, settings, and the number of players in the area, with many reporting issues in large-scale battles and populated areas. Some players found lowering settings helped, while others experienced instability even on low settings.
- The game generally features fast loading times and seamless transitions, with minimal to no loading screens when teleporting or entering dungeons. This contributes to a smooth and immersive open-world experience.
- Server instability leads to disconnects, lag spikes, desync, and difficulty executing actions, especially during world events and mass PvP. These issues occur regardless of the player's hardware or internet connection quality, hindering the overall experience.
- Players experience rubberbanding, desync, and character positioning issues, especially when using movement abilities or traversing uneven terrain. This results in teleporting, delayed updates, and general movement jank, negatively impacting gameplay.
- The game features visually appealing graphics, with many reviewers praising the environments and overall aesthetic. However, some find the environments to be somewhat generic or lacking in creativity.
Recommendations:
- Many reviewers suggest trying the game since it is free, while acknowledging its flaws. Some find it enjoyable for a short time or as a casual experience, while others recommend it to specific audiences like MMO fans or those seeking a social experience. However, many recommend other MMOs instead.
- Many reviewers express concerns about the game's long-term viability and predict a decline in player base due to its issues. Some reviewers believe the game is already dying or will die soon if significant changes are not made to address its flaws and retain players.
- Reviewers advise players to take their time, enjoy the story, and explore the world without rushing to the endgame. The game is recommended for players who enjoy getting lost in large worlds and figuring things out as they go.
- Some reviewers provide numerical ratings for the game, ranging from 0/10 to 10/10, with most scores falling between 7/10 and 9/10. These scores reflect a wide range of opinions and experiences with the game.
- Joining a guild is essential for fully enjoying the game, especially for accessing certain content and rewards. Reviewers recommend finding an active guild with voice chat to enhance the social experience and make the game more enjoyable.
Miscellaneous:
- The game features a free-to-play model with microtransactions, but some reviewers feel it leans towards pay-to-win or pay-to-progress-faster. While everything is farmable, spending money can accelerate progression, and whales visibly dominate the game. The cash shop is considered less predatory than some MMOs, but concerns remain about its future impact.
- The game is a fairly standard MMORPG, drawing inspiration from older titles like Lineage II and Ragnarok Online, as well as more recent games like BDO and Guild Wars 2. While it may appeal to those seeking a traditional experience, it doesn't offer many innovative features and some reviewers feel it lacks its own unique style.
- Some reviewers express mixed feelings, acknowledging potential but also anticipating frustration. They encourage players to try the game themselves, noting that updates may change the experience. Some suggest Steam's review system needs more nuance.
- The game has appealing visuals and a modern feel, but some reviewers find it lacking in soul or originality. The story is considered alright or engaging by some, but mediocre by others. Some reviewers also feel the game has a mobile game aesthetic.
- The global version of the game lags behind the Korean version, leading to delayed content updates and potential translation issues. There are also concerns about the game's long-term support, given its performance in Korea and the involvement of both NCSoft and Amazon as publisher.
