Transcription
So I think there's one problem Amazon and Anisoft need to fix; otherwise, it will kill Throne of Liberty in the long run. So what is this problem? It's not that people are scripting. It's not the pay-to-win. It's not the performance during sieges and Arkbus events, and it's also not the exploits in PvE. And don't get me wrong, they should work on those points, and there's a lot of other small things that just need some polish. But this is not what will kill Throne and Liberty. The problem I think would kill the game is that if you want to do good PvP content, you have to join a competitive PvP guild, which will burn out players and finally make them quit the game.
I think many players have already gone through this exact life cycle in Throne and Liberty. So, three months after the initial global launch, I made a video about the current state of the game and showed the biggest problems it had at that moment. The three most upvoted comments say the following: "Main problem is that all the highest content of this game is that you need to be in the top guild," "There's not much room for solo players," "This MMO in the long run feels like a job than a game," "My burnout is trying to hang in a serious guild, and the insane requirements they make you for to lock consistently makes burnout." I have played in a casual guild, in a semi-hardcore PvP guild, and also in a hardcore PvP guild myself. I understand many of these problems, and I want to explain the life cycle that players go through so that everyone understands what actually is the problem here. Additionally, I want to explore a possible solution at the end of the video. But, of course, I also want to give you space to share your thoughts on this because most of us love the game and wanted to succeed.
Okay, first of all, we have to talk about the PvP content in Throne. We have small-scale PvP, we have GVGs, and we have large-scale PvP. A big majority of players who tried all the PvP content will mostly say that the best PvP content are GVGs. You've got your Bontor fights, your rift zone fights, your war games, and your wall boss fights. Of course, there are some small-scale PvP enjoys and even some siege and arc boss fight enjoys, and that's totally fair, but you guys are the minority here. Most of us love GVGs, and there's a good reason for that: the game just feels designed for around 100-player battlefields. What's so great here is that the general guild strategy is important, your group strategy is important, and your individual performance can even make a difference. But importantly, just because someone has two arc boss weapons or is a giga whale doesn't mean they can carry the whole guild, unless they have a cord crossbow. But anyway, you get the point: GVGs are a great piece of content in this game.
So now the question is, how can you get access to those GVG fights? Well, for guild versus guild battles, you have to join a guild, of course. Now there are different types of guilds: you have casual guilds, then semi-casual guilds, semi-hardcore guilds, and hardcore guilds. All of these guilds can technically access all kinds of GVG content; they can participate in riftstones and moonstone fights, create war games against other guilds, or even go as a guild and fight another guild over at the war boss. So, in theory, that sounds great, but the reality is, if you are in a casual or semi-casual guild, you usually won't have access to any of that content. Of course, there are exceptions, but for the most part, you won't experience it. There are a couple of reasons for that, but the most important one is GVGs happen in a fixed time slot. It doesn't matter if it's a war boss event or a rift zone fight; they all happen at specific times. In semi-casual or casual guilds, you won't always have enough players online to actually participate in those events. That's why they are in a casual guild; maybe players are online for two, three hours a day, or maybe they just hop in for an hour, do their dailies, and that's it.
So what do you need to participate in those GBGs? Right, you need a structured guild with motivated people that can organize war games against other guilds and always have enough players online for those events. Where do you have this? Only in a semi-hardcore or hardcore PvP guild. Okay, but now you have made the decision to leave your old guild and now join such a guild because you want to experience that content, and suddenly you have access to those GVGs, and it's super fun until it starts to feel like a second job. Let me show you the calendar of our week, and I'm in a semi-hardcore PvP guild. Okay, so first of all, ignore all those guild world boss events; we usually don't go there. But on Monday, we had a moonstone and a war game. On Tuesday, we had a rift zone and a war game. On Wednesday, we had a tavern and a war game, and so on. Every day, at least two events during prime time, and while each event might only take 30 minutes in total, it still takes you about two hours a day. And now you might say, "But you choose to play in a semi-hardcore PvP guild; you should expect to invest at least two hours a day for the guild." And yes, for some players, two hours a day isn't a lot, and that's totally fine. But what you have to understand is, in each MMO, the majority of all players are casuals. If a casual wants to experience the best PvP content in the game, he needs to join at least a semi-hardcore PvP guild. So they come home from work, and then they have to plan their entire evening around those events, and this every day, and of course, this will very quickly start to feel like a second job, and then those players will burn out. Maybe they switch to some PvE content for a while, but eventually, they will quit. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what the player life cycle in Throne of Liberty looks like: they are forced into a semi- or hardcore PvP guild to access the best content in the game, but then they burn out, and finally, they will quit. And of course, this will slowly kill the player base and eventually will kill the game.
Okay, so we have identified the problem; now it's time to talk about solutions. I've got ideas I want to share, but I don't have the answer to the problem, and we have probably way smarter people than me here in the community. So if you have good ideas, please share them in the comments. Okay, so what Amazon and Anisoft need to accomplish is to make the game more casual-friendly without destroying the competitiveness of GVGs. One of the easiest ways to do this, in my opinion, is to create a battleground feature. You queue up for an instant PvP fight, and you get matched in a 48 versus 48 battle. You would have your standard game modes like capture the flag, death match, or whatever your classic battleground formats. Of course, you need to balance healers, and yes, you would need an MMR system running in the background to match players of the same level. But just imagine that for a second: you have a fun build you want to test in PvP, or a group of friends that want to try out a combo. Now you could just press a button, get matched with others at your level, and fight in battlegrounds for 20 minutes. Then you queue up again whenever you want. Doesn't that sound crazy good? To be fair, this would 100% kill all the Dominion events; nobody would go to the open-world Dominion events or world boss Dominion events anymore. But doesn't that just show you how poorly designed those are? Now, is this a solution for everything? Definitely not. But will it help casual players to participate in and balance meaningful PvP battles? Will it give casuals a reason to build a solid PvP setup? Yes, 100%. So the game is becoming more and more instanced anyway because open-world events just bring so many problems. So please, just give us battlegrounds. That's my idea; something I believe could fix some of the problems. Of course, it would also bring new challenges that I haven't even thought of, but still, something needs to change, and that's my take. What do you think? What would your solution be? Let Amazon know in the comments because we all love this game and we want it to succeed. If you like the content, don't forget to like and subscribe. Thanks for watching, and I see you in the next.