Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Throne & Liberty's Endgame is a Breath of Fresh Air | MMORPG.com
System
Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
Throne & Liberty's Endgame is a Breath of Fresh Air | MMORPG.com
Nick is no stranger to MMO endgames, so when he got to Throne and Liberty's take on endgame, it was like a breath of fresh air for the long-time MMO vet.
Comments
Has no developer ever thought of a better way to sustainably entertain people?
A breath of fresh air for some, complete oxygen deprivation for others.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Yes, there is plenty of PvE content at max level. Just completing dungeons and contracts can be a few hours each day. Then there are all the hourly events and world bosses on top of that.
In Uncharted Waters Origin, it's not just that a given player is likely to do wildly different things from one day to the next. It's not just that new opportunities from events pop up and you have to decide whether to do it or not, while not knowing ahead of time whether it will be useful to you. It's also that different players of the same level commonly have wildly different views of what they ought to be doing to progress. A major focus of the game for one player might well be completely ignored for months at a time for another player of the same level--and that's a completely reasonable decision for both players.
What you describe sounds like generic fantasy MMORPG endgame. That's not necessarily awful. But I wouldn't call it a breath of fresh air.
Like what?
Not necessarily the same things every day. There are a half dozen instanced dungeons and another half dozen coming out next week. Then there are 4 major open-world dungeons with multiple floors and are open, or change from Peace to PvP, depending on the time of day or weather condition. So you could spend all of Monday running instanced dungeons, all of Tuesday in Saurodama, Wednesday in Shadowed crypt, etc.
However, the key point is that each piece of content has relevant drops for 99% of the population still. Whether that's gear to wear, gear to sell, gear to use as trait mats, materials for skill/item growth, etc. IMO, keep the content relevant and populated is much better than sending people to a specific place to farm only 1 thing.
I haven't played WoW for a few expansions, but last time I did, content was made irrelevant so quickly. Once you started raiding, there was 0 reason to do heroic dungeons anymore, and open world content was mostly pointless.
-Instanced Dungeons
-Open World Dungeons (Day/Night determines PvE/PvP)
-Personal/Solo Challenge Dungeons
-Contracts
-Dungeon Contracts
-Many daily events to choose from. Some PvE some PvP.
-World Bosses
-Tons of quests
-Codex
-Lithograph Book
-Fishing/Cooking/Crafting
-Collections for Morphs, Amitoi, and Cosmetics(transmog).
For a game originally intended to cater to a PvP audience, I'd say they did a pretty good job of adding PvE elements for those not interested in PvP.
I liked how the endgame in Pirates of the Burning Sea worked. Each faction, English French Spanish and Pirates, tried to take over the ports owned by the others. If one takes enough ports, the game is over and the map is reset. The lowest faction gets a bonus in the next round.
Ports were taken by PvP, putting a port in contention puts a red circle around it. Anyone going in or out of that circle was open for PvP. If you had built an ammunition production line in a port and the other side took that port, you couldn't get in or out without possible PvP. It also greatly raised the taxes you had to pay.
------------
2024: 47 years on the Net.
Sort of, but it hasn't really gotten to the point where content has been trivialized. When people started running dungeons at the recommended 1600 gear score, they were damn near impossible. Almost all of the final bosses are mechanic checks, not gear checks. While you could theoretically complete each dungeon at 1600 gear score, a single failed mechanic would kill 1-2 players and slow the DPS so much that the next mechanic wasn't possible.
Now, with adequate gear, a failed mechanic doesn't 100% spell doom, but multiple failed mechanics will still do so, there's just some breathing room. For example, in Cursed Wasteland, a single player will periodically get a debuff that has the boss shoot a massive AOE attack at them. If that player doesn't move correctly, it will 100% wipe whoever gets in its way regardless of gear.
Now the open world dungeons have gotten quite a bit easier, though. When I initially hit level 50, I could barely kill a single enemy and now I can take on 2-3 solo, but an actual group can take on big waves of 10+ enemies. However, these are more of the filler/mindless grinding content so making it more efficient and faster with better gear is a positive imo. Also, these dungeons all go PvP mode at some point, so everyone having better gear just makes everyone else more dangerous.
For some of the events, you are scaled down but do still feel stronger than you did at the recommended level. However, the mobs were never really challenging anyways, so it just makes things more competitive.
- 6 Dungeons (6 more coming)
MOST MMOs have more than this. And how is repeating the same dungeons over and over "fresh"?
- World bosses & events
NOT uncommon. Rift, ESO, New World, The Secret World, and other have this too.
- Fishing, hunting, etc.
MANY MMOs have this. LotRO, ESO, and lots more.
- PvP
Yeah, nearly EVERY MMO has some form of end game PvP, and aside from sieges, T&L has nothing new or interesting to offer. It isn't even the only MMO with sieges.
So, I don't get it. We're you paid to write this? That sounds insulting, but I can't see any other reason for such an unobjective and biased article.
The game is dull as dishwater. The dungeons were uninspired and unexciting, same as what few drops there were there.
Add to that the ridiculous gear score requirements people were setting for dungeon groups and I gave up at level 46-ish.
No, this is not a sponsored article. I spent decades playing most of the popular themepark MMORPGs. Once you hit max level, how many dungeons are actually worth running for your class? Maybe 1 or 2? How many have open world dungeons with meaningful loot? EverQuest 2 is the only one I can think of. How many have nearly a dozen competitive world events every hour on the hour? No others that I can think of. How many reward open world PvP? Almost none. Winning territories for your guild provides guild experience levels and semi-permanent buffs, and winning PvP events gives better loot.
The writers on this site tend to play the games they like and write about the games they play. That's a lot better than writing about games that they don't play. If I were one of the writers on this site, there would be a lot of articles about Uncharted Waters Origin lately.
Like all the stuff EQ Next was promising. I know the technology wasn't anywhere near what they wanted to do at the time, but things have changed significantly since then. Given the initial interest in that project (before everyone realized they were full of hot air), I'd think some studio might see an opportunity to give those ideas another shot.