How Throne and Liberty plans to tackle the Conflict boss zerg problem

Conflict bosses are changing in Throne and Liberty (Image via NCSoft)

Throne and Liberty's longstanding issue with the Conflict boss spawns being overwhelmed by massive zerg rushes is receiving much-needed changes in how these battles will unfold in the future. The cherry on top is that even Archbosses are getting the same treatment, with the added benefit of multiple Archboss spawns to distribute the player base and prevent griefing.

As of now, Field Bosses and Archbosses spawn in the open world in one of two variants: Peace and Conflict. Bosses under the Peace state feature multiple portals for separate instances to engage with the boss. Conflict bosses, however, spawn as a singular entity, open for anyone to have a crack at. This leads to large groups and guilds to spawn camp and grief players.

Conflict bosses in Throne and Liberty will feature instanced fights in the Wilds of Talandre

No more getting ganked while strolling through the world by totally "well-meaning" players (Image via NCSoft)

According to the latest Tico Talks vlog, the Conflict variant of Field Bosses will be turned into instanced fights, with multiple portals leading to separate combat experiences. As per the game's Globalization Design Manager Tico, Conflict bosses will have at least three different portals, each offering a distinct flavor of combat but always featuring the same boss.

The three portals are divided into Peace, Faction, and Guild variants, with an added focus on keeping pre-formed parties intact during matchmaking. Every portal leads players into an instanced boss fight, while Peace only ends in a PvE encounter with no option to engage with other opposing players.

Also Read: Throne and Liberty reveals Wilds of Talandre release schedule and event roadmap

The Faction portal will lead players into matchmade activity in a PvPvE scenario where players will be sorted into two different groups, all the while keeping parties intact. The Peace and Faction portals will feature a 96-player limit and match players across all servers in a single region. Regarding the Faction portal, Tico said:

"This is an ideal option for smaller groups wanting PvP action"

The Guild portal will match Guilds in a 1v1 scenario, as the name very aptly suggests. Guilds will be matched based on their active player count and recent performances in other content, but the scope of the qualifying content hasn't been made public. Furthermore, Guilds must join with at least 36 and up to 48 players to be eligible for a Guild battle.

Multiple Archboss spawns is a huge change for the in-game economy (Image via NCSoft)

The developers have provided some transparency regarding this new system's inaccuracy in the first few days but assured players that matchmaking will improve as the system receives more data to accurately grade Guilds for future battles. Also, the 36-48 player count has been proposed to keep Guilds active with a dedicated playerbase.

Archbosses will also receive the Peace and Faction portal options. However, these battles will not feature Guild variants, as the developers want to keep some form of large-scale alliance gameplay beyond the Castle Sieges. To encourage better accessibility over competitive fights and loot, two separate Archbosses will simultaneously spawn, thus forcing alliances to pick and choose.

Also read: "We believe catch-up mechanics should be integrated into the core game": Amazon Games talks Throne and Liberty's upcoming update, server parity & more

While this isn't a foolproof solution to the overarching problem of large-scale alliances camping over lucrative PvPvE zones to corner the market and create unsavory gameplay experiences, forcing them to spread out their playerbase over resources is a much-welcome change.

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About the author

Arnab Chakrabarti is an MMO writer at Sportskeeda. After getting his first console and playing Oni, he knew that playing games and writing about them was all he ever wanted. To that end, he gave up his bioscience studies to take the leap into video game coverage - a move that saw him work for such publications as TechARX, XRIG, eSportsportal, and Game Rant, to name a few.

Arnab looks up to popular video game journalists and commentators like John Peter Bain aka TotalBiscuit, Jason Schreier, and SkillUp, and tries to bring the same level of commitment and accuracy to his work.

He was also a part of the team that created the event Nerdmeet, which garnered over 5000 attendees in its final run.

In his spare time, Arnab takes care of animals, learns new languages, and plays his guitar. He is eyeing amateur astronomy soon as his next hobby.

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Edited by Niladri Roy