Throne and Liberty: Exploring the inevitable zerg problem NCSoft and AGS face with their hit MMO

Throne and Liberty is the newest hit MMORPG on the block, combining themes of magic and medieval high-fantasy to bring players an expansive world to explore. Originally designed as the sequel to NCSoft's Lineage MMORPG, Throne and Liberty, formerly known as Lineage Eternal, suffered many setbacks and delays. The rebranded title was released to the Korean market in 2023. Based on the positive feedback, the game was launched for global audiences throughout 2024, in collaboration with Amazon Games.

Although Throne and Liberty is a free-to-play game, three pre-release purchase packs allowed players early access to servers for five days, as a measure of appreciation. This move, however, has led to some unforeseen circumstances.

Are Zergs ruining the player experience in Throne and Liberty?

Contrary to popular belief, zergs aren't a problem in every server, but the situation hangs in the balance. A few factors have stymied the worst effects, but the situation can change at any time.

First and foremost, the biggest problem has been a few guilds from the Early Access servers who managed to switch servers and hop into the Global launch servers. Amazon Games and NCSoft had assured players that this would be avoided, but as game development goes, unexpected bugs and glitches make it past quality control.

Conflict is rife in Throne and Liberty (Image via NCSoft)

This server fiasco wouldn't be a huge issue if some of these guilds weren't trying to railroad the PvP structure of entire servers. Several players on Reddit and other social media platforms have noted that large guilds have split into multiple 70-man guilds on a single server to dominate the Conflict spaces and farm high-end loot for free.

Field bosses like Morokai have two variants that can be fought in peaceful and conflict modes. Conflict mode is essentially a hybrid of PvE and PvP, where you're fighting the field boss and attacking players at the same time. On a level playing field, players would be relatively on the same amount of gear and skill investment and conflict bosses would be somewhat balanced.

Players from the Early Access servers are unfortunately heavily geared and overpowered, hence, they can effectively lock out newer players from even attempting to fight for loot. This issue is bound to become more prominent once the Archbosses are released, which will also have a Conflict variant.

NCSoft and Amazon Games have acknowledged this issue and have stated a long-term plan to address it. In a recent interview, Amazon Games discussed their plan to do large-scale server mergers to combat the population imbalance and conversely pit dominant PvP guilds against each other.

Players bothered by the unfair PvP-fest in their servers can take advantage of two free server transfer tickets until October 17, 2024. These tickets are refreshed daily and can be used for free, but after the 17th, they will cost Lucent and a 30-day lockout. Therefore, players should do their due diligence before transferring.

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Edited by Adarsh J Kumar