AION 2 vs Throne and Liberty transcript

Throne and Liberty versus Aion 2. Both games are from NCSoft. Both are Korean MMORPGs, but yeah, besides that, the games are actually very different in a lot of ways. I've played both of these games way too much. So, in this video, I will try to compare the key differences as neutrally as possible. And then in the end, I will give you my opinion whether you should try Aion 2 as a Throne and Liberty player or not. And I already know a lot of you will still have a bunch of questions after this video.

Just write them in the comments. I will collect all of them and make another video where I will answer all of those questions. Okay, but let's start with a big thing. First of all, Throne and Liberty is a PvP game and Aion 2 is a PvE game. Yes, Throne and Liberty has PvE content and yes, Aion 2 has also PvP content, but there is a clear focus in both of these games. Let's compare a little bit more of the PvE content.

The game has an absolutely crazy amount of PvE content for game that is still this young. Aion 2 currently has three raids with the next one coming soon. And then 18 different dungeons with different difficulties. Then they have a bunch of solo content and casual content. It's it's crazy. It's hard to even compare that to Throne and Liberty. You clearly see here a difference between a PvE focused game [music] and a PvP focused game.

But the content is also very different. Without going on to all the details, I think the biggest difference for me is how the boss fights play out. If you're someone who enjoys the PvE in Throne and Liberty, especially the raids and high trials, you have more difficult mechanics and the whole team actually has to work together. That is not what most Aion 2 dungeons are about. [music] Now, the new content has more and more team mechanics, but I would say it's really more about your individual performance.

What that basically means is you have a stamina bar, you have a dodge roll, and you basically have to perfectly dodge always different attacks from bosses. Of course, you have here and there are some bigger mechanics, but for the most part, they are fairly simple and straightforward. [music] That changes, of course, later, but for quite a bit of time, it's really just about you dodging those attacks from bosses. Then for PvP content, there's definitely stuff that you can do, even though it's a PvE game.

You have 1v1 and 5v5 arenas, you have 10v10 battlegrounds, and then you have the abyss, which is basically similar to Nebula Island in Throne Liberty. So, it's your always-on PvP zone where you have to farm a bunch of resources that going to be useful later for your progression. Then you have also some sort of sieges in this zone, so in this PvP zone, where like your faction fights against the other faction. Those can be good fun, but you cannot compare that to the GvG content that we have in Throne Liberty.

I know a lot of Throne Liberty players enjoy the GvG part of the game. This is something you don't really have in Aion 2 as of now. Then it's important to mention that in the 10v10 battlegrounds, your gear is actually equalized. The only thing that matters here are the consumables. Besides that, [music] it's completely equalized. But to be fair, I played a bunch of those battlegrounds, and they are not really competitive.

You clearly notice that these are really made for casuals to hop in, have some fun, and yeah, then you get out again. Again, there are plans to introduce more of that in the future, but as of now, it's just some casual content. So, yes, if you enjoy PvP, there is PvP you can do, but if you're a very competitive GvG player, and that is the main reason you play Throne Liberty, Aion 2 will not give you the same thing. All right, enough about the content.

Another thing that is very important to understand is the class system. In Throne Liberty, you can change your two weapons, and with that, basically, your class at any time. But in Aion 2, you have a normal class system. You choose your class when you create your character, and that's your class. And there are nine different classes in the current version, and there is no way to simply swap your class later. Like there is some progression shared between your characters, so making an alt is not as bad as starting completely from zero, but it's still hard to swap your main later on.

Then in Throne and Liberty, you have your classic holy trinity. You have your tank, your healer, and your DPS. And you also have that in Aion 2, but only to a certain degree. What I mean by that is that your healer is not only healing. Your tank is >> [music] >> not just standing there and holding aggro. Everyone is also expected to deal damage. The experience of being a healer in Throne and Liberty with your hot bar full of different support skills is not what you experience in Aion 2.

A huge part of your kit is made up of damage abilities, and it is expected that you deal damage. There might be dungeons where you don't even have to heal. It just feels different playing a healer or a tank in Aion 2. The next big difference is the customization of your character. In Throne and Liberty, you don't just have all the different weapon combinations, you also have a crazy amount of gear, different stats, weapon masteries, skill specialization, and so on.

There is just a lot of customization for your character in Throne and Liberty. And if this is something you really enjoy, you will get much less of that in Aion 2. Aion 2 does have some customization. You can change certain effects on your abilities, and you have so-called stigma abilities where you choose which ones you want to use, but overall everything is much more streamlined. Especially in PvE, most players will use the same gear and go for very similar stats.

So, you have fewer options, but also have less of a headache. You don't have to sit there and ask yourself, "Okay, did I completely destroy my build? Did I invest into the wrong item? Do I have to change everything again?" It's just a different approach. Okay, then let's come to the combat. Both games are tab target MMO RPGs, but Aion 2 is a game that is mostly played in action combat. I know there are some people that play Throne and Liberty like that, but in Aion 2, the action combat mode is just much better, and the game is just designed for that.

And pretty much everyone plays in that mode. Besides that, you also have 12 active skill slots, similar to Throne and Liberty, but you will actually use more than 12 abilities. They are different systems that allow you to assign multiple skills to one key. And then on top of that, you have a macro feature that helps you to spam your abilities. Those two systems combined make the basic combat a lot simpler. But you also have to say that the combat is a lot faster than in Throne and Liberty.

But I know a lot of people will ask, "How much are you actually doing yourself, and how much is the macro doing for you?" And here it's I would say pretty straightforward. Your normal bread and butter combo will usually be on the macro. That means depending on your class, you hold one or two buttons, and then the game goes through your basic rotation. So for example, you hold left and right click, and that handles your normal attacks and your basic ability spam.

And then you have maybe four or six, or sometimes even more situational abilities that you have to use yourself. Those can be dashes, movement abilities, defensive cooldowns, heals, defense reductions, you name it. These are things that you still have to use at the correct moment. There's definitely quite a bit that the macro is doing for you. Now, they're already making changes to this system, so maybe this will change a little bit over time.

But yeah, as of now, that is simply how the combat works. The next thing that is important to talk about is the progression of your character. And here is one big difference. In Throne and Liberty, it's about reaching the end game, getting your build ready, and then doing content with that build. And that is different in Aion 2. In Aion 2, it's all about the grind and the progression of your character itself. That means you play the game to get stronger, upgrade your character, and see your numbers go up.

There's no real point where you're just done, and now you can enjoy the content. Now, how do you progress your character? There are a ton of different systems that will be confusing at the beginning and of course a lot of these systems are connected to different dailies, weeklies. You know, similar to Throne and Liberty, it's dungeons, raids, smaller events and like some casual activities in between, all of the standard stuff.

But the main part of your daily content in Aion 2 will be dungeons [music] and the main difference from Throne and Liberty is that there's always new and harder content coming. So you will start with the first dungeon. You cleared a couple of times, you get stronger, you increase your item level and then you unlock the next dungeon. Then you clear that one, you get stronger and then you unlock [music] the next one and so on.

You get the get the idea, right? There's always something new coming. So you're constantly moving through these different brackets and progressing your character like through all of that content. You normally have another difficulty or another piece of content in front of you that you are working towards, right? In Throne and Liberty, you have the same dungeon and the same raid difficulties that you have to run over and over and over again.

Besides that, when it comes to the progression, it is important to understand that guilds have basically no impact on your progression. In Throne and Liberty, you can speed up your progression a lot when you are in a guild. In Aion 2, there's basically no guild content and you will also have no benefits of joining a guild besides obviously having a community to play with. Okay, enough about the progression. Now let's come to the final big difference and that is of course the pay-to-win.

In Throne and Liberty, you have Lucents, you can buy Lucents with real money, go to the auction house and yeah, buy your gear and most of the important things you need for your builds. There are some systems you cannot directly progress with Lucents, for example your weapon mastery or your runes, but for the most part you can pay to win quite a lot. In Aion 2, it works in a but the currency system is a little bit different.

So, the main currency is kinah. You need kinah for basically everything. You will need it for all of your progression systems, but also to buy items from the auction house. >> [music] >> And you get kinah from pretty much everything you do. You kill monsters, you get kinah. You run dungeons, you get kinah. Any normal content, you get kinah. So, kinah is used for everything in the game, and you will get [music] it from pretty much every piece of content in the game.

But, of course, they also have a premium currency that you can exchange [music] for kinah. So, if you're paying, you can buy the currency and then use it to progress all [music] your systems, buy all the items in the auction house, and whatsoever. Now, the big difference between the two games is how a player can earn that currency. In Throne and Liberty, the main way to earn loosened is by selling something in the auction house.

So, you need to drop something valuable that another player actually wants to buy. In Aion 2, you get kinah by simply playing the game. As mentioned, all the content gives you kinah. On top of that, you can sell a lot of resources in the auction house. So, there are a lot more ways to constantly play the game and constantly make kinah. And, of course, with that, you can progress your character. I have the feeling in Throne and Liberty, you run relatively fast out of options to actually make progress with your character.

I'm not saying that the pay-to-win is better in Aion 2 than in Throne and Liberty, but it's important to understand that it feels often better because you can constantly play the game and somewhat [music] progress your character. But, then, on top of all of that, Aion 2 has a subscription. The exact global version can still be a little bit different. So, I'm talking about the version we have right now in Taiwan and Korea.

But, in that version, the subscription gives you access to the auction house and a bunch of quality of life features. You can technically play without it. [music] You can still do all the content, progress your character, but, honestly, I would say the subscription is pretty much mandatory if you want to play the game seriously, because not having an auction house would make it a solo self found challenge, and that's going to be very, very hard.

I always think about Aion 2 as a subscription-based game with a nice free trial. Now, which system is more pay-to-win, which one is better? That really depends on you. Both games are crazy pay-to-win. They just handle it differently. And now the big question, should you play Aion 2? And honestly, even if you don't like the PvE focus, even if you don't like the simpler combat, even if you don't like the streamlined builds or the monetization, I still think you should at least try the game.

We simply don't get that many big MMORPG releases anymore. And even if you only play it for like, I don't know, 1 month, 2 months, going into a new MMO, progressing your character, and like discovering all the systems, all the content together with everyone else is usually a great time. And I think a lot of people will have fun with Aion 2, especially for 1 or 2 months. The most important thing is that you go into the game with the right expectations.

Don't expect it to replace the GvG experience from Throne and Liberty. Don't expect the same amount of build customization, and don't expect every dungeon to have some crazy mechanics. Just enjoy the game for what it is. And you don't have to marry the game. You don't have to fall in love with Aion 2, quit Throne and Liberty, and play nothing else for the next 10 years. You can go in, enjoy the launch, have a really good time for maybe 1 or 2 months, and then decide if this is a game you want to keep playing.

I will definitely play it even though I don't like a lot of the systems. I will even make my own guild in Aion 2, which is actually going to be my first time I've ever created my own guild. So, I'm very excited about that. But yeah, I just want to have a good time with my community, enjoy the combat, enjoy the progression, and enjoy the game for what it is. And that was also the idea behind this video. I just want to show you what the biggest differences are, so you don't go into Aion 2 expecting another Throne Liberty.

If you still have any questions, put them in the comments as I said at the beginning, I will make another video and answer as many of them as possible. If you enjoyed the video, don't forget to like and subscribe. Thanks for watching guys and see you in the next one.