# Econ-Friday Ranting 07/10/26

> On Throne and Liberty's Frozen Divide Nix expansion, its new Gear Watermark system, and the inevitable feedback loops that shape MMORPG economies.

Author: Azherae
Date: 2026-07-10T15:19:22.000Z

It has now been approximately 6 months since the collapse of the Development Process of the MMORPG "Ashes of Creation". It is also Friday, in California (and many other places), so despite the 6-month 'hiatus', it is time to rant, once again.

For the unfamiliar, this blog is mostly a continuation of [this thread](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/64234) from the Ashes forums. I have dropped this for the last half-year for various reasons, no point in ranting about a game that is probably ending, or with an undefined status. My group has, instead, simply been playing the one that isn't in that state (Throne and Liberty), waiting for its update. That game has now updated, and my group has opinions, and therefore I once again need 'an easily referenced place for the explanations', for them.

Since the only harm in making those explanations available to the wider internet is probably 'people considering me arrogant' (which I am), there's no reason not to rant, and hence, I rant. Today, and probably for multiple weeks to come, I'm going to rant about what I'll call…

## The Inevitables

If you make an MMORPG in the modern era, or perhaps any game intended to be even slightly 'mainstream', there are certain forms of feedback that you will inevitably get.

1. This game is too hard/doesn't reward me quickly enough.
2. This game's systems are too confusing/obscure.
3. This game doesn't let me keep up with players who have more time to play than I do.
4. This game lets other people have too much influence over my actions.
5. This game isn't fun enough/doesn't respect my time over the long term.

The latter three are common to almost all competitive games, with the last one being more common in Fighting Games/MMORPGs.

For an MMORPG, the problem with the feedback above is that no matter how you aim to resolve most of them, as a developer, you will continue to get the same complaints. This doesn't generally mean that you shouldn't try to respond to them, but it often means you have to be careful about exactly how you do it.

Ashes of Creation did not 'get far enough' for most of these to pop up as a constant source of feedback. Players who had these complaints normally stepped away from the game, either losing interest entirely, or 'being willing to wait until the game was more complete/polished, to see if things would suit them more'.

Throne and Liberty does not have this luxury, though, so we can see what the outcomes for Ashes of Creation would probably have been more like as the game's life extended into the timeframes where these complaints start to appear, and the reasons, using TL as the lens. Previous Econ-Rants have touched on 'issues' #3-5, and the new expansion, "The Frozen Divide: Nix", while overall well-done, obviously suffers from things that lead to complaints in that space. They are, definitionally, inevitable.

This rant addresses some recent issues from 'issues' #1 and #2, though, which could have been avoided…

## The Challenge Level:

TL's newest Instanced Dungeons were, according to the response they received from returning players, too difficult. Again, this will always happen. Anything capable of posing even the most basic level of challenge in an MMORPG will lead to players complaining that they are too hard. MMORPGs are about teaming up to overcome challenges and adapting to each other, things people are not good at, and 'casuals' are worse at. They made the dungeons easier. This is 'fine', but from the Econ perspective, this causes the Economy to shrink and partially collapse. No one can sell anything consistently if there is no Specialization/Niche, it becomes a Loot Grinder, and unfortunately, the type of player who complains about the Challenge Level is often not the type of player that actually enjoys the Loot Grinder, they only enjoy the Loot part, leading directly to Handouts, Themepark style design, etc. TL's economy has not collapsed inward from this, but it also didn't improve any. This is partly because of the thing that people are complaining about a bit more…

## The New Systems (Gear Watermark):

To get my bias out of the way, I don't think the Watermark system particularly suits Throne and Liberty, but it's not actually a huge downgrade, itself. The main issue with the implementations of the new system is the gap between what it was claimed to be 'intended to achieve' and 'what it could actually reasonably achieve' given The Inevitables.

As a quick band-aid for dealing with Hoarding players going into a new expansion, or as a middle step toward something better that helps clarify gear strength and re-add value to particular gear pieces, the new system works well. Players are more easily able to recognize gear that is 'intended to be an upgrade from other gear'. The issue with Extraction Stones mentioned [here](https://archive.phoenix-down.info/discussion/64234?page=3#511072) is also somewhat resolved, though a new problem is introduced by the removal of another factor (but that factor didn't really need to be removed entirely except to negate Hoarding, and might return in some form in the future if players continue to feel that the new way is less fun).

The Trait system still mostly exists, though it has been made 'more grindy' by most standards, which triggers #3 for a lot of people. For people I know, it's also 'less fun', and the Watermark system doesn't really replace the fun they were having, but perhaps that fun was the 'Fun of the Minority'. The 'Fun of the Majority' isn't achieved either, though, for the simple reason that too much Content Invalidation occurred. The Developers are in that state of struggling to give players ways to keep up without also destroying all their old content, and they are not particularly succeeding.

Players now have only 4 Instanced Dungeons to do that grant actual rewards. They've been given handouts that invalidate most of the rewards. Those handouts won't be available to players who weren't able to play during this period or who 'learned about this late' due to the method used for the Handouts. Which probably means, if no new System is coming, then probably more Handouts will come, and everything will wobble.

The result of all this juggling is a system that is almost more confusing than before. Returning players who learned or liked the old system are smacked in the face by Invalidated Content, while the new challenges are brought down in difficulty, and their rewards are either confusing or functionally unnecessary. For those unable to play constantly, #3 will rear its ugly head soon, and #4 will return (this has an obvious mitigation path based on an implementation they could use now that the new Gear 'power levels' are in, but it remains to be seen if they will do this).

As a 'rushed-out' or 'stopgap' update, this is of better quality than most of what Ashes of Creation managed during its various Econ passes, but it suffers from the same problems at the moment. It's not communicated particularly well (sometimes actively misleading), it's disruptive to the play loops players were already enjoying (and in this case might not be creating new enjoyment, i.e. the things people are enjoying right now would have been largely the same, but with admittedly more issues from #4 in exchange for less issues from #1 and #2), and most importantly, it's piecemeal in a way that only dedicated 'fans' of the game can understand.

This issue was compounded by some glaring, Economy-shaking bugs (failure of certain Elites to even spawn, while at the same time having a time-limited sort of 'megaquest' to kill a certain number of them, and a 'new product' they were supposed to drop that therefore ended up being much rarer and more random than it would naturally be).

Can Throne and Liberty recover from this? It depends on their level of understanding, and the underlying information that the public doesn't get. Does it need to recover from this? That depends on how much of the current playerbase is 'waiting for it to get better' vs how much of the playerbase is 'enjoying (Econ) things more now'. Perhaps it will become a different type of game and change audience, once again leaving this MMORPG 'slot' empty.

But that's all just the 'Overview/Introductory' Rant. By next Friday, the next change and one of the required fixes should be available, and we'll have a few more clues as to how this will play out. Until then, therefore.