Weekly Update 299: Faster Combat, UI changes and a better weapon block system!
Greetings, Warriors!
Last week, we forecasted some significant changes to the Gloria Victis combat system. We were collecting your feedback and analyzing the combat data for quite a long time before we decided to make them, as the proper solutions and improvements had to be thoughtful.
As during testing we have found implemented solutions more intuitive and better, we are aware that you will need some time to get used to the new combat interface and rules, and we will be happy to gather your constructive opinions after you check and try the changes for a few days. The new system removes some UX flaws the old system had, speeds up the combat, and makes it more dynamic, thanks to changes in the weapon block system.
It is heartwarming to see our playerbase grow once again, and that we are reaching the highest peaks in player numbers recently, so we are welcoming all the newcomers and wishing them the best in their adventure. You all are more than welcome to join our official Discord and say hello to other players and Dev Team :)
And now, let’s get to the details and explanations of today's update. See you in battle!
For quite some time, we could observe situations, where the fights could stall when one of the players refused to uncover and blocked endlessly with a weapon. Skill cap in weapon block – easy to achieve – and the lack of flaws in the style of the turtle made the fight unnecessarily prolonged. And it needed to be addressed.
As there is a counter to shield blocks, and shield blocks have their resistance, we are not changing them. We are adding similar solutions to weapon blocks.
From now on, weapon blocking also has its resistance, as does shield blocking. But there’s a twist. Our strikes on the enemy regenerate our block strength bar for weapons. This makes the fight more dynamic because we are encouraged to try to hit the enemy, instead of only blocking. The strength of the block with the weapon and the shield are two separate statistics. After the shield strength is depleted, we can still block with the weapon, and similarly, when our weapon cannot block anymore, we can use the shield and defend with it.
You will be able to test the new combat on the new Valley of Death tournament map soon!
Each weapon has 600 block resistance, which regenerates 6 points per second and 90 points with each hit landed on the opponent, regardless of whether it dealt damage or got blocked/chambered (hitting 3 opponents at a time using a two-handed weapon gives us three times the number of regenerated strength points of the block).
In this system we are adding a benefit for perfect weapon blocks (blocking incoming attacks with a weapon in the first 300ms of our block duration), which will increase skill cap and be more rewarding for hitting the perfect timings:
– Performing a perfect block will take up to a maximum of 50 points from our weapon block resistance. – Performing imperfect block, so blocking attack between 300ms to 3 seconds of our block duration will take up to a maximum of 70 points from our weapon block resistance. – If we block longer than 3 seconds, each blocked attack will take up to a maximum of 100 points from our weapon block resistance.
Remember that like before, the number of resistance points taken is also related to damage and strength of the blocked attack, that is why we are giving the maximum cap that can be taken out of the resistance when blocking, but the numbers may be lower in real combat.
And at the end, some other important information:
– You can now block attacks without having any stamina. Before the changes, you were unable to block. Now, you can still block attacks, but those will take more of your weapon block resistance – up to 100 points (same as blocking for longer than 3 seconds with stamina.). Shield blocks resistance loss remains the same as before. – Chambering with the weapon is not taking our weapon block resistance. Using that mechanic will be even more effective and meaningful. – Hammers and axes aren't more effective against weapon blocks, as is the case with these weapons against shields. – Perks buffering the strength of the shield do not affect the strength of the weapon.
We believe changes in the weapon block system will make the combat more dynamic, faster, and interesting. We have already seen some opinions that introducing such a thing to the game would be nice, so we hope you will be satisfied with it.
Combat improvements – Increasing attacks speed
The change in attack times was motivated by the fact that it is now very difficult to deal damage to a player who has reached at least an average level in combat. The blocking skill cap was at a really low level which makes some fights very long and tedious. Thus, we facilitate dealing damage, but at the same time, we are not increasing the possibility of spamming attacks.
This goal will be achieved by reducing the time from the execution of the attack action to dealing damage. So, when you release an attack, the swing will be faster. But no attack we've changed will be faster than left swing with a single-handed weapon.
It may seem that faster attacks are associated with potential attacks spam, so to avoid this, we need to make sure that after a failed attack, the opponent has a larger time window to start his attack sequence again and give us an opening for a counter. Increased attack speed applies to all weapons except Lances and knives. At the same time, the ability to deal more blows in the time scale is given to two-handed weapons except for two-handed swords, and lances. Two-handed swords are still powerful enough to be one of the best weapons for group fights.
Changes in attack speeds and damage capabilities mean that weapon damage and armor reductions also need to be changed to maintain the right balance in the game.
Armors
Two-handed hammers have the greatest popularity among weapons, and with the changes explained above, they get a boost through the ability to deal damage faster. Therefore, in order to prevent creating an overpowered type of weapon, we raise the blunt damage reduction on armors. Light armor gains the largest buff, medium armor gets an average one, and heavy armor the smallest one. These changes are in the range of 15-5%
One-handed weapons
One-handed weapons receive a significant bonus to the damage. As two-handed weapons will be now closer in terms of speed, and one-handers are not allowing to hit multiple targets with one attack, we believe it is needed to maintain their usefulness in combat. Those weapons are being used in tank builds, which do not have bonuses to damage from abilities or attributes, and have the lowest kill and damage ratio across all weapon types, so it is reasonable to increase their efficiency. As a side bonus, as you can throw those weapons, it will be also more viable.
Spears, Guisarmes and Lances
Recently we brought back faster versions of two-handed spears and guisarmes, and after reducing their range, they deserve a slight damage buff too, to match their damage output with berdiches. Lances – slower sisters of two-handed spears are also receiving damage buff.
Berdiches
Berdiches themselves have long deserved to be distinguished more from two-handed axes. Therefore, their stab attack receives a type of piercing damage (until now it was blunt damage, although the models of weapons indicated that they should be able to stab.)
Combat improvements – Interface improvements
We changed the combat interface a little. The old system forced players to look at different parts of the screen, and it was causing misunderstandings and was unintuitive. So, looking at the other games with similar combat, we decided to put information related to combat in the middle of the screen, on which players are focused during the fighting. Veteran players may not need such parts of the UI as indicators of the direction of their attacks and blocks, this is because their muscle memory and knowledge of timings mean that they do not need feedback when they attack or block, so our goal was to create a UI that would not interfere with the gameplay for veterans, but at the same time will be intuitive and helpful in learning for new players. Those who feel experienced enough have the possibility to fully turn off the attack indicators.
Placing information in the center of the screen on which they are focused, should make it easier to understand the mechanics of the fight, and make the learning curve smoother for them, which should have a positive impact on players' retention.
Quality of Life:
– Throwables like eggs and tomatoes now leave decals on surfaces after the collision. Decals stay for 5 minutes and after that fade away. For now, you can see them on terrain, static objects (environment), and dynamic objects (i.e. castle walls, doors, gates). Sadly, due to technical limitations, we are unable to show them on players. – Saturday State of War deactivation system has been improved. Players will now see a percentage of the completion instead of points, gathered points are now scaled with balance systems, server activity, and population, and we added new events and activities to the pool of things you can do, to contribute to SoW deactivation.
Fixes
– Fixed an issue causing the angle for mounted attackers fighting with AI opponents to prevent the player from hitting the AI enemy unless it was placed in front of the mount. – Fixed an issue where snow footsteps were appearing on the terrain under walkable models (wooden fortifications, bridges). – Fixed an issue where top cavalry perk Momentum was causing mount slow when receiving a red powerbar hit from an animal. – Fixed an issue that allowed it to perform full attack animation without doing damage while using the feint button.
Weekly Update 298: Work in progress insight – Faster combat incoming!
Greetings, Warriors!
We’re continuing the winning streak started with the last game update, warmly received by our players. By collecting your feedback and observing players' behavior in combat, we were able to find some areas that can be improved when it comes to our unique combat system. We are making the attacks faster, and adding a new feature to the block system, but we had to reserve some more time before introducing those improvements to you, to test everything properly.
As always, we are delivering the weekly dose of Quality of Life improvements and Fixes, as a result of your reports, suggestions, and feedback. Thank you for your contribution to the game development!
Are you a new or returning player? This section is for you:
We are happy to welcome the new and returning players to Gloria Victis MMO! We would not be here and achieve everything without our awesome Community, so it is heartwarming to see that it is growing recently.
Our game is quite big and deep, and we would like to take that occasion to show you some more tricks and tips related to our unique non-target combat, and also bring up the list of activities available in the game.
In the videos below, we, and our players are explaining the most crucial aspects of the combat system, and it should be a great help for players who may be not used to such an approach. We hope you will like it and become the best swordmasters or archers in the game in no time! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOsaO3FtKC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xbx6SPpU2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-LbmI1gSCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RaEX1t7G0 Another important thing is that our game has a lot of activities and everyone can find something suitable for them. You can become a brawler, knight, archer, blacksmith, builder, fisherman, merchant, farmer, cook, medic, castellan, and more! The choice is yours!
Check our “What to do in Gloria Victis” scheme and we wish you a good time and a lot of fun!
In the end, we want to encourage you to actively participate in game development! Use ingame report and feedback to let us know what you think about the game and if you would like to talk about something with the Dev Team or community – join our official Discord server!
We’re also thankful for all the kind reviews of our game we got recently, and the ones that will come. Posting honest and constructive reviews is one of the most helpful things you can do to help our small team and the project, so thank you in advance for sharing your opinions.
We are thrilled to hear your feedback and are always here for you!
Work in progress insight
Combat iteration – Faster attacks
We are preparing a series of changes in the combat system, targeted to increasing skill cap, encouraging players to exchange hits more often, and making dealing damage easier for newcomers. We are currently testing faster attacks, speeding up the launching of them, as well as changes in blocking with weapons. We are also checking how it will work when the time window for a counterattack will be higher if our enemy misses his attack. Overall, the combat in Gloria Victis will be much more dynamic, and it will be better rewarded to be active in the fight and exchange hits with opponents.
Next week's update will change a lot, so we have to ask you in advance for understanding and patience, as the new features and changes will need some time to get used to them, and ultimately, some tweaking. We are all together searching for the best solutions and systems, which will be convenient, interesting, and engaging. Your help in testing the changes in the game is always much appreciated. We hope you are looking forward to trying them out!
Changelog v.0.9.8.13 Beta
Quality of Life:
– We added the ability for players to choose the tournament mode. Before joining the tournament, if a player has entered and is not in the queue, we display a button in the right panel of the tournament, opening the voting panel. The player has the opportunity to vote for one of the two drawn affixes displayed with the corresponding button. The button has graphics corresponding to the tournament mode. On the button tooltip, we show the name of the tournament mode and its description. Votes are tallied when the tournament start timer reaches 0 and players are moved to the VoD area.
– Each pop-up window could be moved freely by the player except the depot window. We are removing this exception and making the depot window work the same as the rest of the pop-up windows, so you can now move it around the screen. :)
Fixes
– Fixed an issue causing some attacks while on horseback were not hitting the enemy, depending on the camera angle of the attacker. – Fixed an issue where blocking while on horseback could block not work properly, and block different sides than desired. – Fixed an issue where closing the settings window with the Esc key was opening the Esc menu. – Fixed an issue where when the Escape menu was opened over any other window, clicking Esc was closing only the Esc menu, instead of all opened windows. – Fixed an issue causing the non-loot zone to work improperly in siege events. – Fixed an issue causing Huntsman skill to give armor penetration to weapons that do not have any armor penetration at all. – Fixed an issue causing details of offers on other players' stalls not to be displayed. – Fixed an issue where some pop-ups, i.e. hint windows could move outside of the screen after scaling the interface. – Fixed an issue causing the Horse Hud position on the screen to not be remembered and reset to default after using the /relog command or client restart.
Nominate Gloria Victis for the Labor of Love Award!
Dear Players,
Here in Black Eye Games Studio, we are thinking about Gloria Victis MMO as a labor of love, and we are proud of what the game has become and achieved with the help of you all - our invaluable Community.
We set the bar high, and since releasing the game, we delivered almost 300 weekly updates and made over 550 server-side updates so far, getting very close to the v. 1.0 release, and we would not have been able to do that without you! We are happy to be close to and actively cooperate with you to make Gloria Victis engaging, addictive, and delivering a lot of entertainment. Love of our players was always something that is pushing us further and we are proud to be part of this project.
It is heartwarming to see what we've accomplished, so please nominate the Game for the Labor of Love Award. It would be an honor, and we would like to think about that, as nominating each one of you -our players - because you love Gloria Victis as much as we do, or even more.
We are extremely happy that you like the most recent update of the game and are sharing your positive feedback on our Discord, Socials, and in the game. Half of our current team was recruited directly from our community, and we like to think that we are one team with our players. We hope it is visible that we care deeply for your feedback and suggestions, and our cooperation is and will continue to be fruitful.
You are the most important part of our game, as with you Gloria Victis is meaningful, fun, and engaging. And we will always care for you as you care for us and our dream game.
Thank you for your continuous support, and for choosing to nominate Gloria Victis MMORPG to the Steam Labor of Love Award.
Weekly Update 297: Brace yourselves! Winter is coming!
Greetings, Warriors, and Happy Thanksgiving for our NA/SA server Community!
Winter is coming, so the time has come to devote yourself to constant vigilance and get prepared for one of the best updates we put together for you this year! This week everyone will find something nice for themselves in the changelog: weapons changes and balance for warriors, quality of life improvements and fixes for crafters and gatherers, legions of new players for mentors and guilds, and huge sales for our supporters.
We are introducing a new weapon type – lances, and unique stances related to them. Mounted knights will be now able to couch lance and charge at their enemies, and footman soldiers will be able to brace with a lance to break the cavalry charge and defend their lines.
We are also happy to introduce the next part of the User Interface overhaul – you can now enjoy the new Vendors and trading windows, fully adjusted to the new layout and visuals.
As always, we prepared some quality of life improvements and fixes, which were made thanks to your reports and feedback. Also, as we are starting a Black Week Sale in our Supporter Shop – you can get the cosmetic skins you always wanted at a huge discount, and find new, Black Knight Chainmail skins there! Smash that [K] button!
Thank you for your continuous support and see you in the game!
The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. Giroux, Glyuki, and ecroy57 – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.8.12 Beta
Black Week in Gloria Victis’s Supporter Shop!
On the occasion of Black Friday, you are receiving a huge discount for every cosmetic Skin, Skin set, and usable item in our ingame Supporter Shop. Discount will be available just for a week so do not miss the occasion and get yourself a nice skin set and complete your collection!
As players suggested, and we agreed, based on the experience with armor skins changes earlier – we are extending the possibility to wear weapons cosmetic skins to purple items (tier IV). From now on, more of you will be able to use your skins and stand out on the battlefields.
In the Supporter Shop, you can now find highly requested and most wanted Black Knight Chainmail cosmetic skin!
Spears, guisarmes and lances
As you may remember, we made some changes to two-handed spears after receiving a lot of feedback telling us that those were quite unbalanced and overused on the battlefields because of their great range and damage dealing possibilities. It was one of the easiest weapons to use in chokepoints, and the weapon type which was responsible for the most kills in the game, leaving any other weapon type far behind. Changes had to be made on those matters, and as we are aware some players were not happy to see their favorite weapon nerfed, we can agree that this temporary solution was a good move, in the long run, correlated with further updates, and plans which we are making real today.
We believe this iteration of the weapons system will be warmly welcomed, and we are asking for your help to test those changes in action, to make sure if there are any tweaks that need to be made.
We know that you will find it reasonable, that we cannot give players ultra-fast spears with great range that cover half of the battlefield. It was destroying the close combat because players were forced to use the same kind of weapon or stand still with the middle block, as it was really hard to see and block the spear release.
So we decided to differ those types of polearms and create two subtypes of them. One dedicated to melee combat, and the other dedicated to cavalry and anti-cavalry combat.
You are receiving access to two-handed spears and guisarmes with rebalanced range, and old speed, which should be great for players who love to use this kind of weapon in duels and close combat. And the second is lances – a special subtype, with slower attacks, great range, and unique mechanics.
By holding the button you have bound to throw action (default [X]) on one-handed weapons, while using lance you will perform a special action, which will be lance couching (lowering) while mounted, or lance bracing while on foot. In keybinds options, the “Throw” tag was changed to “Special Attack”, and is responsible for those two things now.
Jousting and Lance bracing
While mounted, a raider who is in at least march speed movement can lower the lance. Lance is following the crosshair and deals stab damage on hit. You are now able to make proper jousting contests and tournaments, as well scare the pants out of your enemies, charging on them with full speed!
But footman soldiers will be able to use similar things too. While holding a lance on foot, such a pikeman will be able to lower his lance and counter the enemy cavalry charge. Remember, that lowered lance held on foot will not deal damage to enemy infantry!
Other changes
Of course, proper recipes and item drops were added to the game to make lances available for you. Disassembling and Weapons Character Development trees received a new section, dedicated to lances, and proper filters were added to the shops and market.
We hope you will have a lot of fun with the new weapons and we are counting on your constructive and honest feedback.
Siege Events changes
We are addressing your feedback related to Siege Events. We gathered a lot of data and made a lot of changes inside and around that system, to make sieges more engaging, interesting, and rewarding for everyone.
– When the Siege Event will end with a win on either side, and there are still more than 5 minutes on the event clock, we are starting a new event, drawing between the Siege Event and the Frontline Event. A nation that lost the previous event will be set as a defender, and if the winner is the dominating nation, and the castle supposed to be attacked is not their homeland castle, we are not continuing the siege. – In the case where the Siege Event is ongoing for at least three minutes, and attackers are not in the range to attack the location flag, we are adding a special counter which will change the siege to a Frontline Event in three minutes, and will extend its duration for another 10 minutes. – As it was repeatedly reported as a bug when someone was leaving the Siege Event into a looting zone still having a non-loot buff and someone not aware of it killed the poor guy and reported him as a cheater that cannot be looted, we are adding a special notification informing about the active buff. – Based on the balance system, each event will have flexible player slots counts and will allow weaker nations to have more players on the event in comparison to stronger nations. Overall - this system was rebalanced, as it was in the game before, but not working properly. – The Nation Points pool that can be collected for dealing damage is being increased from 250 NP to 500NP, but we are lowering the assist NP reward by half of the amount of NP collected for dealing damage to balance that change. – We are changing the milestone where you will be instantly rewarded with NP for dealing damage to a player from 25% to 15% in melee combat, so you will get rewards quicker and for less damage dealt. – We are fixing an issue where notifications about rewards were often hidden behind a loading screen, which was misleading and was reducing the feeling of being rewarded for efforts.
Quality of Life:
– Extended the possibility to wear cosmetic skins on weapons. From now on, cosmetic skins can be applied not only to the best, orange, tier V weapons but also to second-best, purple ones. – Following community suggestions, we added nation coloring to Royal Champion's Helm cosmetic skin. – Renamed "Iron March Count's Helm" skin into "Black Knight's Helm". This item is now a part of the same set as the Black Knight's Chainmail and it shares the chainmail's description. – Added to the game 5 new titles, given to players after their seasonal titles wear off: Primeval Arena Master, Primeval Grand Guild Master, Primeval Guild Master, Primeval General Guild Commander, and Primeval Guild Commander. Players who earned those titles in previous seasons will get them automatically. – Introduced the next part of the User Interface Overhaul: Today, you are receiving updated Vendors and trade windows. – Windows in both Side and Fullscreen mode individually remember the state in which they were closed unless overwritten by an instance of another rule. The state of the window is cached when the Expand/collapse function is used, but not when the state change is triggered by another UI element, e.g. when a pop-up window triggers the opening of the inventory 1/3 window. – We combined the “level up” notifications and buttons to improve the user experience with that part of the interface: Clicking the notification, which is also a button, will open the Abilities window, instead of inventory, and everything around received proper tooltips. – Updated the video tutorial/hint for level up. – Throwable axes received a buff: they lose damage with fly range slower, and their base ammo count was raised to 15, as they are slower than other weapons and their effective range was smaller. – Increased the smelting speed buff in forts located on the edge of the homeland by an additional 10%. – Slowed down the rotation of trebuchets to make aiming with them easier.
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue where it was possible to craft dziwer from the active crafting menu, while it should be possible to craft only on workstations. – Fixed an issue causing beehive interaction to not work properly and give additional chances to collect items from the beehive before cooldown. – Fixed an issue causing throwable cosmetic skins (tomatoes and eggs) were not shown properly to other players. – Fixed a few terrain holes on Sea Wraith's global event location. – Fixed an issue where dialogue conditions were improperly set in Ismir and Sangmar's crafting quest, making it impossible to report to NPC after delivering an ax. – Fixed an issue where a Tenebrok logistician was standing behind his shack. He was asked nicely to return to his proper position inside it.
Weekly Update 296: Start of the new Glory Season and performance improvements!
Greetings, Warriors!
Let us welcome you to the new Glory Season! The top players of last season have earned their rewards and titles, so it's time to compete against the others and fight your way to the top of this season’s ladder!
We are also happy to share some insight about our work in the background. New interesting features are being prepared to be added to the game, regarding combat, and tournament systems.
Traditionally, we are focused on addressing Community feedback and suggestions. In today's update, most of the changes were made thanks to your reports and for sharing your opinion with us. Additionally, we are delivering some bug fixes and a lot of optimization improvements.
The new Glory Season starts now! This is the first season where we have the pleasure to give the winners extended, unique rewards: Each player who became Arena Master or earned the God of War title in the ending season will receive unique, signed swords as a souvenir. We believe the winners will be pleased with the souvenirs and will see them as a token of their dedication and hard work.
A little explanation for the new players: Glory is a season-based ranking which rewards you for activity in the faction v faction v faction PVP. The seasons last 2 months and are rewarded with unique titles, as well as gold. Also, every Thursday night you’ll get Contribution Points – an in-game currency used to purchase special items from the Glory Quartermasters. The amount of earned CP depends on your position on the leaderboard, so climb up it!
Work in Progress insight
As this week’s update is composed of changes and fixes based on your feedback and suggestions, we are happy to share with you some insight into upcoming changes and features. We still do not want to spoil the exact details, because what we are working on right now requires a lot of testing of prototypes and their iterations, but it is always nice to know what you can expect in the near future, right?
We are changing the backend of the game User Interface, for optimization purposes and to make the interface work much faster. The performance boost is already 50% on full-screen windows and 95% on partial interface windows, but we need to reserve some time to test everything properly before pushing those improvements to the client. With today's improvements and next week's ones, you should be extremely satisfied with the speed and smoothness of the game interface.
The throwing button will have its use on a new subtype of the weapon. We are preparing the mechanics of jousting and spear bracing, so you will be able to use special stands while mounted and on foot while using specific kinds of polearms. Additionally, we are deliberating about some changes in combat and attacks, for example, returning to fast attacks on spears, but reducing their reach in exchange. In place of the long spears, we want to introduce a new type of weapon – lances, which will work like two-handed spears today, but with a twist of mentioned, unique bracing and jousting stances.
We hear your feedback and are thankful for your opinions. We are aware that some of the Valley of Death tournament modes are not popular or liked a lot, which encouraged us to prepare a system that will allow players to vote on the tournament mode before it will start. That way, you will have higher chances to use the modes you like. You can also expect a brand new map for the tournament soon!
Changelog v.0.9.8.11 Beta
Quality of Life:
As we were working on throwing weapons, we decided it could be fun to have some diversity when it comes to throwing different things at enemies (or friends) in the game, so you are receiving the highly suggested possibility to hurl other things around, for now: tomatoes and eggs. Those work on the cosmetic skin system, and are available in the game Supporter Shop [K], as skins to the basic throwable that can be thrown when you are not equipping any weapon - stone. Have fun, and we are counting on some nice videos or gifs showing your tomato and egg fights! :)
– Added static horses to the capital cities and other locations near the logisticians, to make it easier to find logistician services. – Optimized the system of music loading in the game, which will have a positive impact on the game performance, greatly reducing potential spikes when the new tracks start playing. – Optimized the minimap and markers systems code. – Added an ingame notification to the Volcano and Sea Wraiths world events about unavailability to join the event anymore when the event is closing. – Balanced the chances for double drops in Smelting and Roasting. It was necessary to reduce it because metals started to overflow the market and were created in quantities much higher than needed to sustain the world. – Added puddles to Hordun Temple, Lordly Haven, Abbey, and also to Sea Wraiths, Volcano, Sirius, and Brandon events locations. – Disabled scaling for the options window, since it could partially move outside of the screen. – Introduced better collision particles for throwable objects. – Removed Halloween rewards event. Thank you for your participation!
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing the User Interface windows that have two modes (full screen and side ones) to not properly remember the last state of the interface while moving between them. – Fixed an issue causing donating items to Bastions in stacks were not giving proper profession experience. – Fixed an issue causing hiding metallurgical districts in the map filters was not working properly. – Fixed an issue where buffs, Hitpoints/Stamina, the mount user interface could be pushed outside of the screen when the interface scale was changed. – Fixed an issue causing unresponsiveness of depot or vendors User Interface after using the /relog command. – Fixed an issue causing resource nodes to not fracture properly after using the /relog command. – Fixed an issue causing average market price information on item tooltips could show wrong data when there were no listings of given items on the market. From now on, the tooltip will show 0 if there are no items on the market to calculate the average price. – Fixed an issue causing Dacian, a quest NPC from Sangmarian questline, could be killed by the boars. – Introduced over 40 small terrain and model fixes in the game world.
Weekly Update 295: Look at your feet!
Greetings, Warriors!
First, let us warmly welcome all the newcomers who joined our Community this week on the occasion of the Free Trial Event. We’re glad to see so many new players on the servers and we believe you’re having a good time in the game, and you’ll stay with us longer.
This week, we are introducing significant changes and improvements related to terrain in the game. Our level designers did an outstanding job, checking every part of the game world and fixing angles of the slopes and terrain unevenness, to ensure better controller handling and traveling across the Stoneholm without unnecessary stutters and slows. But there are more reasons to look under your feet now: The angled terrain is now properly “painted”, to show if the terrain can be accessed, and we added puddles to the game, to improve its visuals.
Thanks to our players' feedback we took a second look at playing outside the Main Server and prepared some changes on that matter, to help smaller servers to grow.
Tomorrow, in Poland, we will celebrate national Independence Day and other important memories of historical moments, so we are sending you the best for Veterans Day, Armistice Day, and Remembrance Day. On those occasions, in the game Supporter Shop, you will be able to find the Wings of Glory and Rotmaster’s cosmetic skin set and saber at discount. Promotion will be available just for a few days so do not miss the occasion and get yourself a nice skin to complete your collection!
As always, we are also delivering some Quality of Life improvements and fixes, so check the details below and see you in the game!
Remember, that this week is the last of the current Glory Season! New Glory Season will start on Thursday, the 18th of November. Also, we’d like to remind you that the last day of the season – Wednesday, the 17th of November – will be a dedicated day of the season's end. The top players on the ranking table will earn great rewards and nice titles, so it’s time to compete against the others and fight your way to the top of the ladder!
Changelog v.0.9.8.10 Beta
Terrain improvements
Movement in the game is crucial, so we looked at your feedback and reports related to it. We have found some things that could be improved, to make your travels pleasant and smooth. Our level designers took some time to fix the terrain unevenness and reduce the slopes of terrain across the game. Hundreds of those small fixes will greatly help to reduce any unnecessary slows and stutters that could be experienced during traveling the world.
We improved the visual aspects of the terrains, to better show their accessibility. From now on it will be easier to find out if the terrain slope will allow movement on it, or not. There were situations where the terrain texture was suggesting players can move on it, but the angle of the terrain was not allowing it. We have found and fixed all such inconsistencies.
Additionally, we are adding a puddle system to the game. Those are now not conjugated with the weather jet, but have some other nice features, like turning to the ice if they are placed on the snowy terrain.
Changes in server accessibility.
Thanks to our players' feedback we took a second look at playing outside the Main Server. From now on, if any server gets underpopulated (Aquilla case at this moment) players from other servers will be able to join that server with fewer penalties. That means, things which will be unlocked are: buffs for underdog nation, buff for having locations, enabled players looting, enabled gaining nation points, enabled deadly harvest buff and CP reward, enabled gathering CP's for events and VoD and overall joining those which were prohibited for players outside the main server, allowed robbing the Guild Castle workers storage. Also, we extended the number of players before servers will trigger "weakness debuff" if any nation will get too many players as on small servers those numbers can change too easily. We do hope that change will give more reason to join potential small servers and help them grow - while still not allowing players to use them as risk-free resource farms.
Quality of Life Improvements:
– Temperature drop in player-build workshops (bloomeries, campfires, furnaces), takes longer. For example, a workshop on heat level 6 will keep the temperature for more than 19 minutes, instead of almost 7. – Added dedicated animation for spear throw. – Added a second animation for shooting a bow, which has a 20% chance to be played. – Throwing weapons by players now has a better impact on AI opponents' behavior: they will be more aggressive, and will not always try to block the throw without a shield. – Moa won't bypass the player block if he is blocking with a weapon, with the exception of Moa Old Beast. – Reworked the Escape Menu panel. – Added icon next to dynamic events goals on HUD. – Added clickable key binds icons on side panel HUD (quest log and Character Development) – Added sorting tracked and hidden quests on side panel HUD – Replaced Farms, Mines, and Lumber Mills map icons and colors – All map icons will be now shown on top of the locations links visualization. – Added dynamic margin while changing Character Development tree view scale. – Safe zones on Catacombs spawns are bigger, and nation related now. – Removed the Halloween event content. Spookbert will remain as Volcano event boss, and you can still trade your candies for rewards for one more week.
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing shields to not receive damage reduced with the distance from throwing weapons. – Fixed an issue causing Protector's ability to not reduce damage from throwing weapons. – Fixed an issue causing throwing weapons to hit the horse's head when throwing while mounted. – Fixed an issue causing one-handed and bows branches in character development weapon tree could not be progressed. – Multiple fixes of holes in the terrains and flying models. – Fixed an issue causing it to be possible to place a tent at the Volcano event, and not possible to do that in its old position. – Fixed an issue causing arrows models to be overscaled under specific circumstances. – Fixed an issue causing unlocking smelting tree was required to use fishing baits. – Fixed an issue causing surplus experience was not working properly in the Smelting and Roasting character development tree. – Fixed an issue causing some icons in the character development Archeology tree could overlap with text on the node panel. – Fixed an issue causing wrong UI positioning after clicking the Reset UI button in not native resolution windows, for example, 4K window on Full HD resolution.
Free Week! Play Gloria Victis MMORPG for free till 15th November!
Greetings, everyone!
For the first time in our project history, we are happy to invite everyone to participate in the free trial event. Tell your family and call your friends - everyone can try out Gloria Victis MMORPG for free for the entire week!
This event is a milestone for our team, project, and community, preparing us for the stress tests before leaving the Early Access stage and continuing our amazing journey. After almost 300 weekly updates since Gloria Victis showed up on Steam and took Steam Greenlight by storm, reaching first place out of over 1500 other projects in less than 48 hours, we are coming to the phase of the development, where we feel confident and ready to invite more players to show them our game and love we have for it.
Don't hesitate! Invite your colleagues, and see you all in battle!
Frequently asked questions
We believe you may have some questions that would need answers, so we prepared a short FAQ, which should help you navigate through the event:
When I can start playing? Right away! Simply use the "Join the free test" button on our Steam page and download the game.
Can I play with my friends during the free weekend? Of course. You will be joining our regional servers, which are dedicated to each part of the world. You will be able to meet our Community, and take part in the global conquest.
I do like the game. Will my progress be saved if I decide to buy it after the free week event? Yes. The whole data will be saved and you will be able to continue your progress after purchasing the game after the event.
Are there any limitations in content? No. You are receiving access to the full version of the game. Without any limitations, you can test the game for the entire week!
When the event will end? We are planning to end the free week on Monday, 15th of November 2021. Till then, enjoy the game!
Weekly Update 294: Throwing weapons and further interface improvements
Greetings, Warriors!
This week, we’re happy to introduce something you've been waiting for – a brand new system of throwing weapons! This feature will create more possibilities and strategies on the battlefields, as well just looks and feels awesome.
The Halloween event is in full swing, and you have one more week to hunt Spookbert’s minions and the Halloween boss himself to collect candies tradeable for unique rewards.
We want to thank you for participating in the recent PVP event. We received some nice screenshots from the perspective of the audience and fighters. The best ones will be shared on our Socials and rewarded with Ambers. Same for the meme contest we had last week on our official Discord. We are happy that small amusement brightened your day and we hope you had a good laugh, as we had.
Rocks, knives, torches, one-handed axes, and one-handed spears. Those are weapons you are now able to throw at your enemy, to end your adversaries with a nice finishing move, counter ranged enemies more effectively, hurt hostile siege engines, or set destructive fires on the enemy buildings from a distance.
To throw a weapon, you need to use a special keybind, by default set up to the “X” key. Players who have "X" bind to any other action (for example commands wheel) need to set up a keybind suitable for them in the game options.
We are adding the possibility to throw a weapon to one-handed weapons since those have less kill records than two-handed ones. We believe it will have a positive impact on the balance and make one-handed weapons more attractive and useful.
Every player can throw a weapon, and everyone can load a red powerbar of throw with one exception, of the horse raider without the same ability, which blocks bow red powerbar while mounted. Each weapon has its unique speed, damage, flight path, and range. You need to equip a weapon of a given type to be able to throw it. The throws are limited, in the same way as in the arrows system, ammunition needs to be restored in time to allow throws. You are able to see the ammunition status on the left side of the screen, with corresponding icons. Ammunition percentage status is shared between all throwables and arrows, so archers who will use up all their ammunition to throw knives will need to wait for their arrows to restore.
Please, be notified, that abilities have an impact on throwables, so those can speed up the ammunition restoring, and increase the number of possible throws, but will not prolong the red powerbar hold and will not speed up the powerbar draw (Huntsman and Marksman abilities). The abilities description has been properly updated.
Red powerbar throw works the same as for arrows, is slowing down horses, and forces combat mode if you hit a player on his mount. Headshots with throwables do not deal extra damage (But we are considering that, so please share your feedback with us). Damage of the throwables is being reduced during the flight time, so those will be most useful in close and mid-range combat.
Disclaimer - we are still working on dedicated spear throw animation, but we did not want to delay the patch because of that.
Quality of Life Improvements:
– Reworked game options user interface, to match the new setting and visuals. – Added new quest HUD animations. Quest side panel receives a set of animations, to be more engaging visually and rewarding for the eyes. Accepting, removing, completing, pinning, unpinning, hovering quests, and changes in hidden quest counters are covered with special animations. – Removed checkboxes from tasks with just one progress point in quest log and side panel HUD. – Removed chat activation with “/” key. – For balance purposes, we reduced the base damage of torches but added bonus damage vs buildings for them. – Reduced despawn time of fireplace from twenty to three seconds after it gets poured by a bucket of water. – Changed the layer of shields, to make them visible from a greater distance.
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing shield resistance to not be restored after the arena duel. – Fixed an issue causing fighter buff conditions to be wrong, and the buff was applied on 1001 unsecured nation points, instead of 1000, as it should have been.
Halloween event in Gloria Victis!
🎃 Greetings, Warriors! 🎃
There's a night in the year when the wolves howl at the bright moon and the cold air gives you goosebumps. Long night, when strange things happen, ominous sounds can be heard on the edge of the dark forest, and small, moving lights float over the tall grass. One night when the unspoken comes out to eat. And he has a great appetite for candy and sweets.
Traditionally, the capital cities received some event decorations, to ensure a spooky mood. In the game world, you will be able to find a Confectioner, who requires your help! As thanks, he will offer you special event items, including event food, cosmetic items, and two cosmetics skins. Collect sweets from the Halloween boss and his minions to trade them for mentioned goods. Be sure to join the Volcano event, meet the Spookbert himself, and have a chance to loot a unique weapon!
🎃 Have fun, and happy Halloween! 🎃
Weekly Update 293: Halloween Event and new progression system!
Greetings, Warriors!
There's a night in the year when the wolves howl at the bright moon and the cold air gives you goosebumps. Long night, when strange things happen, ominous sounds can be heard on the edge of the dark forest, and small, moving lights float over the tall grass. One night when the unspoken comes out to eat. And he has a great appetite for candy and sweets.
Join us and take part in the new Halloween mini-event, to learn the story of the jittery Confectioner and put your hands on unique, limited rewards!
Additionally, our team has finished work on the forecasted progression system – Smelting and Roasting character development tree. The new system is taking the place of the Metallurgy craft and changes the approach to this part of the game economy.
As always, we are adding some quality of life improvements and fixes, thanks to Community reports and suggestions.
Read more details below, and enjoy the new system and event content!
Traditionally, the capital cities received some event decorations, to ensure a spooky mood. In the game world, you will be able to find a Confectioner, who requires your help! As thanks, he will offer you special event items, including event food, cosmetic items, and two cosmetics skins. Collect sweets from the Halloween boss and his minions to trade them for mentioned goods. Be sure to join the Volcano event, meet the Spookbert himself, and have a chance to loot a unique weapon!
Have fun, and happy Halloween!
Character Development: Smelting and Roasting
Crafting Districts
This week we are introducing the Smelting and Roasting progression system. It fully replaces the Metallurgy craft and changes the ways of creating various metal materials needed in crafting. Since it was inconvenient to waste a lot of time actively mass-crafting a supply of metal for personal use or guild, we decided it would be much better to use the full potential of player workstations and move that activity there, to allow players to do other things when their furnaces are roaring merrily in the background.
We created special zones in locations, similar to farm fields. Those – Metallurgic Districts – are dedicated to players' workstations. Guild castles received a new economical building, to be able to place such zones in their guild estates. Special zone is not blocking the possibility to place other economical buildings, for example, other crafts workstations or shops.
As farming in Gloria Victis is positively opinionated by our players, we believe a similar system for processing metals is a good move, having a lot of long-term benefits for the gameplay and world economy.
One of them is the territory control impact on the game. Various placements of your workstations will have different impacts on the furnaces' performance and thermal processing speed. That means you can place your workstation outside of the crafting zone, anywhere in the game world, but it will have an impact on smelting speed (100% speed in non-loot zones, 125% in loot zones, and on Metallurgic districts inside non-loot zones, 150% speed in Metallurgic districts on loot zones). The best outcome will be granted by placing your bloomeries on Metallurgic Districts, which is a fair risk vs reward mechanism.
Another thing is limiting the need to actively craft to collect valuable materials, earn on them or create nice equipment from them. Characters will not be forced to waste time on active craft anymore. It should be warmly welcomed, that you can do other things, or participate in combat, while your furnaces are working for you.
Due to those changes, we are removing all metallurgic workshops from the game, but as placing such workshops costs guilds privileges and gold, we are fairly compensating them, in relation to workstation level. For each deleted metallurgic workshop, guilds are receiving compensation to the guild bank directly:
For upgrade 0 – no gold, for upgrade 1 – 0,07 gold, for upgrade 2 – 1,10 gold, for upgrade 3 – 3,15 gold, for upgrade 4 – 6,30 gold.
Character Progression
As the former Metallurgy became a new, unique feature, it could be transformed to the next character development system. From now on, players will progress a Smelting and Roasting tree, to unlock nice bonuses to received materials and processing speed.
As before, we are unlocking the main nodes of the new tree for all active players, and additionally, we are adding experience in the progression nodes at the same time, based on your crafting level of former Mining and Metallurgy, so you are already receiving bonuses! Like before, knowing proper recipes will be a requirement to be able to create different metals.
Quality of Life Improvements:
– Notification for guild recruiters: Every officer and person with a higher guild rank will see information on the left of the screen and on chatlog, at the moment when someone applies to the guild. – Added a tutorial to the Character Development window, explaining the system. – Memorial texts are now copyable. – Improved PvE loot windows, giving them visuals of the new user interface style. – Added a new model of paintings, which can be used as memorials. Paintings are made with the usage of Community screenshots, so your contribution can become a part of the game! You can find the first ones in capitals and at Volcano event, honoring Siegbert - one of the best screenshot makers we have. – Opening a workstation is opening inventory in the side mode, to help you move items in a more convenient way. – Improved the transfer mechanics between inventory and workstations. Now it supports not only drag and drop, but also single-right and double-left clicks to move items to inventory, and traditional Shift+click mechanics.
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing invisible scoreboard User Interface elements could block cursor interaction and display score tooltips instead. – Fixed an issue causing music to be incorrectly looped after killing mobs.
