Weekly Update 264 – Market events and party improvements
Greetings, Warriors!
In this week's update, we are addressing your feedback regarding one of the two most important features of the game, as well as a lot of various improvements and fixes.
Player-made stalls and changes in Market rules resulted in very lively and constructive discussions on our Discord and we gathered a lot of data in the past week to see the real impact of the changes on the system and gameplay. While doing changes at the MMORPG scale, there's no way everyone will be happy, especially before results will be visible globally, and every change to the market takes time. Looking at the game economy data from last week, and seeing the very positive changes in prices and supply and demand, we know that the changes work in the way we wanted, but at the same time hearing the feedback of veteran players who were selling their looted items via market we are introducing weekly event that will be the compromise between the old and new system.
In addition to that, we followed your suggestions regarding the attack/block system and introduced an iteration of changes to the test version of the game, available for everyone on the test branch. We are counting on your feedback!
There are also further improvements to the party user interface, cosmetic skin preview window, and a lot of quality of life improvements and bugfixes!
Disclaimer: Please have in mind that the updated engine version (testversion branch) of the game will be updated tomorrow. For now, please switch to the regular version of the game.
The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. Siegbert, Vox, and Grunder – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.6.6 Beta
Tuesday’s Market Sale
Last week’s Market changes goals were activation of the crafters and ensuring fair prices of the crafted items. Looted-damaged parts of the equipment were dragging the prices of the new items so low, that crafting materials used to create items in most cases were more expensive than the crafting result. We - and according to most recent community feedback - players, can already see a much better material to equipment price ratio, and overall, after adjusting our understanding to the new reality, it is a very healthy change to the game economy.
Still, like mentioned before, the game is supporting different methods of acquiring wealth and it is crucial to provide options for players who prefer to play the game differently and put their focus on other aspects of the game – PVP gameplay. Some players are dedicated warriors and looting enemies and selling acquired equipment on the market was a significant part of their gold income. Despite there are a lot of ways to distribute assets, through Bastion, ingame traders, sharing goods inside the guilds or friends via direct trade, and selling them using newly introduced Player made shops, we believe that it is worth making an exception to find the agreement between old and new system.
Each Tuesday, players will be able to place damaged items on the Market, in 24 hour-long offers. Weekly events will last from the Tuesday daily maintenance restart to the Wednesday one. You have a whole day to set up your Market offer and allow other players to buy your looted items and rest assured, even if you set up your offer at the end of the day, they will be available on market for the next 24 hours. Basically, the item may be available for sale up to 48 hours per week, since you can place your offer at the beginning of the event and redo it again at the end of it to get extra display time.
Tuesday's sale is a nod to the players who are used to the old order. Mainly to those who really do not want to deal with anything other than hardcore PvP combat, and selling a discounted equipment is their main income. We hope that the exception will continue to heal the economy, and at the same time will satisfy players who feel a great need to loot and sell second-hand equipment.
Be sure to check the Upcoming Events window, where you will find all the important information regarding what is coming in the game!
Attack / Block system changes global test session
According to your feedback, picking the attack or block side could lead to not intentional mistakes, and making the system not reliable in some cases, especially when it came to overhead and stab attacks after horizontal swings.
Following players' feedback and suggestions, we decided to check proposed changes of that combat feature and gather your opinions after comparing old and new one.
The method used in this system has been changed and now relies more on the mouse movement than the position of the on-screen indicator. We already are receiving very positive opinions regarding that change and we are thankful for your contribution and help in improving that part of the game!
Disclaimer: Please have in mind that the updated engine version (testversion branch) of the game will be updated tomorrow. For now, please switch to the regular version of the game.
Party commands and sorting
Here comes the second iteration of the party user interface! Making the party window more player-friendly and intuitive, as well as introducing medic mode for players who are focusing on supporting their frontline was warmly received by the community. We are not stopping and today you are receiving access to even more management tools, commands, and party-list features, that will help you on the battlefields.
From now on commands alerts will be shown not only on say chat and above players heads, but also next to the party members list. Players who will ask for support or give orders will be highlighted on the party window and a proper icon will be shown next to the interface. We are also adding two new commands, to make party management easier for leaders and captains: “Stop” and “Hold the line”. Check the full list of them by using the command carousel under the hotkey [X].
And that is not all we prepared for you. Another addition to the system is the possibility to sort the list of party members to your preferences. In the party window [P], leaders and players, after leader permission, can now sort party members using symbols and colors, so now it will be much easier to distinguish various formations or roles in the party. There are enough symbols to divide your forces in battle units or types of builds – frontline tanks, bruisers, medics, archers, or siege equipment crews.
We believe that those changes will make party management much more intuitive and player-friendly, and will result in even better information exchange between players on the battlefield, especially in the biggest battles, like State of War ones.
Quality of Life
– Audunstede’s guard Sir Frederic’s look has been adjusted, and to balance other locations, a similar NPC named Skal-Ar has been added to Aquitania and another one to Skergard Castle – Added extra guards to quest spawners in nonloot zones to protect questing players from spawn kills – Stall’s windows have been vertically extended – Added a proper tooltip for used/damaged items label and error message on trying to buy more items than are available in the offer – Extended the stall’s support for items drag & drop – Added exception for using a stall slot card while the stall user interface is open, but still not active – Changed the scale of horses loot drop bags, to match the regular scale – Removed various tools items from the database. Back in the days, those were used in crafting and stayed in some NPC traders' assortment. All tools that were in the player's possession have been changed to the “Sell me” item – Changed the rendering method to cosmetic skins preview window to fix some known issues – Added combat hints to loading screens – Removed the trees blocking the field of view and ballistas fire at Ulfgard and Rodrock
Fixes
– Fixed an issue causing the possibility to leave one of the spawn points in the Valley of Death tournament event before the counting ends – Fixed the issue causing horses walking under the water in some edge cases – Fixed the issue causing spamming “You are too far away” warning while using siege engine tent window – Fixed the issue causing siege engines default rotation on the client-side was not the same with server-side rotation – Fixed reported navmesh issue regarding Tenebrok gate – Fixed the issue causing Marksman passive skill was not updated properly after switching to/from mounted archery – Fixed the issue causing players were able to get on the Market NPC platform in Ismir capital - Mereley – Fixed the one-handed and two-handed swords item type descriptions to give the proper information about attributes impact on given damage – Fixed the issue where dying bears were making the sound of dying spiders. Do not ask, please ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Weekly Update 263 – Player-made shops, reworked questlines and new cosmetic skin
Greetings, warriors!
Spring is coming! It is getting warmer and nicer across the northern hemisphere, and as it is always time for something new and fresh, we follow the fashion and have a brand new feature for you this week, as well as some refreshment in reworked questlines and a new cosmetic skin!
Today, you will get access to the first iteration of player-made shops, which will allow you to sell and buy items anywhere in the vast world of Gloria Victis. Our designers did an outstanding job updating some questlines in the game to improve the player experience and retention, and our graphic artists finished work on the newest cosmetic skin for Midland light armor!
Disclaimer: If you are using the test version of the game, before playing, please switch to the regular version. The test version will be updated tomorrow.
Player-made shops
As you may already know, we have been working on player-made stalls, which make it possible to create shops to sell goods and set up collection points for allies. By pressing F3 on the keyboard, you will open a special window where you will be able to create a sell or buy offer and put your character in idle mode, to let other players check and take advantage of your offers.
This is the first iteration of this system, so we are counting on your help in testing it. For now, we are checking the core mechanics of the system, and more improvements to this feature will be introduced in the following weeks, including horse-trading and custom stalls.
One of the most interesting things you will be able to do is set up collection points. You will be able to boost the in-game economy by placing your character near resource-rich areas and set up buy offers to give gatherers the option to sell their collected goods right away, without traveling to the capital city and paying fees on the Market. Regarding fees, it is important to mention that stalls will not take any fee from buying and selling stuff, but that involves one important change in the game economy: On the Market, you will be able to sell only non-damaged items. Any items with durability loss can no longer be sold on the Market.
The introduction of stalls allows us to free the market from offers of undervalued items looted from players. As you know, an item produced for 2 gold worth of materials can go on the market for 1.4 gold. It is of course about access to the item without crafting it, sold by people who want to quickly monetize the item. They sell it cheap enough to sell it fast. Blocking such sales on the market would cause the price to be set by crafters or PvE players. Stalls will allow you to sell damaged items that were looted, which will make them an important game mechanic.
Another interesting feature of stalls is the possibility of automated distribution of items – for example, bandages or warm food – between players. You will be able to offer items without a price, and you can limit the number of items that one player can take from the stall, so everyone will be able to share supplies in a faster and more efficient way than trading each player manually when time and logistics are important – during sieges or events.
Like was mentioned above, this is the first iteration of the system, and we will do our best to track the data and players' behavior to find places for improvements. We are counting on your help and suggestions!
Improved mid-game questlines
As we are very happy with player retention and feedback regarding reworked early game questlines, and we were aware that the mid-game tasks were slightly standing out from the rest. Today, you are receiving access to reworked questlines for Midland and Sangmar, while the Ismirs’ questline is currently a work in progress.
The new questlines follow the new rules that made a huge positive difference in player perception and gameplay experience. The old ones were stretched over a large area and even guided players to enemy lands. From now on, Mudmine and Baalhammon Lumbermill's questlines are more story-rich, player-friendly, and will not require traveling to distant areas to complete them. The rework introduces some changes in the terrain in the quest area, new locations with new enemies, and new challenges. Do not wait any longer, go and venture onto the quest!
Quality of Life
– Added auto graphic preset setter on the first launch of characters selection scene to adjust the game graphic settings basing on machine performance. From now on, the system will use better graphic settings if available. – Moved the spawn points of players in capital cities closer to the ground to prevent spawning players in the mid-air – The loot window can be now moved across the screen, by simply dragging it in cursor mode – Damaged equipment indicator can be now moved across the screen in cursor mode – Tools will not show up after setting weapon filter on the Market – Turned on the map marker to "Find the bandits hideout" quests. It was intentional to not show those markers on the map since the hideout meant to be hidden (and the player had a marker on minimap guiding to it), but we received a lot of reports that players are getting lost during that quest and have troubles finding the hidden camp ;/ – Improved the position and visibility of Himerius and new players spawn to make it easier for new players to start the first questline in Baalhammon – Regarding the unlucky incident of last week, the promised title "Fireborn" will be distributed between players who were impacted by it tomorrow. We are very thankful for your patience and the kind words we received. – Added a new set of skins for the Karleonian’s light armor – the Landsknecht's set
They serve their homeland with devotion and proudly uphold the peace. In times of war, Landsknechts are an incredibly deadly military formation. The agility and finesse they show in combat amaze not only the rulers but also the enemies dying at their feet.
Fixes
– Fixed the icon on Sea Wraith's event invitation window to show it is a non-loot event – Fixed an edge case issue related to keybinds, which could make it possible to open two different windows with one key – Fixed an issue causing displaying incorrect item quantity on the reward window – Fixed an issue causing displaying wrong preparations time on Guild Castles – Fixed an issue causing not refreshing the given archetype properly in character creation – Fixed an edge case issue that could lead to setting the wrong archetype after answering few questions and changing nation in character creation – Fixed an issue causing trouble with taking reward from Brad in the "Final preparations" quest – Fixed the issue allowing players to complete the event "Secrets of Serai" passively by standing close by and letting other players finish the event. – Fixed an edge case issue preventing players to build walls on two grid squares near the spawn corner of the stone main building on Guild Castles – Over 35 bug fixes of terrain, models, and collisions, reported by our Community
Gloria Victis - Important update regarding Strasburg Data Center fire disaster
Dear Community,
As you might probably hear, there was a fire disaster at one of the biggest Data Centers in Europe ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-ovh-fire-idUSKBN2B20NU ).
Sadly, one of our machines, dedicated to the login/connection/character database server was exactly in here, at the SGB2 building. Our first line backups copies were made at the same machine, and copied and stored in another building at SGB1 building - which sadly also was damaged and burned down.
Luckily - we were of course doing another layer of backups in a different location, and that's to ensure that we were able to restore everything, yet due to that being 3rd backup copy we were doing it less often.
The backup of character data has been restored to the point from the first day of March, but we were able to restore some more data thanks to our internal logging systems.
What is the detailed state of rollback:
- Your account credentials (this is most important to players who bought our game in the last few days) are 100% up to date.
- Guild Castles possession has not been rollbacked and it is like it was while the Data Center burn happened. All GC's will have the Weekly Open SoW Disable activity set to 2500 out of 3000 points. No tokens have been placed, because the Guild Castles layouts had to be rolled back, and for that reason, it could mean they would get attacked without the current layout.
- Most of your characters/guilds status had to be rolled back to the last first day of March.
Luckily, we have been saving lot's of logs directly on our servers, and thanks to that we have been able to restore all of the items you have gained via in-game events (like crafting events) and Contribution Points - we were unable to be sure which characters done them, so we are putting all of them to one of your characters - if you would like to move them to the different character by any reason contact us at support@gloriavictisgame.com and we will help you.
This also means that players who bought and started the game from 1st March until today would have their brand new characters recreated with partial data only, but with some extra compensations.
We have been logging in every character login to the servers, yet only with character name to account connection. For that reason what we could do to you is that we will recreate lost characters to player's accounts with the very same name. Sadly, we run out of time today so this will be done tomorrow. You are free to create new characters and play the game as the game is already available. You will still receive bonuses on characters you will create, just later.
Those characters (accounts on which characters will be recreated by us, and no new character has been created yet) that we will recreate based on stored data will be able to pick up their nation while logging in, will receive character experience corresponding to the amount needed to reach the 50th level on start, crafting experience corresponding to amount needed for first 20 levels in all crafting professions and will receive 12-hour long character and crafting experience buffs. (example: If you will create your new character right away and achieve level 30, you will get bonus experience that will push your character a few levels only, since the experience needed to increase character level is scaled with each next one. The same rule applies to crafting levels.)
Also, to help players recreate their characters to their liking, they will receive additional reskill, restat and character visuals edit points.
Additionally, everyone who has logged in the frame time of rollback will receive compensation, which we had to pick to not inflate our game economy, as we are speaking of giving them to tens of thousands of unique players:
- a Crafting Chance buff notification. You will be able to start via notification center a special buff that will last two hours of playtime - 5 gold per account compensation available to pick up once per account via notification center - characters who will be recreated (so the new players that lost their brand new characters) will receive huge character and crafting exp boost for 12h of the playtime (it only counts when a player is logged in) - all items created by events and CP's earned in the meantime will be restored to the account and available to pick up from the Auction House “Bought” tab – Everyone who bought Ambers meantime will have their Ambers back, but we will be able to do that by tomorrow.
We are deeply sorry for all of the issues, we have learned a hard lesson that we need to secure backups better, especially as there are lots of familiar companies today who are basically out of the options but to put everything from zero. In all of this, we are glad that no human being was harmed in that huge fire incident.
Thank you everyone for your understanding and continued support.
Gloria Victis Team
One of the biggest Data Center in Europe is burning
We have some very unexpected and harsh news.
At this very moment, one of the biggest Data Center in Europe is burning (Strasbourg SBG2 - http://travaux.ovh.net/?do=details&id=49471 ).
Sadly, one of our machines, dedicated to the login/connection/database server is exactly in here. While the host company is working with the firefighters to extinguish the flames, we are implementing our Disaster Recovery Plan which is to move the login/connection/database machine based on backups to another host.
Please do keep fingers crossed for the firefighters, we do hope we won't be host the part of our services using the backups, because it will mean some kind of rollback and probably one day of service down to prepare everything to be online on another Data Center. Either way, we are already settling everything up to save time in case the fire damages won't make it possible to make our previous host machine back to work.
We are deeply sorry for the temporary break in our services, we are doing everything we can by our side to make sure no matter what happens, the game will be back and working as soon as possible. We do count on your understanding and support.
Let's all hope no one gets hurt during the firefighting.
Best Regards, Jog
Weekly update 262 – Join the party!
Greetings, warriors!
This week we are laying the foundation of upcoming changes in response to our Community’s voice. We were receiving a lot of suggestions and feedback related to the party system and its user interface, so today you will receive the first iteration of the updated party system that will be extended in the following weeks.
We can also show you the first look of player-made stalls that most likely will be introduced in the next update. We need some more time to introduce that new feature since we are extending the possibilities of trading and sharing items between players with that system and it needs meticulous testing. The most interesting thing that player-made-stalls will bring would be horse-trading, which with an extension of visual diversity and customization of horses will become a new branch of ingame economy.
As we are working on the updated client engine in the background. We received very positive feedback so far regarding improved FPS ranges and overall game performance. Still, there are some bugs that need to be addressed first, before we fully use the new engine on global servers.
Like in every update, we are delivering a lot of Quality of Life improvements and bugfixes, in huge part as a response to your reports and opinions.
In response to community suggestions, we are introducing the updated system of party interface. First, from now on, you can adjust the size of the window to your liking, making the list of players in the party longer and/or wider, with more columns. Second, if you turn on in the game options a special “Medic mode”, the fallen players in the party will be sorted to the top, over the special divider, which will help battle medics to find and help players that need to be revived. Please have in mind that fallen players sorted above the divider are the ones in your area, but not always in the range of interaction. Those who are in range will be highlighted.
We are still working on that feature and there are some known issues, like the one causing the dead player would stay above the divider despite there being no option to help him already, but the system works well enough to start gathering your feedback, so we are counting on you!
Another important change in the party system, also as a result of one of the most upvoted player suggestions, is a new type of party used in world events. From now on the automatic party on Siege events, Volcano, Sea Wraiths, and Rites will be a “no leader” party at the beginning and will allow more experienced players to claim the leadership. This will also limit the cases where inexperienced players received the leader role and could struggle to manage it. We are taking a closer look at the system and thinking about further improvements in its regard.
Player-made stalls
We are continuing our work on player-made stalls, which will create the possibility to create your own shops and collection points. In addition to that, you will be able to trade horses! Another interesting feature of stalls will be the possibility of automated distribution of items – for example, bandages or warm food – between players. You will be able to offer items without a price, and limit the number of items that one player can take from the stall, so everyone will be able to share supplies in a faster and more efficient way than trading each player manually when the time is important – during sieges or events. It will be a great addition to the ingame economy and create a new type of market and activity!
And here is a small sneak peek of how the UI of it may look in the game. Please have in mind that this is still a work in progress! Since we are working on refreshing the game user interface, the new windows are already designed to be suitable for the new system :)
Siege engines
Looking at the current siege meta, we want our sieges to be based more on siege machines instead of archers and axes. Especially in SoW battles, there is a lack of siege machines, because players need to wait too much to spawn another one, and castles are too defensive. Right now regaining one “ready siege engine point” takes 2 minutes, so to spawn 5 machines to break through ballistas fire we need to passively wait 10 minutes. To have a better chance, we need 10 machines, but it takes twice that time. Leaders can't risk too much spending so many points in Siege machines without a guarantee those will be successful, so they push every single machine to castle without grouping them. A single machine is an easy target and this is why ballistas are that deadly. Even if any leader will group machines, spending most SoW time in siege camp, spawning siege machines, this isn't something players want to do. This is why we want to speed up the siege engines' respawn possibilities.
Getting ready to deploy a siege engine point (from zero points to 1) will take in one and a half instead of two minutes, which means 25% faster. If people will spawn their machines immediately when they will be available to keep the respawn timer low, there will be 25% more machines spawned at the same time. Same work for defenders, they will have more trebuchets, and this will bring more machines combat, and frequency.
This change shouldn't change much in nation castle sieges, because right now people don't use fully "ready siege engine points”.
Quality of Life
– From now on, the party window is resizeable, allowing to adjust its size to the players liking – Added a special “Medic mode” for the party window, available to turn on in the game options. The fallen players in the party will be sorted to the top, over the special divider, which will help battle medics to find and help players that need to be revived. – Generic UI windows are closing when the player will move away from a specific point (e.g. NPC). For now, it is implemented for siege tents, shops, and Auction House windows – Improved synchronization between client and server
Who understood the reference without looking o the miniature on the bottom left corner?
Fixes
– Fixed the issue causing the last selected character was not selected by default in the next game session – Fixed the appearance of Midland City Guard Veterans in Audunstede, which were looking like other nation guards – Fixed the wrong, too long mob spawn timers at "secrets of..." events of every nation - at the place just before quest chest (teleport), and in the room where there are 2 static chests to gather – Fixed an issue preventing players to proceed through the Midland questline – Fixed an issue causing wrong calculation of guild activity for group activities like an SOW and dynamic events. For calculation all players in the party were included without checking that they are in the area of activity, it caused that players from the capital were included in the calculation but they shouldn't – Fixed the issue causing culling on the character could have been broken after the creation of character without hair or beard – Fixed the issues regarding free building restrictions: Players should not be able to build: 1) gate next to the gate, stone keep, wooden keep 2) tower (straight and corner) next to the tower, corner tower, stone keep, wooden keep 3) keep (wooden and stone) next to the gate, tower, corner tower Earlier we were missing a restriction like you couldn't build keep next to the gate but you could build a gate next to the keep
And at the end of this week's changelog, allow us to share with you a great beginner's guide created by our community member! Be sure to follow the Shimmering channel on Youtube and check other videos!
[previewyoutube="6xbx6SPpU2k;full"]
Weekly update 261 – Brace yourselves!
Greetings, Warriors!
This week we are introducing promised changes and fixes related to Sieges and the State of War. From now on, you are able to control the spawn of siege engines and set permissions that allow only people from your guild to use your tent. After a long and interesting discussion in the office, and as well on the suggestions channel on our official Discord, we also decided to update the way to deactivate weekly automatic tokens on guild castles and arrows regeneration for archers.
Thank you all for participating in the recent new engine test session! We received a lot of valuable feedback and positive opinions regarding game performance, as well as some good bug reports, so work on the update of the client-side of the game engine accelerated greatly.
As always, we also have for you many fixes and quality of life improvements! Check the details below and see you in battle!
Automatic Saturday tokens on Guild castles were introduced to the game to encourage players to actively attack and defend castles on the global map and create more opportunities for sieges and changing ownership of locations. But in the long run, it became a little overwhelming, according to your feedback. That is why the token deactivation feature has been introduced. Players were able to deactivate their automatic tokens by participating in the map events and killing world bosses.
But even with this workaround, our data shows that it is still too easy to hold the castle passively, with not playing the game almost at all, and some Guild Castles on various servers are being held for a long time by guilds that are logging in just to SoW’s and not playing the game besides that, what have bad impact on the game balance and is weakening activity of a whole nation.
We decided to transfer the deactivation more towards daily challenges, which will create a more fair environment for active players and limit relying on allied guilds passively. Those changes will have the lowest impact on players and guilds who are already active in the game but will open wider the endgame content of Guild Castles for them.
Let’s break the changes one by one:
We go from deactivating tokens per alliance to deactivating them per guild. Each guild has to take part in activities if it does not want to have a Saturday SoW. This will promote active guilds more and limit relying on alliances.
Completing one daily challenge will grant one point to the deactivation bar. Every player in the guild will be able to help his guild by just playing the game. To make it clear - from our analytics, players now do 7 daily challenges on average [with more active players doing 12 of them every day!].
Amount of points needed to deactivate the token has been increased from 2000 to 3000. Since we are expanding the ways to gain points, this change is reasonable to keep the balance.
We add a clamp for points per guild that can be gained for performing events – the guild can earn a max of 500 per day from events. Events that still are granting points for token deactivation are: Killing a Kargald Champion, Sea Wraiths, Volcano, Catacombs.
In exchange for removing points from Ragi/Sirius/Brandon events, you can now get points from events on the nation links, for example: “The Cohort Strikes Back”, “Kill the traitors!”, “Rite of the Acolytes”, “Kill the Gold Griffins”, “Kill Lynxes”, “Kill River Hogs”, “Raiders’ Encampment” and “Secrets of Dundrum/Yestad/Serai”.
The amount of points you can get for participating in SoW as an attacker and for daily challenges is unlimited.
We believe those are very fair and healthy changes for the community and servers, but we are open for your feedback and opinions after the first week of the new system presence on global servers. The numbers of points can be tweaked and we will gather further data and observe the situation during the following weeks to adjust the calculations if needed.
Siege Tents and Siege engines
During yesterday’s State of War we experienced some unexpected turn of events. We received many reports about potential design loopholes, and we moved to address such critical issues in our fashion - by uploading the fixes within the very next day. We are sorry for the inconveniences and thankful for numerous and detailed reproductions of the issues sent to us overnight that helped us to fix those problems right away.
In the edge case, when Siege Camp was built very close to the castle, the system was checking only the distance between Siege Camp and the place used to spawn the machine. From now we are checking the nation while the siege engine is deployed at the guild castle area - if it is an enemy, the siege engine is not deployed. This will not allow spawning machines right under walls or keep.
Second, we fixed the edge case way to bypass the limit of siege engines spawned at one time that could have been bypassed while using a siege tent by many players at one time.
Siege Tents received a new feature, suggested and requested by the Community. From now on you will be able to set up a guild limitation on your tent – so players who may be not mindful about their actions or trying to intentionally troll, will be not able to spawn siege engines and potentially spawn wrong machines and waste siege points.
Arrows regeneration
After a few weeks of gathering feedback about the new archery system from players, we decided to change the feature of regenerating arrows for killing blows. Indeed, it was something that could lead to frustration when a low health target has been killed by a melee fighter or ballista for example, and despite dealing 90% of damage to that target with our bow we did not receive an arrow regeneration boost for that kill. The system has been changed and now it is using an assist system to count archer contributions to the kills and regenerating adequate quiver percentage for every kill we helped to get.
This will remove from archers the need to target low health targets to regenerate arrows and reward them for dealing damage with well-aimed shots fairly.
Quality of Life
– According to the latest ingame questionnaire results (67% of players voted for "Rather Agree" or "Definitely Agree"), the Sea Wraiths event is from now on a non-loot event. We have closely checked all of your feedback, and most often negative feedback was related to worries about further expanding that rule to Volcano Event. This is not our plan –Changed the respawn time of the quest resources nodes in the third line of questlines for every nation (Ismir questline: “Where is my husband?”, Midland “The Royal Huntsman”, and Sangmar: “The disappearance of Claretta”), from 500 to 30 seconds – Changed the teleport time to observer Glory Arena from 15 to 30 seconds, and teleport to Global Arena from 20 to 30 seconds – Changed teleport times from observing Glory Arena and Global Arena to Open World from 15 and 20 seconds to 5 seconds in both cases
Fixes
– Fixed 55 bugs in level design including terrain, models, and colliders in various locations and terrain – Fixed teleporting points (which are used during the siege by the players who aren't members of the guild that captured the flag) on Lordly Haven on the last gate for each upgrade – Fixed the navmesh in the wooden main keep building that could prevent guards from getting upstairs in some cases – Fixed the issue causing face texture was clipping through Sons of War helmet chainmail – Fixed the guard position in Greenport – one of the guards were spawning under the keep’s floor – Fixed the missing translation in Bastion worker's interface
Hotfix 2021-02-26:
- From now on, enemy siege engines cannot be spawned in castles colliders basing on the same rules as siege tents are using - Added log files gathering data about spawn and usage of siege engines - We added a bonus way to collect token deactivation points by doing daily challenges. You can get more points by claiming the daily challenges tier rewards, respectively 2,4,8 and 16 for each tier of the reward
Weekly update 260 – Your weekly dose of patchnotes!
Greetings, Warriors!
This week we were working hard on some upcoming features and continuing to address your feedback and reports! We are still working on the client engine upgrade since we faced some difficulties that need to be resolved before we can finish that task. After that, we will move to the next thing that the new engine will unlock – cluster system, to improve server load and to improve stability, performance, and optimization of the game. We overcame the issues we found so the task is nearing the happy end.
Our designers and coders are preparing player-made stalls, which will create the possibility to create your own shops and collection points! In addition to that, you will be able to trade horses! Another interesting feature of stalls will be the possibility of automated distribution of items – for example, bandages or warm food – between players. You will be able to offer items without a price, and limit the number of items that one player can take from the stall, so everyone will be able to share supplies in a faster and more efficient way than trading each player manually when the time is important – during sieges or events. It will be a great addition to the ingame economy and create a new type of market and activity!
We are also introducing a small new feature related to Supporter Shop – Players will now be able to choose one of three additional rewards after their next (first from now) Ambers purchase. Each account can receive a bonus reward once. Thank you all for supporting the project!
Let’s check this week's changelog, and see you in battle!
– Added a possibility to turn off the enemy or ally nameplates completely for FPS performance improvement on large scale battles – From now on, the game is remembering the last zoom position of the world map between game sessions. – From now on, you can use left and right arrow keys to switch tabs in the character creation screen. You can also use up and down arrow keys to navigate in the character selection screen to choose the character you want to play with. And you can hit Enter to login into the game with the chosen character – Added a warning of active Caps Lock on the ingame login screen
Fixes
– Fixed an issue causing players on foot sprinting or horse riders riding uphill could partially fall under the ground from the perspective of other players – Fixed an issue causing arrows/quiver UI were not refreshing properly after changing the bow – Fixed an issue causing the last arrow could not be regenerated, despite having all archery related skills – Fixed an issue causing wrong numbers of guards spawned on Temples last gates. – Fixed the issue causing the wrong icon of 2000+ nation points buff. It could be mistaken for a Survival Instinct top tier skin icon – Fixed a dialogue bug in quest “Sanctuary profaned” which was giving one of the tasks too quickly in a result – Fixed the dialogue of Haldor in Ismir's optional quest “Take the Chieftain!”. There was an edge case where players couldn't take the reward for the quest – Fixed the dialogue of Viator in Sangmar quest “The adventurous four”. Players couldn't proceed with that after the last changes in questline – Fixed the position of reward marker in Ismir quest “Fall of the Raubritter” – Fixed the issue causing destroyed siege engines could slowly ascend into the air before disappearing
Weekly update 259 – Convenience Improvements!
Greetings, warriors!
We just started a new Glory season a few days ago, players are already fighting hard for placements in rankings and to gain the titles and achievements, so we hope you are enjoying your time in the game!
This week we are introducing a lot of fixes of issues reported by our Community that needed some more time to be reproduced and fixed. We are also closely observing the State of War’s and Sieges gathering as much feedback as possible regarding significant changes introduced at the beginning of the new Glory Season last Thursday. We are so far very thankful for your feedback and observations since we are receiving a lot of them via the ingame feedback tool!
Just because we are receiving a lot of your feedback, about 85% of the changes and fixes listed below are the result of Community reports and suggestions, so thank you for your help and continuous support! We also cannot stress enough to thank you for the awesome screenshots you are creating and sharing through our Community Hub on Steam. There are so many good ones that it is getting harder every week to pick the best ones!
Changes based on Community feedback and suggestions:
– Archers received new, more intuitive crosshairs with a dot, which should result in better precision of shot projectiles – We added an unbound by default, attack break button, that will allow you to break the aiming/hold phase of ranged and melee attack – Improved quiver user interface adding red, blinking animation when a player is trying to shot without having arrows – Increased the range of combat direction indicator sensitivity from 1-10 to 0.1-10. This is an important one since we received feedback that players are not aware they can change that setting in options and adjust it to their preferences – Following Community feedback, we changed the starting bows to reflex bows, which have the highest numbers of arrows and will explain better the arrows regeneration mechanic to new players – Players asked us to place more furniture in the Guardhouse since it is a place that a lot of players are using as a meeting place and safe house. Furniture has been added – Players suggested on our Discord that it would be nice to have a Coat of Arms on Siege Engines. Today, all mobile siege engines, excluding small battering ram, will have CoA of player who spawned them – Blocked the possibility to revive a traitor from the party user interface if Friendly Fire is not active
Siege engines and their crew
Before, no matter the amount of siege engine crew numbers, pushing machines had the same speed. Looking at the player's behavior while using siege engines we decided to improve that, to encourage cooperation. We are also addressing the feedback related to the ballista range and usability of Warwolf:
- From now on, more crew in the siege engine means more speed. If the player inside the machine does not push any buttons, he strengthens the pushing speed anyway just by being on the machine and in that way is helping the driver. We added a UI indicator of the machine speed to make it clear.
Warwolf – it is time to fight
From now on, it will not be possible to use ballistas like mortars since their up tilt angle has been reduced, also changed the formula for the flight parabola of a ballista arrow. It will effectively reduce the possibility to preaim siege engines spawn points and lob ballista projectiles over covers on very long range. Warwolf's range and accuracy have been improved. Along with ballista changes, this should encourage players to use this siege engine more often, because the range of the Warwolf is greater than that of the ballista placed on the gate on the hill.
Votespy
Following the feedback of players, we are introducing the second iteration of the votespy command feature that will give players more options to avoid spies or trolls. When someone will be successfully voted out 2 times in 1 hour, this person will get a second level of banished status, and the area around the second report will be restricted for 30 minutes giving him wanted debuff instantly when he will come back. More power for players means also more responsibility, so use this feature carefully.
The feature is targeted to eliminate someone who: block the passage, for example blocking doors, blocking siege machines, burns siege machines points, block place where we want spawn something important for example siege tent (don't mess this with spawn fireplace, report someone for spawn things like the fireplace is also troll and is forbidden). You can't votespy someone just because you don't like him or any other things which the player does but this is normal gameplay. Always be sure to have backup evidence on such players' behavior because misuse of that command may lead to consequences for players who initiated the vote if they will not provide the evidence when asked.
Other improvements:
– Optimization improvements related to Freebuilding objects and their graphic computation
Fixes:
Fixes based on Community reports and feedback:
– Fixed the issue causing wrong guild members could have been kicked from the guild by mistake, in the place of the players that should be actually removed from the guild – Fixed the issue causing tutorial text could disappear under some conditions – Fixed the issue causing mantlet colliders were not properly removed after the destruction of the mentioned siege engine – Fixed an issue that caused wrong fisheries regeneration on highly populated servers – Fixed the issue causing the wrong event, arena, and tournament teleport behavior. From now on the countdown to leaving the world event will stop immediately if the player chooses to move to a tournament or arena – Fixed all known edge case issues related to arrows regeneration, among others, including user interface refresh rate, optimization, and siege engine usage while holding a bow in hands – Fixed the issue causing respawning with the death animation – Fixed the edge case issue related to the spawning of Recruiter NPC – Fixed the issue causing burning damage on doors were applied in a wrong way, which could result in ridiculously fast door breaking while using torches – Fixed the issue causing battering rams were falling under the map while pushed through the last gate in Lordly Heaven, Hordun Temple, and Abbey
Weekly update 258 – New Glory Season and Sieges balance changes!
Hello Warriors!
Welcome to the new Glory Season! As always at the turn of seasons, we are introducing many significant and interesting changes improving the gameplay based on players’ feedback! Today you are receiving the second iteration of the siege battles overhaul, including new siege engines, changes in siege meta, and many quality of life improvements and bugfixes. We hope you’ll like the new opportunities and tactics this update introduces to the game and we hope this season will result in even more epic sieges and battles on the global map.
The top players of the just-ended season have earned their rewards and titles, so it’s time to compete against the others and fight your way to the top of the ladder! See you in battle!
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 around 2 months (depending on the current updates schedule) and the top players are rewarded with unique titles and 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 in the leaderboard, so climb up!
We are also honored to announce publicly that Veland and SanHolo – our longtime players – have officially become members of our team.
Both of them are well known to our Community, and they were helping us as great community members for a long time. Veland's first and main task will be to try to help us improve the newcomers' experience. She is the first member of our team from outside of Europe, which will surely give us a wider perception of the needs and differences of our players. And SanHolo, already having a lot of experience in tracking, reporting, and reproducing many critical issues so we could fix them, has joined our QA team.
It is the best possible situation that happened since the Steam release as it made our team way stronger, way more experienced, and secured the future of both games. We’re hoping you will give our new team members a warm welcome!
And without further ado, let's jump to the list of changes!
After introducing the long-awaited freebuilding overhaul, we focused on your feedback regarding siege mechanics and engines. Investigating your reports and discussing your opinions, we found out ways to improve the system for both – defenders and attackers, and to balance better those many factors that make up the siege system. The system had some issues, that is a fact. The meta tactic was boring and could be explained in three words: Bow versus ballista. There were even some hidden bugs and design loopholes that needed our attention. We gathered all the issues and decided to fix them at once, which can definitely be a little shocking experience because of the amount and size of the changes, but we hope you will understand all the aspects and give yourself some time to get used to them.
And here are the solutions:
Movable Mantlets
In the beginning, It is important to notice that HP pools of every siege engine and their damage output has been rebalanced and both sides, defenders and attackers received unique tools to improve their tactics. Our goal is to break the boring meta where attackers are shooting ballistas with bows through the whole SoW, so we are giving them another option to push to the walls and gates.
Mantlets – the new siege engines – are movable barricades that cost siege points and deliver wide and durable cover for troops and machines. You can use them to cover an attack on the gate, roll the battering ram under the walls, or cover catapults positions from ballistas fire. Both versions – there is one that is covering the front and the other one is better to cover the side – can be moved by up to 2 players, so you may need some training to coordinate your moves well. We will add spawners of those machines onto the arena, so you will have an opportunity to drill.
Shielded Ballistas
To limit the “Shot ballistas by bows” tactic, ballistas are receiving a physical shield. The shield is active and visible until ballista hit points reach 50%, and need to be destroyed with the use of catapults or trebuchet. The shield is deflecting all damage from bows and protects the front of the ballista, covering the 220 degrees angle. It is still possible to deliver damage to a shielded ballista with a bow from behind, and from any angle when it does not have its shield anymore. Ballista is not receiving any additional hit points or damage reductions.
This change will improve the usability of attackers' siege engines and encourage the use of new mantlets. Since siege engines received hit points boost and ballistas received their shields and we fixed the damage output of trebuchets and catapults, the machines will be much more balanced and usable on the battlefield.
Ballistas of stone keeps were and remain placed high to limit the possibility to destroy them. Those are the last resort defense to delay the inevitable destruction of the main building by siege engines that can be placed out of their range and deliver damage to the keep without any interruption.
We are encouraging melee combat instead of allowing safe options for huge war parties. The new shielded ballistas on the main keep have the effect of limiting options for catapults to be aimed right on the keep doors with no repercussions and constantly hit the shield wall of defenders on the chokepoint, which removed any tactics on the defender’s side and forced them to just watch enemies destroying their keep without any chance to react. Now they will be able to use their ballistas against these catapults.
Destroying the main keep is still possible, especially now when siege engines are more durable. It may take more time, but for example, a single large battering ram needs to be hit 15 times to be destroyed, which means 3.5minutes of constant ballista fire, and attackers can spawn a new one every three minutes and accumulate additional siege engines.
From now on, defenders will be able to delay the destruction of the main building, instead of being helpless in delaying and interrupting the final push under the main building walls.
If the fact of stone keep ballistas having shields will generate any gameplay issues, we will react and consider changes or tweaks on the matters related to it.
Rebalance of siege engines hitpoints
Taking into consideration all the above, the hitpoints and damage output of siege engines have been rebalanced. I believe it will be easier to explain the changes in examples and comparison, so as an example catapult could be destroyed in three ballista shots before, or with one trebuchet hit, and now it will need seven ballistas shots or two to four trebuchet ones. Please have in mind that catapults, battering rams, Warwolf, and new movable mantlets can still be damaged by bows.
Limited arrows
So, we are reducing the bow damage output and usability on the attackers' side, but what about defenders, who can send arrows from the safe positions on walls and harass and nuke everyone in their sight? Melee attackers cannot reach them, so the easiest idea was to pull out a bow and return fire, instead of trying to reach walls with ram or man short and long artillery positions. Melee defenders were also forced to sit on the wall and deliver poor damage with their bows.
From now on, the amount of arrows is limited, and will work similarly to shield resistance: By shooting, you will burn the “arrows bar” and arrows will regain over time. Archers who are specialized and have true archers character build should not feel the change, because the number of arrows and their regeneration is related to passive skills and bow type. For the future, we are taking into consideration new item type – quivers, that also may have an impact on arrows capacity and regeneration.
This change is better than the idea of the craftable arrow, cos nothing would be better if we would allow players to bring 5 full bags of arrows stacks into the battle. Tanks and bruisers' continuous damage output with arrows will be limited since they will not have the right passive skills to have high quiver capacity and arrows regeneration. Still, this mechanic allows for short bursts of damage from both – attackers and defenders sides.
Because of changes in abilities, you are receiving a one-time possibility to reset your abilities by clicking the right button in Notification Center. This option will be available for two weeks.
We are counting on your feedback and will for sure tweak the capacity and regen of arrows to find the perfect spot if needed.
Shields on back
Till today, shields on the back were not destroyable and we're not losing any durability when hit. Tanking arrows facing your back to the enemy became viable, but the unjustified option, especially with medics backup, so we changed that mechanic.
From now on, we are giving the possibility to destroy shields on players' backs. Shield hit with an arrow will now lose durability and show information on the combat log of how much durability has been removed. Destruction of the shield will be followed with audio indication and proper information on the combat log.
Quality of Life
Improved questline
Our quest and level designers have been working on changes and improvements of introductory quests for some time now, and as Ismirs and Midnalders received their renewed questlines already, today we are happy to introduce the reworked second line of Sangmar quests.
As previous changes on that matter related to all ingame nations, those improvements are aimed to make learning the ropes of the game easier for newcomers, gradual introduction of ingame features to new players, and ensure better first impressions and player retention.
The Emperor takes risky steps, trying to reach other, feuding nations to end the continuous war carried out on two fronts. Sangmarians are hoping that having a common enemy will give them some space and peace, but does Oliver the Shortleg - Midland Kingdom emissary - share their hope? Find out by yourselves!
Capturing Warwolf
From now on, players from attackers nations will be able to claim the Warwolf siege trebuchet, which will allow them to remove and replace the engine in situations where it was misplaced and left by another player. Since there only one per nation can be spawned at the time during a siege, we have to cover such a possibility. Capturing the Warwolf requires owning a siege camp, and takes some time. Other nation's players and players with traitor status cannot capture the Warwolf.
Other
– Improved the user experience in crafting quests, changing the NPC and animal enemies spawns and types – Removed the Christmas festive decorations
Fixes
– Fixed an issue causing catapults and trebuchets to deal double damage to other siege engines – Fixed colliders of all movable siege machines and small trebuchet – Fixed an issue causing objects and characters to temporarily disappear from time to time, in particular places or situations – Fixed an issue related to Brandon event gates related to server start trigger – Fixed an issue related to Pride Long Forgotten event gate closing timer – Fixed the issue causing players were able to look over and interact with objects through the textures – Fixed the issue causing server-side errors when a player left the party in 0.5s after placing a party marker on the map – Fixed an issue causing blocking the character on ground spikes in some locations – Fixed an issue causing the entrance to the dungeon events (Secrets of Serai/Dundrum/Ystad) were not visible on the map when they should have been – Fixed an issue causing player could be damaged with an arrow hitting shield on the back if he did not reequpied any item after logging into the game – Fixed the camera position on ballista and emperors fire
Hotfix 2021-01-05
In response to the feedback/reports received from players:
Arrows regeneration:
- Fixed an issue causing wrong behavior of quiver and arrows regeneration user interface - Increased the ammo limit and reduced the gap between long and reflex bows: Now we have (base-max, depending on character passive skills) 12-50 arrows on reflex bows, 11-45 on simple bows, and 8-35 arrows capacity on longbows. - Regeneration of arrows is globally increased. Base regeneration was 5% of quiver per tick, and 15% per tick with all passive abilities, now it is 10% base and 15% max. - Fixed an issue causing missing descriptions on huntsman and rapid-fire skills - To help new players who are doing starter quests and prefer to use ranged combat, we are added a system of full arrows restoration on level up. This change will help them to gain few first levels if they want to use archery, and add passive abilities to ensure better arrows regeneration
Other fixes:
- Fixed the issue causing quest NPC named Curtis was not spawned properly
Weekly update 257 – Last week of current Glory Season!
Greetings, warriors!
In today's’ update you will find a lot of quality of life changes, user experience improvements, and a lot of fixes we are now processing in bulk. We are following the swing of the last update, delivering the most wanted fixes and improvements our Community requested. Some of the reported issues are still investigated and processed in the background.
We’re also preparing for the next iteration of State of War, which will improve existing and introduce new siege engines and tactics. Those changes will hit the servers next week, along with the beginning of the New Glory Season.
It is heartwarming to see the recent numbers of players are growing and we’re receiving tones of constructive feedback and reports from you. Thank you for your opinions, suggestions, and reviews! We hope you will like what we prepared for you today and have a great time in the game!
The New Glory season will start on Thursday, the 4th of February. Also, we’d like to remind you that the last day of the season – Wednesday, the 3rd of February – will be a dedicated day of the season's end. It will not be possible to earn or lose the Nation Points on this day and the scoreboards of other season-based rankings (Glory and Arena) will be frozen then. However, it is the last chance to donate your NP to your guild as the Guild Points. When the new season starts, the Nation Points collected by a player will count from 0 as the new season will begin.
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 around 2 months (depending on the current updates schedule) and the top players are rewarded with unique titles and 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 in the leaderboard, so climb up!
Quality of Life
– Added a new weekly ranking: Filling Bastion’s needs – Character does not fall under the building floor on the spawn anymore – Adjusted the placing of the chest in Midland “You are not alone” quest – Added events in capital cities to allow exchanging primaeval seals for weapon or armor random boxes – Placed the worker's chest’s at Guild Castles as far away from the walls as possible to prevent any possibilities to collect them from outside of the building
Siege engines:
– Small battering ram does not have any collider after being destroyed – Free siege engines respawn cooldown starts now right after siege engine get destroyed, not after it disappears – Interrupted loading of siege engine now continues from the spot where it was interrupted – Timer of the ballista respawn is from now on visible from afar, instead of being shown only from very close range – Removed not needed timers on siege engines that are not using them
1v1 and GvsG Arena:
– Improved the user experience and informative aspects of Group vs Group duels – From now on, on 1v1 Arena you can now win the duel if you have more hit points than the opponent (like it is working on Group vs Group arena) – Added information about remaining HP percentage of participants to 1v1 Arena summary
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing wrong behavior of Strongman skill – Fixed the issue causing the event gate on Brandon's event to close too early. Gates will be closing in two cases: Brandon got killed or participants failed to pass any of the step events (ran out of time) – Fixed a translation tag in the cosmetic skin preview window – Improved achievements backend to prevent some edge case issues in their initialization. This should help in any daily achievements progress errors – Fixed the issue with stone Main Building, that caused blocking particular grid – Fixed all known issues that could cause wrong drops of the Bastion needs – Players using location’s siege engines are no longer kicked out from them after flag nations change if they are the location owners. There is an exception form that rule – in such case, you will be still kicked out from ballistas – Fixed a user interface issue causing players were able to select free siege engines in siege camp during nightlock – Fixed an issue causing wrong behavior of loading/power bar of siege engines after loading was interrupted – Fixed an edge case issue causing displaying siege engine power bar after leaving it – Fixed edge case issues related to players respawn after Group vs Group arena fight – Fixed an issue causing blocked respawn after leaving party on Group vs Group arena – Fixed an issue causing wrong display of NPC characters equipment that could lead to lowering the game performance – Fixed the issue causing not showing boots on Raiders NPC’s – Fixed an issue with wrong nation colors showed on the Spears of the Emperor's Helm cosmetic skin – Some minor server-side fixes and optimization
