Weekly update 256 – Total optimization! And changes in siege engines.
Hello Warriors!
This may be the update, where we are implementing the performance improvements allowing us to push the boundaries even further! Recent battles, especially one of the biggest State of War events in the history of the Eaglewood server, gave us a lot of data to achieve better results in-game optimization, performance, and stability on more loaded servers.
This week we are introducing some big changes in response to our Community’s voice, including some important fixes of some game mechanics. Addressing your feedback and reports we are also allowing some new strategies and introducing new tools, regarding balance changes between defenders and attackers in sieges.
Like always, there also are a lot of Quality of Life improvements and fixes. Check the details below and see you in battle!
We are happy to introduce the first part of the announced Beta Network Traffic Optimization! Improvements have been made on both – client and server sides. In addition to overall optimizations and improvements, we improved our DDOS protection system and also found some minor issues that have been fixed right away. Changes should be noticeable for everyone and most visible in situations where there are a lot of players in one area, like on occasions of siege events or the State of War.
That is not the end of the task, but it is a huge step forward and we will continue our work to provide you the best possible performance and game experience!
Siege engines:
As mentioned in the previous update, we are working on changing the spawn system of siege engines during the siege, and implementing more unique ways to counter various tactics and approaches of both – defenders and attackers. First iterations of those changes and improvements are introduced in this update, so please, keep in mind that there are more to come in the following weeks!
In this update, we are introducing a new siege engine for attackers. Warwolf – visible on the map, stationary siege trebuchet spawned on attackers' siege tent (only by tent owner) will be able to hit castle ballistas and walls to reduce ballista vs bows meta, opening a new way to counter stacked defensive siege engines while reducing the risk of being focused and quickly destroyed after entering the ballista range. This machine has limited ammunition and only one can be spawned per nation. It has great range and it will be hard to reach it with a ballista shot, but It is vulnerable to defenders raids on enemy siege camps, so place and use it carefully.
In light of recent events, we also confirm that some non-expected actions could be considered as bypassing the game rules and systems assumptions, because of design loopholes, so we are making some changes related to traitor and friendly fire mechanics too. From now on, hitting allied siege engines or horses with FF turned on will trigger a penalty on reputation and traitor debuff as it is done while hitting a player. You will also not be able to hit allies with siege engines, even with turned on Friendly fire or with Traitor status.
Siege engines are from now nation bound and there are some new rules to use them efficiently:
– Spawned siege engines have the same nation as the player who spawned them – Allied siege engines have a green HP bar, enemy and neutral ones have a red HP bar – Siege engines assigned to the location have the same nation as the location flag – Siege engines assigned to the location are changing their nation the moment the location flag changes it. In such a case player who drives the machine will be kicked out from it if an engine-related flag is not under his nation control
A very important change is also removing a possibility to capture and use siege engines spawned by enemies. Of course, you can still destroy them. There are some exceptions from those rules above, like Emperor's Flame in siege camps and event siege engines (like those ones on Sirius Event).
We hope you will like the changes since they are introducing more diversity into the State of War and making features of the game related to that system more distinguishable. We are making such things to make more clear what can be considered as politics and what as an exploit of game mechanics, and also to create even more potential solutions of attack, defense, and counterattack, both for attackers and defenders.
Sometimes it is great to just admire the charming views in the game. Thank you for such nice capture!
Nukers on spawns:
Some of you are aware that NPC nukers who are guarding spawns in Gloria Victis to prevent spawn camping were causing some troubles. This system was not bad, but we found a better and easier solution. NPC spawn guards were removed from the game and from now on, spawn areas will have zones that will deal enemy nation players' damage over time.
Spawn Points are of course protected by colliders and placed in a way that prevents enemies from getting on them, but still, in some edge cases, as an example – when the flag is changing its nation, some players spawned before the change were able to stay on spawn and wait for other nation players. Nuker had a downside that his attacks could be blocked and could focus only one player that was where he should not be, and the new system removes all of those issues.
We hope the new system will be warmly welcomed and we are counting on your feedback and reports if some zones or their damage would need adjustment.
Quality of life:
We received some reports about inconsistencies in the max capacity of resources that can be stored and acquired from guild locations economic systems, and looking on that we decided to make a full overhaul of that and update the system to meet the recent economical game changes. As it was planned from the beginning, Forts, which are dedicated to farming will have the biggest farming-related resources capacity, Economic Castles and Strongholds are the most balanced and universal but still will have lesser farming resources capacity than forts. The whole system has been reviewed and we made sure to make it fair and unified for all types of locations and ingame nations.
– Hitting allied players horses with Friendly fire turned on is giving reputation penalty and traitor debuff – Hitting allied siege engines with Friendly fire turned on is giving reputation penalty and traitor debuff – Improvements of the most deadly areas that had a bad impact on new players retention – Improved Thorstein’s dialogue and NPC enemies difficulty in one of Ismir questlines which had a bad impact on players retention – Improved “Kill the traitors” event and fixed all known issues related to it – Balance of chests and NPC enemies in 4th questline of each nation – Christmas event has been ended – Karleonian Greaves no longer have their own shoes attached, which will remove most of the clipping issues – Updated the model and icon of Karelonian Heavy boots – Fixed some of the reported clipping issues in regular and cosmetic skins equipment models
Fixes:
– Fixed the position of Villagers Workshop on Baalhammon farm, it got stuck at the doors to the main building somehow – Fixed an issue with collider of oblique short wall model, which allowed to get under the walls textures – Fixed the navmesh issue in the new wooden main building model, which was preventing guards and NPC’s to reach and interrupt capturing of the flag – Fixed an edge case issue with corrupted character creation that could prevent access to the game – Fixed the collider of a small battering ram, to prevent players from getting stuck inside it
We had a funny discussion at the office earlier today since this update number was more "even" for part of our team than the recent 250th update, but luckily we agreed that there are many people that are usually using integers instead of powers of two, so they may not understand "Weekly Update 2^8" title. ;/
Weekly update 255 – All the colors of the world!
Greetings, warriors!
This week we are addressing a lot of recent Community reports and feedback, introducing promised new wooden main buildings and a lot of Quality of Life improvements and fixes! We’re also bringing the matter of the State of Wars and explaining how we want to improve that system.
We’re happy to say hello to the new players that joined our journey recently and warmly welcome them to the vast world of Gloria Victis MMO! We are pleased to have you! We cannot wait to meet you closer, and we’re hoping for your feedback! Down below, you will find a dedicated section, full of interesting and useful information.
In addition to all the above, we are expanding the cosmetic skins system to make it more accessible and even more player-friendly, and adding three brand new skins for one-handed swords!
Check the details below and see you in battle!
The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. glyuki & TrueCatch – check your Ambers! The explanation for newcomers - each week we are picking the best community screenshots and using them in our patch notes. If we use your screenshot, you will be rewarded with special ingame currency!
Changelog v.0.9.5.7 Beta
State of War, and what we want to do with it:
Recent feedback and data from the latest States of War showed that there is a lot of space for improvements in this appreciated by the community system, but also there is a demand for making some of the game rules more clear.
Our designers have thought about implementing more fun factors into the State of War and making features of the game related to that system more distinguishable. We are considering such things to make more clear what can be considered as politics and what as an exploit of game mechanics, and also to create even more potential solutions of attack, defense, and counterattack, both for attackers and defenders. Extending numerous and different tactics, as well as introducing new ones, will greatly improve the overall game experience and create more layers of gameplay.
In light of recent events, we can agree that politics is a nice and desired feature of the game, but we also have to confirm that some non-expected actions could be considered as bypassing the game rules and siege system assumptions, because of the design loophole.
So we will do our best to fix that, and are already working on changing the spawn system of siege engines during the siege, and implementing more unique ways to counter various tactics and approaches of both – defenders and attackers.
Are you a new 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 so fast.
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 video below, we 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! [previewyoutube="FOsaO3FtKC0;full"] 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 below 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 the ingame report and feedback tool 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 are thrilled to hear your feedback and are always there for you!
New wooden Main Building
Finishing freebuilding overhaul, we are happy to introduce the long-awaited new wooden Main Building! The old one was very irregular so the new model is adjusted much better to the grid of the Freebuilding system. Placing spawn on the outside of the old one was making defense difficult, and allowed in some situations to claim the flag without going through doors below, so it was also fixed. Overall the new model has more space inside, is much better optimized, and is using textures of the overhauled Freebuilding system. Also, on the top level, it can grant 4 slots to mount ballista on it! Since it is more sumptuous we hope it will fulfill its role well, and you will like its new design and functionalities.
Concept art of the new Main building. Check in-game and let us know how you like it!
Extension and explanation of cosmetic skins system:
Gloria Victis MMO is a project created by a small independent team of Developers from Poland. At the beginning, the original team was working on their dream game over time, as volunteers, and without any budget. In 2014, after months of hard work and reforging their unstoppable will into the project, Gloria Victis was introduced to a new system that allowed independent developers and creators to show their projects to the world – Steam Greenlight.
Gloria Victis MMORPG rushed to the first place of the top voted projects, leaving behind over 1500 other games in less than 48 hours, and according to our knowledge, it is still an unbeaten Steam and world record. Two years later, with the original team of seven people onboard, Gloria Victis became available for players as one of the most unique and ambitious projects on Steam. After a successful Early Access Release, the team was able to establish an office and work together in one place, against all odds.
Still, game development since the beginning was covered only from game sales. We never had any investors or publishers. The game was always earning just enough to keep the current team and all extra money is being pushed back into the project – buying or creating tools, assets, and expanding the team.
In 2018, partially because of community demand, and as a way to earn some money to expand the team and speed up the development, we implemented Supporter Shop in the game, which allowed small game monetization by introducing cosmetic variants of the top-tier gear, so players were able to customize their looks a little.
After introducing Supporter Shop, thanks to your help, we were able to double our team size which allowed us to improve our game much faster than previously. A great fact of our game growth is that within 2 years we have implemented more than 100 updates, and we are able to communicate with you on a daily basis. Enough said, without the Supporter Shop it couldn’t be possible, as our team is still at least a few times smaller than the very most MMO studios around the world, and most probably the smallest, but still one of most communicative and dedicated.
Cosmetic skins in Gloria Victis are working differently than in other games you could have played. In our game, information and fairness are more important than looks, and knowing that it is very important to be able to tell what type and tier of armor an enemy is wearing, we decided that all skins will be clamped to top tier items.
To wear skin and make it visible on character, players have to wear the ingame base item to which cosmetic skin is assigned to. This way, players have to craft or loot, and then wear top tier items in order to wear skin on it and change their looks, so if other players are seeing someone with the skin applied, they can right away tell what base item is under it and they can calculate their chances or pick up a right weapon to counter enemy armor type.
Combining the relation between base item and skin, which is still giving information about enemy equipment despite hiding base item under a skin, unique partial loot system that our game has, and by creating risk versus reward system, by allowing skins to be applied only to top tier - quite expensive and rare items, cosmetics system in Gloria Victis is a system which is fair and much appreciated by our community.
[I]Recently added cosmetic skin of Legion's Legat!
Like mentioned before, we are aware that experienced players that know the game very well are picking up their tactic, weapon, and focus on the information they can get from an enemy appearance. And it is commonly known what skins are for what armor sets and it is better to attack the weakest link in the shield wall or focus on someone that wields a weapon that is not effective against our armor.
We analyzed players' equipment and it is confirmed that almost five times more people are wearing tier IV items instead of V, and half of them are unable to wear the skins they purchased due to that. And since we want players to be able to use the cosmetics they bought, and in that way helped us greatly, we found a solution to make skins more available for players.
From now on, skins have two color versions and you will be able to wear your skins on base items of tier IV too. Since second best and top tier are quite similar in stats, and the biggest difference between them is a huge durability boost for tier V, we had to differ the skins, and looking at the color of the skin players will be able to tell what tier base item is under the skin.
Nations received additional colors to their national pallets, and the new colors will be used to mark tier IV of the base item under the skin. Cosmetics visuals are not changed while using tier V, so you just received an extension of the system, not a change in what we already have.
We are aware that some windows may have quite long lists of base items, and skin window lists will be much longer, but we will make it more player-friendly and intuitive in further iterations and overall UI and UX improvements that are already planned for the whole game user interface.
We are the only MMORPG of such scale that achieved what we did with the great help of our community. We cannot thank you enough for your assistance in this journey and you will be always the most important part of our team. We hope this cosmetic system change will make you happy about new possibilities and also bring some more color to the game.
Also, in addition to the multi-tier system for armor, we are also happy to introduce long-awaited one-handed swords skins. Each one is inspired by one of the ingame nations, but of course, you can use them on all top tier 1h swords.
Brand new skins for one-handed swords! From the top - Count's Parade Sword, Legion Legate's Lion Sword, and Mercykiller's Golden Cutlass
Quality of Life:
– Added a new model of wooden Main Building and it’s preview graphic – Added a possibility to be registered to both, solo and Group vs Group arenas at the same time – Added enemy markers to Group versus Group arena – Due to extending nation color palettes in order to extend the cosmetic skin system, each nation received one additional color related to their lore, theme and current pallet that will be used to indicate new, second-best tier base items for skins – Since the previous preview color shown on cosmetic skin banners to indicate on what parts nation palette color will be used, banners have been recolored to new preview color – navy blue. Reminder: Navy blue cosmetic skin parts shown on banners in Supporter Shop are the parts that in-game will have the base or additional color from palette depending on nation and base item tier. Be sure to check the preview of the cosmetic skin to see how it looks in the game, assigned to available base items, and your nation – Preview window received two buttons and a tooltip which allow and explain the ability to change the preview of cosmetic skin respectively to top and second best tier of base items – Multiple smaller optimization and performance improvements on both, server and client-side
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing NPC’s to be able to hit through the walls with melee attacks. We are still working on ranged attacks and are aware of the situation – Fixed an issue causing wrong calculations of horse speed while attempting to jump on it, which resulted in horse jump bypassing applied slows and allowed way too easy to escape from combat – Fixed an issue causing camera distance could stay zoomed in and were not returning to the original setting after using free look with tilde button – Fixed an issue related to ending a siege while leaving the grey flag on siege location that could lead to an error that had an impact on the next sieges – Fixed an issue causing noticeable FPS drop after opening Supporter Shop and purchasing the cosmetic skins – Fixed collider and navmesh in blacksmith building, that caused some issues in movement, especially while using the stairs – Fixed the terrain on Volcano event spawns, some of which were accessible to enemies due to the possibility to jump onto them on the horse – Fixed the reach of the wooden training sword to be consistent with its model length – Fixed an edge case issue that could prevent players to join fight in Group vs Group duels
Weekly update 254 – Lions roar!
Greetings, Warriors!
Christmas passed, the holiday ended, and we caught a breath before diving into work in the new year. We are once again gaining momentum and after a short rest coming back with the first weekly update of 2021!
We gathered a lot of feedback and reports during the break, and we are already working hard to address all of it. Part of the team is catching up with the reproductions, tests, and announced earlier features, among others – the new wooden main building model and some important fixes. Our art and the graphic team had some time to finish something that was on the side track for quite some time, and improve characters' customization options in-game by introducing a brand new skin set!
We are happy to see that our Community is growing already – for a small indie team, such as ours, it means a direct boost for the game’s development. Thus we hope you’ll give a hearty welcome to the newcomers! As you can earn Contribution Points and Mentor Points for helping the new players on chat, and helping them level their toons, it is a great opportunity to find new friends, guildmates, and well - opponents!
Let us check what’s around the corner before we get to the traditional list of fixes and quality of life improvements, and as always: See you in battle!
The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. Salty & TrueCatch – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.5.6 Beta
Work in progress insight and some plans for the future:
As mentioned earlier, we are currently putting the main focus on optimization, performance, fixes, and improvements. But when our coders are working on that, there will be some manpower that will be directed to some small features. As a lot of players are asking us on our official Discord about the roadmap, we can share with you a rough list of things that are planned or considered for upcoming months.
First, most of the important changes in the game will be related to its stability and performance. 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 things that the new engine will unlock – upgrade of the motion controller and cluster system to improve server load.
From the feature side, We want to continue expanding the questlines, place some more environment locations into the game, creating more unique battlefields on the links between castles and give some love to the economy by introducing player’s made stalls and markets. Horses will receive some polish, including new colors and probably special skins!
We are also planning an improvement of user experience related to our game interface – new windows, new HUD, new functionalities, dedicated and deep help tabs everywhere– those are a few things we are considering.
Of course, that is not a full list, and the priority or content of it may change anytime, but it should give you an idea about what we are going to do before the official release, which will happen later this year!
Quality of life:
Group vs Group Arena:
We Improved the Group versus Group arena system. That is an old feature, but due to severe issues in participant selection was not used commonly. Through the button next to minimap you can register for a group fight. When there will be enough participants, the system will transfer them to the arena and start the group duel. Depending on the participants, players will be able to train their skills in different configurations without any punishments for losing the duel. Group duels can be set up inside the nation or between nations, depending on players' activity and registrations. Let us know what do you think about that feature!
Known issue: We are aware that in the same nation group duel enemies health indicators are not red, but it will be introduced in the next iteration. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Changes in sieges:
From now on, major flag and minor flags around it are considered as one siege and have a shared scoreboard. Also, the siege comes to an end when enemies leave, not just after capturing the flag. Capturing the flag was starting another siege event if original owners were still fighting for location.
Before, siege logic was prepared for one location at a time, so migrating between one siege and another caused bugs in the calculations and scoreboards based on them. From now on all should work correctly during going through and returning from one siege to another.
The changes lead to the fact that the siege is treated as one larger attack on locations, and not many small ones with each lighting and extinguishing the flag on the map which should improve the overall experience and allow for more tactical movement between minor and major flags of the location.
Other changes:
– Improved the formatting of changelog headers in notification center and servers selection scene – Added a new set of skins for the Praetorian’s medium armor – the Legion Legate's armor
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing showing wrong coin type in the teleport payment window – Fixed an issue causing showing wrong names of some items in Supporter Shop – Fixed a misleading map reward marker of the Ismir quest "Down with the deserters!" – Fixed the game version indicator on the client to show the proper version of the game, which currently is Beta
New six-pieced skin set for the Praetorian’s medium armor. Disclaimer: Spear and shield are not parts of the set :P
Weekly update 253 – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas one more time, Warriors!
Holidays are coming, so we pushed this week's patch a little and released it earlier to ensure a calm and merry Christmas for you and for the Dev team. Still, the update contains a lot of improvements and fixes, as well the new destruction system for buildings, that we announced a few weeks ago, with the Freebuilding overhaul. This system greatly improves the immersion and visuals of the game, so we cannot wait to see videos from your sieges!
According to last week's announcement, yesterday was the last day of the current year when tokening was allowed, which means that today is the last day to participate in prepared SoW’s! You will be able to token Guild Castles again from 03.01.2021 so after the Christmas truce.
Today's update will be the last regular one for this year. Part of the team will take some time off to spend a while with their families and friends between Christmas and New Year. We want to thank you all for accompanying us for another year during our great journey, and for your cheering and support. We wish you Merry Christmas and the best for the upcoming year!
And as always: See you in battle!
The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. A kenshi & Limon – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.5.5 Beta
Structures destruction visuals
As you know, till today, buildings were just vanishing after destruction. Since it was quite an immersion breaker, we decided to address that because we got the tools that allowed us to make proper animations and particles without an impact on optimization. We announced such improvement a few weeks ago when the Freebuilding overhaul was introduced.
From now on, your efforts during sieges will be rewarded with a nice animation of collapsing structures and suitable sound effects! That system also greatly helps to keep in mind the area damage falling structures are dealing to the other buildings nearby. Wait no more, get your axes and siege engines ready, and raze enemy walls to the ground!
[previewyoutube="4rTFqLF-Yq8;full"][video/gif][/previewyoutube]Known issue - we are aware that the new system is not working for the Main Buildings yet, but we are working on that already!
Quality of Life:
– Increased a chance to get a Santa hat from the Santa bag three times – Improved the gate behavior in Pride Long Forgotten event – Improved position and rotation of gneiss node – updated PVP memorials on the global arena – Improvements in recently reworked sangmarian questlines, including teleports behavior and dialogues fixes
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing applying wrong cooldowns to the main server and nation change after changing the main server – Fixed an issue causing showing the message about turning on notifications of attacked locations on level 100. That message should be shown when the character will reach level 40 – Orangeleaf status could not be removed on the client-side until the end of the game session, despite it should have been already removed during it – Fixed an error in Viator dialogue, that could prevent players to continue related questline – Fixed the chest spawners of Secrets of Ystad, Serai, and Dundrum events. Those spawners were available outside of the event, available for everyone, and if chest were collected by a character under level 60, it was not progressing the events
Weekly update 252 – Merry Christmas!
Santa Claus is coming to town!
You were waiting for it since you heard “Last Christmas'' on the radio for the first time this year, so it is about time! Holiday events in Gloria Victis MMO just started!
We would like to thank you all who joined us at yesterday's PvP event – it helped us greatly in gathering data for the test session of the new host. We are waiting for your feedback regarding the performance during the event, so, be sure to let us know using the ingame feedback tool or reach us on our Discord! Winners and participants of the event have been rewarded – enjoy your Ambers!
As always, we have for you a weekly dose of fixes and improvements, and as well, some small announcements relating to Open SoW and guild castles tokening during the holiday.
We also have to mention that after yesterday's ping test on the test server, we are ready for a global run to gather even more data, so we will move the EU Eaglewood server temporarily to a new host to check its performance “in real battle”. We made a system to receive your ping rate automatically, so you just need to play the game as usual. The test session will end before Saturday’s the Open State of War and the decision about staying with the new or moving to the old host will depend on its result.
Check the details below and since we’ve no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
The screenshot's authors have been awarded. KatyushaCHL & Erikson – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.5.4 Beta
Let it be Christmas!
Save Christmas and help Santa to find his broken sleigh and retrieve a list of good players, because without it they may never get their presents!
Take part in holiday events, collect and bake Gingerbread to exchange it for unique rewards, including exclusive event weapon – Moonstar, festive Santa sleigh decoration skin and many more interesting rewards! We hope that you and yours will have a wonderful Christmas and get everything you wish for!
O Holy Night – Christmas Truce
As we are aware that Christmas is the time when people can have limited access to the game due to visiting their family and friends, we are suspending Guild Castles tokening. Option to place a token on Guild Castle will be turned off from 21.12.2020 and will remain like that till 03.01.2021. Because of that the last Open SoW this year will be moved to the closest Saturday – 19.12.2020. May this Christmas season bring you closer to all those that you treasure in your heart!
Some of our players already set up a small holiday meeting in game, you can check the video footage from that here!
Never gonna give you up (Quality of life improvements:)
– Improved position of Crafting Master NPC in Mereley, since it could roam around and get harder to find during related questline – Adjusted nonloot areas, to cover questline spawn points and prevent questing players to get killed on spawn – Adjusted the difficulty level of the Sea Wraiths event first stage. Lower level NPC enemies will allow solo and lower-level groups of players to participate, complete some subtasks, and get unique materials. Remember that the second part of the event is still quite challenging! – From now on, allied players allowed by the guild to enter its Guild Castle will be able to open the Bastion window of the location using the architect table - Catapults and trebuchets will deal the damage accordingly to the level of power bar load, keeping its current maximum damage for shots released with a full loading bar. It will prevent dealing maximum damage to structures by placing the engine next to the structure and barely loading it repeatedly
From now on, we are showing the damage multiplier in a different way, using percentage instead of point cap. We lowered the relative reference point of “regular damage” from 1 to 0.7, and that is allowing us to show better how different types of armor work and what is their impact on delivered damage. Wearing proper items will allow you to get up to a 130% damage multiplier, which should encourage players to rethink their approach to defensive and offensive statistics of their characters' builds and increase the usability of medium and light armor.
Speaking of light armor and it’s scaling of damage multiplier implemented a few weeks ago, which was introduced to balance the damage outcome for lightly armored players and encourage them to wear higher tier light armor to achieve the best damage output, we overlooked that players can take off all items and become glass cannons bypassing any damage output reductions, what in some cases could be disruption to flights or sieges balance. From now, wearing no item will grant the same damage multiplier reduction as wearing tier I light item. It will be better to wear the best possible light armor to maximize your damage, as it was intended from the beginning.
All I want for Christmas is Fixes:
– Fixed an issue that could cause the wrong displacement of character model on client relative to its server position in edge cases related to positioning character near gates murder holes – Fixed the issue causing dialogues of Nicetus and Decius could block further progress in sangmarian questline – Fixed an issue causing beehives near Raven Inn was available to collect outside the related quest – Fixed an issue that could cause instant death of character while leaving the water after jumping to it from a high height – Fixed the issue causing showing empty events – Fixed Wilga’s dialogue that could prevent players from receiving a reward from a particular quest after accepting another task – Fixed all known issues related to that after polish of 45-degree wall models some parts of nation castles walls were not matching correctly and were leaving small gaps in the defenses – Fixed an edge case error related to attributes points distribution – Fixed an issue causing wrong NPC behavior while trying to reach the same waypoint and could lead to NPC’s getting stuck – Partially fixed an issue with siege engines turning and responsiveness, we are still working on it – Multiple fixes of terrain, environment models, grass, and vegetation reported by the community
Weekly update 251 - Venture onto the Quest!
Hello Warriors!
In the beginning, we are very happy to welcome new and returning players that decided to start their journey through Gloria Victis world after last week's announcement about the project entering beta. Welcome, and best of luck on the battlefield!
This week, the team focused on improving the balance system, introducing another iteration of questlines improvements, and addressing players' feedback. In addition to that, we have for you a weekly dose of fixes and improvements. Thank you for your reports and suggestions that helped us with those tasks!
And without further ado, let's jump right to the biggest changes:
The screenshot author has been awarded. Paelar– check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.5.3 Beta
Next milestone in the questlines overhaul
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 in past weeks, today we are happy to introduce the reworked first line of Sangmar quests. This is one of the last points on the to-do list of that vast and long-term task of the questlines overhaul.
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 starting area around Balhammon received a visual refreshment and its level design has been adjusted to the new questlines.
The Imperial army is in need of recruits who will help Baalhammon to fight the savage Ismir raiders from the frosty North who took advantage of the war chaos and sneaked up into the province to pillage and cause distress. Grab your weapon, get rid of the invader, and prove your worth to the Empire!
Some amazing views from the reworked starting area near Sangmar capital
Balance system improvements
We have been speaking with players and acknowledged some potential weak spots which might be used to manipulate the balancing systems, and we have covered all of the potential reported cases. At the same time, to make it more understandable when guilds can move to another nation, we have made more clear and automated rules.
As moving the guild to another nation, due to the requirement of request from every single guild user takes around a week to proceed, the balance status can change in the meantime. The last season's transfer of one of the guilds was unclear to some players and we had to make a statement about it to clear things up.
As for now, we have added a “Deep Underdog” state of the nation, which is detecting the moment when players can start transferring to the nation either by single players or entire guilds. The system checks the last weeks/months history of a nation and activates if the nation hits the underdog status for the very first time from a very long time, or it is a nation who’s been on the edge of becoming the underdog for some time already. It shall make a clear indication when a nation is a real underdog, and help evade potential manipulations of getting a temporary underdog to allow people to jump to that nation.
Same time, this “Deep Underdog” status might be helpful to future improvements of balancing systems, which we will be speaking about with the community.
To make it clear: as the “deep underdog” status calculation will need some time to adjust, we will of course set every nation with a possibility of having “deep underdog”, so if any nation has “underdog” status right now – players will keep the possibility to move there.
WiP sneakpeak - our graphic artists are already working on the promised new wooden main building model!
Ingame Questionnaires
A few days ago we asked high-level players through ingame questionnaires about /home command and its usage under some circumstances. Both questionnaires were sent to accounts with high-level characters only because the matters contained therein are very much related to the end game.
Excluding the "unsure" players, 63% agreed with a solution “Do you think that we should allow owners to move to their guild castle with the command /home if it is actively being tokened, and for the time period starting 30 minutes before SoW and lasting until SoW ends?” and 57% of players that took part in the voting agreed with the proposition “Do you think we should add the ability to teleport with / home (only available to the castle owners’ guild) to a GC that is not linked to the capital by spending 5 to 7 minutes in a progress bar to simulate the time it would take to travel by horseback from the capital?”
As those results don't give us a very clear agreed indication of our community's will on those matters, and as we have received lots of your feedback on them while voting, we are postponing the idea for now. Thank you all for your participation and feedback!
All new and previous questionnaires are available to check on Gloria Victis's official Discord #questionnaires-archive channel!
Quality of Life:
– Improvements of the “target interface”: When aimed at with the cursor, gates are showing their hitpoints bars correctly and are not showing them when destroyed. Barricades are showing their hitpoints. Dead NPC enemies are showing only names and are not showing empty health bars – Speeding up the vanishing of “target interface” for allies and neutral targets. Enemy’s health bars are vanishing at the same speed as before – Guardhouses, Farms, Lumber Mills, and Mines from now on can show their status related to the flag Bastion. A new window that can be shown by clicking “E” on the mentioned buildings is showing what the building generates, what is its level, and what is it limited by – Server-side optimization changes related to all buildings that have hit points system, which is greatly reducing server load – Reduced the number of crafting materials needed to create the top tier medium helmets to balance their cost and make them not more expensive than heavy helmets – Strengthen the effect of Rue Brew tincture. It is reducing the incoming bleed damage but overall was not stronger than Protectant Tincture which works for every type of damage. From now on, Rue Brew will be much stronger and will be a viable tool to counter dagger users – Added notification about the placement of the placed workstation. From now on it will be easier to acknowledge if the workstation has been placed in a non-loot, loot, or guild castle zone – Removed the not needed 1CP reward for location building events because it was not enough to make a difference at all – Added a new memorial in Sangmar safe zone area
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue that prevented feint of the shield bash because of the cooldown – Fixed an issue causing giving the wrong title for killing Otton Raubritter – Fixed the loot pool of Warrior from South NPC enemy in “The Cohort Strikes Back: Warriors from the South” group event – Fixed an issue that could lead to the health bar not hiding when it should have, due to not entirely full regenerating health – Fixed an issue causing mounts hitpoints and stamina could have been wrongly set up – Fixed incorrect quantities of fuel substitutes in the recipe of Styrsman’s Heavy Helm – Fixed an issue that trough disassembling players could learn the wrong recipe for Champion Medium Helm – Adjusted the roof height for tier 3 models that could cause players characters to hover over the floor near battlements – Multiple fixes in recently added new Freebuilding models – Fixed the issue causing wrong progress count for “Gatherer” Steam Achievement
We are pleased to announce that Gloria Victis MMORPG is leaving the alpha state of the project today! It is an important and encouraging milestone for us, as we are looking in the past with pride and a sense of fulfillment. We would not be here and achieve everything without our awesome community, so, at the beginning of this update announcement, we would like to thank you all who helped us to create Gloria Victis MMORPG – a project that was made by players, for players, and with players.
We are the only MMORPG of such scale that achieved what we did with the great help of our community. We never had any investors and publishers and the original team worked for years without any budget. After the Steam release in 2016 – the only income that drives the project is from the game selling and ingame Supporter Shop. We cannot thank you enough for your assistance in this journey and you will be always the most important part of our team
Thank you for your trust, patience, help, and cheering for us!
The screenshot author has been awarded. Erikson – check your Ambers!
Gloria Victis MMORPG Beta:
The Beta state of the project just started. This is a time to focus even more on your feedback, focus on the game performance and stability, and polish the game as well as it is possible. Like we said in earlier announcements, new tools given to us by the engine upgrade are opening new possibilities and allowing us to make Gloria Victis even bigger, stable, and optimized.
So, the beta will last a few months and will prepare us to leave Early Access. Part of the team will work on bug fixes and new features, and we would like to address players' demands, and feedback. The other part will focus on optimization, performance, and technical updates. Do not be scared - the game is and will remain fully playable during the process, which is best proven by the players with thousands of hours in-game!
Gloria Victis is a project that should be understood as “Game as Service” – despite we already have a lot of features and systems, this is not an end. We will constantly update the game with the help of your feedback and introduce new systems and features like we did in alpha, as we will continue that in the beta state, and after the game release. We will not slow down and we will keep up the pace!
As a reward for your contribution, each character created till this morning will receive a unique ingame title – Alpha Player! We are glad to be here for you and with you and we will continue our work on this one of a kind MMO, that brings entertainment, a wide range of emotions and satisfies the needs of competition in our lives.
New Glory Season
Today is the last day of the Current Glory Season! It will not be possible to earn or lose the Nation Points today and the scoreboards of other season-based rankings (Glory and Arena) are frozen. 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!
Screenshot from the most recent PVP event made by our community memeber - Kanath
We also have for you a weekly dose of quality of life changes, improvements, and fixes!
Quality of Life:
– Model and visual improvements for wooden corner tower and wooden gate – Added animation to health and stamina bar showing the changes in those resources status changes – Turning off the empty health bar of the visual target, if in a particular moment there is no information about its health status
Fixes:
Freebuilding:
– Fixed an issue causing freebuilding economical buildings could be placed on the edge or outside castle grid zone – Fixed position of resource nodes and spawners in Leaktown mine and Lublin farm – Fixed wooden gatehouse frontal gate model causing catapults and small rams not being able to go through new gatehouses wooden gates – Fixed colliders of gatehouses internal gates that were not working properly after the destruction
Other:
– Fixed an issue causing Tectite nodes were not visible on the lowest graphic settings – Fixed an issue causing wrong controller behavior and allowing jump with smaller collider, which led to the possibility of jumping through and to places that should not be available – Fixed an issue causing flickering of siege engines health bar – Fixed an issue causing health and stamina bar of character and mount could be not saved in some edge cases
And now, since we know where we are right now and what we are going to do, some of you, especially new players may be curious how the project started? What is the story behind Gloria Victis? Who are those people that stand behind it?
The beginning
Every good story starts with a glass of milk, an unexpected opportunity, and a brave goal. Every success is sustained with hard work, fighting the adversities, and continuous support of favorable people around.
No one really knew when the idea came, and if it will be successful or not. No one could predict how it will be shaped over time and if there will be enough will and power to make something big from it.
But the idea persisted. And it found its followers, its friends, and its defenders. And it grew in the hearts of people to be ready one day in 2014 to be introduced to Steam Greenlight – a new system that allowed independent developers and creators to introduce their projects to the world.
Gloria Victis MMORPG rushed to the first place of the top voted projects, leaving behind over 1500 other games in less than 48 hours, and according to our knowledge, it is still an unbeaten Steam and world record. Two years later, which the original team of seven people used to prepare for the EA release as well as it was possible without any budget and lack of manpower, Gloria Victis became available for players as one of the most unique and ambitious projects on Steam.
9th of June, 2016, the team grouped in the house of its members in Zabrze, Poland; sat down and started implementing the plan.
They knew well that they’ll either succeed on Steam or the project will collapse. Enough to say that at this point our boss just spent the last savings from his wedding to pay for the servers for the Headstart. Yet, his faith and dedication were a great motivation for us so we knew that we should celebrate this special moment – glorious or dramatic – together, finally in a complete squad in one place. And we knew that the launch will be exhausting – yet, we didn’t know how much it’ll be. We have a 2D art ninja who was working with us on this project and other stuff for more than 5 years – this was the first time when they saw him in real life.
Steam Early Access headstart with the original team of developers
Hour Zero, launch time! And half a minute later we realized that due to a simple human mistake – we were really exhausted at this point – instead of the logging menu, players were invited with our “admin panel” scene. Of course, it was completely useless for a player – it can’t be activated without special account permissions, proper IP address, randomized password, etc, yet the first half an hour after the launch was… quite scary.
This 1 day-long headstart lasted 3 days.
Who would think that a month later we have 30k copies sold on Steam and we’ll bring our dream to life – establish an office and work together in one place on a hyper unique project, against all odds.
So, with an all-out effort, we released the game on Steam! The players keep coming, the concurrent users counter grows at an alarming rate – we’re barely able to set new servers in time to hold all these people. Our servers are global, per region of the world – by the launch, there were 5, an hour later we had 10, and at some point we had 18 servers running.
The very first day after release Gloria Victis made it to #1 in the Early Access Topsellers and #14 in the Steam Bestellers.
Thanks to that, we could finally establish an office. The boss convinced us that we’ll achieve much more working in one place together than remotely, as it was for the last 3 years, or more. We were just 7 guys and we didn’t need anything huge – so our first HQ was set in… a former beauty studio. Of course, as we were hiring more people, it started becoming quite tight in there. But we dealt with it and expanded the office’s area by renting a next-door place, which used to be a language school and breaking a door hole in the wall. It’s a fairly comfy place now – we have medieval armor on a stall, swords on walls, a nice large fish tank with a pretty inner design, and some nice posters.
We just hang up that one, isn't that awesome? Point of view from Canthomas desk, who is an author of that photo
So, we already have an office, we’re finally not dirty poor and we know that we’ll finish the game – because we wanted to, we could do it and we’re determined as hell. It was the best time to start showcasing Gloria Victis somewhere.
So far we attended Digital Dragons a few times (the biggest game dev conference in Central Europe) and once, right before the Steam launch, we had a stand at Pyrkon – the largest fantasy con in Poland. But the best decision was to go to Poznan Game Arena 2016!
PGA is the biggest gaming event here, in Poland. It’s an amazing experience for devs. We were meant to showcase the game in the Indie Zone – it was quite large, I must admit, it’s impressive to see so many indie games in one place. In general, like 40.000 people came to PGA that year.
Events are extremely motivating in general, we could finally see how players consider the effect of our hard work. Of course, we knew that there must be someone who likes our game – there are not so many MMORPGs there without steel bikinis, where swords don’t drop from wolves but are forged by blacksmiths, and the combat relies on the player’s own skill, not the sequences of abilities shortcuts pressing. Anyway, it’s priceless to see the people’s reaction on your own – I can’t recommend it enough. We’re learning so much in such moments!
In the meantime, we started working on the new combat animations and luckily we got a deal with an animator, who was working on Geralt’s animations in The Witcher 3. He made a really nice teaser for us, so obviously we wanted to show it off, along with the game's main theme created by Marcin Przybyłowicz.
[previewyoutube="cKrUtkF6OhM;full"]
Early Access can be amazing for both developers and gamers. It brings to life many projects which wouldn't have a chance any other way – and it was the same with our game. Players, on the other hand, can actively contribute to the development and actually shape the final product.
Going to launch on Early Access we knew that we have to work hard to earn the players’ trust. However, we were determined as hell to continue the Gloria Victis development. So we took a rather radical way to let the customers know about it – by releasing regular updates. What does it mean in our case? At least one update weekly. Let’s say that it’s not an easy ratio to keep up with, and we’re often losing breath, but it’s worth it. We keep an eye on our competitors and some of them failed just because of a lack of updates. And not everyone can say that they released 50 updates in the first 9 months! Today, we can tell that we presented 250 updates, and made over 500 server-side ones in 229 weeks!
Our dedication pays back in the players’ trust and their reception of the game. It’s nice to read in a review that someone appreciates our stubbornness and all the hard work we put in here. Working with the Community, in general, is one of the most fascinating parts of the MMORPG development process. Our players actively contribute to it, i.e. they are translating GV to their native languages. Though we officially support only English and Polish versions – the ones that the game is being made in – it’s already translated to 16 languages in total.
Moreover, I can’t express enough how important transparency is when working on an MMORPG which is evolving all the time. That’s why we’re discussing important topics and planned changes with players daily, both on our Steam forums and on our official Discord.
We received a pack of goodies from the Steam team one day!
You must gather your party before venturing forth
We found many amazing people in our community who contributed to the creation of such a unique project. Including forums and game moderators, testers, text editors, a programmer, and 3 designers. Many of them became full-time team members and are working in the Black Eye Games office till today!
When the very first castle was to be added there was a little contest, where participants could win a game key by writing a siege-themed short story. Soon after one of the winners joined the team, becoming our writer-screenwriter, and later also a game designer and PR guy. Bartold is now one of the most valuable assets of the team.
Another Community “recruit” came just a few months later. We had no in-game map back then yet, so the guy drew it manually in graphics software, just traveling around the world and… counting steps. He joined us as a programmer and guess what was Konrad’s first task in GV? A map system.
Months before the Steam launch we had a hardcore player in our Community. Not only would he defeat everyone in 1v1, often in a crappy starting gear, he also would coordinate their entire nation so well to the point where another faction close to extinction And that’s how we got a full-time system/combat designer – Warrpirek.
There’s hell a lot of testing to be done when you are releasing updates weekly. We do our best to let as many people as possible play Gloria Victis in their native languages, so we hired a student from Turkey who came to study in Poland. Canthomas not only translates GV to his language, but he’s also a damned good tester!
There are even more team members that were recruited from the community, and today 18 people are working on the game, in the office or remotely, but we are still one of the smallest teams in the world that are developing a living and playable MMO of such scale!
Pillars of the game
MMORPGs by their nature are social games, so they gather a variety of player types. Each player has their own expectations of the gameplay and finds fun in different aspects of the game. There are various classifications of the player types which help the developer to understand the needs of their customers. It’s important to tailor the game’s features in such a way that every vital part of the community will remain entertained, and engaged in creating an online society.
There are three main pillars of Gloria Victis which we had established at the beginning of the project: open PVP, territory control, and player-driven economy. Open PVP includes epic sieges over player-controlled locations, massive battles in the open and smaller, random encounters of the opposite faction members. This part of the gameplay mainly attracts so-called “killers”, players who are proud of their superior skill or how well they co-operate with the group, but also “explorers” – people who dedicate their effort to invent new ways to overcome the enemy, developing new tactics, metas and so on, giving the fighters new possibilities. Important note – the victory tastes much better if it was achieved with a risk and a proper reward was gained, so there is a partial-loot system in Gloria Victis, where a defeated player can be robbed of a limited amount of items by the opponent. Not much enough to discourage fighting, but enough to keep you considering the consequences of your actions, evaluating your strategy, and promote the second layer, which is…
Player-driven economy. Wars are done by warriors, and they need a variety of things: weapons and armors, camp equipment, food, bandages… Everything that one would need to bring the war to the enemy lands. In Gloria Victis, these things don’t drop from wolves but are crafted by players, then distributed to the customers either by them or specialized merchants, or contributed for a guild to supply the fighting forces. Crafters need resources and access to decent workshops and strongly benefit from any buff they can get to the crafting efficiency. On the other hand, fighters need to replace the looted or destroyed gear and fill their supplies of consumables. In effect, it engages players to co-operate, to create relations naturally appearing in society. This is where the third pillar comes:
Territory control – it gives the reason and importance to the PVP layer. The key part of Gloria Victis is the 3-way conflict of nations. This never-ending war gives birth to fierce fights in the front lines all the time, since most of the locations are ruled by the nations. By capturing territories, players grant the entire nation various benefits, which help all players – access to the resources nodes, crafting workshops and vendors, as well as several buffs. There are also guilds and alliances, which can claim one of several guild provinces for them, to take even more benefits, including personal respawn. This layer engages many types of players – “killers” fight and loot, “achievers” climb up the ranking and create their legends by standing the overwhelming forces, and “socializers” both take care of their community’s needs and benefit from fulfilling them.
These main layers naturally overlap, adding to the overall depth of the game and immersion, and are the ground for every activity you can do in Gloria Victis MMORPG, and for every new one that will come in the future.
What we achieved?
During all those years, the game has changed its shape many times. Ingame world grew over three times, we created new lands, locations, and flags. We added the new nation to the game, Sangmarians, that have evolved from Azebs and created new frontlines closing the world in a circle, to improve game balance. Treasure chests have been scattered across the map to awaken your adventurer instinct.
We made a full rework of combat and movement animations, changed the character models, and added playable female characters. World of Gloria Victis has been filled with countless enemies, NPC’s, questlines, and events. Skill trees have been reworked and expanded, to create even better possibilities to fill in your role on the battlefield.
We added a lot of interesting and entertaining crafting systems, like items reinforcement or disassembling, added new crafting professions, a hunger system.
We created Glory rankings, introduced guilds and alliances systems, construction, and territory control for nations and guilds, including the recently reworked freebuilding for guild castles.
The game received a dedicated Market system that absolutely changed the game economy, a brand new farming system, and a lot of improvements in gathering. You received the castle management system with the opportunity to earn money, skill, and help your nation or guild even more.
We made an overhaul of the models of the ingame items and created skins which you can use to customize the look of your ingame character, and support the game’s development at the same time!
Mounts have been added to the game, greatly reducing the distance between PVP opportunities and adding another layer to the PVP contest. We introduced siege and defensive engines to extend the siege mechanics.
We also have to notice countless Quality of Life, performance, and stability upgrades, which allowed us to extend the player’s cap on the servers and allowed us to be part of huge three-way battles over the locations and territories where even hundreds of players can participate!
We are extremely happy to see what Gloria Victis MMO has become and we are looking into the future with continuous hope for fruitful cooperation between our team and you – our community, as we mentioned at the beginning – this game is made by players, for players, and with players.
Thank you for your continuous support, see you in battle, welcome to the new era!
Weekly update 249 – Nominate Gloria Victis for the Labor of Love Award!
Greetings Warriors!
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 since the Early Access launch in June of 2016.
We set the bar high, and since releasing the game, we delivered 248 weekly updates and made over 500 server-side updates in 227 weeks, and we would not have been able to do that without our precious Community! We are happy to be close to and actively cooperate with you to make Gloria Victis engaging, addictive, and delivering a lot of entertainment.
It is heartwarming to see what we've accomplished, so if you love Gloria Victis, please nominate us for the Labor of Love Award. It would be an honor.
We are going to leave the alpha stage of the project next week, on update 250. After that, we are moving to beta, which will last a few months and prepare us to leave Early Access. In that time, our programmers will focus on using the tools given to us by the recent engine upgrade to improve stability, performance, and optimization of the game to be ready for full release and new players. Of course, part of the team will work on bug fixes and new features, and we would like to address players' demands as well as take some time to prepare new mount colors and skins. Do not be scared - the game is and will remain fully playable during the process, which is best proven by the players with thousands of hours in-game!
We introduced three hotfixes in recent days, making a lot of improvements in Freebuilding, Combat, and User interface, and for today, we prepared another portion of fixes and advancements, in large part reported or suggested by the Community. Thank you for your feedback and cooperation!
Another important announcement is that the current Glory Season will end on Thursday, December 3rd. Also, we’d like to remind you that the last day of the season – Wednesday – 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!
Last but not least, Tomorrow will start a Sales Weekend, starting with Black Friday tomorrow and ending with Cyber Monday in 5 days from today. Because of that occasion, you are receiving a huge discount for every Skin, Skin set, and usable item in our ingame Supporter Shop. Discount will be available just for a few days so do not miss the occasion and get yourself a nice skin set or complete your collection!
See you in battle!
The screenshot's authors have been awarded. akaROTHY & shadow – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.5.1 Alpha
Freebuilding:
– Fixes and visual improvements of new Freebuilding walls, gates, and towers models – Another iteration of Twinfall bridge and terrain changes. Smoothed out the terrain and cut it around the Castle grid around the ravine – From now on scaffoldings of destroyed buildings will be shown automatically after the State of War, which will save players a lot of time that had to be given to set up scaffolding manually after defending a siege – Fixed an issue causing Fortification Points for destroyed upgraded buildings were not given back properly, Points that were used to upgrade the building has been returning after a server restart, and now are given back instantly – From now on, using ballista will turn the view to FPP by default to make aiming with it easier and to prevent any visual issues that TPP could lead to
Quality of Life - User Interface:
– Fading out health and stamina bars when they are full – Better visibility of text on the sky and snow background – Flickering of the health bar when we are receiving damage – Flickering of the stamina bar during an attempt to make action consuming stamina (i.e. sprint or attack) when we do not have enough stamina to perform that action – Fading out target bar and target name after removing cursor from it and until aiming cursor at another target, what will give more information about target health status and reduce flashing of mentioned bar – Improving the visibility of the target name over its health bar – Removing "level" word from NPC target name leaving only the level number ("14" instead "level 14"), which will make UI more clear – Separation of text information of the target into two separate ones - Name above target bar and Information under it – Rework of ping indicator - from now on the color of the indicator will change smoothly and will give a better idea about the network state
Fixes:
– Leaving the construction view trough teleport to arena or event will not block the controller, attempting to teleport or unstuck will now close the construction view first – Removed the unnecessary collider in the area of Mereley that could lead to small snapping in some places – Fixed an edge case issue that could lead to receiving negative Glory Points under specified circumstances – Fixed an issue leading to improper behavior of 2-day cooldown of Guild Castle /home command – Fixed an issue causing NPC spawners in castles were not counting current Bastion Efficiency level properly and were spawning less or weaker NPC's than they should
Thank you for reading till the end! Remember about Steam Awards Nomination and Supporter Shop sale. Let us know what do you think about UI improvements, and as always - See you in battle!
Hotfix 2020-11-27:
In response to the feedback/reports received from players:
Shield Bash tweak:
Last week, we received a few reports from the players who have been "stunlocked" due to Shield Bash stab being spammable faster than the Stun damage could get down. We have confirmed the issue and made a hotfix to prevent players from abusing it. Yet, the fix which had to be done "asap" due to the severity of the issue was not done exactly the way we wanted to do it, as because of it, it was almost impossible to land a successful strong hit after landing a Shield Bash and stunning the enemy.
Now, we did a change that from the Shield Bash release to starting another Shield bash there is a minimal one second time to start the Shield Bash. We are not counting the time between the end and the start of the attack, but from the release to a new attack, and for that reason this change won't be really visible unless someone would be trying to do "stunlock", as the real cooldown depending on the attack side is between 200 to 500ms between attacks, but this should be enough to make "stun lock" not possible [This only affects the next Shield Bash!]. To make it clear for players, it gives a chat notification when we try to Shield Bash too fast, and if we hold the button, it will start the Shield Bash at the first moment possible.
At the same time, as we already had to do changes on the Shield Bash, we made use of knowledge that only Shield Bash Stab was a reliable technique of shield bashing due to others having a too long time to start the next attack. For that reason, Shield Bash timers of getting "back to idle" state have been adjusted, to be closer to Shield Bash stab.
To make it clear, no Shield Bash will be landing faster, so players will have the very same reaction time to counter it - what we did is to lower Shield Bash attacks "back to idle" time closer to Shield Bash Stab timers, to make them also viable attacks.
Training NPCs on Global Arena
Added training NPC’s to Global Arena. Those NPCs have levels 30, 60, and 100, have statistics and skills scaled to their level. From now on you will be able to train your fighting skills on NPCs without leaving the safezone or putting a lot of time to travel. Fighting an opponent on a fixed skill level will also give you a better feeling and knowledge of your progress in learning the combat mechanics.
Fixes:
– Fixed an issue causing wrong bars position after the relocation of doorways in gatehouses models – Fixed an issue causing arrows of ballistas could be stopped on the ballista building model and was not reaching the target
Weekly update 248 – Freebuilding overhaul and Combat movement update!
Hello warriors!
It is time to grab an axe, hammer and trowel once again and raise the walls of your own settlement! One of the most extensive additions in Gloria Victis history – Freebuilding for Guild Castles – just received a full renovation. You are getting brand new detailed models, new features, improved construction system, and even more will come in the near future, including a highly requested grid visibility system and destruction animation of fortifications!
But that is not all! Thanks to the full model renovation, Nation castles will also get a new look and improvements, so every player will be able to benefit from today's update.
Speaking about benefits for all, we also are happy to introduce a combat movement update, which will greatly improve the responsiveness of the combat movement, speed up the combat, and will give players the ability to change their position more easily in the tactical aspects of the game on the battlefield.
As positioning and having the possibility to improve your tactics on the battlefield is crucial for success in battle, we - as an independent game studio - are also focusing on our position on the world stage and market. Thanks to the recent update of the engine, which gives us a performance and stability boost, and thanks to the cooperation with our precious Community in fixing a lot of issues related to the moderation of the game, we believe that the time has come to leave the Alpha state of the project.
We will give ourselves two more weeks to polish the Freebuilding overhaul with you, and after that, on update 250, Gloria Victis will move to a Beta phase that will last a few months. In that time, our programmers will focus on using the tools given to us by the engine upgrade to improve stability, performance and optimization of the game, even more, to be ready for full release and new players. Of course, part of the team will work on bug fixes and new features, and we would like to address players' demands as well as take some time to prepare new mount colours and skins.
This introduction becomes a bit lengthy, but I should also mention Aquilla and Monteverde servers are merging with this update. As you know, we ran a NA/SA Test Server to check routings and performance of it. From people who sent us their reports about ping and performance, we can say that 90% of players that participated in the test session had a better ping on the new server!
You can find detailed information and a list of changes in today's update below. We are counting on your constructive feedback and help! Also, because you will be recreating your castles and may need some nice details - you can buy all the available decorations at special prices in Supporter Shop in the game!
See you in battle!
The screenshot author have been awarded. Sugarun – check your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.5.0 Alpha
Freebuilding overhaul
Freebuilding has been with us for a little over a year, and it is a system that allows every guild owning a guild province to set up fortifications and buildings on its own. Freebuilding is one of the biggest and most impactful systems of Gloria Victis. When we introduced it into the game, it became another layer of gameplay and deepened the player economy, and it gave players a lot of freedom in creativity and tactical aspects of the game.
Terrain, grid and models:
The area where fortifications and economical buildings can be placed is defined by a grid. Grids and terrain have been adjusted to new system assumptions. The terrain around the grid will allow enemies to walk around fortifications even if defenders build fortifications at the very edge of the grid, so it will be very important to make your defences well thought all around, instead of placing layers of walls only on one side. To achieve that, we had to push farms away a little at a higher tier of economic Guild Castles.
Inside of the new Skergard mine
Models of walls will now fill the grid more accurately and intuitively, removing a lot of issues related to chokepoints. The system will encourage you to build more realistic castles and spend your defence points equally around the grid. It is still possible to build more than one layer of the walls, but since the economical buildings will need more space, and it will be not possible to clip them through other buildings – they will require some more space inside and it will be much better to upgrade the walls instead placing multiple lines of them.
New grid usage of every buildable model. You can compare this one with the old system here
The previous system allowed players to create very small chokepoints in the defences, and in the new system, it is impossible to make a passage narrower than half the diagonal of the grid, which is making the smallest possible chokepoint 13 times wider than currently.
Gates received proper murder holes above the internal gate, which will greatly improve their defensive abilities and make them more valuable and comfortable in use as parts of the fortification layer. I am calling the new models more “ergonomic”, since the entrances, space inside and overall pathing of the way up and down have been improved and shortened. In addition to that, we are preventing buildings from being placed on the grid right behind the inner gate of the gatehouse.
New stone walls, towers and gates look amazing, do'nt you think?
With all these and other changes, we are aiming to reduce the death spots and choke points in castles. We are addressing the ballistae density issue, with a system that is checking how many buildings with active ballista are currently placed around the particular spot and if there are too many, the system is not allowing to active ballista on the building.
Palisades have been changed, and now each tier of the wall has a space to move around on top of it. Every additional tier grants new or better layers of defences, like battlements and roofs. Each tier will have more HP with every upgrade and will be fire-resistant when it comes to tier IV, V and VI – the stone walls.
New models of pallisades around Skergard mine and farm
Fortification and Economical points:
The maximum number and level of fortifications are limited by fortification points - different provinces have a different number of available points. Each part of the wall, tower or gate costs the appropriate amount. Higher levels of fortification have a higher cost, so it is worth paying attention to the number of available points and adjusting the number of fortifications to the preferred level.
We addressed all known issues that were causing not giving back fortification points for removed ballistas and upgraded buildings. In addition to that, we found and fixed issues related to building and preview rotations, that could lead to misplacements and inconveniences in creating the layout of fortifications by placing the buildings facing the wrong direction.
Buildings such as some walls, towers, gates and the main building can be equipped with defensive systems such as boiling oil or ballista - these systems also consume fortification points.
Guild castles also have economic buildings. You can place, among others: workshops, crafting stations, stalls with merchants and the Market station like before, but mind that economical buildings cannot be clipped through fortifications anymore which will encourage you to create some more open and better-looking space inside your location.
Leaktown build by our tester LadyAngela
Upcoming features
Today's update contains the foundation for the introduction of further improvements. In later actualisations, we will introduce a highly requested system that will show you the grid of your castle and allow you to design your lines of defence and location layout with better planning possibilities. Anyway, to make it easier, for now, you can check every grid of the Guild Castles: Aquitania, Audunstede, Greatfall, Leaktown, Lublin, Norfolk, Original Faith Order, Skergard and Twinfall.
Example of the Guild Castle grid. This particular one is Twinfall
Updates of Freebuilding will be released in iterations since it is a huge system with a lot of relations to other game features. We want to gather feedback from you and deal with any possible issues that may occur despite our long and detailed internal tests.
Current main buildings on Nation castles have been pushed away from walls to prevent jumping on them from the top, but still have current models. We are preparing a new wooden main building model for further iterations, fully redone and more suitable for new walls models set visually and technically.
Concept art of the new wooden main building. Redline on the first picture is showing the ground level, so do not be mistaken - it will not be much higher than the current one
We are preparing a system of customisable gates and towers, which will allow you to close the defender's entrance to the gatehouse and gates walls entrances with portcullis. This system will give you another field for creativity since you will be able to create layers of defences that will not be lost after enemies claim the gate and receive access to walls thanks to such moves. In addition to that, defensive systems on gates like boiling oil tanks will receive a visual overhaul.
To fight the death spots and chokepoints problems mentioned earlier, we are also working on the improvement of fortifications destructions. In further updates, falling fortifications - with the addition of proper animation! - will deal the splash damage to surrounding buildings, so placing walls one directly behind another will be less effective and it will be easier to destroy "stacked" fortifications.
Models will receive even more detail depending on terrain - castles will look more integrated with the land and look different placed on snow or on the tropical area. As we have that feature almost ready, we want to focus on gameplay over visuals first.
Top tier corner wall model - take a closer look at the moss on the wall - this detail is changing depending on terrain - castles will look more integrated with the land and look different placed on snow or on the tropical area
Armistice
After today’s update, every Guild Castle will be cleared. We are introducing an Armistice that will give guilds time to test the reworked system and rebuild their castles in peace. Each Guild Castle will have a safe zone for the nation that owns a particular Guild Location which will grant immunity to damage and looting of players and furnaces. Be aware that players from other nations still can be killed and looted inside that zone. Attacks on predefined palisades that some Guild Castles have will not trigger attacks on locations and prevent construction.
Capture from last PVP event hosted by Developers. Kanath - thank you for making such awesome album as a memorial of that event!
Combat movement
In today's update, we are also introducing a combat movement update, which will speed up the combat, improve the responsiveness of the combat movement, and will give players the ability to change their position more easily in the tactical aspects of the game on the battlefield.
– Increased combat mobility. Before, the character was very much slowed down while moving horizontally or backwards. Now, the horizontal movement has been increased to be pretty close to forward movement speed. Backward movement speed is also increased but is still slower than frontal and horizontal movement. This shall greatly help with combat positioning and "guerilla warfare" of smaller groups. The exception is the Melee Archer. Archers, while starting to pull the arrow, will receive the "Slow" condition to prevent running backwards and spraying arrows avoiding being attacked.
We do know that people wanted to have a faster controller, but at the same time was afraid that increasing the backward movements will make players unable to kick. We had done some tweaks on kick - first, the kick was not doing hit checks on the full kick range until the very end of the kick, we have shortened time of doing full kick range hit checks (that of course, doesn't make kick faster, just more reliable against target running away from us) - also, when we start the kick while running forward, our kick range will be slightly longer. Both of that should negate any negative impact of movement changes to kicking.
– Walk speed has been increased by 30%
– Changed how the "Slow" effect works Before, the effect was similar to Combat Mode, clamping the max speed into the "March" speed, now it clamps the speed to "Walk" speed which is a bit slower than "March", for melee fighters. The change doesn't affect horse movement.
The slow effect applies to the horse when the horse is being hit by any melee hit, or arrow with the Red Power Bar (nothing changed on that matter, it will also still clamp the movement to March speed). For foot fighters there are two cases of applying Slow effect - the first is slowing down the archer when he pulls the arrow, the second one is leg shot which archers can apply to their targets.
– Slightly decreased the max volume of other characters and NPCs at the closest distance, which will provide more reliable distinguishing of your own sound effects to enemy ones, and so this should improve reconnaissance in combat. At the same time, we have a limit for the max number of potential audio sources playing at the same time (performance-wise). This led to big fights having no sounds being played in some cases. We made a system which determines the priority of those sounds related to the distance - and so the cases where sounds being cut should be happening much less often.
– We have run through the animations mixes to find those which might be not clearly visible, especially for the players with higher ping. For that reason, we have shortened up mixes of around 10 attack animations. It is client-side animation visibility change only, and doesn't affect the server hit times in any kind of way, except for one attack - the one-handed weapon left attack, for which the "release to start dealing damage" time has been increased by 50ms because it was the only attack that had "release to deal damage time" lower than potential reaction time.
– Player indicator changes. After some discussions about the potential of players between two nations teaming up, most cases are possible because of the alternative player indicator, with the nicks and guilds above the player heads. We made that setting as an alternative, not the default one [the default one is using the "Diamond" HP graphics above the heads] a long time ago because those nameplates gave the "zerg" feeling even for small groups of players. That text can be very big and can confuse especially new players using that mode into thinking that the enemy groups are much larger than they really are.
For this reason, the nameplates using the "text/alternative" mode will be showing only above your nation’s players. While speaking about that change with our community, we do know that some players are so-called "shot calling", which is how top-end veteran players play. To make it still possible for them to give concise directions, we have changed how information about enemy players is visible when you hover the mouse above them. First, we have moved the UI to the top of the screen, showing there their guild names - making it much harder for groups of players to cooperate with other nations, but it will still be possible to distinguish single players. To make that happen, we also made it so that fading out after losing the target from the centre of the screen takes longer time, making it easier to track the target name when it's moving.
We do believe that this change might take some time for players to get used to - but at the same time, it should stop most cases of teaming between nations and the feeling of being "zerged" all of the time due to big nameplates of enemy player names.
Another screenshot from most recent PVP event made by one of winners of our small hussar screenhsot competition - Kanath
New server for SA and NA regions
Monteverde player base and rankings will be added to the new NA/SA Aquilla server but since a huge chunk of the SA server has already moved to the current NA server and is even holding one of the Guild Castles there, won last 5v5 PVP event and because we will be on the moment of Freebuilding overhaul introduction, which will lead to Armistice for a few days - the most reasonable option would be to keep castles from AQ.
And while just next week we will have Open SOW anyway - we will have the battles. But if servers will get merged and wiped, and we want to introduce the pretty much safe zones for a few days around GC's to make those castles being built - there's no real alternative, because merging servers, wiping flags, and making them "who takes the grey flag first he has it for next week because of the few days of peace as new Freebuilding came" would be the worst solution that can be proposed.
SA players are less than 5% of our entire Community and most of them already migrated to NA, when original NA players are around 30% of the whole player base, We can think of no other solution after the server merge than SA players playing together in the alliances with and versus NA players.
Because of that, Glory Rankings will be merged – top Monteverde players will be quite high in the overall rankings after that, and there will be a lot of time to catch up with the rest of the players until the end of the current season. It is obvious that on a new server the rankings will be more competitive, but you will have much more opportunities to get more glory and get on the better place in the standings.
At the very same time, we prepared some very special dedicated titles for current Monteverde players as compensation for the inconvenience, thanks for their suggestions and feedback that led us to the merge decision and as a memorial of the great and interesting history of the Monteverde server, it's guilds and players.
We are looking forward to seeing that new chapter, and we do hope that you will find a comfortable place on the new server, with many new friends and challenges.
I just wanted to drop here some nice view at the end, and our Community delivered - SleepyViking - enjoy your Ambers!
Quality of Life
Bastion:
– Added crafting experience reward for donating items to Bastion. It will work similarly to disassembling bonus, but will not grant the possibility to learn the recipe of the donated item – Changed the formula which enumerated the character experience reward for donating items to Bastion. It was little too easy to find a location where fulfilling the needs will grant quite a big character experience reward with few items, so from now on, players will be rewarded more accordingly to the level of difficulty of needs fulfilment – Improved responsibility of user interface of Bastion and Construction window of the castles – Added animation of opening and closing Bastion interface – Refactor of the backend code for item slots of Bastion interface
Other changes:
– Improved the usage of construction and building interface. Building the castles will be more comfortable and intuitive since the guild window will remember the last opened tab and chosen construction – Added possibility to move and zoom the top-down camera in construction mode. It will grant better visibility and gives space to add more icons and customization options for buildings in the future – Improvements of the main user interface. Changed visuals of Hitpoints, Stamina and Hunger bar and added ability to move it around the screen – Improved ability to move the buff bar around the screen. From now on you are able to move it clicking and holding it as a whole, not only narrow space between icons – Added sounds to clicking buttons, dropdowns and toggles – Added colliders to Arena that will prevent interruptions during PVP events
Fixes
– Fixed all known issues causing not giving back fortification points for removed ballistas and upgraded buildings – Fixed issues related to building and preview ghost rotations, that could lead to misplacements and inconveniences in creating the layout of fortifications by placing the buildings facing the wrong direction – Fixed an issue causing fish traps to continue depleting fisheries after reaching their max capacity. From now on, only catching something have an impact on fishery depletion – Fixed an issue causing not closing the guild ranks tooltip after closing rank selection dropdown – Fixes of some shields models which could collide with the camera
So, yeah, there goes the award for the longest patch notes in Gloria Victis history. Thank you for reading till the end, and for your patience and support! Once again, we are waiting for your constructive feedback and opinions!
Have a great day! <3
Hotfix 2020-11-21:
In response to the feedback/reports received from players:
Combat:
– Decreased the backwards movement speed by 10% [it was increased by 25% yesterday] – Decreased the horizontal movement speed by 5% [it was increased by 30% yesterday] – Strafing backwards (S + A, or S + D keys movement) is now clamped to backwards speed rather than horizontal speed – Due to the issue reported yesterday with the shield bash stab being too fast, giving a possibility to stunlock a n enemy, was covered by increasing the duration of "Back to armed" animation stagefor shield bash stab – it won't make this attack land damage slower, but make it less spammable which should make stunlocks impossible – Slowed down the horse rotation when the horse moves backwards – Adjusted the terrain and freebuilding area at Twinfall to allow to block the pathway to the bridge in the middle of the grid by building fortifications right by the bridge – Added an area excluding building tents and siege tents at the back of Twinfall to make it equal to other 2nd tier Guild Castles: Original Faith’s Order’s Keep and Leaktown
Guild Castles and Freebuilding:
– Fixed collision issues at the 6th upgrade of the gatetower which made it possible to go through the back door and caused the player rubberband after jumping down the murderhole – Fixed a bug causing that the stone upgrades of towers were shorter than the wooden ones – From now it’s no longer possible to jump into the stone Bastion model through the windows on the ground floor – Fixed a missing button translation in the buildings selection window
Hotfix 2020-11-23:
In response to the feedback/reports received from players, we are introducing another part of changes and fixes:
Guild Castles and Freebuilding:
– Fixed an issue causing preview of the building to not disappear after opening any window. Opening any window in preview mode while building should close construction mode – Multiple models and visual fixes in models of Gate, 45R and 45L walls, towers – A reduced scale of construction colliders of inns and well which caused visual issues and could lead to not showing players behind those colliders – Multiple visual fixes to preview models – Improved collider preventing placing siege tents “on the back” of Twinfall – Deepening of rivers around Twinfall to prevent siege engines to cross the water
Other changes:
– Fixed an issue causing wrong displaying of hitpoints state on the “diamond” indicators if an option to show text players nametags was turned on – Fixed an issue causing preventing interaction with a memorial near Aquitania – Fixed position of levitating villagers workshop in Norfolk – Improved translations of crafter quest dialogues
We are aware that there are some issues with moving at Corner Tower and Gates of top tiers. Simple jump allows to move further, yet we will most probably hotfix it today.
Hotfix 2020-11-24:
Dear Community.
We are introducing another hotfix for Gloria Victis, addressing some more of your feedback and reports. Instead of making a detailed list, we will make a detailed explanation for everything we prepared for you today :)
Players from Monteverde had cooldowns of changing the main server and nation – we removed them as part of the compensation that was planned before the merge. It was the first server merge in GV history and execution was indeed a little roughly at the edges. Removal of cooldowns should have been done right away to avoid trapping players in nations from the old server and to give them the possibility to transfer to other nations with the normal rules (so switching to underdog nations without a base cooldown of 90 days after switching server, as their server switch was the forced one). We are sorry for the inconvenience and thankful for your patience.
Few players did not receive their materials from furnaces placed on areas of Guild Castles – we found a problem that caused that and fixed it. Missing materials from furnaces should be able to be picked up from the “bought” market tab. Also, there was an issue with weekly rankings for part of the playerbase, and we fixed that also. Weekly rankings should work correctly after the closest scheduled servers restart.
We are happy to announce that the Armistice state is ending today, and we are removing safe zones and non-loot zones around Guild Castles. Palisades and storehouses doors of Guild Castles economical locations once again destructible.
Besides, we found out that Gatehouses were not working properly and it was possible to place buildings right behind or in front of the Gatehouse. It should not be allowed by the system like it was mentioned in the Freebuilding overhaul announcement and changelog, and all buildings that were placed on the grids next to gates of the Gatehouses have been removed. Be sure to check your castles before upcoming SoW’s!
See you in battle!
Weekly update 247 – Independence Day, Freebuilding and global test run!
Hello warriors!
Two days ago, on Tuesday, we celebrated national Independence Day in Poland. Other parts of the world have celebrated Veterans Day, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day or other important occasions in memory of historical moments. Looking into the past with pride and looking with courage into the future, we are happy to say that some historical moments are also coming in for Gloria Victis MMO and Black Eye Games Studio.
Being a small independent game studio is a blessing because it is giving us more freedom, and we can be closer to our players. But it also obligates us to work much harder than other studios, give our whole heart to the project, be here for our precious Community, and sometimes make tough decisions. We set the bar high, and since releasing the game as an Early Access title back in the June of 2016 we delivered 246 weekly updates in 225 weeks! (Yes, I know, more updates than weeks, but that is true!) We made over 500 server-side updates, and we are on the last straight to leave the alpha stage of the project, move to beta, and shortly after - leave Early Access. Do not be afraid - the game already is and will remain fully playable during the process, which is best proven by the players with thousands of hours in-game!
As you know, most of the dev team is working on Freebuilding overhaul. We are almost ready to show it to you, but we decided to postpone today’s update. We want to run more tests so we will be sure it works as intended, is polished as well as it is possible, and to do further preparations related to engine upgrade that have an impact on the mentioned feature. Freebuilding overhaul is going to be released next week if everything will go smoothly.
We received a lot of great captures related to the announced Hussar screenshot competition, and it is great to see our Community more and more active inside the game and around the project. It is heartwarming to see our players dressed in red and white, putting polish emblems on the shields, and Wings of Glory on their backs. Let me remind you that you can submit your screenshot and have a chance to be rewarded with Ambers till midnight, today!
The screenshot author has been awarded. DoomCakes – check your Ambers!
Work in Progress Insight:
Freebuilding overhaul
Freebuilding is one of the biggest and most impactful systems of the game. When we introduced it into the game it became another layer of gameplay and economy and gave players a lot of freedom on the field of creativity and tactical aspects of the game.
We received tons of feedback about the system and gathered enormous amounts of data to learn the potential issues of the feature and to improve it even more. A lot of changes has been introduced in weekly updates, fixing some bugs, improved the user experience and balance of the locations. Overhaul of the system is addressing those aspects of the system that were harder to improve and required more time to introduce needed solutions.
Changes in Freebuilding will be released in iterations, since like it was pointed before – it is an enormous system with a lot of relations to other game features. We want to gather feedback from you and adjust everything to find the best compromise between your comfort and satisfaction.
All models of third tier wooden wall pieces
Models and grid
One of the most important changes that will be introduced is a total rework of castle buildings and walls. We changed every piece that was introduced earlier and added new types of pieces which will allow you to make your castles well-looking and will give you more options to prepare defence layout with better usage of locations grids. This change is not related only to Guild Castles – Nation ones are also receiving a full renovation.
Top tier corner wall model - take a closer look at the moss on the wall - this detail is changing depending on terrain - castles will look more integrated with the land and look different placed on snow or on the tropical area
Models of walls are now filling the grid more accurately and intuitively, removing a lot of issues related to chokepoints and encouraging players to make their creations look more real and comfy. In later iterations, we will introduce a highly requested system that will show you the grid of your castle and will allow you to design your lines of defence and location layout according to what you would like to achieve. Renewed models are the great refreshment of the visual aspects of the game. Our designers and graphics team made an awesome work recreating the pieces with much more detail, integrity and optimization.
New grid usage of every buildable model. You can compare this one with the old system here
Tactical aspects of the game
Models are not covering only part and are not going out of the grid square. The previous system allowed to create very small chokepoints in the defences and in the new system it is impossible to make the passage narrower than half the diagonal of the grid, which is making the smallest possible chokepoint 13 times wider than currently.
The system will encourage you to build more realistic castles and spend your defence points equally around the grid. It is still possible to build more than one layer of the walls, but since the economical buildings will need more space and it will be not possible to clip them through other buildings – they will require some more space inside and it will be much better to upgrade the walls instead placing other lines of them. The terrain around the grid will allow enemies to walk around fortifications if defenders let them close enough, so it will be very important to make your defences well thought all around, instead of placing layers of walls only from one side.
We also introducing a lot of smaller changes like murder holes in gates and adjusting the model of the main building to prevent players from jumping on them from the walls. We addressed also every known bug, for an example with the wrong rotation of placed building in comparison to its ghost, but I will tell you more about that in the changelog next week. I hope you cannot wait to try the renewed system of Freebuilding and you will like the outcome of the changes!
One of the castles build during internal test sessions
Changelog v.9.4.X Alpha
An updated Client test session
Servers of Gloria Victis MMO are running on updated engine version for around a month. We are very happy with the outcome – we noticed performance boost and better stability. Now, we are starting a global test session of the game Client on a new engine, which will give us needed data to achieve better results in game optimization, performance and stability.
All you need to do to participate in the test session is to make few clicks in Steam options. Right-click Gloria Victis in your Steam library, move to options, choose the "BETAS" tab and pick Engine Update Test Version from the dropdown as it is shown on this gif.
From your side, the game will work as usual, but we would be thankful for keeping an eye and reporting to us anything that may be suspicious to you – any random crashes or other similar issues that have a slight possibility to occur. We are looking for any regression in any of the game systems, but we do hope that we covered everything in our internal tests. We are counting on your reports and feedback!
Test server for North and South Americas!
Since we are receiving a lot of feedback that players from North and South Americas would like to try playing on server covering both of those regions, we are launching new [NA/SA] Test Server. It should be able to ensure good ping rates to players from [NA] Aquilla and [SA] Monteverde servers that are currently running. For other testing purposes, we will host a PVP event on the new test server.
Important note: Ping indicator on server list WILL NOT represent the real ping rates on the new NA/SA test server. It may show that ping will be worse than on Aquilla for an example, but ping indicator on servers list it will not display a real, meaningful result. We need data directly from the game!
Be sure to note your ping on the servers you are currently playing (Aquilla and Monteverde), to be able to compare it with a ping on the new NA/SA test server. We need your feedback with that specified information and the more players will send us their feedback, the better we would be able to find the best possible server placement and routings. It is also crucial to send us with mentioned ping rates your whereabouts and your internet services provider name. Send your reports using the ingame feedback tool!
PVP Event on Saturday!
In addition to a few days long test session, we are preparing a PVP event this weekend! It will start at 10:30 PM GMT (Saturday, November 14th).
Join us in the arena on the new [NA/SA] Test Server and fight for fame in 5v5 battles. We are inviting everyone, especially our new players! The winners will be immortalized on the in-game monuments, and everyone that will come will be rewarded!
