Gloria Victis News

Hello Warriors!

Welcome to the new Glory Season! As always at the turn of seasons, we are introducing many significant and interesting changes improving the gameplay based on players’ feedback! Today you are receiving the second iteration of the siege battles overhaul, including new siege engines, changes in siege meta, and many quality of life improvements and bugfixes. We hope you’ll like the new opportunities and tactics this update introduces to the game and we hope this season will result in even more epic sieges and battles on the global map.

The top players of the just-ended season have earned their rewards and titles, so it’s time to compete against the others and fight your way to the top of the ladder! See you in battle!

A little explanation for the new players: Glory is a season–based ranking which rewards you for activity in the faction v faction v faction PVP. The seasons last around 2 months (depending on the current updates schedule) and the top players are rewarded with unique titles and gold. Also, every Thursday night you’ll get Contribution Points – an in–game currency used to purchase special items from the Glory Quartermasters. The amount of earned CP depends on your position in the leaderboard, so climb up!

We are also honored to announce publicly that Veland and SanHolo – our longtime players – have officially become members of our team.

Both of them are well known to our Community, and they were helping us as great community members for a long time. Veland's first and main task will be to try to help us improve the newcomers' experience. She is the first member of our team from outside of Europe, which will surely give us a wider perception of the needs and differences of our players. And SanHolo, already having a lot of experience in tracking, reporting, and reproducing many critical issues so we could fix them, has joined our QA team.

It is the best possible situation that happened since the Steam release as it made our team way stronger, way more experienced, and secured the future of both games. We’re hoping you will give our new team members a warm welcome!

And without further ado, let's jump to the list of changes!

The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. Siegbert, THE PURIFIER and Zillex15 – check your Ambers!

[h2]Changes in siege mechanics[/h2]

Introduction

After introducing the long-awaited freebuilding overhaul, we focused on your feedback regarding siege mechanics and engines. Investigating your reports and discussing your opinions, we found out ways to improve the system for both – defenders and attackers, and to balance better those many factors that make up the siege system. The system had some issues, that is a fact. The meta tactic was boring and could be explained in three words: Bow versus ballista. There were even some hidden bugs and design loopholes that needed our attention. We gathered all the issues and decided to fix them at once, which can definitely be a little shocking experience because of the amount and size of the changes, but we hope you will understand all the aspects and give yourself some time to get used to them.

And here are the solutions:

Movable Mantlets

In the beginning, It is important to notice that HP pools of every siege engine and their damage output has been rebalanced and both sides, defenders and attackers received unique tools to improve their tactics. Our goal is to break the boring meta where attackers are shooting ballistas with bows through the whole SoW, so we are giving them another option to push to the walls and gates.

Mantlets – the new siege engines – are movable barricades that cost siege points and deliver wide and durable cover for troops and machines. You can use them to cover an attack on the gate, roll the battering ram under the walls, or cover catapults positions from ballistas fire. Both versions – there is one that is covering the front and the other one is better to cover the side – can be moved by up to 2 players, so you may need some training to coordinate your moves well. We will add spawners of those machines onto the arena, so you will have an opportunity to drill.



Shielded Ballistas

To limit the “Shot ballistas by bows” tactic, ballistas are receiving a physical shield. The shield is active and visible until ballista hit points reach 50%, and need to be destroyed with the use of catapults or trebuchet. The shield is deflecting all damage from bows and protects the front of the ballista, covering the 220 degrees angle. It is still possible to deliver damage to a shielded ballista with a bow from behind, and from any angle when it does not have its shield anymore. Ballista is not receiving any additional hit points or damage reductions.

This change will improve the usability of attackers' siege engines and encourage the use of new mantlets. Since siege engines received hit points boost and ballistas received their shields and we fixed the damage output of trebuchets and catapults, the machines will be much more balanced and usable on the battlefield.

Ballistas of stone keeps were and remain placed high to limit the possibility to destroy them. Those are the last resort defense to delay the inevitable destruction of the main building by siege engines that can be placed out of their range and deliver damage to the keep without any interruption.

We are encouraging melee combat instead of allowing safe options for huge war parties. The new shielded ballistas on the main keep have the effect of limiting options for catapults to be aimed right on the keep doors with no repercussions and constantly hit the shield wall of defenders on the chokepoint, which removed any tactics on the defender’s side and forced them to just watch enemies destroying their keep without any chance to react. Now they will be able to use their ballistas against these catapults.

Destroying the main keep is still possible, especially now when siege engines are more durable. It may take more time, but for example, a single large battering ram needs to be hit 15 times to be destroyed, which means 3.5minutes of constant ballista fire, and attackers can spawn a new one every three minutes and accumulate additional siege engines.

From now on, defenders will be able to delay the destruction of the main building, instead of being helpless in delaying and interrupting the final push under the main building walls.

If the fact of stone keep ballistas having shields will generate any gameplay issues, we will react and consider changes or tweaks on the matters related to it.



Rebalance of siege engines hitpoints

Taking into consideration all the above, the hitpoints and damage output of siege engines have been rebalanced. I believe it will be easier to explain the changes in examples and comparison, so as an example catapult could be destroyed in three ballista shots before, or with one trebuchet hit, and now it will need seven ballistas shots or two to four trebuchet ones. Please have in mind that catapults, battering rams, Warwolf, and new movable mantlets can still be damaged by bows.

Limited arrows

So, we are reducing the bow damage output and usability on the attackers' side, but what about defenders, who can send arrows from the safe positions on walls and harass and nuke everyone in their sight? Melee attackers cannot reach them, so the easiest idea was to pull out a bow and return fire, instead of trying to reach walls with ram or man short and long artillery positions. Melee defenders were also forced to sit on the wall and deliver poor damage with their bows.

From now on, the amount of arrows is limited, and will work similarly to shield resistance: By shooting, you will burn the “arrows bar” and arrows will regain over time. Archers who are specialized and have true archers character build should not feel the change, because the number of arrows and their regeneration is related to passive skills and bow type. For the future, we are taking into consideration new item type – quivers, that also may have an impact on arrows capacity and regeneration.

This change is better than the idea of the craftable arrow, cos nothing would be better if we would allow players to bring 5 full bags of arrows stacks into the battle. Tanks and bruisers' continuous damage output with arrows will be limited since they will not have the right passive skills to have high quiver capacity and arrows regeneration. Still, this mechanic allows for short bursts of damage from both – attackers and defenders sides.

Because of changes in abilities, you are receiving a one-time possibility to reset your abilities by clicking the right button in Notification Center. This option will be available for two weeks.

We are counting on your feedback and will for sure tweak the capacity and regen of arrows to find the perfect spot if needed.

Shields on back

Till today, shields on the back were not destroyable and we're not losing any durability when hit. Tanking arrows facing your back to the enemy became viable, but the unjustified option, especially with medics backup, so we changed that mechanic.

From now on, we are giving the possibility to destroy shields on players' backs. Shield hit with an arrow will now lose durability and show information on the combat log of how much durability has been removed. Destruction of the shield will be followed with audio indication and proper information on the combat log.



[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]

Improved questline

Our quest and level designers have been working on changes and improvements of introductory quests for some time now, and as Ismirs and Midnalders received their renewed questlines already, today we are happy to introduce the reworked second line of Sangmar quests.

As previous changes on that matter related to all ingame nations, those improvements are aimed to make learning the ropes of the game easier for newcomers, gradual introduction of ingame features to new players, and ensure better first impressions and player retention.

The Emperor takes risky steps, trying to reach other, feuding nations to end the continuous war carried out on two fronts. Sangmarians are hoping that having a common enemy will give them some space and peace, but does Oliver the Shortleg - Midland Kingdom emissary - share their hope? Find out by yourselves!

Capturing Warwolf

From now on, players from attackers nations will be able to claim the Warwolf siege trebuchet, which will allow them to remove and replace the engine in situations where it was misplaced and left by another player. Since there only one per nation can be spawned at the time during a siege, we have to cover such a possibility. Capturing the Warwolf requires owning a siege camp, and takes some time. Other nation's players and players with traitor status cannot capture the Warwolf.

Other

– Improved the user experience in crafting quests, changing the NPC and animal enemies spawns and types
– Removed the Christmas festive decorations

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

– Fixed an issue causing catapults and trebuchets to deal double damage to other siege engines
– Fixed colliders of all movable siege machines and small trebuchet
– Fixed an issue causing objects and characters to temporarily disappear from time to time, in particular places or situations
– Fixed an issue related to Brandon event gates related to server start trigger
– Fixed an issue related to Pride Long Forgotten event gate closing timer
– Fixed the issue causing players were able to look over and interact with objects through the textures
– Fixed the issue causing server-side errors when a player left the party in 0.5s after placing a party marker on the map
– Fixed an issue causing blocking the character on ground spikes in some locations
– Fixed an issue causing the entrance to the dungeon events (Secrets of Serai/Dundrum/Ystad) were not visible on the map when they should have been
– Fixed an issue causing player could be damaged with an arrow hitting shield on the back if he did not reequpied any item after logging into the game
– Fixed the camera position on ballista and emperors fire




[h2]Hotfix 2021-01-05[/h2]

In response to the feedback/reports received from players:

Arrows regeneration:

- Fixed an issue causing wrong behavior of quiver and arrows regeneration user interface
- Increased the ammo limit and reduced the gap between long and reflex bows:
Now we have (base-max, depending on character passive skills) 12-50 arrows on reflex bows, 11-45 on simple bows, and 8-35 arrows capacity on longbows.
- Regeneration of arrows is globally increased. Base regeneration was 5% of quiver per tick, and 15% per tick with all passive abilities, now it is 10% base and 15% max.
- Fixed an issue causing missing descriptions on huntsman and rapid-fire skills
- To help new players who are doing starter quests and prefer to use ranged combat, we are added a system of full arrows restoration on level up. This change will help them to gain few first levels if they want to use archery, and add passive abilities to ensure better arrows regeneration

Other fixes:

- Fixed the issue causing quest NPC named Curtis was not spawned properly

Greetings, warriors!

In today's’ update you will find a lot of quality of life changes, user experience improvements, and a lot of fixes we are now processing in bulk. We are following the swing of the last update, delivering the most wanted fixes and improvements our Community requested. Some of the reported issues are still investigated and processed in the background.

We’re also preparing for the next iteration of State of War, which will improve existing and introduce new siege engines and tactics. Those changes will hit the servers next week, along with the beginning of the New Glory Season.

It is heartwarming to see the recent numbers of players are growing and we’re receiving tones of constructive feedback and reports from you. Thank you for your opinions, suggestions, and reviews! We hope you will like what we prepared for you today and have a great time in the game!

See you in battle!

The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. AnDyYtHePcFrE4K, Jatsuke and sabas_smoke – check your Ambers!



[h2]New Glory Season[/h2]

The New Glory season will start on Thursday, the 4th of February. Also, we’d like to remind you that the last day of the season – Wednesday, the 3rd of February – will be a dedicated day of the season's end. It will not be possible to earn or lose the Nation Points on this day and the scoreboards of other season-based rankings (Glory and Arena) will be frozen then. However, it is the last chance to donate your NP to your guild as the Guild Points. When the new season starts, the Nation Points collected by a player will count from 0 as the new season will begin.

A little explanation for the new players: Glory is a season-based ranking which rewards you for activity in the faction v faction v faction PVP. The seasons last around 2 months (depending on the current updates schedule) and the top players are rewarded with unique titles and gold. Also, every Thursday night you’ll get Contribution Points – an in-game currency used to purchase special items from the Glory Quartermasters. The amount of earned CP depends on your position in the leaderboard, so climb up!



[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]

– Added a new weekly ranking: Filling Bastion’s needs
– Character does not fall under the building floor on the spawn anymore
– Adjusted the placing of the chest in Midland “You are not alone” quest
– Added events in capital cities to allow exchanging primaeval seals for weapon or armor random boxes
– Placed the worker's chest’s at Guild Castles as far away from the walls as possible to prevent any possibilities to collect them from outside of the building

Siege engines:

– Small battering ram does not have any collider after being destroyed
– Free siege engines respawn cooldown starts now right after siege engine get destroyed, not after it disappears
– Interrupted loading of siege engine now continues from the spot where it was interrupted
– Timer of the ballista respawn is from now on visible from afar, instead of being shown only from very close range
– Removed not needed timers on siege engines that are not using them

1v1 and GvsG Arena:

– Improved the user experience and informative aspects of Group vs Group duels
– From now on, on 1v1 Arena you can now win the duel if you have more hit points than the opponent (like it is working on Group vs Group arena)
– Added information about remaining HP percentage of participants to 1v1 Arena summary



[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

– Fixed an issue causing wrong behavior of Strongman skill
– Fixed the issue causing the event gate on Brandon's event to close too early. Gates will be closing in two cases: Brandon got killed or participants failed to pass any of the step events (ran out of time)
– Fixed a translation tag in the cosmetic skin preview window
– Improved achievements backend to prevent some edge case issues in their initialization. This should help in any daily achievements progress errors
– Fixed the issue with stone Main Building, that caused blocking particular grid
– Fixed all known issues that could cause wrong drops of the Bastion needs
– Players using location’s siege engines are no longer kicked out from them after flag nations change if they are the location owners. There is an exception form that rule – in such case, you will be still kicked out from ballistas
– Fixed a user interface issue causing players were able to select free siege engines in siege camp during nightlock
– Fixed an issue causing wrong behavior of loading/power bar of siege engines after loading was interrupted
– Fixed an edge case issue causing displaying siege engine power bar after leaving it
– Fixed edge case issues related to players respawn after Group vs Group arena fight
– Fixed an issue causing blocked respawn after leaving party on Group vs Group arena
– Fixed an issue causing wrong display of NPC characters equipment that could lead to lowering the game performance
– Fixed the issue causing not showing boots on Raiders NPC’s
– Fixed an issue with wrong nation colors showed on the Spears of the Emperor's Helm cosmetic skin
– Some minor server-side fixes and optimization

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!

The screenshot’s and artwork authors have been awarded. Wintar, Vt, Jeff and Queen Dzena ibn Taxi – check your Ambers!



[h2]Game optimization:[/h2]

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!

[h2]Siege engines:[/h2]

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!

[h2]Nukers on spawns:[/h2]

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.

[h2]Quality of life:[/h2]

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

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

– 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. ;/

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!



[h2]State of War, and what we want to do with it:[/h2]

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.

[h2]Are you a new player? This section is for you:[/h2]

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][/previewyoutube]
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!

http://static.gloriavictisgame.com/data/ScreenyUpdate/what_to_do_in_gloria_victis_nov.jpg

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!

[h2]New wooden Main Building[/h2]

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!

[h2]Extension and explanation of cosmetic skins system:[/h2]

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.

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

[h2]Quality of Life:[/h2]

– 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

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

– 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

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!



[h2]Work in progress insight and some plans for the future:[/h2]

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!



[h2]Quality of life:[/h2]

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

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

– 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