Greetings, Warriors!

As we have announced, today marks the arrival of a significant update to the game. This is the first step towards completion of the final milestone before we will release Gloria Victis 1.0!
This update brings a lot of changes that, in our eyes, will introduce new and interesting strategies, and create new battlefields!
We are also introducing a brand new Christmas event for you to enjoy during this festive period!

We have also released the very last Devlog this year, so be sure not to miss it!


Let’s take a look at what today’s update brings!



The screenshot’s authors were awarded. Jorwet, DDF, Boba, BlazeYemarys and Mormo – check your Ambers!

Changelog v.0.9.9.8.0 Beta

New Glory Season

Today’s update marks the end of another Glory Season. Even though it was one of the shortest seasons we’ve ever had in the game, it was also one of the most historic ones as its end means a start of a new chapter in the development of Gloria Victis. We would like to congratulate all players who competed for the highest spots on the leaderboards for themselves and their guilds.

As this season marks the end of the Guild Castles in their current form, we would also like to congratulate the guilds that were the owners of these marvelous castles on all the servers, whose guilds will be forever immortalized on in-game monuments located in the locations that once were the Guild Castles!

A little explanation for the new players: Glory is a season-based ranking that 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!

5v5 Tournament

We would also like to invite all of you to our 5v5 tournament that will take place this week, that is 17th of December at 12 PM UTC on the Dukla server! We will be giving out rewards to all who attended the event — both as viewers and participants. There will also be a special reward for the team that wins the entire event. Be sure to join us!

National Castles replacing Guild Castles

Today’s update replaces Guild Castles with National Castles in the middle of the map. We think it’s a good time to introduce this change, as normally this update would start the holiday grace period we have done each year, where State of War sieges are disabled. This year, however, will be a bit different, as instead of disabling the State of War (and in fact pausing the majority of PvP action that takes place in the middle of the map), we will introduce the updated middle of the map which will change the current Guild Castles back into Nation-controlled Castles.

Some of the players that keep supporting us in the development for years now might still remember the glorious fights at the old National Castles that will be back in an updated form! What’s more, these battle-hardened veteran players might find the new National Castle designs familiar, as we wanted to give these castles some part of their old charm!


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This is a much-needed change, as the current Guild Castles imposed stagnation to the map outside of the State of War periods, as the guilds could sit in their castles safely, just waiting for some action close to their castle. Not only did it enforce the “zerg” meta, as a big guild that controlled a castle could teleport to it and rush to the action in no time, but it also created inactivity on the map, as players felt urged by the design to sit in a safe place and wait for content instead of being encouraged to go for conquest. What is more, changing the Guild Castles to a clustered solution will greatly improve the performance and help us solve a number of possible problems, which is very important for us at the games’ upcoming final release.

With this in mind, we have decided to revert the castles in the middle of the map to Nation-controlled Castles, while giving them all the benefits of the Guild Castles, excluding just one – safety. Nation-controlled Castles in the middle of the map, just like any other Nation-controlled Castle, will be possible to be sieged at all times, making the defense and conquest of them one of the key features of the middle of the map.

The new Nation-controlled Castles will become some of the most important castles for a nation to own, as they will still provide +4 workshops, the highest quality farms, as well as mines, lumber mills, and even storehouses, just like the current Guild Castles! There will also be a 45 minute teleportation cooldown upon teleportation to a castle in the loot zone, just like it was with the Guild Castles.

The newly added National Castles will have a maximum level of walls as follows:
Tier 4: Norfolk, Greatfall, Lublin
Tier 6: Audunstede. Skergard, Aquitania, Twinfall, Leaktown, Order of Original Faith

On top of that, the new Nation-controlled Castles will become an essential asset during the Deadly Harvest event, as they will provide a high yield of points, greatly increasing the chances of winning.

Capturing these locations will also grant a buff for controlled locations, just like the Guild Castles did. However, now the rules for gaining it will change. The maximum buffs strength will depend on the number of castles that a nation controls in the loot zone:
— 4 or more castles increase the max buff strength to 30%
— 1 or more castles increase the max buff strength to 22%
— Having no control over castles in loot zone gives a maximum value of the buff of 15%

This change should offer a good incentive for PvP content in the middle of the map, especially during the entire Christmas break, instead of the regular stagnation caused by the disabling of the State of War.

Worry not about the Guild Castles though, as they will shortly be reintroduced to Gloria Vicitis in a new, shiny form that we hope you will like even more because all guilds will be able to own their own piece of land!

Due to the changes in the terrain, furnaces placed in Guild Castles might be impossible to reach. In such a case, please destroy them using the “My constructions” window (default: [J]). The items inside will be sent to the market “My offers” tab.

Map changes

This update brings a vital change to the world map. We have been looking at the situation in the open world for some time, and the current meta was making roaming not a viable option. The meta also evolved into a very defensive playstyle — nations became more willing to defend their castles instead of trying to conquer other nations’ castles. We found out that one of the main factors reinforcing this playstyle is that the majority of the world was a loot zone.

Our data clearly shows that non-loot PvP events attract more players, which results in more challenging and interesting fights. This is why we have decided to change the entire outer ring of the map to a non-loot zone while the middle of the map, which takes up 30% of the total landmass, will stay as a loot zone. This change brings a better distinction between loot and non-loot areas and enables players to choose which part of the map better caters to their gameplay. We believe that the change will enable players to participate in big-scale PvP content on the non-loot areas while still giving a good chance of finding a riskier, yet more rewarding fight in the loot zone in the middle of the map.

The middle of the map will become an important place not only in terms of PvP but also a place with the best resources that are needed to craft top-tier items and more rewarding PvE content.
Currently, there is a selection of unique events that occur exclusively in the middle of the map, and we want these events to be the most rewarding due to the higher risk factor. These events, range from regular PvE activities (Echoes of the Past, Pride Long Forgotten, Kargald Champions) to places to gather the top-tier supplies (Supply drops, Golden Pickaxes and Meteorites).
Loot zone is very important to us, and we want the risk factor of the loot zone to be properly rewarded and we will be working further on balancing the rewards on the map to reward players for their activity.

After this change, the map of loot and non-loot zones will look like this:



The former Guild Castle Strongholds — Twinfall, Leaktown, and Order of Original Faith’s Keep are getting moved away a bit to the outer ring, joining the castles that will now be in the non-loot zone.

New Siege Camp

Unlike the castles on the outer ring of the map, the new National Castles in the middle of the map will have no dedicated siege camps. Instead, players will be able to craft a new type of siege camp — a Field Siege Engines Workshop! This new structure is a cheaper version of the siege camp known from Guild Castles sieges, which will let players spawn battering rams and trebuchets as an aid to siege the castles.

We believe that the introduction of the Field Siege Engines Workshop will let players come up with new and unique strategies for sieging castles that will lead to exciting battles taking place all around the map!

You can find both the recipe and item at the general goods vendors in capitals and castles!

Reworked Rankings and Achievements Windows

This week we are also introducing two newly reworked windows: Rankings and Achievements. These are one of the last big windows in Gloria Victis that needed to be reworked to the new UI system, and the work on the remaining ones is already in progress!


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Christmas Event

This year we are coming to you with a couple Christmas activities! Be sure to talk to Santa’s Helper in your Nation’s Capital as he needs your help! Fill the air with the aroma of special event gingerbread you can bake in your furnaces and later eat or exchange for unique rewards!

Lastly, don’t forget to look at the skies, as you never know when or where Santa’s sleigh might crash! The event will take the place of our meteorite event and will offer meteoric iron as a reward as well as special gift boxes with different rewards — including a full Santa outfit!

Every-two week Video contest

We cannot stress enough our happiness and gratitude to see such fantastic videos posted by our active community! This week, we have chosen a few combat videos that will be rewarded with the main reward of 2000 ambers:

Sorven, for his video showing a glorious defense of the Ismir Homeland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTb0US1E_uI

Gwardia GV, for a fine video from last weeks’ State of War preparations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIS_nlWGeWY

WekizZ, for showing off his duelling skills in the arena:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEtDlE4Yf1A

We would also like to award WekizZ and voyager0ne for their gorgeous gif images with additional 500 ambers each!


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Be sure to use always use #gloriavictis and #playgloriavictis hashtags in your video descriptions. It greatly helps us and others to find content based on our game, and increases your visibility!

Quality of life

— From now on tier 4 tools will also become base items for skins, meaning that tool skins will be possible to equip for tools of tiers 4 and 5.
— Removed NPC and Guard markers from the minimap making it easier to read.
— From now clicking on the “Escape” quick menu item (near minimap) opens/closes only the “Escape” panel, ignoring other opened windows.
— Workshops and other small objects should be visible on the "Focus - player" zoom scale on the map.
— Improved AI for the NPC enemies. AI will now have a slight chance to chase players by walking instead of running to allow players to disengage easily. Also if a mob lands a hit while performing a maneuver, it will try to pick a new maneuver immediately, which should make combat more fluid.
— Hearing the feedback of our Community, we are introducing a rule, that after 180 days of inactivity (no characters in a guild have logged in during that period), a guild will be deleted, making the name available again. This rule is active since today, meaning we have made the first round of deleting such guilds.

Fixes

— Personal and Guilds’ COA can be now set on the Myrmidon's light shield.
— Fixed a memory leak in the Skybox Renderer, which affected the game’s performance after using the architects' table

Sneak peek into the clustered Guild Castles

With all these changes just around the corner, we would also like to provide our Community, with a sneak peek at what can be expected at the very start of 2023. Next year will be very important for Gloria Victis, as we are just a few months away from launching Gloria Victis 1.0 and one of the remaining steps before the release will be the clustered Guild Castles, which will have their first iteration going live in January 2023.

The clustered guild castles will not only offer a chance to own a Guild Castle for smaller guilds but will also enable these smaller guilds to have a chance of building their own content around building and developing their Guild Castles. The Guild Castles will become a feature that will provide a space for guild gatherings, and give a better reason to roam around the map on the lookout for rare materials for castle building as well as fight to boost the Guild’s level. With the clustered Guild Castles, the importance of technology points will be greater, as guilds will have more technologies to unlock, as well as they will be able to develop more technologies at the same time. This change will make map roaming and participating in the new State of Wars a key to becoming one of the top guilds of a server. The newly added technologies will augment many aspects of the clustered Guild Castles as well as provide buffs and features that will help the guilds to compete at the highest level.

Another important change that the clustered Guild Castles will bring is a new version of State of War. While we think that the current State of War design is good, as it brings many memorable fights, we can see its drawbacks – Guild Castles are becoming more of a national asset making the guilds owning them reliant on the nation. This means that a shift of power between the nations may result in strong guilds losing their Guild Castles to weaker ones, but such that have a bigger support from the nation. Moreover, we have seen a number of toxic behaviors emerging from owning a Guild Castle, which is not a situation we are looking for. While changing the design of the State of War, we will be also looking for ways to keep the mass Nation vs Nation PvP in the open world, by adding new systems to the game.

The new State of War design is aimed more at Guild vs Guild, or Alliance vs Alliance, and everyday content. We want each guild to be able to adjust the castle to their needs, by tweaking the size of the battle they want to be having, and do they want to have the help of their allies or not. Moreover, guilds will be able to decide on the hour of the State of War as well as the frequency of the battles (as now they will be even possible to take place daily!). This way, fairer, and more challenging battles should take place. The new system will also get rid of the toxicity that spying, griefing or an unsuccessful State of War brings, as guilds will only lose points, not castles. The system will bring more rewards and fewer penalties, while still being a competitive feature giving guilds the ability to compete with each other.

What can be expected in the first iteration?

The first iteration should feature buying a guild island, teleportation to and from the island to the open world, as well as castle building and workstation placement.
Once we get this iteration live we will be gathering your feedback to improve the clustered Guild Castles while working on re-enabling State of Wars in a new, reworked version that suits the new guild castle system!

Christmas wishes from the Developers

As this is the last changelog of the year, we would like to voice our best wishes to all our dear Players worldwide. We wish for you all to spend this festive period in a joyful atmosphere with a Christmas tree big enough to fit all the gifts underneath it. We would like to thank you for your continuous support and we hope to see you in the upcoming year!



EDIT to Update 345: Clash of Nations 20.12.2022

Adjusted price of the Privilege item

Listening to our Community’s feedback, we are adjusting the price of the Privilege item. From now on it will cost 300 Contribution Points instead of 1500. Players, who have Privilege items in their inventory will have the amount of the item increased, to meet the new price. Following this change, the Siege Engines Workshop recipe will now take 5 Privilege to craft, and the Field Siege Engines Workshop will now take 1 Privilege to craft.

Quality of Life

— Added a reworked version of the UI for Siege Camps.
— Adjusted the farm quality to better resemble the risk factor of the zone they are at.
— Reworked early game tutorial hints, to make them more intuitive and better visible for the new players.

Fixes

— Fixed tattoos on skeleton NPCs in the Catacombs event.
— Fixed a case where the sound of getting a whisper would be played even though messaging is blocked between the players.
— Fixed an edge case that would make a player’s weapon become invisible for other players.
— Fixed the chances of receiving a Santa box from the meteorite event.