Greetings, Warriors!
We’re happy to introduce a complex, brand new system, full of interesting mechanics, buffs, and challenges for guilds to enjoy. The Guild Technologies system is live!
Guild technologies is a new feature enabling guilds to specialize in a certain part of Gloria Victis's content. We feel that it is important to create new content for all guilds (especially the smaller ones) and we believe that introduction of the guild technologies will create a chance to compete, making even smaller guilds a valuable asset for the nation.
Additionally, there are many more significant improvements delivered in today's update. Among others we can mention: reworked siege engine code to improve their behavior, removing furnace looting, and impactful NPC and animal AI improvements.
Along with the new Glory Season, our designers decided to rebalance the weapons a little, putting more worth on craftable items and making non-craftable ones even more unique. We are also updating the game rules and moderation systems, and adding a brand new skin set to the game!
Find all the details below, and good luck in the new Glory season!
The screenshot’s authors have been awarded. Audemar, Rogno, Ghostickles, and [1stBdC] SARG Rodrigues – enjoy your Ambers!
Changelog v.0.9.9.4 Beta
New Glory Season
The new Glory Season starts now! Each player who became Arena Master or earned the God of War title in the ending season will receive unique, signed swords as a souvenir. Additionally, players from the top of the ranking list receive proper gold rewards and titles. Beyond the fame and respect, there are many reasons to push your way to the top! We’re planning to deliver all rewards in the next 48 hours, so please, stay patient.
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 2 months and are rewarded with unique titles, as well as gold. Also, every Thursday night you’ll get Contribution Points – an in-game currency used to purchase special items from the Glory Quartermasters. The amount of earned CP depends on your position on the leaderboard, so climb up!
Guild Technologies
From now on after hitting the [G] key on your keyboard, you will find a new section of Guild Panel – Guild Technologies.
It is a new feature enabling guilds to research new things that will aid the guilds in their daily activities and give them a new way to specialize in a certain part of Gloria Victis's content. Every guild will be able to invest their time and energy into any combination of the technologies, which will lead to a new type of meta for guilds to be born, a meta suiting the needs of the guilds’ members. The guild technologies system is designed so that it will suit other upcoming changes to the game, thus evolving and growing in size and significance with time.
Each member of the guild can inspect the technologies in Guild Panel, yet only Leaders and Vice Leaders have the power to set them up.
Players will be able to gain the technology points needed to research technologies simply by doing daily activities and events around the map, the very same way it now works with leveling up a guild. Another way to gain the technology points will be for now restricted only to the guilds that own a guild province. A special new building is available to build and generate the points. It is also possible to rob the technology points from these buildings during the State of War, so you have more reasons to bring a siege under other guilds' walls.
Technologies
Each of them is based on at least one of the 3 categories: War, Social, and Crafting technologies.
In the first iteration, you are receiving access to 7 different technologies, yet we are already preparing more of them for the future.
Here’s the impact on each implemented technology you can level up now:
Training Square – Leveling this technology will increase the percentage of experience coming from combat activities, both PvE and PvP.
Inn – The inn will slow down hunger, depending on the level of expansion. In addition, it increases the maximum amount of food that the player can eat.
Wenedian Witch – The Witch will extend the time of action of all positive tinctures and potions.
Sangmarian Official – Without an official, the use of workshops will simply sink gold. The official will make sure that part of the tax will begin to move to the guild bank, the greater the level of expansion.
Azebian Horse Master – Horse Master will allow you to level up your horse faster and increase the chance of finding a good horse.
Nordheim Smith – The higher the level of the blacksmith, the greater the chance of successfully enhancing the item.
Imperial Camp Master – Leveling Camp Master allows you to teleport to the tent from a greater distance.
How to level and use your technologies
Guilds are getting points from various sources: Performing deactivation missions, using a special points generator building (for now limited for guilds who own a guild location), and stealing points from other guild generators during State of War battles.
Technology points that we have earned, we immediately give to individual technologies.
The leader or vice-leader of the guild chooses how to divide the points into individual technologies, determining how many percent they get for a particular technology, by controlling the sliders.
At the time, you can have three technologies active, and there are short cooldowns between switching between them. Yet this convenient feature will allow you to pick dedicated buffs for various content you and your guild would like to participate in at the time.
Technologies level diminishing
Any technology after a certain level will begin to require constant maintenance. Without activity, its level will gradually fall to this impassable limit. The technology drop will be calculated at the end of the week, along with the technology points. In every technology details window, you will be able to find a proper indicator showing how many points will be dropped from the technology level progress bar.
Quality of Life improvements
AI improvements
Improved movement of mobs. Issues like mobs getting into players or snapping around should be happening much less often which should lead to much more fluid combat. Also, most of the animals will now be stopping while attacking which should make it much easier for players to run from them. Thanks to that, accidentally aggroing animals will be much less irritating.
Siege Engines code rework
Reworked Siege Engines movement code, which is making it much harder to make them fall below the ground. Also, machines are now rotating on every axis which makes them fit the terrain they move better. Please remember that when a machine is moving on an unnatural axis it will start getting more damage while moving, and quickly destroy in the edge case (for example flipping up). Also while shooting with machines, it takes their rotation into consideration allowing for more dynamic shooting angles (shooting from an unnatural angle will also lead to receiving more self-damage to the shooting machine). Siege machines now use more physics, should drive more naturally, and don't turn themselves in random directions while driving on uneven terrain. There were also a few other fixes around Siege Engines like Mantlets colliders are now turning off while destroyed to not catch arrows passing by.
Furnaces Looting removed
From now on, furnaces cannot be looted, and if a furnace is destroyed, all materials from inside the furnace are being transferred to the marketplace tab, in the very same way it happens now when a furnace disappears from inactivity.
Almost all recent incidents of looted furnaces were made only as a result of gates left wide open. As it could have been frustrating for players, the only sane option we are left with is to fully prevent looting the furnaces, and ensure that the items will not be lost after destroying the furnace. We are allowing the destruction of furnaces outside of SoW’s by other nation players, the leader of the guild that owns the guild castle where the furnace is placed (only after he triggers the demolition mode in the architect's table view), and of course by player owning the furnace, through the “my buildings” window [J].
Weapons Balance
It caught our attention that two-handed craftable swords are a little underrated. The blame for this is largely borne by "unique" swords, which have become too common and easy to get. From now on, craftable swords will dominate unique ones with their versatility. We are nerfing unique swords piercing damage modificator (from 0.8 to 0.7), and buffing their craftable equivalents in the same area (from 0.8 to 0.9).
Boost applies only to the top tier of weapons; these lower tiers remain at a multiplier of 0.8, as do not have their non-craft counterparts, so they do not need additional benefits.
The ancient longsword is removed from the Spectre loot at the frontier pass event and from now on the only method of looting it is the Spectre from the catacombs, the catacombs chest, and Champion’s Treasure chest, which will make it more unique. Its monstrously large dmg was just throwing use-cases of craftable swords to the side. We hope that its current form will make it more of a weapon for “occasions” such as tournaments, ranking duels, or other important clashes.
The Cusher Sword has become too popular too, and its massive overhead damage makes the craft swords look like toys. Because of this, the chances of its acquisition are reduced to make it more unique and reduce the fear it’s spreading among – but not only – archers.
Additionally, we are reducing the stamina attack cost of one-handed blunts. They still remain the heaviest one-handed option, but we want them to be closer to one-handed axes, which should make them more popular, and also convenient to use.
Full list of tweaks:
– Black Guard's Claymore: Dmg From 143 to 144, stamina usage from 16 to 15, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– Praetorians Longsword: stamina usage from 16 to 15, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– Karleonian War Sword: Dmg From 145 to 146, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– Karleonian Longsword: stamina usage from 17 to 15, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– Ancient Longsword: Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0,7x
– Longsword of Lord's Wrath Brotherhood: Dmg From 145 to 146, stamina usage from 18 to 16, – Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0,7x
– Claymore of Lord's Wrath Brotherhood: stamina usage from 17 to 15, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0,7x
– Reaper: Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0,7x
– Sir Landry’s Greatsword: Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0,7x
– Slicie: Dmg From 145 to 146, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– The Moonstar: Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0,7x
– Arena Master's Sword: Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– God Of War's Sword: stamina usage from 16 to 15, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– Tournament Winner's Sword: stamina usage from 16 to 15, Stabb mod from 0,8x to 0.9x
– Club: stamina usage from 11 to 10
– Servant's Club: stamina usage from 12 to 10
– Ferruled Staff: stamina usage from 12 to 11
– Warden's Mace: stamina usage from 13 to 11
– Peasant's Hammer: stamina usage from 13 to 11
– Deserter's Pick: stamina usage from 14 to 11
– Brigand's Hammer: stamina usage from 15 to 12
– Marauder's Pick: stamina usage from 15 to 12
– Bandit's Hammer: stamina usage from 16 to 13
– Mercenary's Pick: stamina usage from 16 to 13
– Warrior's Hammer: stamina usage from 17 to 14
Other QoL improvements & Fixes
– Added proper information on dynamic events tooltips telling that currency rewards can be scaled to group size.
– Improved the formatting of text in the chat window.
– Adjusted the currency rewards in-game events: The Grey Company, Outlumbered, Black Sickle, Enclave of the Rejected, Rogue Highlanders, The Griffins Company, Frontier Pass, Heathen Plague, Temple of Doom.
– Fixed triggers of some tutorials, as they were doubled in some cases.
– Fixed last issues with skins loading after login, relog, and transfer to the tournament. There is a known edge case where skins may not be visible for us but will be visible for other players.
– Fixed windows positions of Supporter Shop and its popups.
– Fixed description of character removal confirmation window.
Current and upcoming improvements in-game moderation
After hearing your feedback, and thanks to cooperation with other competitive online games community managers from other games and companies, we are introducing severe changes in our rules and penalty system.
We are removing the division between chat and game rules violations. As intended in the beginning, we want players to understand that both those types of violations are equal, are counted in the penalty system as one and both can lead to Permanent Ban. We are also removing the division between light and severe violations, understanding them now as regular ones, but keeping the current status for unforgivable violations, which leads to permanent bans instantly.
The thing that needs addressing, is the fact that our players are not always aware of the rules and the results of breaking them. This is why our moderators are creating a simple and clear Rules of Conduct infographic in the form of a table with violations and related sanctions. This Infographic will be linked to all warning and penalty messages, as well as accessible anytime from the game itself.
We are introducing a new penalty – gameplay softban, which should help moderate our community better. Players can receive a status (debuff), that will limit their access to various features which can be anyhow used against other players. This status will be always added to the temporary ban penalty and may be added to the mute penalty too, according to the GM initiative.
Softban is not allowing to:
– Spawning and operating siege engines, including joining the siege engine crew as a passenger.
– Kicking players from the party
– Turning on Friendly Fire
– Using the Votespy feature
– Opening second doors in gates
– Using interactive defenses (i.e. oil, logs)
As we have and want to keep our system simple, we are keeping the four tiers of sanctions, expanding over time with each next violation. The first, second, and third offenses to rules will be sanctioned with temporary mutes or bans, supported by gameplay softlock. The fourth one will still lead to a permanent penalty. To give you a better idea, here’s a list:
Regular rules violations:
The first rules offense results in 3-days Ban/Mute and 7-days Softlock
The second rules offense results in 7-days Ban/Mute and 30-days Softlock
The third rules offense results in a 14-days Ban/Mute and 60-days Softlock
The fourth rules offense results in a Permanent Ban or Definitive Mute
* We also reserve the right to pardon a player and exchange the first rules offense penalty for a warning, according to the GM initiative.
** If the last penalty on a player was placed over a year ago, the last penalty may be repeated, instead of extended, according to the GM initiative.
*** Based on the action that you have taken, the period of punishment might be extended or your account might be blocked permanently, according to the GM initiative.
Unforgivable violations: Players can receive an instant Permanent Ban for some rule violations. This includes sharing players’ private data (i.e. names, images, social media accounts, addresses), threats of any kind, and more, as will be explained in the Rules of Conduct Table.
We also want our players to be aware of how many violations they have in their history. As we already have a penalty tracker in our moderation systems, we will show how many and what penalties players have in-game, so it will be easier for you to know what may be the result of further rules violations, and will for sure reduce the number of issues and misunderstandings between community and the system.
We would like to kindly ask you to use ingame report systems and official ways to contact game support. Our moderators are available for you under the official email: [email protected]
We believe that together with you – our community, we can continue creating a safe and enjoyable space for everyone in our game.
New Cosmetic Skins
We are introducing a new cosmetic skin set to the game using heavy glory items as its base. “Valour” heavy armor, heavy shield, and two-handed mace “Bonebreaker” are available for you in the in-game Supporter Shop – hotkey [K].
Thank you for reading to the end, and once again – good luck on the battlefields!