Today’s update is postponed but we are not leaving you with empty hands. Today we are bringing to you a bunch of information related to Guild Castles, State of War. On top of that, we are bringing another exciting portion of our Work In Progress insight and the game roadmap with a summary of previous things. In this WIP you will learn about a new way of controlling and owning a national location by a guild, we are shading more light on the changes related to the announced resource gathering rebalance, so today you can read about New location for Bosses because they are part of resource gathering rebalance. Also, we are presenting you another use case of the feature "carrying objects" which we want to use in structure building and repairing. On top of that in today’s note, you can learn about the End of the Glory Season.
We're happy to present you our updated roadmap showing the features that we are currently working on, as well as summarizing the already made additions and changes. You can learn more about the introduced features in the Work in Progress section below.
End of the Glory Season
The New Glory season will start in 2 weeks, on Thursday, June 15. Also, we’d like to remind you that the last day of the season – Wednesday, June 14 – 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.
Also, today we would like to announce that we will merge the following servers into one with the start of the new glory season. Wolfield and Wolfield 2 will be merged into one server, also Holmirdge servers will be merged into one.
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 on the leaderboard, so draw your weapons and fight your way to the top!
The screenshot’s authors will be awarded. Liutbert#7954, TarzanMoist#5727 and Rambs#5039 – Contact Koma#4247 via Discord to receive your ambers!
Video of the Week
We always look forward to watching and sharing the awesome videos posted by our community. It brings us a lot of happiness and gratitude in the office to see players exploring content, having fun, and showcasing their skills. This week, the reward of 2000 ambers goes to [SK] Paradise / Shtrix (Жека)#8227
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acDBg80xoVw&feature=youtu.be
Congratulations to the winner and good luck to all competitors for next week’s Video of the Week award!
Message and information related to the Guild Castles
Very important note. State of War and Guild Castles are very important and we are working on reintroducing them with all possible resources and manpower. These tasks are very complex and intricate and only a few people from our Dev team can work on it. The rest of the team is bringing you weekly changes, improvements and is pushing further the game by introducing less complex yet important features which will complement each other.
When we think about medieval times, we imagine plate armor, axes, bows, horses, and castles. A lot of players would love to build their own castle and then further develop that castle and defend it.
In the past, we had a system called “Free building” at 9 guild castle locations on the open world map. Unfortunately, that system was not working as it was meant to work. Most guilds and players had very limited access to the guild castles, only a few guilds could own their own guild castles and because of that, only a few players had access to the free building, but we want more people to have access to that feature. Additionally, a few guilds owned the same castles for many years, stagnating the map and depriving other guilds and nations of any chance at castle ownership and growth.
We want to bring back features you loved before such as owning the guild location and freebuilding - but this time we want to make it better. Guild locations won't be limited to 9, so every guild will have chance to see their greatness and build them for their own with all their fantasy, without any restrictions from leading guilds and dependence on the whole nation.
In the past, guild castles were usually not treated as guild castles but as nation castles. Back then there was no possibility to stand against the whole enemy nation as a single guild with only its own guild members in the open world. To get help and support from its own nation, a guild needed to keep good relations with other guild leaders, and it made it so that the Guild castle wasn’t really owned by a guild, but by the whole nation. Guild battles never were held by just one guild, but by a whole nation. Guilds only cared for and took some responsibility for any guild castle, so it was never truly theirs alone.
It also meant that the guild owner didn’t have freedom in terms of how the castle would be built. He couldn't build a castle on his own without the project being accepted by other guild leaders and national engineers because the nation might not come to defend such a castle. On top of that, usually only very experienced national engineers were allowed to build castles, and the guild leader owning a castle was only among the consultants. In all this, even ordinary guild members didn't have a chance to touch the free building feature.
A feature as big as Free Building should have encouraged and attracted more people to try it, but they couldn't because only a few chosen ones had access to that feature.
On the other hand, free building did lead to some deep strategic and tactical gameplay that we would like to expand access to. A lot of things were happening around the free building feature, much more than at first glance. Some people wanted to build a castle in a way to fit as many workshops as they need inside the castle, and then they were hoping that the enemies would not siege the castle. Others were preparing castles for occasional raids of enemies under the walls, so as to easily repel or trap the enemy raiders, and there were castles prepared directly for enemy sieges and battles with the enemy. Engineers had to wait for real sieges to test their project to see if their castle build was fully successful, required some changes, or in the worst case, the castle was permanently lost.
Attackers thoroughly analyzed the weak points of the castle and developed various tactics to capture it. Often it didn't work the first time, but it opened the way for the next attempt.
The defenders' engineers had to closely watch the enemy's every move and prepare corrections to counter the enemy's tactics. Very often, even well-designed castles had to be rebuilt anyway to counter the tactics and fighting style of the rival.
Everything that we wrote is the “unknown” side of Gloria Victis State of War action for probably 99.99% of the players, that’s why because of how limited the guild castles and free building was. We want to turn that around and expand to bring this great gameplay element of complex castle building and sieging to a wider audience.
Each guild deserves its own castle, deserves the place for its own ideas, mistakes, triumphs, consequences, and the guild deserves its own successes and development. We want to give each player and guild a chance and possibility to build their own guild castle.
We believe that even if the castles provide no practical benefits and they exist only as a tool to build your own castle, it would still give many people a lot of fun, role-play possibilities and a sense of belonging. But don’t worry! Of course castles will provide practical benefits!
How will guilds get Guild Isles?
Guild Isles will be purchasable with in-game gold through a menu. Guilds will be able to choose some settings for their isle. Settings can be changed after purchase for silver.
Guild Isle Settings
We want Guild islands to reach a wide audience, properly scaling to each guild’s desires, needs and abilities. Much will depend on the settings with which the guild builds the castle. “Riskier” settings will have the effect of giving more Economic and Fortification Building Points.
Guilds will be able to choose from the following settings when they buy an isle:
– Isle type: Economic - More economic points to place crafting stations etc.
– Isle type: Stronghold - More fortification points to build walls etc.
– Loot enabled or non-loot
– The size of guild battles from several preset choices. Example: 20 defenders vs 24 attackers.
– The time of their guild battle.
What are the benefits of a guild castle?
Guild technology
Imagine a world, where Guild Castle and instanced SoW would be a way to reach, and keep maximum level of your technologies. It will be our world after implementaton of Guild Islands!
Tech Laboratories in guild castles will automatically generate a significant amount of tech points which help level up beneficial guild techs which are currently in game. The additional flow of tech points will be very important and useful because guilds rely on these buffs and improvements for their players. When a Guild Technology reaches level 5, it will start to lose tech points through decay. In order for a technology to continue to develop or be maintained, a constant flow of tech points is needed, and these points can be provided by laboratories. Choose how many tech labs you want to fit in your castle and generate points at your own pace.
Workshops
Guild castles will offer access to the best workshops.
Regular Siege Times
Choose the time that your castle can be sieged. Don't worry about someone coming at night or in the morning to ruin your day or ninja cap when no one’s looking.
Taxes
Part of the money that you and your guild members spend on crafting items in the workshop will come back as Taxes directly to your guild treasury, improved further with Guild Tech.
Free Building
Choose and manage where everything is located including workshops, crafting districts, walls, gatehouses and towers. Don’t forget to Decorate!
Why fight for the guild castle?
Tech laboratories will be one of the main targets of the enemy attack because it will be possible to loot the tech points from the labs. As a defender, you should care about the best possible concealment for your laboratories inside the walls, because the enemy will not only loot them but also paralyze their operation and this will negatively affect your guild for some time if the buildings are destroyed.
In addition, defending guilds get technology points for the fight itself, and the amount increases the longer the defense goes on. Therefore, even in the most hopeless situation, it will be better to defend yourself and earn as many of these points as possible than to abandon the fight. Attackers don't get a bonus for time, but only for capturing the flag, so they will want to conquer and rob the castle’s tech points as soon as possible.
What about the national locations?
Guild castles will not have resources or farmland. Resources and money will be required to build, maintain, and run the castle.
To have a castle and to maintain it with all the bonuses it can provide, players will need to gather resources from the open world, or they will need to make money to be able to buy needed resources from the market. In practice, this will have a positive impact on the open world, this will cause more roams around the map.
All this should add up to content that will complement the current gameplay. It will add depth to the existence and development of guilds, as well as the need for the functioning of the open world and economy. Politics, alliances, training for self-improvement, or just casual play and cooperation with friends to build, develop, and test various ideas.
Work in Progress
New location for Bosses
We would like to tell you about our upcoming changes in the distribution of world Bosses such as Giant, old Scavenger, and Butcher. We are gonna remove night rituals and hunting spots from the safe and non-loot zones. At this moment, most of the Bosses are presented in the non-loot zone, and we are moving them to the loot zone. Moving them from one zone to another is a part of the gathering resource rebalance, so let us explain it further.
Right now old beasts and giants are spawned at random places in the world, in the empty areas often around endgame resources and some chests. Old Beasts and Giants are part of the resource-gathering rebalance because they are dropping end-game resources. As we stated in the previous changelogs and dedicated work-in-progress sections, we are moving end-game resources to the loot zone and dedicated raids.
While moving Beasts and Giants from one zone to another, we will create dedicated areas for them and environments to make them more interesting and exciting to fight against.
Locations of the Beasts and Giants will be marked, but only on the minimap and only when the Beasts or Giants will be spawned and only when the player is close to its spawn point area. We want to award players who roam around the map, and we want to give players some information about these beasts’ existence, and let the players know that right here the Beast or Giant is spawned.
Building construction and repair system
Some weeks ago, we introduced the carrying items mechanism which we are constantly improving and developing by increasing the number of things that players can do with carrying items. So far players can carry objects such as stones, guild banners, and scrolls which are used in the new guild event and players can carry arrows from the warehouse that are used to replenish their arrows. Today we want to tell you about another possibility of such a mechanism.
We see good opportunities to use this mechanism in building and repairing buildings as well. Which could develop our current mechanic, and add the feeling of being a real builder of medieval castles. We want to introduce changes in flow of building location, which would be based on carrying needed materials instead of operating inside the interface. We feel that it will bring a more immersive approach to building especially in the context of future guild castles.
Additionally we would like to give players additional goals during sieges, by unlocking the possibility of repairing part of damaged and destroyed buildings during the ongoing siege. That means we will categorize builds into two categories, civilian and fortifications, where only civilians can be repaired during the siege.
How it will work
The player will take building materials from pallets located around the bastion. Pallets will contain 3 materials used for building.
– Building stone
– Building mortar
– Building wood
Every started construction will have a similar pallet, but this one will be dedicated for materials needed to upgrade the building. Player’s task will be bringing the right materials from the bastion, to construction sites.
Regeneration of those materials will be based on new Bastion Need called Building Resources
To satisfy this need, the player provides resources such as wood, stone, gneiss, nails, clay, and so on. Yet the building cost will be much lower than now, since players will have additional work to do with carrying building materials.
Foundations for logistics
The reworked system of building and repairing buildings described above will be the foundation for inter-bastion logistics. This feature can add new activities that would be based on caravan transport between locations. In future, caravans would be an additional method to increase bastion needs without spending players' money. It can bring a lot of roam content, and calm gameplay of medieval caravan master.
Guild Owning the Nation-Controlled Locations
We want to increase the meaning of nation locations for players and especially for guilds. We want to make them feel like a given location belongs to them and they are responsible for defending and caring for a given location. To do that, we need a fair system for setting the owner of the location and also giving the owners benefits for caring for and holding the given location.
Determinig the owner
Right now the person who captured a given location is capturing that location for the nation they belong to and the player is set as the owner of that location. If the player was in a guild, then his guild owns that location and their guild heraldry shows on the location banner.
In the future, we want to make it so that the captured location will be assigned only to the nation that captured it, and the owner of that location will be determined by Influence Points. What does it mean? A guild that works around a given location, for example, is fighting with enemies around given location and defeat them, build structures, supply Bastion with resources, is doing quests and events around a given location will be generating influence points which will accumulate on the guild account in the given location. How much each guild has influenced in a given location will be displayed on the location window card.
For example, guild X captured a location that belongs to its motherland that was controlled by an enemy nation, they defeated defenders, built up a few structures and thanks to that action, they generated enough influence points to become the location owner. If another guild wants to become the owner of that location, then they will need to generate more points than the guild that currently owns it.
The owner of a given location will change dynamically, so this means that if another guild will gather more points than the owner, then they will immediately become the location owner.
Benefits and discount of owning a given location
The guild that owns a location will earn some part of the taxes from workshops and fast travel. Guild members and also Alliance members will have discounts for these fees – discounts decrease money coming to the guild vault.
All the earned gold will appear in the chest inside the bastion that needs to be used by the guild member, or can be stolen by the enemy nation!
Guild Technology
With those changes we will bring back technology “Sangmarian Official” which was operating in the Guild Castles – with some minor tweaks. That technology will be working on national locations that are owned by our guild. The main goal of this technology is to increase benefits and discounts given from the owned location.
Small explanation about Taxes. In both cases players and guild will not receive the full price from the taxes. A big part of the taxes goes into the void and the rest is going to the guild vault or players. With higher levels of that technology, the more gold from taxes guilds and players are receiving.
