Problems that still plague Gloria Victis

Remembering the Past

For those unfamiliar with Gloria Victis, it was a three faction medieval MMORPG where players fought to control castles, villages, and strongholds. Every captured objective provided benefits to the faction, while guild castles became symbols of prestige and power.

Years ago I played for the Midlanders as part of a PvP guild called DRATER. We fought alongside other Midlander guilds in constant wars over territory, guild castles, and faction dominance. It was medieval warfare at its best: heavy armour, pikes, cavalry charges, greatswords, and massive sieges that could involve hundreds of players.

When Gloria Victis worked, there was simply nothing else quite like it.

Unfortunately, it rarely worked as well as it should have.

The game was plagued by server instability, rubber banding, de-synchronisation, and performance issues that made large scale PvP frustrating. New players would arrive, experience those problems within their first few days, and leave negative reviews.

Frankly, I couldn't blame them.

Eventually the original developers closed the game, and Gloria Victis became one of those titles people remembered through rose tinted glasses. Players reminisced about the epic sieges and guild rivalries while conveniently forgetting just how many problems the game had.

Technical issues weren't its only weakness.

The community could be incredibly toxic.

Over the years I saw players doxxed, personal information exposed, harassment spread through Discord servers, and rivalries spill far beyond the game itself. For a title that relied so heavily on community interaction, that culture damaged the experience just as much as the bugs ever did.

That's not to say there weren't genuinely good people.

Veteran players regularly helped Greenleafs learn combat, level their professions, understand crafting, and navigate the game's brutal learning curve. Those moments were some of the best parts of Gloria Victis.

The problem was that the positive experiences were too often drowned out by the negative ones.

 

A New Era Dawns

Fast forward to 2026, and Gloria Victis has returned to Steam under new ownership.

• The population is booming.
• Servers are full.
• The excitement is back.

Naturally, I hoped this relaunch would address many of the game's longstanding problems.

Instead, it feels more like a fresh coat of paint than a genuine evolution.

• The tutorial remains largely unchanged.
• PvE is virtually identical.
• PvP follows the same formula.
• The marketplace hasn't meaningfully evolved.
• Even the world map feels almost untouched.

The biggest improvement is server availability. Europe, North America, and Asia now have multiple servers each, and most are consistently populated. That's genuinely fantastic news.

But increased population has only amplified one of the game's oldest design flaws.

 

Balance Means Nothing to Faction Purists

Faction imbalance has haunted Gloria Victis since its original release, and the relaunch hasn't solved it.

If anything, it's highlighted it.

At the time of writing, Wolfield 1 is almost entirely dominated by Ismir. Midlanders and Sangmar players have begun abandoning the server or transferring elsewhere simply because meaningful competition no longer exists.

Ironically, I play on Wolfield 2 where the opposite has happened.

For the first two weeks after launch, all three factions felt surprisingly balanced. Every side had experienced guilds, newer guilds, and enough players to create exciting, unpredictable warfare.

Now that balance has collapsed.

During Nightlock, Ismir controls just two guild castles while Midlanders and Sangmar have pushed us almost completely off the map. New Ismir players struggle to gather resources because the regions containing progression materials are locked behind enemy territory.

They're not leaving because they're losing fights.

They're leaving because they can't actually play the game.

 

When Winning Becomes Bad for the Game

This is the fundamental problem with Gloria Victis.

Once one faction gains overwhelming control, the game stops being about warfare and starts becoming about exclusion.

Players on the dominant factions continue progressing.

Players on the weaker faction lose access to crafting materials, world events, castles, towns, and progression routes.

Eventually they either:

• Change faction.
• Transfer servers.
• Quit entirely.

The result is predictable.

The dominant faction becomes even stronger while the weakest faction slowly dies.

What's worse is what happens after one faction disappears.

The remaining dominant factions begin negotiating territory ownership between themselves. Castle timers, Deadly Harvest windows, and major objectives become political agreements made in Discord rather than battles fought in-game.

This isn't speculation.

I've seen those conversations myself.

At that point, the game's central selling point "dynamic faction warfare" simply stops existing.

 

Balance Needs to Be Designed, Not Hoped For

Whenever this topic comes up, someone inevitably says:

"Just get better."

That completely misses the point.

Skill isn't the issue when your faction can't access progression, gather resources, or even reach important world events without travelling across half the map.

You can't improve if the rival factions prevent you from participating.

Instead of allowing every server to become dominated by one or two highly competitive guild alliances, I'd love to see dedicated competitive servers.

• Give those guilds an environment designed entirely around conquest.
• Every guild starts from its own castle.
• Supply caravans become meaningful.
• Resource gathering becomes risky.
• Territory actually matters.

Competitive players get the challenge they want without suffocating casual servers where newer players are still learning the game.

Everyone wins.

 

Final Thoughts

I don't mind losing.

Losing is part of any PvP game.

What I do mind is feeling locked out of progression because my faction has been squeezed into a tiny corner of the map.

Having to ride across multiple regions just to reach a resource node or participate in world bosses like Ragi or Brandon isn't difficult gameplay, it's tedious.

The tragedy is that Gloria Victis is still capable of creating some of the best large scale PvP moments in any MMORPG.

But unless faction balance becomes a core design priority instead of something left for players to solve themselves, history will repeat itself.

The game survived one shutdown.

It shouldn't rely on nostalgia to survive another.