The crafting system in Gloria Victis is a player-driven, multi-stage process that forms the backbone of the game's economy, requiring you to gather raw resources, refine them at specialized workshops, and then assemble finished goods using learned recipes. Its depth comes from the interplay of 11 distinct professions, a detailed material quality system, and the absolute necessity of controlling territory to access the high-tier workshops required for the best gear in the game. Forget simple progress bars; this is a system of logistics, economics, and warfare.
Unlike many MMOs where crafting is a solo side-activity, here it is a communal and competitive endeavor. A single player cannot hope to master the entire supply chain efficiently. Success demands specialization and, more importantly, a well-organized guild capable of capturing, holding, and upgrading the castles and settlements that house the game's most critical infrastructure. This guide breaks down every stage of that process, from swinging your first pickaxe to forging a legendary blade.
The Core Loop: From Raw Materials to Masterwork Gear
At its heart, crafting in Gloria Victis follows a logical, three-stage progression: gather, process, and craft. The complexity arises from the dependencies between these stages. You can't craft a sword without first processing ore into bars, and you can't process high-end ore without a top-tier furnace that your guild bled to secure.
Step 1: Gathering - Where to Find Everything
Your journey begins in the open world, armed with basic tools. Raw materials are found at resource nodes scattered across the map, from dense forests to rocky mountainsides. These nodes are finite and replenish over time, making knowledge of their locations a valuable asset. The primary resource categories are:
- Wood: Harvested from trees with a Woodcutter's Axe. Different trees yield different tiers, such as basic Pine or the rarer Ancient Wood.
- Ores & Minerals: Mined from rock nodes with a Pickaxe. You'll start with Copper and Iron, eventually seeking out valuable nodes for Pyrstone, Siderite, and Dziwer.
- Fibers & Herbs: Gathered from plants with a Sickle. These are crucial for Tailoring and Herbalism, including materials like Flax and Hemp.
- Animal Products: Harvested from wildlife and mobs. This includes hides for leatherworking, meat for cooking, and bones for various recipes.
Gathering efficiency is influenced by your character's attributes—Strength, for instance, speeds up mining and woodcutting. Better tools also significantly increase your yield and speed, making a well-crafted axe or pickaxe your first major investment.
Step 2: Processing - The Workshop Bottleneck
Raw materials are useless on their own. They must be refined into usable components at specialized workshops, and this is where the game's strategic layer kicks in. While you can find basic workshops in safe zones, the best ones are located in capturable towns and castles. A workshop's tier (from +0 to +5) dictates what materials it can process and how efficiently it does so.
For example, to turn Iron Ore into Iron Bars, you need a Bloomery. But to smelt high-tier Dziwer Ore, you need access to a top-level Furnace (+5), a structure that requires immense collective effort to build and protect. Key processing stations include:
- Lumber Mill: Turns logs into planks.
- Bloomery & Furnace: Smelts ores into metal bars.
- Tannery: Processes raw hides into leather.
- Weaving Loom: Spins fibers into cloth and string.
Controlling a settlement with upgraded workshops is a primary objective for any serious guild. It not only allows your members to craft superior gear but also serves as a source of immense wealth by taxing its use by other players.
Step 3: Crafting - Recipes, Blueprints, and Quality
With processed materials in hand, you can finally craft an item at the appropriate workstation (e.g., a Blacksmith's Forge for armor and weapons). To do this, you need the recipe, which can be learned from NPC trainers, found as loot from enemies, or discovered by disassembling existing items. Your success and the quality of the final product depend on several factors:
- Crafting Skill: The higher your skill in a given profession, the higher your chance of success.
- Workshop Tier: Crafting at a higher-tier station provides a bonus to your chance of creating a high-quality item.
- Material Quality: Using higher-quality processed materials (e.g., bars made from rich ore) directly improves the potential outcome.
Items in Gloria Victis have a quality rating, ranging from a shoddy -1 to a flawless +6, also known as a "Masterwork." A Masterwork item has significantly better stats and durability than a standard version, making them the most sought-after and valuable equipment in the game. Achieving this level of quality requires a combination of high skill, the best workshops, and a bit of luck.
What Are the 11 Crafting Professions?
The crafting system is divided into 11 interconnected professions. While you can technically learn all of them on one character, the time investment is colossal. Most players and guilds choose to specialize, creating a network of artisans who rely on each other. The professions can be broadly grouped into three categories.
Gloria Victis: Medieval MMORPG in-game screenshot
Gathering Professions:
- Farming: Cultivating crops and herbs in designated areas.
- Forestry: Chopping down trees for wood.
- Excavation: Mining ores, stone, and other minerals.
- Fishing: Catching fish for Cooking.
- Hunting: Harvesting hides, meat, and bones from animals.
Refining & Intermediate Professions:
- Metallurgy: Smelting ores and refining metals.
- Tailoring & Leatherworking: Processing fibers into cloth and hides into leather.
- Engineering: Crafting tools, siege projectiles, and workshop components.
- Carpentry & Fletching: Turning wood into planks, bows, shields, and arrows.
Finishing Professions:
- Armorsmithing & Weapon Forging: The premier gear-making professions, responsible for crafting all metal armor and weapons.
- Cooking & Herbalism: Creating powerful food buffs, potions, and alchemical ingredients.
This interdependence is critical. An Armorsmith needs metal bars from a Metallurgist, who needs ore from an Excavator. A Fletcher needs planks from a Carpenter, who needs logs from a Forester. This supply chain forms the basis of the entire player economy.
How Do Workshops and Territory Control Work?
This is the mechanic that elevates the Gloria Victis crafting system from a simple grind to a core pillar of the game's PvP conflict. The most powerful crafting and processing stations are not in safe zones. They are fixtures within the game world's castles, forts, and towns—locations that your nation must conquer and hold against enemy players.
Each major settlement, like Audunstede or Tenebrok, contains a variety of workshops. When a guild captures a location, they gain control over these stations. They can then initiate upgrades, which are massive, time-consuming projects requiring a vast quantity of materials like wood, stone, and specialized components. Upgrading a Furnace from +4 to +5, for example, can take days and the combined effort of dozens of players.
Gloria Victis: Medieval MMORPG in-game screenshot
The benefits of holding a fully upgraded town are immense:
- Exclusive Access: Your guild members can use the top-tier stations to craft the best gear.
- Economic Control: You can set a tax for players from your own or allied nations to use the workshops, generating a steady income.
- Strategic Denial: By holding a key crafting hub, you deny your enemies the ability to easily produce high-end equipment, giving your nation a tangible advantage on the battlefield.
This system means that the best crafters are not just players who have maxed out their skill bars; they are members of powerful guilds that can project military force to secure the means of production.
Understanding Material Tiers and Item Quality
Not all resources are created equal. Both raw and processed materials exist in tiers, from Tier 1 to Tier 5. This progression is fundamental to crafting better gear. For example, in Metallurgy, the progression looks something like this:
- Tier 1: Iron
- Tier 2: Steel
- Tier 3: Pyrstone
- Tier 4: Siderite
- Tier 5: Dziwer
To craft a Tier 5 Dziwer Platebody, you need Dziwer bars, which can only be smelted from Dziwer ore at a +5 Furnace. This tiered system applies across all professions, from the wood used in bows to the cloth in light armor.
Compounding this is the quality system. Every time you craft an item, the game performs a quality roll. As mentioned, the result ranges from -1 to +6. Your chance of rolling a higher quality is a formula based on your character's skill level, the tier of the workshop you're using, and the quality of the materials you're inputting. Using higher-quality wood planks, for instance, increases the odds of crafting a higher-quality bow.
Gloria Victis: Medieval MMORPG in-game screenshot
Crafting a +6 Masterwork is the pinnacle of the craft. These items are not only statistically superior but are also a massive status symbol. They can be named by the crafter, forever imprinting their legacy on the item. The economy revolves around these masterpieces, with players willing to pay fortunes for a perfectly crafted weapon or suit of armor.
Frequently Asked Questions about Gloria Victis Crafting
Here are quick answers to some of the most common questions players have about the crafting system.
How do I get new crafting recipes?
Recipes, or Blueprints, are primarily acquired in three ways: purchased from NPC vendors in major cities, looted from enemy mobs and chests throughout the world, or reverse-engineered by disassembling items of that type. High-tier recipes are often rare drops from challenging content or powerful enemies.
Can I master all crafting professions on one character?
Yes, there is no hard limit on how many professions you can learn. However, the experience required to level each one is substantial. Most players find it far more practical to specialize in 2-3 complementary professions (like Excavation, Metallurgy, and Armorsmithing) and trade with others for what they need.
What's the best way to level up crafting skills?
The most efficient method is typically to find a low-cost, low-material recipe and mass-produce it. You can then sell the results to a vendor or, more effectively, salvage them to recoup some of the materials and repeat the process. Focus on recipes that offer the highest experience gain for the materials invested.
Why can't I craft high-tier items even with the recipe?
This is almost always a workshop issue. To craft an item from Tier 3 materials, you need at least a +3 workshop of the appropriate type. If you want to make the best Tier 5 gear, you absolutely must have access to a +5 workshop, which are exclusively found in capturable locations.
The Crafter's Burden
The crafting system in Gloria Victis is a demanding and deeply rewarding experience. It's a far cry from the fire-and-forget systems of other games, forcing players to engage with logistics, economics, and large-scale PvP. The best gear isn't a lucky drop from a raid boss; it's the product of a long and arduous chain of player actions—from the miner who found the ore, to the smith who refined it, to the soldier who defended the castle where it was forged. It makes every Masterwork item feel earned, and every piece of gear a part of the world's living history.