just a short question. Is the global quest not working anymore? I dont see it.

has there ever been an info, a statement or the like form the team regarding their stance on using AI?
My specific question is, would it be allowed to use AI voicelines in custom maps?

The reason you're here can be either because you have never played BattleForge before or have met its community, or you are a returning community member; so it's either been a while or been never at all. So why not (re-) introduce yourselves and meet up with old and new friends, well-known members and newcomers?

I'll start off with myself. I'm MrXLink and I'm a Dragon (or well, I am extremely obsessed with them...) from the Netherlands and I've played BattleForge since just after their closed beta. Some of you may know me as an official BattleForge forum moderator back in the days, hunting for spambots and keeping things nice. Well, it seems I have been promoted and am now community manager, admin and designer within the BattleForge Reborn team, and I am honoured to have this position. I'll be here just as much as a happy community member as I will be resuming my former moderator job. I'm very interested in game development so yeah, guess that will work out. Besides working on this project I am additionally mostly active in games like Smite, Heroes of the Storm, Civilization, Diablo III and many other random games. And soon... hopefully back into BF! Either way I'm glad to be back!

...so what about you guys and gals?

The only way to donate to skylords reborn now is through Patreon.

https://www.patreon.com/skylordsreborn

You can also find it in the navigational bar of this forum

Original post:

Hi everybody !

This is the list of every people that donated to Skylords Reborn through PayPal donations! Thank you so much  We really appreciate your help & support

We cannot display amounts now, so we'll just maintain the list.

 

• Baptiste / Forum Nickname : Alendorf
• TheSinEater
• Luis Alberto
• Daniel
• Marc
• ELADAX
• Edgar / Forum Nickname : Shock_Viper
• Martin
• Mathias
• Dennis
• Bastiaan
• Dexirian
• Jonathan
• Axel
• Malte
• Jiri
• Sun 
• Alexander / Forum Nickname : veryhasted
• Janek
• Forum Nickname : Czechmate23
• Adam L.
• Forum Nickname : Omegabeat
• Christian
• Forum Nickname : Xitech
• Forum Nickname : Cetex
• Levin
• Forum Nickname : anonyme0273
• Dominik
• André
• Jeffrey
• Forum Nickname : Anzu
• Markus
• Johannes
• Forum Nickname : Treim
• Mario
• Forum Nickname : PoYpOoY
• ExcelVBACourse
• Forum Nickname : ecillio
• Lars
• Herman
• Forum Nickname : rongreat2
• Christoph
• Jedrzej
• Simon
• Forum Nickname : Helios
• sun
• Przemyslaw
• Skip
• Forum Nickname : WotdeFack
• Forum Nickname : PhoebusRevenio
• Daniel
• Henning
• Forum Nickname : Jodye
• Edvard
• Forum Nickname : Jett
• Forum Nickname : Ilsyde
• Tomas
• Scott
• Forum Nickname : Machutan
• Max
• Muhammad
• Daniel
• Hasan
• Michael
• Max
• Adrian
• Forum Nickname : HomieGoHome
• Finn
• Forum Nickname : Instigator
• Kevin
• Jonas
• lorenzo
• claudia
• Thomas
• Nickname : Zurakor
• Nickname : MeisterRihno
• Forum Nickname : Riviute
• Forum Nickname : Rakkhot
• Markus D.
• Florian G.
• Karsten D.
• Marcel K.
• Lucas M.
• Paul B.
• Nickname : Crocodile94
• Nickname : MrBao
• Dominik
• Nickname : RA3E ALMSHAKL
• Nickname : Wavicane

We love you guys ! Stay awesome

Edit : If you want us to hide your first name, contact us in PM

Sincerly,
Skylords Reborn Staff.

I'm a player from China, and I fell in love with Battle Forge back in 2011. I was amazed by its beautiful graphics and the fresh idea of summoning units with cards. It was so different from StarCraft or WarCraft.

The game was never officially released in mainland China (a big thank you to our Ministry of Culture for that :P), so I had to buy a physical copy from Hong Kong online, which came with the game discs and some BF points.

I had a lot of fun, but I was also very bad at it. To be honest, I've never been good at RTS games. Things like real-time micro, multitasking, and balancing my economy were always a challenge for me. But I still enjoyed it so much because the fantasy story was amazing and the visuals were stunning. My progress was slow, and the early missions weren't too punishing yet.

I remember after I got the Razorleaf card, my PVE progress became much smoother. Its super long attack range saved me from my terrible micro. I could just push my whole army forward slowly, hold position, and activate its root ability to attack from a safe distance. I didn't care that it was slow. I often spent 60 minutes on a map that other players finished in 25. But clearing it still made me just as happy.

My English is the typical "exam-style" English - good for reading and writing, but not fluent enough for real-time conversation. So I had trouble with 2-player or multi-player PVE. I couldn't find friends to play with, and I didn't have the skill or courage to look for people in the chat window. So I tried to play the Crusader campaign by myself. That was a huge setback - I failed again and again. After checking the forums and guides, I realized it wasn't meant to be played solo, so I went back to the regular single-player PVE.

Later on, I tried some PVP. There were a lot of players back then, so I could always find someone at my skill level. I lost more than I won, but I didn't get angry. But one time, I was completely crushed by an opponent's Fire Dancer (the promo version). I looked it up afterwards and realized this card was a classic example of Pay-to-Win. It was a T2 unit with moderate cost and an incredibly long range. For a free player, facing it felt like an automatic loss. I was so mad at the time, thinking "I need to pay money to get stronger too!" But buying BF points was not convenient in mainland China, so I never did it. Looking back, I guess I saved some money, haha.

I played on and off for about two years. My story progress was just so-so, and there were maps I could never beat, but the game still gave me a great experience. And then came the shutdown in 2013. EA's compensation meant nothing to me; I didn't play C&C or Ultima. My feeling at that time was "Capitalism is indeed cruel (lol)". There were so many maps I hadn't played, and for the ones I did, I only beat them on basic and advanced, never expert. My Razorleaf wasn't even fully upgraded.

12 years passed in a flash. I continued my journey of being a bad-but-happy gamer. I got into World of Warcraft and then quit. I basically stopped playing online games and retreated to my Switch and single-player PC games. Sometimes I would remember the joy and regrets of Battle Forge, and I had pretty much accepted that this story from my youth (?) was over.

Then, in October 2025, out of boredom, I asked Gemini to recommend some games. After trying a bunch of AAA titles and indie games, I remembered to ask: "Please recommend games similar to Battle Forge". Gemini recommended three similar games, and then said:

Special Recommendation: 《Skylords Reborn》
If you want to experience the original BattleForge, then 《Skylords Reborn》 is your only choice.
This is not a "similar" game; it is BattleForge itself, revived by the power of its loyal fan community. It is a non-profit project that has completely preserved all the original cards, maps, single-player campaigns, and co-op missions, and continues to receive content updates and balance adjustments. Although it requires an internet connection, its rich PVE content can be fully enjoyed as a single-player experience. For all players who miss BattleForge, this is the best home to return to.

Haha, my childhood game was back from the dead? I downloaded and installed Skylords Reborn to relive my old game. I bought back my Razorleaf and continued my turtle-style pushes across the maps, still making mistakes by not holding my units' position.

And the revived game is even more lovable. There's no pay-to-win. The promotion cards have been rebalanced, and you can't (and don't need to) spend real money. You can only win with patience, skill, and strategy. Then you collect cards and upgrade them.

In my gaming life, I've mostly experienced sudden shutdowns, getting bored after spending money, and good games losing their way after too many sequels. It's rare to find a purely positive experience like Skylords Reborn - a project born from dreams, perseverance, and nostalgia, and one that actually succeeded.

I will continue playing this game. And this time, I will be brave enough to invite fellow players for co-op maps. No more soloing Crusader for me!

player: cureall

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the way, I highly recommend the game Skylords Reborn. Please see   https://forum.skylords.eu/index.php?/topic/4210-skylords-reborn-all-you-need-to-know/  and  https://skylords-reborn.fandom.com/wiki/Skylords_Reborn

Skylords Reborn is a community-made, non-profit relaunch of BattleForge. BattleForge was an online Real-Time Strategy game with elements of a Trading Card Game, developed by EA Phenomic and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on Windows in March 2009. The game servers were shut down on the 31st of October 2013 at midnight (UTC). Learn more about the story behind the shutdown from this interview with TheBlackOne, one of the ex-software engineers who worked on BattleForge. Everything you need to know about Skylords Reborn can be found on this page. To keep up to date with the project's development, check out the regular community updates in the forum.

I’m the type of player who rarely writes on forums or complains publicly. I usually just play quietly and enjoy myself. But when I finally do write something, it’s because I’ve reached a point where I feel like I might not return to the game anymore.

I’ve had some really great times in Battleforge over the years, especially playing with friends. But over the last year, the updates and new content seem to be more and more focused on maybe 10% of the player base, the very hardcore players. I’m honestly not sure who this new content is really aimed at. As someone who works full-time and isn’t retired yet, I just don’t have endless hours to spend grinding or trying to perfect strategies. Today, my friend and I spent basically an entire Saturday playing. Instead of feeling accomplished, we ended up frustrated and stressed, with nothing to show for it.

I appreciate that you are putting in so much effort, creating new content and trying to keep the game alive. I know that everyone involved is doing this for free, in their own free time, and I truly respect that. That’s why I want to ask: who exactly is the target audience right now? Because, honestly, it doesn’t feel like it’s players like me anymore.

I’m not saying I should be able to finish all the content in one session, but right now, it feels like we’re making no progress at all. It sometimes feels like players are being forced to play in a very specific way, rather than being given the freedom to play how they enjoy. On top of that, the game hasn’t been the most stable over the past six months, which adds another layer of frustration. The Nightmare category itself makes sense, but some of the new challenges feel overly restrictive and honestly a bit unreasonable  especially when they dictate exactly how and with what to play.

And to be completely honest, I still haven’t fully forgiven the changes made to the Ami...but that’s a different story, haha.

I truly wish the best for this project and for everyone working on it. Maybe I’ll come back and check it out again in a year or so. I’m rooting for you and I really hope Battleforge continues to grow.

Thank you for all the time and passion you’ve put into the game.

We played all the way back in 2019 and recently came back. Overall we are very impressed that a) the game even still exists, really, and b) it's doing so well!
Seasons, new cards, new maps, balance changes. All very much appreciated. 

We are currently working on the season progress, but gathering points feels like it slowed to a crawl, and i finally figured out why. As context, we joined the party a bit late and only started a couple weeks ago. We since did many of the challenges on expert (even most of the 4 player ones as a duo, since apparently we are too socially awkward to try with randoms lol). So while i wouldnt dare call us great players, we dont exactly suck either. Yet, after all of that, we are barely around 400 points or so. That is without the solo challenges (yet), and some of the easier nightmare stuff, which can net another 200-250 points or so reasonably. So i was wondering.. where are "all" the other points at? And part of the solution was.. a bit disheartening to say the least.

Time-gated repeatable tasks (suck): A huge amount of points can be gained with the repeatable tasks. Which is great, actually - but as it is now, the majority of points here are locked behind time-gating. Play the map of the day every day: 100 points. Play the infection of the week: up to 144 points. Maps of the month: 46 more. That's nearly 300 points of which we have, like, 26 i think. And, sure, nobody has them all yet, but still. It is of course fantastic that consistent players are rewarded, and that should not be changed. But what about those late to the party? Or what about power players who play tons on the weekends, but cant play during the week? Or who wanna have a blast for a month and grind their hearts out, but then take a break and return next season?

These situations / playstyles quickly lead to essentially needing to do every challenge on expert difficulty / fastest time possible, on top of completing at least the grindable repeatables (which are also already not exactly trivial in playtime alone). Is that intended? Intuitively we would expect people to be able to complete the pass, if they complete, say, all challenges on advanced, plus either some on expert, or grind some points through repeatables. But without the time-gated ones or doing mostly everything to max out challenge points (if you can), this feels unrealistic. This makes completing the season essentially a participation reward to some players (close to 600 points from repeatables alone), while it becomes frustrating or even stressfull to try and complete it for other players. IF you want most players to be able to complete the pass, we would suggest that future seasons give players more agency over acquiring points. Allow (not force) to grind more of the points, or to acquire a bigger chunk of them through feats. No category (consistency, grindable, or challenges) needs to singlehandedly complete the pass, but there is nothing wrong with way, way more points being available than is needed to complete the pass either. That is, if you want most people to comfortably complete the pass - but if not, we'd question why nearly 600 points can be gotten as participation reward in the first place. Along the same line of thought, we would not have been big fans of gradually unlocking the challenges (and thus the capability to complete the pass) over time - but as we joined right before the final unlock, that's an afterthought.

All of the above is made slightly worse by some challenges feeling impossible. Now, of course, we know they are not. Not truly impossible. People completed them all. But take the rPvE sub-3 minute challenge as an example. I asked around and apparently the last map of the month allowed for this. Well, the current one does not. So what's left? Start random maps and fish for a good seed? To get one try without knowing the map, likely fail, and try again. My personal record right now is at 4m12s. I did this within a couple runs.. but never managed to get below 4 minutes so far, let alone 3. I fished for new maps douzens of times, which wasnt exactly fun. Sub-4 seems possible with a lot of fishing, sub-3.. i just dont realistically see happening, without knowing the map beforehand. Meaning it's either starting hundreds (if not thousands) of random maps to get "the one", or hoping for another good map of the month. This is simply not good design. It's neither challenging nor fun. Just.. annoying. And unless i did not miss anything big here, it might be semi-impossible unless the RNG gods bless you, or a new map of the month allows for it. We are also not quite sure yet how to beat the community maps in under 15 minutes, but at least those are not random.

Last but not least we'd appreciate allowing more splashing in future seasons. While we enjoyed some pure-fire challenges (neither of us really played fire before) it gets a bit old after weeks on end. Phrasing more challenges and repeatables in a way that allows for "decks containing 10 or more cards with at least one orb of color X" allows for a lot more flexibility. We get that it's supposed to be a themed season, so tweak as deemed fit - but allowing mixed elements and possibly some flex cards would make a world of a difference in reducing repetitiveness and enabling new strategies.

All in all we like the concept of seasons, and the challenges, but feel like it's a bit too restrictive. This is to be expected in the first season, of course.
So the question now is.. is it us, or do others feel the same?

Over the past few years, I’ve worn a couple of different hats in the Skylords Reborn project—from Discord Moderator, to Global Mod, to Lead Mod, and now HR Coordinator. Most of what I do happens quietly in the background, but today I’d like to try something new:

Welcome to Dutchy’s Inbox.
This is your chance to ask me anything about what it's like working behind the scenes here—moderation, HR, community stuff, or even the funny/weird/random moments we encounter as staff.

Yes, weird questions are allowed. Maybe even encouraged. 😄

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Some examples of what you can ask?

- What’s the strangest report you’ve ever received?
- How do you decide when to mute or warn someone?
- What do you do as HR Coordinator?
- Favorite card combo?
- Do staff secretly play PvP behind the scenes and settle things with 1v1 duels?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

How This Works:

- Drop your question as a reply in this thread.
- I’ll go through and reply to them.
- I won't be revealing/spoiling future releases or things that are being worked on by the team.
- I'll keep players anonymous.

A quick note: I won’t be discussing individual bans or warnings—that kind of stuff is private. But I’ll do my best to give open and honest answers about everything else, whether serious or lighthearted.

I've tried hundreds of times to do things like RPvE under 3 minutes with fire deck on any difficulty, and 99% of the time, you've already lost before you summon your units if you're up against Nature, Fire, Twilight, Lost Souls or Twilight + Lost Souls. Bandit + Stonekin and pure Bandit are the only theoretically possible ones, you need to split push and micro a ton and you need to have just the right enemy units to spawn or it's over. If you get bouncers instead of sorceresses, you have a chance. The maps with Skyrakes also feel doable.
What also frustrates me to no end is how Bandit Vanguards are some of the buggiest units in the game. They constantly ignore damage from mine and eruption, they're incredibly sticky and hard to dispatch, these units single-handedly will ruin almost all of your tries. I also experienced Sunderer's Sundering ability sometimes not dealing any damage to buildings.

A challenge that simply feels impossible is Into the Jungle in expert difficulty using only fire cards. There is absolutely not enough time or power to defend your base from the constant waves of attacks while trying to push through a Razorleaf that takes reduced damage from all sources, surrounded by 4 defensive towers, Dryads and Maulers.

Whoever came up with these challenges, they should be able to prove that they themselves can complete these challenges. If you write checks, you better be able to cash them.

My mission finished: 24/11/2024

It took me 875 days. Last unique card to gain was Ravenheart promo. 4281 is magic booster number what it required. Something like 460 of them was mini/amii boosters which doesnt give you any promos.

I got total of 21 promos from thouse boosters. Another mission I had was getting all charges what also took very long time. It was like summer or something when I finaly got last queekqueek.

I had like 4 months break year ago when I stopped opening boosters and bought rest of the promos what I was missing, which were: 

Mo, Rogan Kayle, Construct, Swamp Drake, Razorleaf and Ravenheart

Juggernaut, Grinder, Viridya, Harvester, Firedancer, Fallen Skyelf and Lyrish Knight I already had.

I did that because I knew my luck to get unique promo would end very soon so I just bought rest of the promos to finish my collection. I dont have patience on some things. 😉

In general I havent bought many cards. Oh Snapjaws I also bought because I wasn't playing on beta yet. However I played long long time ago so thats why I knew my mission when I started playing.

My next mission is to get 100 promos from boosters. 😉 

Or maybe not. I am not sure yet. Thing is that it would take still very long time.  However I can open much more boosters now than I was opening beginning of the game.

First 5 promos, I was opening 2,5 boosters per day on average and it took 293 days.

Last 5 promos, I have been popping almost 19 boosters per day on average and it took 54 days.

Speed has increased alot and in fact I am currently limited by marketplace. I have like 150 boosters waiting for opening and I am trying to maintain 100 cards in marketplace all a time. Still with this speed getting 79 promos would take... 54 / 5 * 79 = 853 days. So about same what it took to get here. Well Mission is not impossible. 😛

What about promo drop chance? Well I think it is already told that its 0,5% and that is quite much what I am seeing right now.

0,49% right now and if we drop mini/amii boosters, then its 0,55%

Now before I talk about the main topic I just wanna mention how grateful I am to the dev team that brought this game back to life. When it was shut down all those years ago I was constantly looking for private servers or similiar games until I found this project. I watched the progress with great joy and excitement and when I was invited into the closed beta it was one of the best days ever. But its not just that you brought back the game, you added new stuff to it as well! New cards, new maps, events, dailyquests, the reservesystem and even changed a lot of the original stuff. The new Ravenheart for example is still one of my most appreciated buffs in the game so far and its only one of many. Sure there have been things that can be seen as controversial, like the Batariel change or the Amii Monument nerf, and even if I miss the old Amii Monument from time to time, I still think it was a healthy choice. And if I really wanna use the old stuff again, thats were the legacy server comes in. 

So no matter what I'm about to say in this topic, because its gonna sound like I complain a lot and I'm very whiny, just know that this is like the ONLY THING that I could even complain about and I absolutely believe that you guys are doing a phenomenal job here. (Just imagine I'm patting you guys on the back right now, cause you deserve it)

Lets dive in, what is that issue that I have in Skylords Reborn. Simply put... the Difficulty. When it comes to RTS games I'm not very skilled, I love playing them but usually I am just as bad at them like in egoshooters where I constantly blow myself up with my own friggin grenades. I love the freedom these games offer, the army compositions, the creativity in approach and the epic battles. Its my most favorite genre, but I'm just not one of those microgods who has an APM of over 9000 and escpecially in more complicated missions where you have to have your eyes at thre or four different spots at the same time I tend to miss out on one of the most important aspects of RTS, the Spectacle. Hard missions can be very hectic and it at times can feel more like a checklist, like ok now I have to do this, then this guy dies, then I have to be at my base for the attack at 3min 40, you get the idea. Even nowadays I always feel that the graphics and visuals of Skylords Reborn hold up, it still looks nice and it sounds great but when things get stressful you tend loose sight of these things. When I play RTS games I strangly play them just for the sake of relaxation or creativity, I still love the impact the inferno spell has,  I still love to combine soulshatter + frenetic assault + infect + plague even though I know its overkill or just build a massive rootnetwork that goes across the entire map.

I can understand why people enjoy high difficulties in these games, discovering the map, coming up with plan, fail, rework the plan, try again and succeed. There is a feel of accomplishment when you overcome such an obstacle but for these challenges I just have different games like monster hunter or elden ring. So when new maps were added (the two new twoplayer missions) I was overjoyed and a bit disappointed at the same time. Cool new missions, new stuff, new story but then... oh... no standard difficulty. Thats not a new thing right? I mean there were missions already in the game that didnt have a standard difficulty, Behind enemy lines, Dwarven Riddle, Insane God and Guns of Lyr. But just because thats how it used to be doesnt mean it was healthy for the game. 

(sorry now comes the complainy stuff)

Even though the two new maps Unexpected Visitors and Into the jungle have been out for quite a while, I only recently got to play them for the first time with my nephew. I wanted to save this one to explore and experience it together and it was... rough. There is a bunch of mechanics and events shoved into the first one with the lost souls and it was quite overwhelming. Its a lot of stuff after you get your T2, the enemy overall power level was also very high and oppressing. The voice actors (by the way did a great job with their acting) tell you about the mission, but its really hard to keep track if you arent super fluid with english which in this case was my nephew and I had to try to tell him on the fly what was going on but even I couldnt keep track. We reached the amii city but never went T3, we couldnt, we were overwhelmed. Also we ran into the trap with the two power wells on the side that are ridiculously strong defended. So yeah, we didnt make it and lost. Further attempts only lead to frustration until I gave up and looked up a guide online to figure out what we were supposed to do. Appearantly there was even an optional area with frost units that you could go for and get some assistance, I knew that there was more in that area but I just didnt know. Only after looking at that guide we were able to beat it. And quite frankly I dont think thats how it should work, I mean it was an advanced mission so I guess the devs expect you figure it out and there are many people who can do that, but thats just not me. I wished so so so hard for a standard difficulty, just so I can adjust myself to the map.

Campaign missions in other games never had a situation were the game just said "Alright buddy, playtimes over, we are taking this big ol hammer and shatter your beloved buttons for easy and normal difficulty, now there is only the hard difficulty and the pain difficulty level, grow a pair of balls will ya?" That is still just so strange to me, I cant imagine I am the only one who played Dwarven Riddle for the first time and was just completely flabbergasted and what the hell was going on, why is it so hard??? The same goes with insane god, that map broke me and my buddy back then, everything is fine until you get to your T2 and then its just complete madness. Experiencing missions that already have a hard setup without lower difficulty options feel problematic to me, I never liked this designchoice and I never will. Why cant we just get used to the map, the layout, the mechanics first and then tackle the higher difficulties, I know there are some hardcore gamers out there who just jump in and go for highest difficulty right away, but I cant do that. (Just fyi, into the jungle felt easier but also wasnt first try)

The thing is that the new campaign maps isnt the only place where that happens. I dont really know when it happened but I am also not the biggest player of 12 player maps but those dont have standard difficulties anymore as well??? I mean, I get it, its already tough enough to find 12 players to play ascension, but if you need it on advanced but once again you see the map has one lobby open and its standard difficulty again, that can be frustrating. I think I heard something before (not sure if its a rumor or not) but there was an idea of splitting up ascension into 3 four player maps and passage to darkness turned into a single 4player mission, which I think would still be the healthiest thing to do. Removing the standard difficulty however still felt like the wrong thing to do. I just have to wonder at this point, is this the direction going forward? Are all future missions gonna be advanced/expert exclusives? I mean which game has ever removed a difficulty option? There are games that in fact added new ones just for accessibility. In Warcraft 3 Reforged (I know, this is rough one to think about) they not only added a Story difficulty but also gave the Nightelfs in the Sentinels campaign two new units, a short ranged support unit that can use the shaman spell Bloodlust and a massive Wildkin with chaos damage that is meant to be a counter for the very spooky Naga Royal Guards. I also played the turn based strategy game Songs of Conquest and initially the devs were set on the idea "This is a game for experienced Heroes of Might and Magic 3 players and barely have and handholding." So there were no difficulty options, but even experienced Homm3 players like Lexiav were struggling to beat the campaign, now the devs changed things around and now there are 7 difficulty options, which of course is easier to design in these kind of games cause they only needed to give them like handicaps to their economy but still its impressive and much appreaciated by the community.

Now I am aware that difficulty scaling in RTS isnt an easy topic. Sometimes there were just ridiculous jumps in difficulty, like the first mission of the undead in warcraft 3 frozen throne expansion were you have to stop the humans from fleeing in three seperate areas while attacking and destroying the villages. Or the infamous dreaded mission 18 in the original Stronghold 1, where you have to siege the castle of the Pig with almost only melee units and barely any ranged, even on easiest difficulty, many people could only beat that one through save scumming including me and I love Stronghold. Even on standard difficulty in Skylords, Nightmare Shard always felt like a huge step in difficulty same goes for Blight.

But Skylords is very different compared to other RTS games, what makes the difficulty here so unique? 

The biggest difference is the Techtree basically, lets compare Starcraft 2 with Skylords. In the first three missions Liberation Day, Outlaws and Zero Hour you only unlock 3 things, the Marine, the Medic and the Bunker. Thats it. Thats how more classic rts campaigns work. In Encounters with Twilight however (which I will just call the first mission) you technically already have T4, you can summon the Tempests, Emberstrike or even the Giant Wyrm. You can go T4 right from the get go, its like imagine you could go for rip off Battlecruisers without any upgrades in Starcraft on Mission 1. The difficulty has to be scaled around the fact that you always can be at endgame tech and that makes it difficult to balance. On top of that, we also have multiplayer campaign missions for two or four players and that also needs to taken into consideration when it comes to mapdesign and enemy selection. And there is also so many cards that you need to keep in mind that could ruin a map through cheesing or they circumvent important triggers and stuff. But the thing is I dont think it would be that hard to add a standard difficulty, changing enemies to lower tier ones, delay attack waves, weaken preplaced enemies or change map depended timers. (I think I make it sound too easy, but I feel like creating a harder difficulty is rougher than a lower one) 

The thing is the shift of difficulty is also seen in events or in this current season that we have. First off, I LOVE the idea of seasons and I think its very well done, though I do wonder if it means that all new cards in the future will be introduced in seasons or if we will ever have cards outside of a season again. The point system feels good and rewarding but at the same time, I look at the Nightmare challenges and instantly think... Yeah I'm not getting those. So of course I take a look at the regular challenges and there are some that I can do but others already put me in a bad spot, like slavemaster? on advanved? only fire? NO BUILDINGS? I like playing fire every now and then but I'm not confident that I can beat this one with only fire units and spells. I dont wanna be a burden to other players when attempting it with a random player cause I suck. So I a little bit of these challenges and some of the repeatables and thought, okay I guess I have to rely on the repeatables until I realized that their goals become bigger the more often you complete them its bigger jumps now like at first 30000 power in spells for a couple points, now its 40000 for the same amount. So what does that mean? Is is gonna grow infinitly? Is there a limit? Do I at some point have to destroy 8000 buildings for 4 season points? I'm a Monster Hunter player, I dont mind the grind, but even for me this seems kinda rough. But again, maybe I am just one in tenthousand who thinks like that and cannot deal with these challenges that well. 

Well what do I hope for? What would I change? Of course I'm not a game designer, but I think would add standard difficulties to all maps just for accessibility and a learning tool. Regarding the season I think would grant the player the option to just cancel one of the challenges through a buttonpress that give him access to a similiar challenge but on a lower scales with lower rewards. Or add maybe one or two more challenges that also could be done on standard difficulty, make them tedious or grindy, I dont mind like beating Ravens End on standard without T4 or Encounters with Twilight on Standard while only using Medium Units. Or maybe let us just speedrun a mission on Standard and give different rewards on how fast you just like with the rpve map. I think there is still a lot of potential for things like that. I am also aware that the season basically just started and there is still a lot of time left, but I just wanted to share my concerns with you.

Again, its a problem that doesnt affect many players, and I do respect and love everything the devs did for the game, its in the best state it has ever been in imo. A game that still brings me so much fun and joy, and is completely kept alive by the community and some volunteers is something I have only experienced once, and that was the Horn of the Abyss team that did something similiar to heroes of might and magic 3. I just wanna take the time right now to applaud the devs, the designers, community managers and everyone else for this incredible peace of hidden gem in video game history. 

PS: I wrote all of this in one go and hope I kept the grammar mistakes to a minimum, thanks for reading and sorry for it being so much. :)

What are everyone's thoughts on the visuals for Frenetic Assault? Ever since its release by EA, I can't stand the random purple star. It feels massively out of place, and just grabbed from a list of visuals. What does a star even have to do with not not knowing allies from enemies? 

Is the star nostalgic for you? Do you enjoy the visual clarity it gives? Or do you die a little inside every time it pops up on your screen?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

I've come to share my first negative experience with the project and hope to bring more attention to what I believe matters most.

Now we all are here for the game and its community (can't have one without the other for long). The game is almost the same as when we fell in love with it so many years ago. The community changed over the years since the establishment of this project until now - for the better in most cases, I'd say. There is still positivity everywhere I look and support has seemingly never been stronger, now that we can play to our hearts content. But is playing all I expected from this project? Not really.

The game is (essentially) the same, you can tell me all about the changes to BFP, quests, balances... I think I know all of those. But the community, in my opinion, is at a standstill. Not because the hype is dead, that is not the case. But there is nothing official happening. We have a few amazing streamers and content creators and honestly praise be onto them, they keep this project fresh for me. Things are happening BY the community FOR the community, while the staff team hires more people to work on the game. Why is that not a good thing? More maps, more stable development, a clearer image of what the game can be - all those are great, but are all for nothing if the life of the game is stale with no official events, tournaments or something to look forward to by the staff.

I brought this idea up in Discord without much reply, so I took it then privately to @Ladadoos, who ignored the content of the message because of the way it was worded - a rather shallow behavior. I admit, I lost my temper in how I addressed this, but I will not apologize because I firmly believe that map designers, discord moderators, and more developers are not necessary until the word gets out there to both existing and hopefully new players. We can have the best game, but with only ~1000 active players it won't be long until those numbers start to fall and sooner or later the hype dies with it. What we should be doing, in my opinion, is supporting the community, its content creators, the games public image, rather than the inner workings. I believe noone here can complain about the job done until now - impecable! The game works, we can play, trade, talk, strategize, get better, grind. But that won't last forever, unless the community has something more to look forward to - again, tournaments, events, official livestreams, contests of all kinds. I love this game and the community that grew over the years and don't want it to die just because the staff is busy growing itself and the game mechanics when the player numbers are what essentially matters long term.

So yea, to be blunt and completely honest, in the last few weeks, I couldn't care less about rebalancing cards or hiring new staff and in my opinion @Toggy has done more for the game this year than any other actual staff member. Watching his tournaments and seeing the people root for their favorite deck, player, and generally enjoying the vibes is what I always looked forward to! I am so grateful we get to play the game, and I want it to stay a great place to go to, but not if it's at the cost of the people that came along with it.

If you disagree with me, please, let me know. Maybe I am missing a big picture, some future amazing prospects and plans that elude me, but for now I stand firmly by my beliefs that if nothing changes, soon this game will be just that - another game, nothing special. And that would be the worst thing to happen after all this work.

It's really tiring to have people that destroy ones orbs multiple times and trying to end their game for no reason other than bullying people.

Is it sufficient to press the report player button? Do we have to submit replays somewhere?

Fortunately, most players are nice and helpful. But those, who aren't, really ruin the game. Are we supposed to put in cards into the deck to always be ready to fight back? I mean, it's quite difficult to fight back if they drop you from t4 to t2 within a second, while you aren't even watching your orbs and your deck isn't made for such fights.

Spent hours and hours in queue. Literally about 5 hours checking my screen all the time to see if any progress in match queue was made.

And, on top of that, just lost a 69 day streak of map-of-the-day, was one short of getting another Rebirth booster. 

To make them an actually quite interesting unit I would suggest tree changes for treespirits

1.      Make it, that the Root support of the Treespirits works the way it used to, they provide support to the Root network even if they are in combat

2.      Let them provide two Support per unit and give the support to all units in the range BUT they only support units and Buildings which are effectively in their own range, not in the complete Root network

3.      Reduce the range of the Root support they give by roughly 50% or probably even reduce to only 25% of the original Support range

The benefits I’ll see in this changes would be as follow:

Regarding change 1: this way you are actually able to use this unit from start since now they can support themselves even I combat. A fully supported a treespirit’s damage becomes a little better than the damage of similar t1 range units from nature but not massively better and from orb two and rising the damage they deal in combt becomes more and more only “background noise”

Regarding change 2 and 3: giving two support per unit would make a decent alternative to the Thornbarks as support units since from midgame on one of the, if not the most valuable resource is Unit-Cap and a Thornbark with 3 support at 5 Unit-Cap cost vs Treespirit with 2 Support at 3 Unit cap means you’ll get full support at nearly the same Unit-Cap cost (10 Thornbark vs 9 Treespirits)

By allowing the Treespirits to support every unit even in combat, but only the Units/Towers who are effectively in range of the rootsupport of tis specific treespirit and not supporting over the whole Rootnetwort  you’ll also create a new way to “Focus Support” a specific unit or building in the Root network without the need to cut this entity from the rest of the Root network. It gives the possibility to greatly strengthen a specific area but with the reduced range (lets go with only 25% Supportrange) you can support more than one Unit but not to many and only in this exact location. And since you only have limited unit Capacity you wont doo this on a Wide area.

I think with those changes Treespirit would become a quite fun unit without becoming overpowered and it gives the player a support alternative to the Tornbarks so players can decide: go with Thornbark for Complete network wide support or go with Treespirit for focus support