Toggy

Hello everyone,
I am excited to announce that I will join the Skylords Reborn team as Community Manager!
As Community Manager I will be responsible for the communications between the Skylords Reborn team and the community. This will allow the team to focus more on their own positions, bringing you content and balancing patches faster, where I will be keeping you up to date about everything Skylords Reborn. This also includes on our social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook.
One of the ways you can expect this to work is with biweekly status updates, highlighting things you might have missed and giving you sneak previews on what is being worked on.
I will also be making notes on frequently asked questions and the hot topics that are being discussed in the forums, discord or in-game. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to post them in the forum or discord page, just as you are doing now. I will make sure to forward your ideas and questions to the team.
I'm happy and honored to join the team, being a Battleforge fan from the very first hour and I look forward in helping the project. If you also want to help, please take a look at the open staff positions here.
For now, please give me a bit of time to get up to date with the things happening behind the scenes. After that you can expect the very first biweekly status update, which I hope will result in a positive tradition.
I hope you are as excited as I am about the future of Skylords Reborn, and I look forward to working (and playing!) alongside all of you!

thanks everyone, i appreciate the love!
i tried to share some on instagram a few years ago, but couldnt post consistent work so it kind of died at some point.
i will try to share some work now at instagram while i work here on the project so feel free to check my page at tweeto.art
beside instagram i have a small page on ArtStation where i intend to share only my best work so it can act as a portfolio - tweetoart
https://www.artstation.com/tweetoart
https://www.instagram.com/tweeto.art/
 

Greetings Skylords, Skyladies and Skyfolk!

Today we are happy to welcome @Tweeto to the team as a 2D artist. He has shown interest, commitment and skill through numerous art pieces he has worked on in our official Discord server. Two of those pieces are attached to this announcement: one is a rework of the Amii Phantom card artwork and another one is artwork for a possible new Amii card. The end result looks very promising and we are thrilled to have him on the team, as having new artwork for cards makes it that much more exciting to add new cards. Although card artwork is a prominent task moving forward, he has shown to also have skills in other areas such as UI. This means that besides card artwork, he could also help with creating new UI elements to be used in the in-game UI. All around a very solid addition to the team! 

Do not forget that we are still looking for new members! You can read all about it in our open staff positions thread:
  

To save a replay, simply rename the "autosave" in the replayfolder. Or enable to save all replays in the options. If it stays your fastest run, just send this replay before the end of April.
 
Greetings,
Toggy

I am aware of the "imbalance" between the different decks. On the last PvE challenge we had ~10 participants, I am not sure if splitting those up by 4 would do any good. Should the reception be overwhelingly big I might split it up by coolours. It is also planned to have a real challenge (expert maps with extra rules) and a silver challenge (advanced map with some rules) in the future to give the pros a challenge while motivating the newer players to participate. It all depends on how many people participate/enjoy stuff like this. I am not a PvE player and cant really predict that.
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

I am aware of the "imbalance" between the different decks. On the last PvE challenge we had ~10 participants, I am not sure if splitting those up by 4 would do any good. Should the reception be overwhelingly big I might split it up by coolours. It is also planned to have a real challenge (expert maps with extra rules) and a silver challenge (advanced map with some rules) in the future to give the pros a challenge while motivating the newer players to participate. It all depends on how many people participate/enjoy stuff like this. I am not a PvE player and cant really predict that.
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

I am aware of the "imbalance" between the different decks. On the last PvE challenge we had ~10 participants, I am not sure if splitting those up by 4 would do any good. Should the reception be overwhelingly big I might split it up by coolours. It is also planned to have a real challenge (expert maps with extra rules) and a silver challenge (advanced map with some rules) in the future to give the pros a challenge while motivating the newer players to participate. It all depends on how many people participate/enjoy stuff like this. I am not a PvE player and cant really predict that.
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello fellow Skyladies and Skylords!
 
Another 1on1 tournament, who is the strongest Skylord? We will find out on the Testserver.
To get to the testserver start "LauncherTest.exe" in you Battleforge folder.
 
Format?
The tournament will be played as a 1on1 best of 3 double elimination tournament, grand finals will be best of 5, no reset.
 
Prize Pool! (subject to change)
1st place  - 4 Booster packs
2nd place - 3 Booster packs
3rd place - 2 Booster pack
4th place - 1 Booster pack
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
 
When?
On 24.04.21  starting on 3pm CET (Berlin time), the stream will start about 30 minutes in advance.
 
Organisation?
The tournament brackets will be on Challonge, so register and join the tournament there. Please use your in game account name to make communication and finding your enemy easier.
The streaming channel that will be covering the tournament is DasToggy on twitch.tv.
In case of problems contact me or one of my mods via Discord, Battleforge or in the stream.
 
Twitch mods: LynnTaki
 
 
Rules!
-Disconnection during a game results in a default loss. If both sides agree it is possible to have a remake.
-Not showing up to your match after 15 minutes results in a default loss. The plan is to play a round of matches every ~30 mins.
-After your match, go to Challonge and insert the result. That is done by clicking on your match and selecting the winner/stats . The brackets will be updated automatically.
-The Map Pool is:
1st round: Haladur, 2nd round: Simai, 3rd: Elyon, 4th: Lajesh, 5th: Uro and 6th: Yrmia (same pool as in ranked duel, we are using the new maps). The first match of the round will be played on the fixed map, then it is losers choice.  The winning player (who won the previous match in this bo3) also has to lock in his deck first.
-The brackets for the tournament will be shuffled before the tournament starts.
-Use your Battleforge name for the tournament. If your Challonge account differs from your Battleforge account name use the "Sign up with an alternate name" feature or change your name for the tournament in the settings. Finding your opponent will be a LOT easier this way.
Bonus rules for the testserver:
All cards that have an affinity that does not exist on the lifeserver are forbidden.
 
 
 
Please notice, that the tournament is on the testserver to use the newest balance patch. This brings the balanced maps, which we will use. Wazhai is not in the pool any longer (finally).
Reply in this thread if you have questions, I will check it out later.
 
 
Best regards,
Toggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello Skyladies and Skylords,
 
Mo is in trouble and you have to get him out....with pure colour decks!
 
What?
Speedrun contest on Ocean with extra rules. Send me your (single) quickest replay to participate.
Find the replays under Documents=>battleforge=>replays
 
Infos!
map: Ocean

server: liveserver, no testserver replays allowed
difficulty: advanced
special rule: Only mono colour decks are allowed (pure fire/frost/nature/shadow), neutral cards are also allowed.
restricted cards: Enlightenment, Amii Monument
How to contact me: Use the pm in this forum, Discord (Toggy#8400)
 
Until when?
Send me your replay via Discord or the forum until 30.04.21. I will sort them and cast the quickest runs.
Please only send your quickest and last replay you want to submit via Discord.
 
Prize pool!
1st place  - 3 Booster packs
2nd place - 2 Booster packs
3rd place - 8th place - 1 Booster
most creative strategy (in the top10) - 750BFP
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
If you guys like it there will be more and more of these little challenges in the future, let me know what you think about it.
Looking forward to several cool replays!
 
Greetings,
DasToggy

Hello fellow Skyladies and Skylords!
 
Another 1on1 tournament, who is the strongest Skylord? We will find out on the Testserver.
To get to the testserver start "LauncherTest.exe" in you Battleforge folder.
 
Format?
The tournament will be played as a 1on1 best of 3 double elimination tournament, grand finals will be best of 5, no reset.
 
Prize Pool! (subject to change)
1st place  - 4 Booster packs
2nd place - 3 Booster packs
3rd place - 2 Booster pack
4th place - 1 Booster pack
 
Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
 
 
When?
On 24.04.21  starting on 3pm CET (Berlin time), the stream will start about 30 minutes in advance.
 
Organisation?
The tournament brackets will be on Challonge, so register and join the tournament there. Please use your in game account name to make communication and finding your enemy easier.
The streaming channel that will be covering the tournament is DasToggy on twitch.tv.
In case of problems contact me or one of my mods via Discord, Battleforge or in the stream.
 
Twitch mods: LynnTaki
 
 
Rules!
-Disconnection during a game results in a default loss. If both sides agree it is possible to have a remake.
-Not showing up to your match after 15 minutes results in a default loss. The plan is to play a round of matches every ~30 mins.
-After your match, go to Challonge and insert the result. That is done by clicking on your match and selecting the winner/stats . The brackets will be updated automatically.
-The Map Pool is:
1st round: Haladur, 2nd round: Simai, 3rd: Elyon, 4th: Lajesh, 5th: Uro and 6th: Yrmia (same pool as in ranked duel, we are using the new maps). The first match of the round will be played on the fixed map, then it is losers choice.  The winning player (who won the previous match in this bo3) also has to lock in his deck first.
-The brackets for the tournament will be shuffled before the tournament starts.
-Use your Battleforge name for the tournament. If your Challonge account differs from your Battleforge account name use the "Sign up with an alternate name" feature or change your name for the tournament in the settings. Finding your opponent will be a LOT easier this way.
Bonus rules for the testserver:
All cards that have an affinity that does not exist on the lifeserver are forbidden.
 
 
 
Please notice, that the tournament is on the testserver to use the newest balance patch. This brings the balanced maps, which we will use. Wazhai is not in the pool any longer (finally).
Reply in this thread if you have questions, I will check it out later.
 
 
Best regards,
Toggy

It all started out with you publicly complaining about the issue of the lack of tournaments. In that discussion you were already showing a somewhat passive aggressive attitude towards @Ladadoos. A few days later, you approached him via his DMs in a rather aggressive way. He told you that he's not ignoring the issue, but not interested in a personal discussion with you, due to your attitude. Normally we wouldn't mind discussing something like this, as long as there's respect and common courtesy. In fact, I discuss topics like this with @Toggy quite often. It is rare that we decide to ignore someone. So to conclude, it was not the choice of words, but your general attitude you have shown both in public and in private.
He also obviously did not ignore the content of your message, because even before you DMed him we already decided to address these issues. We wanted to make a general project status update, and we wanted to add the positions for the community ambassador and the event organizer role.
We literally put thousands of hours into this project in the last year. Obviously @Toggy is one of the most engaged community members, but you're seriously underestimating how much work goes into this project. A lot of the work we do is generally not suitable for announcements to the public. Especially back in January, we had to spend a huge amount of time on the project just helping out new people with technical support and moderation issues. There was so much moderation work, that pretty much everyone had to help with that.
The platforms Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were in fact not decently managed before release, but also definitely not ignored. In the period from the end of 2018 to early 2020 there were no posts on these platforms. However, starting in August 2020 Ladadoos and I started with helping managing these platforms aswell. Obviously, given our roles in this project, and the fact that we have personal lives, this could not be kept up, especially given that our previously very active server developer Kubik left the team. Looking at the unofficial steam or skype groups for example, they mostly already died down on their own 2-3 years ago. I was able to find barely any posts, even after we announced the release. So these issues did not suddenly start after release.
Also, you really seem somewhat conflicted here. On one hand you say "If the staff do nothing, why should the community?", but on the other one you say "[...] but the future of this game should, UNLIKE the big companies I mentioned, in my opinion be more open and community driven". We believe this project is a community effort, not just a staff effort.
 We post updates when we make progress in development. However, in the last two months there was simply just not a lot of progress. Which is mostly due to the fact, that both Ladadoos and I heavily neglected our studies for the sake of this project in the year before. At the moment, we are the only server and client developers. Expecting constant updates at the pace they were released in the last year is completely unrealistic, especially given the fact that we're unpaid and doing this in our free time. Feel free to read this announcement aswell, we also touch upon the topic of unsustainable progress there.
 
There are so many little things staff could do all the time. Give responses to all posts, ask for clarification on bug reports, remind people to send their logs, offer to help people with technical issues, participate in feature discussions, and the list goes on. The issue here is simply that all of these little things, some of which are in fact not little, together do in fact take a lot of time.
This is just a another example of things, which might seem like they don't take a lot of time, but they in fact do. Who looks at all the replays? Who decides what's the funniest entry? Who hands out all the boosters? Who organizes the challenge? Who manages the challenge? And even then, people do have quality standards, and they don't want to waste their time with half-baked challenges. It's also generally not good for our image if we just try to pump out content with no real thought behind it. Generally we would like to go for quality over quantity, although we're aware that currently there are no challenges or tournaments. Staff members had been working on both a challenge, and a tournament in fact. They simply couldn't find the time to continue with these plans, hence why we're looking for more volunteers. As you can see from @Toggy and others, staff involvement is not a must for challenges or tournaments.
Obviously we care, and we try our best. And the best we can do right now is to get more volunteers on board, who can help us solve the exact issues you're bringing forward. It's disappointing that you imply that staff doesn't "really care" about tournaments, challenges and growing the community after more than 5 years of hard work.
I really think we're doing the best we can in the current situation, and I'm honestly not sure what you expect us to do differently, given the circumstances. @anonyme0273 in this post you only mention all the issues, and how you don't care that we're hiring new staff to attempt to solve them. Given the current circumstances, what do you expect us to do differently now?
You mentioned that Ladadoos and I participate in a lot of topics. We believe though, that there is a difference between particpating, and actively contributing. Here's how we participate in all things you mentioned:
Staff recruitment: yes, we handle that alongside the respective lead roles. Client modification: yes, we handle that completely, we're the only client and server developers at the moment. Community management: I would argue we're not doing the job of a community manager, but feel free to correct me. The most we do in that regard are maybe official statements. Project planning: there are examples of multiple different projects which work independently from Ladadoos and I: There is the Skylords Reborn Descriptions group, managed by @Mynoduesp. They are working on revamping all of the ingame descriptions. Our participation in this so far has been mostly limited to a meeting, where we discussed their proposals. There is a group working on additional rPvE factions. It started with @CrazyCockerell, and since then @Emmaerzeh has been looking over that project. There is the balancing team, which is managed by @ImaginaryNumb3r and will work autonomously. At the moment I'm still training the balancing developers a bit, until they can work on their own. Game design: we just give feedback on proposals (independently worked on by dedicated designers) in regards to technical limitations, and as server and client developers we implement finished proposals. Cloud you clarify what you mean with "pretty much everything else"? I hope it's clear that we have a team of more than 20 people who are putting their time into this project. They handle moderation, balancing, design, map creation, technical support, etc. Obviously we do a lot, which is to be expected as both an admin and developer, but to claim we do everything is absurd. You could even say that there are already multiple "project administrators" in the project who are overlooking a general process:
@ImaginaryNumb3r is the lead in game and faction design. @Emmaerzeh is the lead in map making, and organizing the map making effort. @RadicalX is in charge of the PvP expert group for balancing. In the future @WindHunter could be in charge of a similar process for PvE. It really does not seem like you are aware of the limitations we are facing. Our current biggest limitation in this regard is the lack of active developers.
Currently we have freund17, and Maze, who are working on a (for now internal) web interface/admin tool for Skylords Reborn. They are organizing themselves and the features they work on are currently determined by the moderators, who are in need of a moderation tool. We have Chibiterasu and Razeroc, who are part of the balancing team. There is fiki574. He's not as active as he once was, but he's maintaining our public APIs. He also listens to feedback from the community there. We have Aviat0r, who is also not too active at the moment, who has been working on a new updater tool. There is also empty, who's currently inactive. So unless you want to manage Ladadoos and me, there's unfortunately not a lot developers to manage right now, hence why we are looking for new developers rather than such a position right now. If with "developers" you mean people who are not in staff, you are generally welcome to organize these kinds of special projects without staff involvement. We're generally happy to assist you if we believe you are working on something which can help out the project. For example, Maze made this useful tool before he was added into staff:

We hope that we could answer all your questions. If everything goes well, all of these things will be less of an issue in the future. We plan to add the positions we are currently lacking to the staff team in the upcoming weeks.

Best regards,
Ladadoos and Zyna ~

I totaly understand where your feelings come from, and the silence of the last few months have left their scars. But the fact the dev team is now hiring people to adress those very same issues is a good thing, and the only thing they can do right now. Yes, it would have been better if it happened earlier, but nothing that can be done about that.
You say you couldnt care less about balancing, but most of the PvP scene was dead because people were waiting for those balance changes. The fact the team opened up positions like Community Ambassador and Event Manager are precicely to tackle the issues you mentioned. Sadly, it will take some time for them to get filled, but after that we should definitly see improvements in the very things you mentioned. 
I guess what I am trying to say is: try to be patient a little bit longer, it looks like good things are about to come  

A bit too late, but here it is:
Changes:
- Added "Event Organizer" position
- Added "Community Manager" position
 

A summary of this announcement is written at the bottom.

Greetings Skylords, Skyladies and other Skyfolk!

Over the past two months project progression has considerably slowed down and it has become apparent that the community is in need of a status update. This announcement aims to provide said status update, where we discuss what has happened the past few months, what the current status of the project is, what some of the roadblocks are and how we plan to alleviate them, what we are currently focusing on and what our plans and expectations are to move forward. We also take a more in-depth look at the current roadmap for new cards and card balancing, and newly added staff members.
General project state and current plans
Let us start by going back more or less 1 year. At that moment @Ladadoos and @Zyna were still only client developers and the only server developer, Kubik, had just left us. With no foreseeable new server developer and the server being in a very unstable state, Ladadoos and Zyna decided to step up and become server and client developers. For the next few months they worked many hours per day to fix as many game related issues as possible and bring the gaming experience to an enjoyable state so that Skylords Reborn could finally release. This lead to the project reaching an unsustainably high update throughput, likely giving false expectations for parts of the community for the future. Just before the project released the only two administrators, InsaneHawk and MrXLink, also stepped down from their role. The lack of a leading role started to show and considering Ladadoos and Zyna had the most involvement in the project at the time they stepped up to also become administrators. As a step in the process of re-structuring the team and improving work efficiency, we noticed that there was a clear need for extra designers. Game design has always been behind and with release coming, we needed to finish design decisions quickly. That is when @ImaginaryNumb3r joined which helped immensely and, alongside other designers, we were able to get game design to an acceptable state for release. 
On December 18th, 2020 Skylords Reborn released. With this milestone achieved we decided to shift more of our attention to ensuring our servers properly handle the hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of concurrent players and to start implementing our first ever card balance changes! With the help of ImaginaryNumb3r, Zyna and the discord balancing server we released our first big card balance change on 1st of January, 2021. This was followed by a couple of extra updates, after which the project progression greatly decreased. ImaginaryNumb3r had to spontaneously spend a lot more time at his real-life job and Zyna and Ladadoos had to catch up with university duties like bachelor and master thesis. In the meantime other staff members have also had it busier than usual.
This leads us to where we are now. Two months without game updates and a community without a clear idea of the current state of the project. In the past few weeks we have internally discussed project health and team structure and decided to use the little time we currently still have into adding more team members to the project and improving code and workflow documentations. This process takes a lot of time which unfortunately comes at the cost of even slower game progression. Ever since we made our open staff applications page we have had many new applications come in and a lot of time has been spent processing them. Our goal is to expand the team such that we try to minimize the chances the project hits a complete halt again and as a result you can expect the team to grow in the upcoming weeks/months. We recently also added three new roles (discord moderators, community manager and event organizer) alongside the existing ones, which should improve the current project state. Feel free to have a look!
Faction design and new staff members
That being said, today we are most happy to announce the future for card balancing and potential new cards in Skylords Reborn. To us, card balance is of critical importance to provide new experiences and allow for greater deck building freedom in the game. To accelerate this process we are proud to announce that we have established a team of 5 people which are dedicated to improve the overall gameplay and deckbuilding experience.
With the introduction of this new team, we have created 2 new official titles:
 - Faction Designer: They explore the design space for card changes and create specifications which will be implemented.
 - Balance Developer: They implement features which were designed by Faction Designers or fix bugs of different sorts. They will also help map making in the future by adding new map specific units like bosses.
In other words: faction designers design the cards and balance developers implement them.
The team consists of the following members:
- @RadicalX: Faction Designer with PvP focus
- @WindHunter: Faction Designer with PvE focus
- @Chibiterasu: Balance Developer
- @Razeroc: Balance Developer
- @ImaginaryNumb3r: Lead Faction Designer
Expectations and steps moving forward
Experience has shown that working on balance and faction design is too work intense for just one developer at a time. As such, it goes without saying that you can expect more frequent balance iterations with card changes which won't only address balance, but also bugfixes and quality-of-life changes. Furthermore, we want to use our new resources for improved communication and greater transparency in terms of card and faction design.
Card changes are important steps to make the game more fun, but because there are so many ways one can adjust cards good design is everything. For PvE in particular our ultimate goal is to strengthen the identity of each faction (pure elements and hybrid factions) and give them their own signature playstyles. But for now, our efforts are best spend on cards which don't require a mechanical rework to make viable (like the Mutating Maniac buff). And for PvP, our new development resources allow our expert group (a group of hand-picked community members that help with design) to make faster progress and make more tests. In the future you can expect more detailed short and long-term goals for card balancing.
That is it for now. Thanks for your continued support the past few months and we look forward to what the future brings us!

Summary
Developers and designers are very busy with real-life jobs and university. New open staff roles were made here as an attempt to keep the project progressing. These rules include discord moderators, community manager, event organizer, developers, designers etc. A lot of time is currently spent reviewing applications and making it easier to integrate new staff members. @Chibiterasu and @Razeroc were recently added to staff and are responsible to implement card changes designed by the new faction designers @RadicalX and @WindHunter. This should greatly speed up card/faction balancing.

Hey guys,
Congratulations to Despooo for taking the tournament!

Greetings,
Toggy

Hey guys,
Congratulations to Despooo for taking the tournament!

Greetings,
Toggy

There will be a special prize for beating him in a set once he participates in the tournament. I did not ask him yet so we will delay that until we are sure.
 
Greetings,
Toggy