Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!
• Small Patch
We are hard at work on our new content patch, which will still take quite a while. However, we plan to release a small patch this weekend including some small features and bug fixes. We have also added a much requested feature: you will now be notified when a friend comes online.
Below, you can read about two highlighted changes from this patch. The patch also includes various bugfixes, for example being able to queue into yourself in PvP.
• Adjustments to the booster images
During our anniversary patch, we noticed that the booster images in the game had plenty of issues. First of all, the ratios are all over the place, with some boosters being tall, where others are wide. Additionally, the positioning angles and BattleForge logo placement is not consistent and some images had shadows where others didn't. We gave them some touchups and have added new images for the boosters.
Old booster packaging:
New booster packaging:
• Winter Forge
While the holidays are over, winter is still here. We thought it would be fun to give the Forge a different look during winter, spring, summer and autumn, so we have updated it to a snowy theme! For the spring, summer and autumn Forges we plan to include the Community, so stay tuned for that!
In a previous patch, we added powerwells and monuments into the forge for testing. We are curious to hear if you enjoy changes like this, even if they are purely cosmetic.
Is the new look too cold for your taste? Feel free to swap it back to the neutral forge with the new slider on the top right.
• Current State of the Economy & Reforging
On the 18th of December we released both Reforging and a 100BFP booster discount. As expected, this heavily impacted the economy of Skylords Reborn. Now that the dust has settled and the booster discount has expired, we can slowly start looking at the state of the economy. Windhunter has shared some statistics and thoughts on this topic.
"The market trends pre-update (not shown here) were that Common cards were largely worthless, Uncommon cards were following the same trend, Rare cards were steadily decreasing in price (even among sought after cards such as Overlord, Bloodhorn, and Amii Monument), and desirable Ultra-rare and promo cards were increasingly inflating. This was because Ultra-rare and promo cards were the only remaining sources of value left in the economy. Reforging changed this by condensing the total price range of the market and by giving each card in the game a base level of value."
You can read the whole post and check the stats for yourself here.
• Deep Dive: Towers
As we continue to work towards the release of DRPvE, a topic of much discussion has been the current state of towers in the game. While some towers over perform, most are not worth a deckslot.
In this Deep Dive, we take a look at the different kinds of towers in Skylords Reborn, their strengths and weaknesses, and how we plan to make changes to them in the future. Please note we are still in the early stages of our tower rebalance; ideas are not final and these changes will take quite a while to implement once they are finalized. Either way, we hope you enjoy this insight into our current philosophy regarding Towers in Skylords Reborn, and that it provides you with the necessary information to join the discussion in our balance discord.
DeepDive_Towers.pdf
The next design document you can expect will be our in progress Nature Deep Dive. You can find all our Deep Dives and other documents here.
• Changing the size of buildings
While working on the above topic, we came across a new possibility for the game: resizing towers. We are now able to change the size of a building (visual and collision-shape-wise), which will be very relevant for cards like Rocket Tower, that take up way more space than you would expect from its model. This will be another helpful tool in adding some QoL changes to Skylords Reborn!
Please note: the image below is an example, there are currently no concrete changes to Tunnel planned.
• Art Timelapse
With our anniversary patch, it was revealed that the artwork of the new bandit cards combine into a single art piece: the new Bandit loading screen. If you are a frequent reader of the community updates, you have seen the work that went into each different new bandit cards over the last few months, including sketches of early iterations. However, if you are interested in more behind the scenes, we have a nice treat for you. Tweeto has actually recorded his design process, and we created a time-lapse video showing all the steps that went into this latest art piece. Did you know Bandit Sniper is actually standing on a dead Burrower? Find out everything that was added (and removed) in the video here.
Big thanks to Tweeto for his hard work and jabbyay for helping to create this video. Tweeto is already hard at work on the next art piece, which we will show off in a later community update. Like this kind of content? Please be sure to let us know!
• Advanced Filtering
We would like to take a quick moment to thank everyone for taking our survey about your use of advanced filtering. We are working on a full documentation for the filters that are currently available in the game. If you don't want to wait for that, you can find a Work in Progress version in the game files under BattleForge/docs/advanced_filtering.txt once the patch hits.
We have also added a few new filters and a lot of alternative words for current filters.
• Tournaments & Events
• NEW - Toggy's Tome Tournament - 30.01.2022
It's time for another Tome Tournament! In Tome you play 1vs1 PvP but with a twist; your deck is build right before the tournament from the content of a number of boosters. This results in wacky decks and a very different PvP experience, so be sure to check it out. The tournament will be streamed live, check out the full rules and sign-up here.
• NEW - CCC #2 The Besieged Forge - UNTIL 05.02.2022
Kapo has started another Crappy Community Contest! Participating in it will result in a reward for the entire community, so be sure to check it out. In this contest, players are playing on a new map created specifically for this contest! Check out the full rules here.
• ALMOST ENDING - Official 2p rPvE Contest#2: The Bandit alliance UNTIL 31.01.2022
You only have a few days left to compete in this event! For this challenge, we want to see your adaptability in unique situations.
We are looking for the fastest time with only one rule: each player may only spawn one single unit with ground presence through the whole run!
• COMING SOON – Community 1p PvE Contest – early February
Hope you didn’t hide your warm clothes yet! To celebrate the end of winter, we will pay a visit to another Frost themed map. This time the challenge will be for a single Skylord, so bring your best deck and face the unknown. All the details should be published next week, stay tuned.
• Host your own event/tournament
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you.
• We need your help!
Now that we are able to implement voicelines and audio into the game (thanks to some great voiceactors helping us out!), we are looking for someone to help us with audio post-production and quality control. Unfortunately we currently do not have enough volunteers to continue implementing any further voicelines and sound effects into the game.
• Open Position: Audio Editor
We would love to continue adding voicelines for more cards and narration for new maps. As an Audio Editor, you will be responsible for selecting and extracting the best takes, doing post-production and making sure the overall quality is high enough to be implemented into the game. If you have more skills, you will also be able to design new sounds for the game as Audio Producer. Click here to read more and apply.
• Team changes
We are excited to finally add a marketeer/outreach coordinator to our team! Runeseeker will help us out with promoting the project and attracting new and old players alike. We appreciate the help and are happy to have him on our team!
We also have various potential team members doing their trial tasks. In the near future we hope to add more balance developers, moderators and an artist.
• In Conclusion
And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading!
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code.
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: COMM-UNIT-YNEW-S18B
The code is valid till February 19th, when we will bring you another Community Update.
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments!
Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #17
The day everyone has been awaiting has finally arrived. After all these years of hard work and dedication we are excited to tell you we have an official release date for Skylords Reborn!
December 18, 2020
As you might know, we will also have a progression reset alongside this release. This means everyone's progress (this includes cards, BFP, gold, upgrades etc.) will be reset on release day. So hold back just a little if you were planning to play before release (or don't if you don't mind losing the progress). We have always said that there will be a reset on release date and it will definitely happen. If you would like to follow what we are up to and what is still left to be done before release, you can do so by looking at our Trello here.
On another note, we are looking for new staff members!
With the game being more stable and bug-free than ever before, and the upcoming release, we will start to look for ways to expand on the current game. This includes adding cards and maps, doing card and map balance changes, holding events and tournaments etc. And this is where we need your help. Listed below are three positions which will be open for applications. If you want to offer your help you can do so by applying in the recruitment section here on the forum. Please apply in the `Development` section and specify what role you would like to fulfill.
- Designer: Design game mechanics related to progression/quests/rewards.
- Map Scripters: Fixes bugs in map scripts, and assists the map designers with map scripting.
- Map Designers: Makes new maps, or polishes existing maps so they can be added as official to the game.
That's it for now! For more information you can watch the livestream we did here. Thank you for your support thus far and we will see each other around.
