Loriens

added Link to YT commentary by Lebovin for 2 Player solo rPVE all-time record (February2021)

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!

Reset option for Saviour of Nyn, Hero of the Realm and Among the Old Gods for the price of 400 BFP x Rewarded Booster
Saviour of Nyn 1200 BFP
Hero of the Realm 2000 BFP
Among the Old Gods 3200 BFP
or for even more Achivments

"Tremors"
Win a campaign map using 4 unique Worm units.

What I really propose - if only pure colours are allowed - every collour should have it's own competion, it's really important. Otherwise some decks won't be good choice for most of participants. Separate contest for every colour.
Also would be nice to have in game notifactions about tournaments.

What I really propose - if only pure colours are allowed - every collour should have it's own competion, it's really important. Otherwise some decks won't be good choice for most of participants. Separate contest for every colour.
Also would be nice to have in game notifactions about tournaments.

omg why I sold all pure cards for speedrun cards?

omg why I sold all pure cards for speedrun cards?

Hello fellow Skylords,
I would like to show my love and appreciation of this game by posting some of my ideas for possible reworks of bandit cards. Note, these reworks do not take into account the technical limits of what could be added to the game at the moment, they are just ideas to spark thought into how we can approach reworking some cards that do not see the light of day due to being too niche or outright underpowered.
NOTE: All cards here (despite some visuals} are shown at maximum upgrades
Units
Bandit Lancer


The change here is to increase the unit count from 1 to 4 (like Silverwind lancers), increase the attack and HP accordingly, and increase the cost from 60 to 100. As a T3, having a single medium sized unit without steadfast and being in the front lines (of your ranged units) makes it too squishy to include in any deck aside from it being a fun thematic card. This change will make the card a solid front liner for gunners and commandos in order to make good use of its' branding ability.
Spells
Warrior's Death


Warrior's death acts as an alternative to Disenchant which buffs the unit at the cost of it dying at the end of the duration. Running disenchant is always a much safer bet as it frees the target from existing Crowd control and does not kill your troop. Not to mention that Warrior's death cannot be looped in order to delay the death of the unit past 20 seconds, making it almost never worth it. Bandit armies at T2 usually rely on numbers rather than having 1 big unit to benefit from the spell, and its use is limited in PVP. This new version reduces the duration and the magnitude of the effect, but allows it to be more useful when when placed on a frontline L unit (shadow phoenix at T2) to inspire the rest of the S and M units that are attacking along side it. Not to mention that this spell now becomes useful past T2 when using it on units like Soulhunter or Corsair.
Sandstorm
 


Sandstorm in its' current form is very expensive and has very little usage. Its tainted affinity is a more expensive Aura of corruption with a little bit of damage, while the infused affinity is even less useful in PVE (since I'm assuming this spell is too expensive to be used in PVP). This new form gives it a new identity as a base clearing spell that intends to kill units affectively (not so much buildings) and rewards the player for good timing and placement.  
Amok


Effect name changed from "Friend or foe?" to "Bloodbath"


The idea here is that Amok does not offer much that Frenetic Assault wouldn't offer in a bandit deck, given that the orb requirements of Frenetic Assault is satisfied if you are to use Amok anyways. This new version of Amok allows all units to fight to the death with immunity to crowd control, and damage from outside the battlefield. Theoretically speaking, since bandits have life steal, they should have the upper hand when dealing increased damage.
Waystation -> Arsenal




Waystation as a building is too cumbersome to use effectively and too niche at that. On offence, it does not construct quickly enough to be useful on the battlefield (like banner of glory) nor is the damage boost good since that space can be occupied by a defense tower with Bandit sorceress inside it. Arsenal, however, attempts to solidify the identity of the bandit faction as being an army building faction, allowing them to have bigger sized armies and recover their card charges quicker. Only 4 (possibly 5) can exist be used at a time, meaning card charges recover 48-60% faster.
 
 
And finally, I saved the most controversial change for last
Rioter's Retreat


The changes here are not because Rioter's retreat is too weak, but because Bandit T2 is overloaded with towers while T3 offers nothing in terms of defense (aside from infernal machine). The idea here is that by increasing the damage, adding knockback, and slightly increasing the HP of the tower, now this card becomes an upgrade to your defensive build as a reward for reaching T3. The retreat passive getting stronger the more bandit structures you have surrounding the building synergizes with Bandit Launcher taking up a small patch of land, allowing you to clump a large number of them to boost up the power of this building.
 
Let me know what you think of these suggestions, and where you see some flaws in my judgement when assessing these particular cards. Thank you for reading this lengthy post.

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

Foreword
Content:
Cost Tier progression Alternative cards to use Upgrade priorities Replays My other Guides Reading time is maybe 15 to 20 minutes.
For some people the first thing they ask in the game is "can sb show me a good beginner deck?"
Unfortunately some of the answers they receive won't consider the cost. Both when it comes to the cards themselves but also for the upgrades, which cost gold.
This deck here is meant as a baseline to get going. Present some various, different concepts to give pointers and grant access to gold flow. But Skylords is all about experimenting! Don't like something? Change it!
Want to give something a try? Just slot it in!
Pulled an interesting card that you want to see in action? Build a deck around it, make it work!
Struggle with a specific map? Try different cards, there might be more suitable ones for different situations.
Create something else entirely from the ground up? The card pool is your oyster.
With that being said my goals here are:
Use almost exclusively Common cards to keep upgrading costs to a minimum Use cheap cards Introduce cards (in the deck itself or as alternatives) that have at least some interesting synergies and are more involved Be forgiving Be flexible, so many cards can be changed Be rPvE 9 ready right out of the box, so it also packs a punch Cost
The total to put this deck together is much less than 300 BFP! That means you can literally have this whole deck up and running within 45 minutes after first starting the game. You get 150 from your two dailies. 200 from your daily boost and you are set already. If you want a bit more buy your discounted daily booster for 350, resell it to someone. Netting you a total of at least 420 BFP, which you can use to buy everything you need and more.
I played a few rounds of rPvE 9 without any upgrades myself. I'd advise you to stick to solo until you got a good feeling for the deck. Play one round of 6 or 7 at first. Then try 8, then 9.
This deck contains almost exclusively super cheap Commons or ones that are even included as starter cards. You can also ask around in trade, people might be willing to sell in bulk for even less than in the AH.

Windweavers 20 (starter card) Burrower 30 Razorshard G 20 Swamp Drake 20 (starter card)  Lost Horror G 20 Grimvine 80  Giant Wyrm 20 (starter card)  Primal Defender 10 (starter card)  Fountain of Rebirth 40  Breeding Grounds 15 (starter card)  Healing Gardens 30  Necroblaster G 10 (starter card)  Surge of Light 20 (starter card)  Curse of Oink 25 (starter card)  Stone Shell G 20  Equilibrium G 15  Regrowth 15 (starter card)  Unholy Hero 10 (starter card)  Rifle Cultists 10 (starter card)  Offering G 10 (starter card) So minus starter cards it totals roughly 255 BFP. Even less if you take the time to ask people in trade chat. A bit more if you buy during price spikes in the AH.
Alternatives to Grimvine (note the comments under "Alternative cards to use"):
Gemeye P or G - 50 AH (Auction House) prices seem to be pretty consistent, if big outliers appear they usually settle again after a few days. You could get away without using Grimvine or Gemeye, slightly reducing the total cost of the deck, but a T4 with only Lost Horror G and Giant Wyrm lacks a beefy frontline. You could also spam Emberstrike and Boom Brothers, as presented as alternatives below.
You will notice my use of singular letters next to card names, which are referring to the cards affinity. G = Green, P = Purple, B = Blue, R = Red. Cards with affinities have two different versions and they vary in effect, depending on their affinity. Affinities are represented by a small dot on the card in their respective color. They have nothing to do with what Orbs you need to play that card though.
Tier progression
Tier 1 - Nature
Build two Fountains of Rebirth so you can have their buff permanently running. They even affect allies, which is a massive boon for all other factions that usually have no or little sustain on T1. In the long run, it will also reduce how often you have to use Surge of Light. What is more, it will make you accustomed to managing timed, global buffs. A mechanic that many decks utilize (Shrine of War being the most prominent example). To make things easier, assign the two fountains to one group each as a shortcut, just as you do with your units.
Spam WWs (Windweavers). Because of their ability they can hit two targets at once. Which means, as long as there is more than one target, their effective DP20 (Damage Per 20 Seconds, which is the average damage value that is printed on cards) is actually 960. As soon as a squad of WWs goes down to about 50% HP, pull them behind other squads. Enemies will switch to attacking one of the closer squads, at which point you can reengage with the wounded WWs. This distribution of damage will make the Fountains more effective and also make it more likely you don't overheal with Surge.
If you want a tower at T1, the Primal Defender is your building. Two of them can be a big help to defend your initial base on solo rPvE 9 so you can go on the offensive with your WWs.
Tier 2 - Nature -> Frost
Razorshard G is the backbone of this T2. The main reason for this is its healing aura, which does not require card upgrades to be powerful. Spawn two of them so they can heal one another. It might feel a bit clunky to play at first but its worth it. You will get accustomed to active abilities, positioning and effective use of units which have immobility. Also, while WWs have no preferred target (see the star next to their damage value), Razorshard G will deal 1.5x damage against S size enemies (if the target has an S next to their life value). So have your Razorshard focus on those targets to take them off the field earlier. Very important to note though, that this damage bonus only applies to their melee attacks. Their Bombing Raid ability does not benefit.
Keep using your Fountains and you will have very nice passive healing.
Burrowers are meant to do one thing only: Charge at the enemy (spawn) buildings and destroy them asap. Support them with Curse of Oink and heals. Curse of Oink is temporarily CC (crowd control, so hindering enemy units in some form). Careful though, if they take damage, the spell ends much sooner.
Keep using Surge of Light if needed.
Breeding Grounds is an exceptionally powerful building that reduces the power cost of all own and allied units spawned within its AoE (area of effect). You still need to have the default amount of energy available though, you simply spend less on spawn. This is a building that you can keep using for your T3 and your T4 units. However, do remember that the building itself costs 70 energy. So just to break even on the investment you have to then spawn units for a total of just about 470 energy next to it! This gets more generous once Breeding Grounds are upgraded.
Tier 3 - Nature -> Frost -> Shadow
If you still have WWs at this point, kill them.
Lost Horror G is the main star here. Just like WWs he has no damage bonus against any particular unit size. But he shoots THREE attacks at once. This means that his damage potential is 5610, which is comparable to a T4 unit, Absolutely devastating as long as there are at least three targets to aim at.
Unfortunately, against big single targets Lost Horror G doesn't pack a good punch. Swamp Drake does though! Not only is it very mobile, being airborne, but it has an XL damage bonus, which are usually the tankiest foes. Their ability is CC like Curse of Oink, disabling enemy units for some time but it ends sooner if they take damage.
Stone Shell G is a damage reduction that becomes more effective if more allied units are within its AoE. In case of emergency, use Equilibrium G for a heal that becomes more potent, the more allied max HP is within its AoE.
You only need one Lost Horror G card to start! Use Offering G on one of your Swamp Drakes. This kills it but returns 90% of its energy cost to void and refreshes one charge for all T3 cards in your deck.
After you have your T3 army going build two Healing Gardens somewhere safe. Their active effect will increase any healing effects on your units by 85%, making them much more efficient. It's not the most powerful regeneration at this point because your units will start having much more HP but you can even continue using your Fountains together with Gardens. It's not much passive healing but it's something. Otherwise you can destroy your Fountains at this point or on T4.
The Necroblaster G is an exceedingly powerful tower. But it requires HP gathered from any corpses to fire its shot. If you use them, build maybe two of them together and either protect them until they have a bit of HP stored or kill your own units near them if necessary. Affinity doesn't matter that much, but feel free to experiment with it.
Tier 4 - Nature -> Frost -> Shadow -> any
If you still have any T2 units at this point, kill them. Lost Horror G can stay because its AoE damage is phenomenal. Swamp Drakes will probably naturally start dying in battle.
Since not a single card in the deck requires two identical Orbs, it doesn't really matter what you build as your last one. I'd go with Nature, because should you somehow lose your one Nature Orb, it's going to be far more devastating than losing the Shadow or Frost one. But you can also change cards in the deck so that your last orb has to be something specific.
Giant Wyrm is a go-to powerhouse. It's just a very mobile, huge ball of stats.
Grimvine is a tanky frontliner that destroys buildings and soaks damage. The ability is just alright but luckily also very cheap. It also serves as ground presence, which is important to spawn more units or use spells that are not Arcane (which can be used anywhere).
When you hit your unit cap of 120 you can start replacing any remaining Lost Horrors G with T4 units. This becomes even better once your Giant Wyrms are upgraded a bit.
You can continue using Equilibrium G here while on the move. But in more stationary battles Regrowth is superior. Make sure that you currently have the effect from Healing Gardens running when you cast a healing spell. The increase in effectiveness is huge. Unholy Hero makes the buffed unit really deadly. But beware of the drawback. To be safe, use it on a unit, like a Giant Wyrm, that is out of reach for enemies.
Once again, charge upgrades for Grimvine, Giant Wyrm and even Regrowth aren't necessary because you also have Rifle Cultists. If you Offer them, you get one charge for each T4 card back. However this also means that once your big T4 cards are upgraded with sufficient charges, you can take out both Offering G and Rifle Cultists, which frees up two valuable slots in your deck.
But don't think they are just there to recharge your XL T4 units. Their ability is very powerful. Especially once you upgrade them to charge it quicker and use Unholy Hero on them. Use it carefully, since it also damages your own units, and it can severely cripple enemy forces before the fight even begins.
Alternative Cards to use
With each Tier explained, let's look at some alternatives, upgrades or additions. I am not trying to mess with the Orb sequence though as that can require extensive remodelling of the deck.
Rough price chart:
Very cheap - <20
Cheap - <80
Moderate - <150
Expensive - <250
Very expensive - <500
Tier 1 Options
Dryad B - Her aura makes your units (even past T1) sturdier and therefore also makes every heal on them more effective. Expensive.
Shaman - You can replace Fountain of Rebirth with it. Don't get slowed down too much though. Each Shaman healing is equivalent to one WW not dealing damage. Expensive.
Ensnaring Roots/Hurricane - Great with WWs. The former lets you kill melee units before they reach you and the latter knocks around S units for a long time. Cheap to moderate.
Tunnel - Get around the map quickly. Very cheap.
Tier 2 Options
Stormsinger G - Good, mobile ranged unit with strong AA (anti-air). Moderate.
Defenders - Extremely powerful unit once upgraded. 2025 EHP (effective health points) when they hunker down, which makes any healing effect very potent. Notice their ability has two circling arrows. Usually, when you use abilities and spells or units/buildings get destroyed 90% of the invested power will return to your void pool to slowly trickle back into your usable power. However, a switch-ability puts 100% of its power cost into the void pool! So use it liberally. Very cheap.
Stone Tempest - Lots of damage and knockback. Cheap.
Ghostspears - If you want to add some melee prowess. Very cheap.
Crystal Fiend B - Has good healing that also makes affected units take less damage. Very good with Defenders. Moderate.
Aggressors - Support unit that knocks back even L units. Damage is low for their cost so they need something else to actually kill stuff. Especially S squads can sometimes become impervious against Aggressor attacks if they are spread out too much from the knockback. Cheap.
Ray of Light - If you feel like, even with Razorshard G, Surge of Light and Fountain of Rebirth, you need more heal. Very cheap.
Coldsnap - Very powerful CC to disable troublesome foes. Consider that frozen enemies only take 50% damage, so you'll kill them much slower. Be mindful with freezes so you don't mess up your allies' plan. Moderate.
Northern Keep/Cannon Tower - Cannon Tower is a very strong building against ground units. Northern Keep R has an extremely powerful ability that makes friendly S and M units invulnerable in its AoE. Especially with Defenders this is a defensive barrier that can withstand almost anything. Very cheap.
Juice Tanks - If you are uncertain how long a map will take or if you are sure it might drag on a bit. For a small power investment your wells will run dry much, much slower. This will net you a safety net for drawn out maps so you can spend power liberally. Don't build them in rPvE though since the time limit will end the match before Juice Tanks really benefit you. Cheap.
Tier 3 Options
Ashbone Pyro - Destructive unit and potent synergy with heals. Only really gets good after a few upgrades though. Moderate to expensive.
Deepcoil Worm - Good ranged unit and you can combine it with Tunnel. Very expensive.
Silverwind Lancers - Disposable, cheap and mobile fighters. Another unit to Offer if you want to spawn a different T3 unit more frequently. Very cheap.
Revenge - Both an offensive and defensive spell. It even splashes the self-damage from Ashbone Pyro onto enemies! Expensive.
Thunderstorm - Purely offensive spell to make quick work of big packs of weaker enemies. Not necessary when your Lost Horror is nearby but good to clean up a sudden surprise attack. Cheap.
Tier 4 Options
Gemeye P/G - Artillery range and powerful passive abilities, P dealing more damage overall because of the DoT (damage over time) and G paralyzing units, which disables them for a set time, even if you keep attacking them. However, if you use them instead of Grimvine, their long range will make them stay behind your Giant Wyrms, which makes those take the brunt of enemy fire. Not ideal at all, so you should specifically manage them to stay in front and serve as your tanks. The 15% damage reduction from Adamant Skin makes them very resilient. Could even use both affinity variants simultaneously. Cheap.
LSS (Lost Spirit Ship) - Instead of Giant Wyrm or even in addition. Deals damage on the move, hits a lot of targets simultaneously and become a tide of destruction once you have multiple of them. Cheap to moderate.
Boom Brothers/Emberstrike - A more active playstyle as you have a lot of powerful abilities to spam. Boom Brothers annihilate ground presence, units and buildings alike, and their XL bonus damage even applies to their ability. Their knockback keeps everything that survives at bay. Emberstrikes ability can also hit airborne targets and they can be summoned on the fly (they don't suffer temporarily reduced max HP and damage if summoned away from Power Wells/Orbs) but their damage bonus is M, which generally isn't very good on T4. Spamming their abilities can become an issue if you don't have a way to quickly regain void energy. Very cheap.
Bloodhorn - Once upgraded its Stampede ability tears down multiple buildings. Has XL counter. A very powerful card and one of the best T4 alternatives you could go for. Its ability varies: R makes it immune to debuffs and CC, which makes it very reliable. P makes it deal much more damage, which makes it incredibly destructive. Expensive to very expensive.
Earthshaker - Destroys enemy buildings quickly. Expensive.
Maelstrom - Huge AoE and good damage while eventually freezing enemy units. Again, frozen units only take 50% damage. Cheap.
Ice Tornado - High damage. Doesn't need to travel, you can cast it on a single spot for high single-target damage. Moderate.
Noxious Cloud - Slow burn which deals massively high damage overall but has to ramp up. Cheap.
Other upgrades
Quickly recovering your void energy into actually usable energy pool is very powerful as it speeds up your game a lot. To enable this, you can pick from a few good options. They all affect your Orb choices.
Cultist Master + Furnace of Flesh - Spawn crawlers near the Furnace and kill them. Only becomes good once those cards are upgraded. It's fine if you only get your second shadow orb on T4. Expensive.
Shrine of Martyrs - Bit tricky to use. You will need to add some ways to freeze enemies. Moderate.
Shrine of Memory - Makes you regain void energy much faster. No bursts of power regained but it's consistent. Moderate.
Upgrade priorities
Some advice on what to invest in once you start gathering Gold for card upgrades and BFP for more charges:
Vital upgrades AND charges
WWs - Your T1 start needs to pack a punch
Surge of Light - See above
Regrowth - More usage and more energy efficient
Necroblaster G - Higher damage means more opportunity to recharge HP from corpses. Only vital if you find yourself using these a lot
Vital upgrades
Fountain of Rebirth - More expensive to upgrade but you will notice the increase in regen
Breeding Grounds - Even cheaper units
Curse of Oink - More CC and cheaper
Giant Wyrm - Much more damage for this power expensive unit
Primal Defender - If you use them frequently
(Gemeye G/P - More bang for your buck on those as well, if you use them)
Important upgrades
Equilibrium G - Better heal
Burrower - More life is useful since it has to run past enemies
Grimvine - Even tankier
Swamp Drake - Increased HP makes them more forgiving and more CC
Unholy Hero - A risky spell, so it has to be worth it if you use it, right?
Offering G - Cheaper and more frequent use
Decent upgrades
Stone Shell - Cheaper and longer duration
Lost Horror - More life
Razorshard G - More life
Healing Gardens - Even more heal effectiveness
Rifle Cultists - If you find yourself enjoying their ability, upgrade them as soon as you like
Replays
Some replays with this deck on rPvE. To watch them you have to download the file and add it to: C:\Users\<user name>\Documents\BattleForge\replays
None of the cards are upgraded, this is as bare bones as it gets. Difficulty 7 and 8 are very easy and already net a big payout in gold that lets you upgrade a lot of cards. Difficulty 9 can get a bit messy at times but is also consistently doable.
Beginner Deck - Solo rPvE 7.pmv 2200 gold payout.
Very easy with this deck.
Beginner Deck - Solo rPvE 8.pmv 3250 gold payout.
While defending my T2 I was too greedy and spawned one too many WWs. Which lead to me not having enough energy to heal my army and losing 5 squads. Would've probably lost only 2 had I healed instead. Not the cleanest T4 finish either but good enough.
Beginner Deck - Solo rPvE 9 (T2 skip).pmv 4200 gold payout.
Here I skipped T2 because the opportunity to attack T3 presented itself after the entire camp got pulled. I knew the camp was empty now and charged in. Not the most representative replay because of that but it happens. After getting T3 I suicide rushed a base with my remaining WWs just to take out a spawn and ease the pressure. By the way, every time a Swamp Drake just randomly dies, it's because I Offered it to get a charge back for a Lost Horror G. Notice how I destroy the enemy spawn buildings asap, because if another batch of enemies spawns mid fight it just draws things out.
My other Guides
HOW TO: PvE Deckbuilding Guide - If you are unsure how to start building your own decks and what to consider.
CHEAP Pure-Fire Deck - If you are rather interested in a cheap and flexible fire deck.
CHEAP Pure-Shadow Deck - If you are rather interested in a cheap and flexible shadow deck.

Yeah. but what we will have, for example - Promo Sunderer only from playing every map on Expert with Pure Fire deck, Promo Frost Mage for Frost etc.
And there will be no chance to get them from boosters.
I see no downside of it for economy.

Yeah. but what we will have, for example - Promo Sunderer only from playing every map on Expert with Pure Fire deck, Promo Frost Mage for Frost etc.
And there will be no chance to get them from boosters.
I see no downside of it for economy.

It's not as simple as just prioritizing game design over faction design. Those are two different departments. The balancing developers could not simply just start working on implementing new concepts. They are neither client nor server developers. As balance developers, they "only" work with our internal balancing tool. For the game design process, we need game designers, client developers and server developers (and also potentially more web developers in the future). So far we managed to add one new game designer, @Eirias, and soon we could add one new client developer, who is currently working on their first assignment. We have a couple of open server developer applications, which are still being reviewed.
You could argue the faction designers could also help with game design. However, they specifically volunteered for faction design because of their experience and interests.

I will not be publishing any private messages, I respect their privacy. I too was disappointed to having to attempt to continue this discussion in private, since both my public queries went without an answer. As I stated every time, I don't wish for this issue to die and over time I will, as anyone, lose my temper. Though to be frank, I doubt I was disrespectful considering the way the issue was handled from the other side too. We both escalated the issue but my attempts to continue the conversation went without as much as reading the message. Here, I will quote my part of the message as I think it is important
'But you not being interested in answering reasonable community questions shows your disconnection from it, and that matters'. I believe that phrasing or attitude should not matter in a professional environment. Me acting profesional or not should not reflect on the response. I am not staff, but I am a long time member of this community and project. I did my best to help wherever I could for years and all I wanted was an answer. I truly believe a generic 'We are working on it, hence the recruitment of an event organizer' would've shut me up for good, but alas, I got nothing, which is not what I deserve. So yes, from that point on I purposefully kept the tone a tad aggressive, though in great moderation.
I should have phrased the quote you mention better. Short term card balances, moderation and all staff action are reasonable, but long term it will all be for nothing if the focus doesn't quickly shift on getting more players active from both registered members and people who never heard of the game. The (from an outsider view) complete lack of this is what made me begin this whole discussion. No matter the work that goes into this, once the player numbers go low, it will be all the harder to get them up. The hype from the launch won't last forever and it should be capitalized on in the sense of using the current lifeblood of this community to grow said community. If new people come and see lively discussions, short ingame queue times and active games, the chances of them sticking around are so much higher than if they come to a half dead discord and noone ingame. Existing players won't stick around forever either, if the only thing to do is grind around aimlessly. The way I brought those points up should not matter if they are valid.
I did overestimate their usefulness, granted. But the potential to use them has not been used in the slightest, while they are probably the best tools for new player outreach. The release, so long anticipated and worked on by so many people, went almost completely unnoticed by most, because there was one or two posts at best and then silence. Seems like a missed opportunity, but what's done is done. The fact all these accounts are STILL silent is just saddening, when so much could be talked about there - the temporary booster sale, Toggy and his tournaments, new staff hiring, patches, updates...
In all my years here I always stood by the people volunteering to work on this project and their real lives taking priority. Even now I haven't even thought of telling anyone to focus solely on this, that would be absurd. But with so many people on staff you two don't really need to do everything (as you then mention further in your posts, you don't, but even before a community ambassador is chosen, anyone else could have taken part in community outreach).
 
 
This was an official post on what to expect from SR and thus I came to take it seriously. Nowhere around was it said the first thing that will be done is card changes, map additions etc. So yes, sadly I take this as of yet for a broken promise. The old BattleForge died because noone cared for the game. You clearly do, but I just think that you are looking the wrong direction. Instead of looking inwards on the game aspects, I suggested looking outwards on bringing in more people.
 
I appreciate your response, I'd hate to be interpreted wrong. Never did I intend to insult the work done on the project, rather I think the current focus is just wrong. I will apologize for being aggressive if talked to, and to talk to is all I originally wanted. I was denied the opportunity based not on WHAT i was saying, but HOW I did so. That to me seems shallow and unprofessional. I will always want whats best for the game, and I will speak my mind if I think I have something to add.

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 speak for no one, but the way I see it is that upper staff has too many different things to deal with at once. They handle staff recruitment, game designing, project planning, community management, client modifications and pretty much everything else while also giving directions to those working under them.
With the way things are, the game will die out in a year or two, the same way it did in the past, if no significant updates are rolled out, and I am not talking about new quests or achievements, those are, in the grand scheme of things, very insignificant. One of the fuels of this project is nostalgia, and it will eventually run out.
I am not saying upper management is failing at regulating the game, not at all; I am very much appreciative of their work, but I think they should specialize and expand a little bit more in their ranks in order to fill the vacancies, and allow for each of the upper staff members to focus on a project at a time, not handle everything. I applied for just that, specialized administration, but in the end it felt like our visions differed. 
Projects/New mechanics should be tailored toward acquiring new players, not making an update for the sake of having one. Nowadays, a multiplayer game can have like 5 different crafting systems, with player cosmetics, event passes, monthly themes and so many other things. Compared to BattleForge as a game... we have what, card upgrading? 
What I am saying is, I feel like it should be emphasized what the SR team actually is. Are they a team that is hosting the BattleForge game as it is with minor changes? Or are they aiming to become an entirely new (and separate) entity than the old game? Keep in mind that I am aware of the limitations facing the team, and every point I mentioned, I feel there is a fix to. It only requires modifications to the ranks of upper management to allow for a more versatile team overall, instead of overloading the current two administrators, and that begins with having groups, each consisting of an administrator and a few developers, working to finish a specific project that is separate from what the rest of the team is doing. There is a reason specialization is vital in workplaces, since it increases accountability and speed of work.
That said, I still highly appreciate and know how hard they are working. I am merely providing what I find to be constructive criticism from my own point of view. 

Hey Everyone,
I wanted to share with you my Ocean Expert replay with 3 Shadow and 1 Ice Orb.
Cards used:
Forsaken, SoulSplicer orange, Dark Elf Assasins, Lost Launcher, Juice Tank, Resource Booster, Furnace of Flesh, Coldsnap,  Amii Monument, Frenetic Assault, Infect, Soulshatter, Overlord, Grim Bahir orange and Deathray. All cards are upgraded.
The units are charged to the full, Infect has 1 charge cause it's super-expensive and the buildings are not fully charged.
I had to use Nether Warp once, cause an Overlord  got stuck when I spawned it and I spawned one unit of Rifle Cultists cause I thought that I kept my Offering in the deck but it wasn's there so I ended up killing the Rifle Cultists...
I made some mistakes during the gameplay, but I just started to do the expert campaigns and this was the hardest so far.
Let me know what do you think and enjoy the replay.
Ocean Expert Shadow + 1 Ice - Siquenor.pmv

Martyr is quite good and not nearly as overtuned as SoW. It is much more interactive and the void return is sufficient. Nerfs to overpowered cards and buffs to underpowered ones can happen simultaneously. Nerfs are necessary because if you just take the current top performers as benchmarks for everything else to be elevated to you end up with massive powercreep. People are so used to the totally busted, imbalanced cards that they don't even realize anymore how ridiculous a 20% void return is for every single enemy unit that dies that you can have up permanently. The expectation of power is totally out of whack.
At the same time, you won't get people to deviate from the current top just by making the alternatives stronger. You also have to actively give them an slight nudge to get out from their stale comfort zone. How can someone even argue with a straight face that an extremely flexible card that almost completely negates the entire mechanic of void energy is totally fine? Did any of you even bother to run the numbers? I'm gonna dare do it even though if they are somehow wrong, I'm gonna look stupid as fuck.
Say you have 500 void. With just 8 dead enemies anywhere on the map, you are down to 84 void. So you had a burst return of 416 energy, which equals to 83% of your void energy.
Again with 1000 void. 11 dead enemies to get below 100 again, 86 void to be exact. 914 energy usable again, or 91%.
An unreasonable 2000 void that you somehow managed to accumulate because you spammed spells and half your army still managed to die. 14 dead enemies anywhere result in 88 void. 1912 energy back or 96%.
Let's see how many enemies have to die for you to get 300 energy back, which is enough to cast any spell or almost all units in the game. So it's sufficient to keep you powering on.
500 void -> 4 enemies
600 void -> 3 enemies
850 void -> 2 enemies
1500 void -> 1 enemy
Now consider that SoW is a T3 card so by that point your army and your spells already pack a hefty punch. Meanwhile there will still be a lot of fodder on the environment side, lots of S and M units that keel over quickly.
Practical example for all you power trippers out there, you go and cast Frenetic + Infect + Soulshatter on a camp. That's 320 energy to blow up a camp, 288 to void. This overkill of a spell combo has to kill a mere 7 enemies so you get 80%, or 227 energy, of it all back for immediate usage.
Here is how much % of your void SoW returns if you take a certain void level as basis (for example the void energy you begin a fight with), each step representing one dead enemy and not accounting for passive void return:
20,0 - 36,0 - 48,8 - 59,0 - 67,2 - 73,8 - 79,0 - 83,2 - 86,6 - 89,3 - 91,4 - 93,1 - 94,5 - 95,6 - 96,5
Each void accumulation makes the next enemy that dies return more again. If you keep your void bouncing between 200 and 500, each enemy death returns between 40 and 100 energy.
And to add to that, it's a global buff. Which means that it effectively scales with player count! In 4P maps shit constantly dies, even if you have downtime the odds of an ally currently killing something are high. Your allies push into enemy bases or enemy spawns crash into their defenses. In any case, enemies die.
If you add context to this card it just spirals completely out of control. There is no "knowing how to execute" it, you just build two and press the buttons. Don't act as if you are sitting there with 600 APM, galaxy brain and sweaty forehead while micro managing your SoWs.
The usual deflection of "Something else would take its place" it not an argument against nerfs and never will be. If anything you are just highlighting the next issue in line. Yeah, get triggered by that.
 
With that out of the way, actually, SoW could also be more interactive. Instead of just making it a global effect it could work like Lifestream. That you put down an AoE somewhere on the map and the void return effect only kicks in for enemies that die in there. While also reducing both duration and cooldown of SoW. That would drive the fire theme of the card more into a direction like "This is our battleground! Here we stand and fight! CHARGE!" and away from "ALL ENEMY DEATHS FUELS US!"

Yeah, lets be serious here, I could accept a slight decrease in void return percentage for SoW, nothing else, otherwise completely agree with DieToPlay. Because, enemy troops need to die in order for the void to return. I have experienced many cases in game where no enemies die hence no void return and Batariel (or whatever) dies fighting a camp. 
For some reason all these discussions tend to always be around how simple things are with this and that, but how hard should things be then? Even with SoW a lot of people are struggling finishing off camps in rPvE...
No, I take back my comment on slight decrease in percentage and vote no for this "suggestion".
// Ponni
PS. Yes, FoF + Cultists does this too, in fact, most rpve 1p levels 9 and 10 are done fast without SoW... 

Nerf SoW ---> everyone moves to FoF + Cultists.
Nerf FoF + Cultists ---> No good void return options, game becomes dull and unfun. (Only matters for PvE and rPvE)
SoW is not a problem for PvP, and if you want more variety in PvE, you gotta buff the other options and not nerf the current ones.
Thank god the devs don't have time to listen to all of your ideas, the game would burn in less than a week.

I don't think that this kind of micro-management is fun. Part of my reasons for suggesting the "once per player"-thing was actually that I'm a lazy ass who hopes balancing SoW goes hand in hand with getting rid of tedious, boring micromanagement.
As for the "4 fire orbs" - suggestion: I don't think that's a good idea, because it vastly overshoots the mark. The goal is to balance SoW, not to totally exclude it from 99% of all decks. Pure fire-decks are a rare thing, so SoW would mostly get used with Enlightenment or Amii Monument, further increasing the power of these (already overpowered) cards. I could live with SoW becoming t4, though (2x fire + 2x whatever).

Patch #400026
Greetings Skylords, Skyladies and Skyfolk,
this is a minor update that for the most part includes a few fixes for the server crashes which happened during the last couple of weeks, and also the new spectator maps which were published on the test server last week. We also handed out the boosters which were promised for the players who were experiencing issues during the server instabilities back in January, and to the players who participated in Toggy's last tournament with sponsored prizes. We're sorry for the people who had to wait for their boosters until now. If you're wondering why the frequency of updates has drastically decreased recently, please read this announcement:
General changes
- Fixed various causes of server crashes.
- Added official spectator maps for the 1vs1 pvp maps. These maps are based on the recent reworks on the test server.
- Added the completion date for achievements.
- Reordered and added some loading screen hints. - translations done by LEBOVIM, Liorans, and Irisunna
- Reworked russian translations for many UI-Texts (Mostly surrounding Quests) - translations done by Liorans
- Removed Wazhai from the PvP ranked pool.
General fixes
- Fixed edge case where the UI would say that the player had an active booster discount when they did not.

We're expecting a downtime of around 30 minutes from approximately 8:30 to 9:00 CEST.

More replays will be shared in the next days and the next upcoming balance changes will bring even more movement into the rankings. I still will track times here until its not any longer possible to determine the impact on current times in a logical way. There will be a certain point where we will probably switch to ingame rankings or season based rankings depending on the implemented balance changes. Be sure - a lot of surprises will be unpacked in the next time ;-).
Stay tuned!