Anonymos

Then add to my banner that tells you about the different strength of cards based on pve and pvp a basic info about pvp / a pvp tutorial ( the old tutorial is sadly currently hidden away)
smth along the lines:
 
welcome to pvp 
Just some important notes for your first game Skylord:
- losing orbs and wells is a permanent loss of power, try to protect them
- dying cards or structure‘s energy slowly returns into your power pool
- destroy all entities of your opponent to win
good luck
 
And below a button ok (skip)

Well i think this topic is  a bit mislleading in fact i think amii monument is only the tip of the mountain.....
The Problem when trying to balance Competetive pve eg speedruns and record hunting is obvious. There will always be 1 best strategy resulting in it beeing "op" compared to everything else. This does hit pve way harder than pvp since there is no "metagame" its jsut 1 best way = low variance.
Also i think there is a significant diffrence between something beeing overpowerd and something beeing "broken". For me i would consider stuff like lss or buffed up batariel "overpowered" since it does clear faster than prob every other strategy while there are still other ways to get the same result just way slower. I however would consider amii monument broken it opens up new tactics which are impossible to repicate in any other way.
however i feel like there are some more equaly broken mechanics for pve.
First of all there is the funneling strategy which saves insane amounts of time just by evolving  3 persons t1 energy into t4 energy with only the 4. person to actually spend power on monuments
enlightment is another candidate...
tbh almost all speedruns do abuse some if not  all of those problematic mechanics not even mentioning various ways of void manipulation and i thik this is fine i dont think there is a actual way to balacne cards like amii monument either its op or useless. Im case it would get nerfed i guess the palyers would need some time to figure out if its still playable. If nnot screw it and the next card to nerf would be enlightment or decomposer or whatever.
From a non speedrunenr perspective i think the best way to break up the "boring" and "1 sided" pve meta would be monthly card restrictions or smtng. i would be intrested in the speedrunranking ladders if there was a monthly card restriction on lets say decomposer, shadow phoenix, sow, amii monument or some other crucial cards. I think this would actually require some new strats, creativety and would generate variance. Just starting to nerf card after card can not be the solution!

Well i think this topic is  a bit mislleading in fact i think amii monument is only the tip of the mountain.....
The Problem when trying to balance Competetive pve eg speedruns and record hunting is obvious. There will always be 1 best strategy resulting in it beeing "op" compared to everything else. This does hit pve way harder than pvp since there is no "metagame" its jsut 1 best way = low variance.
Also i think there is a significant diffrence between something beeing overpowerd and something beeing "broken". For me i would consider stuff like lss or buffed up batariel "overpowered" since it does clear faster than prob every other strategy while there are still other ways to get the same result just way slower. I however would consider amii monument broken it opens up new tactics which are impossible to repicate in any other way.
however i feel like there are some more equaly broken mechanics for pve.
First of all there is the funneling strategy which saves insane amounts of time just by evolving  3 persons t1 energy into t4 energy with only the 4. person to actually spend power on monuments
enlightment is another candidate...
tbh almost all speedruns do abuse some if not  all of those problematic mechanics not even mentioning various ways of void manipulation and i thik this is fine i dont think there is a actual way to balacne cards like amii monument either its op or useless. Im case it would get nerfed i guess the palyers would need some time to figure out if its still playable. If nnot screw it and the next card to nerf would be enlightment or decomposer or whatever.
From a non speedrunenr perspective i think the best way to break up the "boring" and "1 sided" pve meta would be monthly card restrictions or smtng. i would be intrested in the speedrunranking ladders if there was a monthly card restriction on lets say decomposer, shadow phoenix, sow, amii monument or some other crucial cards. I think this would actually require some new strats, creativety and would generate variance. Just starting to nerf card after card can not be the solution!

A few of my funmaps in the needed .pak format.
Put those into the ../Documents/BattleForge/Map folder to be able to select them in game. If you don't have a folder called 'Map' in your BattleForge directory simply create it.
Maps included:
Spellfight Random Unit 3vs3 Survive Singleplayer Survive PvP Racetrack Twilight Isle Master Labyrinth Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7i2vlo55utg1r74/KaldrasFunmaps.zip?dl=0

Hey fellow Skylords, 
here are the latest PvP spectator maps.
https://mega.nz/#!TGZSHCqK!i1QuVGsve37W54Mb74LjkI9EjbncNJsGcvZhj6fVOvI
 
Included:
Haladur (4 Spectator Spots)
Simai (4 Spectator Spots)
Wazhai (4 Spectator Spots)
Elyon (4 Spectator Spots)
Lajesh (4 Spectator Spots)
Uro (4 Spectator Spots)
Yshia (4 Spectator Spots)
Nadai (1 Spectator Spot)
Zahadune (1 Spectator Spot)
 
You've to create a folder in Documents -> BattleForge -> "map".
Put your downloaded files into the new created "map" folder. Thats it. Have Fun.
 
Best regards,
xHighTech

Greetings Skylords, Skyladies and Skyfolks!
Throughout the past few weeks we have noticed increasingly negative comments and remarks with regards to Skylords Reborn, its progress and its development time. Accusations of us scamming supporters are made on a daily basis, and while that is simply false in every aspect, we do understand that a lot of you have major concerns and are worried about the project, whether it's still a thing, whether we have run off with Patreon funds, and where we are right now after 3 years of development. Don't worry, though! We live, and as you will soon find out, we are doing well and are going nowhere!
The thing is, and beta testers know this, that we are actually making a lot of progress to the point where we are busy stress testing the servers with the Closed Beta testing group, improving server stability and creeping closer to Open Beta with every single test. And by the Old Gods, it took a while to get here. A lot of you have an idea of how long a game development cycle can take, and so it is only understandable that 3 years seems like an awful lot just to bring a game back. However, it's a lot more complicated than that due to this being a passion/voluntary project that we don't get paid for, and finding/fixing bugs being way more complex due to us not having made the client code at all. This makes it an unpredictable process in which we can't set deadlines or promise fixed release times. For a more detailed explanation, refer to the quote below from the Open Beta Information thread:
Rest assured, we are happy to inform you that we don't want to make money from this project (even if we wanted to, it would be illegal), and that your support is not in vain. Supporting the project is also completely voluntary, and we do not give any game rewards to patrons at all. Thanks to every single one of you who has been having faith in this project and supporting us by being a thriving and friendly community, we have managed to come a long way in 3 years, in which we faced managerial issues, legal complications, several server rewrites, and a lot of swapping regarding staff and partnerships. Our team right now is very solid and progressive, though, and we're getting closer and closer to that glorious Open Beta. We are reaching important testing milestones, which is fantastic. For example, @Kubik has evaluated our latest Closed Beta Stress Test, which was held yesterday. He has collected the following results:
For more details on the stress test results, there will be an update on our Developer Platform soon!
"What does all this mean?" you may wonder. In essence, it means that we are ironing out some of the last bugs in the current server code (as far as we can see), are getting further in making 12-player maps work properly, and the server is currently able to handle quite some players at the same time. In other words, progress, progress, progress! Keeping this in mind, we would like to give you the following information:
Something BIG is coming.
Though we will not be reaching a full open beta state just yet, something large and important will be coming to the Skylords Reborn community in the near future. To present this and to provide you with details on this big development milestone, we will be announcing a new, important official stream very soon, so stay tuned!
 
Hopefully this update will clarify things and ease away some of the major concerns you may all be having regarding the project. Be sure to check the forums, discord or other social media for the stream announcements, and for weekly updates about all the progress we are actively making, check our Developer Platform!
Thank you all again for your undying support and dedication to the project and the game, and we hope to bring all over 21 THOUSAND of you Skylords, Skyladies and Skythings (*GASP*) more great progress and updates in the near future!

skribbl.io @Anonymos 

From my point of view the shadow vs frost machup is dominated by masterarchers ice guardians dreadcharger and nox troopers nightguard purple doesnt have a spot in there.
even though the nightgaurd has  decent stats (450/500) s counter (at least in the case of frost t1) u cant compare them to nox trooper those cards (appart from the nightgaurd never getting used ) would never fill in the same spot.
In egeneral there are 3 diffrent szenarios 
1. both palyers playing on equal powerlevel  (same well amount, no dissedvatages)
In this situation the frost player normally tries to build his army based on master archers because they are ranged and therefore are less vulnerable to kiting also they they got better base stats than nox troopers  in a master archer spamm vs nox spamm the master archers will win only exception being a skirmish including very little units for example 4 mas vs 4 nox because in that case motivate would be way stronger than homesoil.
For this reason shadow usally goes for dreadchargers in order to counter the ma's and only uses nox troopers to counter ice guardians which the frost player needs in order to block the dreads so a normal unit composition from frost would include like 4-6 mas and 2 ice guardians when shadow would fight with 3-5 dreads and 2-4 nos troopers 
2. frost being behind in power (took a well in advance) in this case shadow would invest the power frost spend on building a well in nox troopers on top of the normal unit composition and go for the rush because ranged units do very well when opposing a weaker army since they can switch targets way faster increasing actual dmg output when comparing to melee units which loose some time running around in between spawning units or when kited 
 
3. frost being ahead in power because shadow took a well in advance 
well in this situation there are 2 deciding factors one being phasetower anoither one the distance between shadows wells and frosts army
if there is no phase tower and frost doesn't have to spend 3 ice barriers in order to reach the shadow player frost should have a good time.
however in case of phase tower or a huge distance frost in generally better of taking a well in reply 
 
tldr:
nightguard doesn't compete with nox troopers it competes with dreadchargers and dreads do have way better stats and a nice passive. Also nightguard deals  very little dmg to everything else then mas and therefor invites the frost player to just well up.  

Shadows Over Lyr (SOL) is a pet project of mine, spanning over 30 hours to create and finalise. The intention was to retain the art of Battleforge and turn it into a thematic, printable (i.e. physical) card game that’s perfectly balanced and playable.
Skip the dark grey text and jump to the Story and gameplay paragraph half-way below if you don't want to read about the history of how this project came to fruition.

Behind the scenes
My first choice was to create duel decks by copying Magic the Gathering cards, which I had to relinquish mainly because Wizards of the Coast don’t take kindly to copies of their card game. Creating mechanics mimicking MtG would’ve been fine, but not balanced enough to truly enjoy as an end product. After going through iterations of some of my beloved card games, I’ve finally decided to base SOL on the highly acclaimed Lost Cities. Which – due to its abstract nature – can be played using an expanded standard deck of cards, lending itself beautifully to iterations.
The rules of SOL are easy to learn but the gameplay is ripe with tension and tough decisions, which has made Lost Cities so well received and sought after by gamers and non-gamers alike.

I used card frames without the artwork, and stripped these of their power and orb counters, the rarity indicator then rebuilt missing parts to create a clean template for each card.
Card artwork was used from the original Battleforge files (thanks to @bobfrog for collating these, and to @MrXLink for offering his help in locating a missing one), then flavour text was added at the bottom of each. The developers of Battleforge have come up with lore for 19 creatures per faction. I’ve read each of these, and based on the creature and how interesting the lore was decided to pick 12 per faction.
The other reason why the cards were stripped clean is to replace the original barebones font with a display font that’s – in my opinion – gives cards more personality. The black bleed area around each card has been doubled, then replaced with a white trim to protect the edges of physical cards from damage caused by wear and tear.

For the fifth faction/colour, I’ve combined a gold frame with the textures of the original black frame and used mostly legendary creatures to create another 12 cards. All card values were allocated based on the original power cost. Card backs were created from the map of Lyr, a flourish design used in the Battleforge lore book and layer styles.
There were also five ‘location’ cards made without text and two rule cards included on a black solid card template to re-iterate each game phase and scoring to both players.


 

 Story and gameplay (thematic flavour text in italic)
Like a dark, ominous storm cloud creeping through the darkest crevices and gleaming mountain tops, an unknown force is gathering over the land of Lyr. You and another Skylord have been alerted to this presence and decided to deal with the incursion. After several key locations have been identified as the main target of this mysterious enemy, negotiations between you and the other Skylord have ceased. Now it’s a frantic race between the two armies, seeing who will be able to repel the impending shadow and secure the knowledge held within these sites of power.

Shadows of Lyr is a two-player hand management and set collection game. The objective is to achieve the highest overall score after three rounds by sending out the largest army possible for each faction, while hindering your opponent who’s trying to do the same.

Game components:
2 identical game rule cards
5 location cards with horizontal layout
45 creature cards (9 for each faction) ranging from numbers 2 to 10
15 scout cards (3 for each faction) with no numerical value

Give each player a game rule card to provide them with a quick reminder of game rules and scoring system.
Place the 5 location cards – also known as ‘sites of power’ – face up between the two players, in any order you’d like. These will act as dividers between the two Skylords’ armies, and as discard piles for roaming creatures of corresponding colours.

Shuffle the remaining creature and scout cards into a single deck of 60 cards, then deal 8 cards face down to each player. Place the remaining pile of cards face down within both players’ reach.

Then the game begins. Players alternate turns and must take two actions each before ending their turn.

 Play a card from your hand. You have three options here:

1. Start a new column of cards.
Place a card below one of the sites of power of matching colour on your side of the play area. As an example, units of the Nature faction may only be sent to reinforce and protect the green site of power. You’ve now committed to that location and have to do your utmost best to send enough forces to repel the enemy when it strikes against your army.

2. Place a card at the end of a column you already started.
If you already have a card played below one of the sites of power, you may choose another unit from your hand to strengthen the defense. This unit must be of corresponding colour to the previous card played, and to the site of power it will be guarding from the enemy.
This card must also have a higher value than the previous number in that column.
Be careful, as scouts must be sent to a site of power before your main army arrives. This will give them enough time to entrench themselves, gather information and explore the area to give tactical advantages to your main forces.
As an example, you may play up to three scouts per site of power of a colour – however once you place a unit that has a power value, you can no longer send scouts to that location.

3. Discard a card.
When discarding from your hand, you must place that card face up on the matching colour of a site of power.
Units discarded this way become roaming creatures, not part of either Skylords’ forces until enrolled in an army.

 Draw a card into your hand. You have two options here:

1. Choose one of the top cards from the five discard stacks (if any).
You may take any face up card irrespective of their colour, as long as it’s not the same card you’ve just discarded.
Units you take control of this way become part of your roster to reinforce your armies on the field when necessary.

2. Take the top card of the draw pile.
The unit you’ve summoned this way becomes part of your roster to reinforce your armies on the field when necessary.

 Now it’s your opponent’s turn.
Once a player draws the last card from the draw pile, the round ends immediately (the last card from the draw pile can't be played).
The above indicates that both Skylords have ran out of time and are unable to summon any more creatures. The mysterious shadow descends upon the land of Lyr and its forces lay siege to each of the five sites of power.

 Scoring:
Cards in your hand, and scouts placed on the battlefield are worth zero points.

1. For each faction (colour), add the card values together for each column on your side of the playing field.
This is the sheer strength of your army. If you haven’t placed any cards below a site of power, skip that location.
As a Skylord, you’ve decided not to commit any of your units to come to the aid of that site of power, endured neither losses nor victories, and have no knowledge of enemy activity in that area.
2. Subtract 20 points from each column where you’ve placed cards.
This is the power of the enemy forces at that location, determining whether the Skylord was able to repel the enemy force, seizing the site of power to themselves.
3. Multiply subtotals by the number of scouts +1.
Your scouts give your main armies tactical advice and strategic knowledge about the battlefield:
In case you failed to dispatch enough forces and the enemy prevailed, your forces have perished and your scouts scattered. Not only have your lost your creatures, your scouts have been taken hostage, exposing your weaknesses causing a major blow to your overall strategy.
In case your army has prevailed and destroyed the forces of shadow, your scouts have exploited the enemy’s tactics allowing you to turn their weakness against them. You’ve achieved a glorious victory.
4. Add 20 points for each column with at least 8 cards.
Your superior army has ruthlessly decimated the enemy forces and eradicated the surviving stragglers, wavering the morale of your foe.
Finally, add each column’s points together to form your victory points. The Skylord with the highest score begins the next round, preparing for another impeding attack. Whoever has the most victory points after three rounds is the winner of SOL.
 3-player game variant:
Plays exactly the same as the original base game of SOL for two players, but with the following differences:
- location cards are only used as scrap piles, as everyone will play cards (i.e. start columns) in front of them
- only 7 cards are given to each player at the beginning of the game, as opposed to the standard 8 (unless you're playing with 72 cards)
- enemy forces have 15 power per location, as opposed to the standard 20
- you receive 15 bonus points for each column with at least 7 cards, as opposed to the standard 20 & 8 split
Basically, 8 becomes 7 and 20 becomes 15  Please note this game mode has not been tested with 72 cards (6 factions) therefore slight tweaking may be required if you're adding the Forgotten to the mix.

This is what a typical game of SOL would look like from one of the Skylords’ point of view. The other player would be placing cards on the opposite side of the discard piles, where the explanation texts are:

And finally, here are some interesting tips and strategies to take into consideration:
-    be careful what you discard, as your opponent may want to use that card
-    you could discard cards with the intent of picking them up later, but in doing so you’re also giving your opponent the same option 
-    cards you keep waiting for could be at the bottom of the draw pile or in your opponents hand
-    would you risk playing high value cards with the intention of denying them from your opponent, even if that means losing points for that colour? 
-    make sure valuable cards in your hand get played, as once the last card from the draw pile is gone the round is over
-    be cautious about starting a new column, as once you place the first card in any given colour your opponent will try and deny those faction cards from you
-    you can keep discarding cards at the beginning of the game to guess what your opponent is after, but this might set you behind
-    if your opponent discards a card you want, do you take it right away and alert them to the fact that you want that colour?

 DOWNLOAD LINK: https://www.mediafire.com/folder/2v2lkal7pliop/Shadows_Over_Lyr
There are now three files in this folder:

BF_SOL.zip - first edition of SOL (standalone, not compatible with any of the below)
This is the deck of cards you need to print to play the game. All of the above videos, photos and pictures were made with these images and cards.

BF_SOL_revised.zip - revised edition of SOL with small cosmetic tweaks
Font size for card values increased by 25% ; gave more emphasis to Shadows Over Lyr text on cardbacks ; canvas proportions constrained to 63:88 ; white bleed extended by 2mm per edge
Please note that there is no difference in image quality or gameplay between the first and revised editions.
BF_SOL_expansion.zip - expansion set containing 12 new cards as a new colour (the Forgotten faction) ; requires revised edition
This is an expansion to boost the number of cards to Printerstudio's standard of 72 (6 factions x 12 cards each) i.e. as long as you don't use/print location and reference cards from the base game.
The expansion is only compatible with the revised edition due to cosmetic tweaks, and is not required to play the base game of SOL. Two main reasons why this was created: 1) Lost Cities has just received an expansion adding a sixth colour 2) to provide meaningful choice to people who want to use up their 72-card slot at Printerstudio and don't care about rule reference or location cards
Click here to look at a comparison photo between the two editions.


Many thanks to @Avire for pointing us to http://www.printerstudio.de/machen/blanko-spielkarten-63x88mm-personalisieren.html in his thread. Printerstudio also has an American website at http://www.printerstudio.com/personalized/custom_playing_cards_blank_cards.html which is a tad more expensive unless you actually live in the States. The UK website is defunct according to their customer services, so please use the German site if you live in Europe (i.e. the first link).
Have fun playing SOL with your partner, friends or gaming group!

No need to be jealous, you can now print your own! It's well worth it in my honest opinion.
They do look fancy, thanks to the lively BF artwork. I'll be taking mine on holiday to play, and whip it out in front of everyone. The deck I mean 
Got skimpy-clothing Moon as well! Check the youtube vid in the first post for your viewing pleasure.
 
 
Right, so me and my partner have tried SOL for the first time. At the end of the first round she understood scoring as well, and wanted to go again. She liked it even more after the second round, and since we've played the final - third - round she's been nagging me to play again. I'd say that's a success  We've played board games together (Pandemic, Port Royal, Carcassonne, Pathfinder etc.) but this was the game she liked the best next to Magic the Gathering. It looks simplistic but it's the exact opposite when you're playing and have to make hard choices.
The cards look very nice when layed out and her opinion of the flavour (lore) texts was also positive. I'm thinking of making the numbers a tiny bit larger and extending the white trim. Not sure, as I kinda like these cards the way they are.
I should think it's well worth a copy, even if your gaming group is oblivious to Battleforge. They probably won't be after playing this, especially if they take fancy to the lore when reading the cards.
Here is how our second round has ended:

 
I also updated the first post to make it more user friendly and put the youtube video there.
If you get SOL printed and have played it, please post your feedback. I'd like to think it was time well spent on my end!

From my point of view the shadow vs frost machup is dominated by masterarchers ice guardians dreadcharger and nox troopers nightguard purple doesnt have a spot in there.
even though the nightgaurd has  decent stats (450/500) s counter (at least in the case of frost t1) u cant compare them to nox trooper those cards (appart from the nightgaurd never getting used ) would never fill in the same spot.
In egeneral there are 3 diffrent szenarios 
1. both palyers playing on equal powerlevel  (same well amount, no dissedvatages)
In this situation the frost player normally tries to build his army based on master archers because they are ranged and therefore are less vulnerable to kiting also they they got better base stats than nox troopers  in a master archer spamm vs nox spamm the master archers will win only exception being a skirmish including very little units for example 4 mas vs 4 nox because in that case motivate would be way stronger than homesoil.
For this reason shadow usally goes for dreadchargers in order to counter the ma's and only uses nox troopers to counter ice guardians which the frost player needs in order to block the dreads so a normal unit composition from frost would include like 4-6 mas and 2 ice guardians when shadow would fight with 3-5 dreads and 2-4 nos troopers 
2. frost being behind in power (took a well in advance) in this case shadow would invest the power frost spend on building a well in nox troopers on top of the normal unit composition and go for the rush because ranged units do very well when opposing a weaker army since they can switch targets way faster increasing actual dmg output when comparing to melee units which loose some time running around in between spawning units or when kited 
 
3. frost being ahead in power because shadow took a well in advance 
well in this situation there are 2 deciding factors one being phasetower anoither one the distance between shadows wells and frosts army
if there is no phase tower and frost doesn't have to spend 3 ice barriers in order to reach the shadow player frost should have a good time.
however in case of phase tower or a huge distance frost in generally better of taking a well in reply 
 
tldr:
nightguard doesn't compete with nox troopers it competes with dreadchargers and dreads do have way better stats and a nice passive. Also nightguard deals  very little dmg to everything else then mas and therefor invites the frost player to just well up.  

2529

oh noo the hypetrain went to fast and got derailed 

Sorry, people

the reason why t4 is not wort its bound power is more simple:
 
first of all the hp of orbs and monuments in bafo do not scale into the game this is really important vbecause destroying them is the way to win
after realizing this the second step is to realize that the unitpower/energy quotioent increases over the tiers (a t1 unit has worse attack and hp/ energy than a t2 or t3 unit does)
a long time ago i approximated the energy wich u have to play in t2 to pay out the 150 orb cost to ~200 power. I dont really know if this is mathematicly correct (if someone has to much time he could check it :D)  but it genereally means a t2 unit doubles a t1 unit in  combat power. u need to keep this in mind when rushing a t2 since u havet to pressure the enemy to spend energy inefficient in order to keep up with the raw power t2 units bring into the field.
well the unit power / unit cost  quotient scales way harder when comparing t2 to t3, meaning when a t2 unit is much stronger than a t1 unit a t3 unit is way way much more stronger than a t2 unit .
this means if u want to stay t2 vs t3 u pretty much have to kill a orb or multiple wells to stay in a game xD.
in addition t3 provides a lot of finishing options (jugger, sandstorm, tremors, cultmaster/ anti sepll aura (forgot its name))  wich where really hard to defend (i´n gneral!!! everyone knows timelessone but whatever). One of many parts is the 2k hp of wells /3k hp of orb wich i mentioned earlyer.
while in t1 a well attacked by 100 power lives like 25  secs in t3 a well attacked by 100 power lives like 8 secs? this means as soon as u loose the tempo fight on the battlefield by spending 300 energy to build a t4 u will get crushed u will not have the time to spend ur energy in t4 long enought to make it worth
 

Our initial patch files and launcher + dependencies = 20.7MB
Game files with HD textures = 12GB
When added to .rar archive, it's a lot less of course.