WatcherOfSky

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

Click below to view our April Fools joke for 2024. 
    • Upcoming Patch - April

While we continue working on our significant Summer patch (which will include our new campaign missions), we are nearly ready to release another patch to bridge the gap until you can get your hands on the Echoes of the Amii patch. In this smaller patch, planned for release in April, we will introduce two new cards, Map-of-the-Day, our new Rebirth booster, as well as some minor balance changes. Stay tuned for the full patch notes later this month.
The two new cards included in this patch will be the long-awaited Stonekin turtle, Bedrock, and a new build-around tool for Lost Souls players in Gate of Akylos.

As you can see, these cards will mark the introduction of the first new Ultra Rare cards to the game. If you're curious about the basis for our rarities, please check out our rarity design philosophy.
While maintaining a consistent logic for rarities is important to us, we also want to ensure that players can actually experience our newly created content. These new cards will be obtainable in their respective boosters as usual, but introducing an Ultra Rare without additional measures would likely make them unattainable for the majority of the player base.
We have received feedback from the community regarding the availability of the new cards in the Rebirth Edition in general, and set out to find a solution. Introducing: the Rebirth booster.

This booster will differ from the other boosters currently in the game. It will not be available in the store and can only be obtained through special events and a new reoccurring achievement. This new achievement rewards you for interacting with our new Map-of-the-Day feature. Every day, a random multiplayer Campaign Map will be selected for the Map-of-the-Day. They will be easy to spot, with an effect around their icon on the world map similar to the PvP-happy hour. For every completed Map-of-the-Day on a different day, players will receive 50 BFP. Additionally, for every 10th map, they will receive a Rebirth booster.
Each Rebirth booster contains 3 cards, all from the Rebirth Edition. Additionally, there will be an increased chance for cards of a higher rarity to drop.
We hope that Map-of-the-Day will encourage players to play both fan-favorite and lesser-played campaign maps. This should also help in assisting new players who are seeking to complete the full campaign. We will be monitoring the prices of our new cards and the impact the Rebirth booster is having on the economy, and might adjust accordingly in the future. We are also planning to distribute some Rebirth boosters through various events.
 
While we are unable to announce a specific release date yet, we feel quite comfortable announcing that this patch will go live in April. We hope you look forward to it!
 
• New Card Reveal - Skydancer

During our Anniversary Stream we announced there would be three new Amii units coming to Skylords Reborn in 2024. We will be revealing those cards in the upcoming Community Updates. Last month we revealed Amii Sentinel. Today we are ready to reveal Skydancer!
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 


 
Spirit Blade
Every 1.6 seconds, unit casts a lance of elemental power that deals 222 damage to enemies in a 5m radius around its target, up to 333 in total.

 
Spirit of Anguish - Mode Change, Cost: 50p
Activate to call forth an ancient Shadow spirit draining the enemy’s will to fight. While an enemy unit is within 40m of Sky Dancer, it deals 20% less damage. After being affected for 10 seconds, the debuff increases, causing enemies to deal 50% less damage. Effect lasts for 10 seconds after an enemy leaves range. Lasts until deactivated. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
Spirit of Hope - Mode Change, Cost: 50p
Activate to call forth an ancient Nature spirit that bolsters the life of allies. While an allied unit is within 30m of Sky Dancer, its maximum life points are increased by 20% and it regenerates 1% of its life points every second. Effect lasts for 10 seconds after units leave the area of effect. Lasts until deactivated. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
Elusive
Units with Elusive have the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze reduced by 10%.
 
 
Design notes: Last month, we revealed Amii Sentinel. The card itself was well received and its design led to a lively discussion in our card balancing discord about potential synergizes and the types of strategies people thought it would create. The design of Amii Sentinel, while interesting in itself, becomes more so when considered alongside its intended support unit, Skydancer. Skydancer is an L-sized flying unit with two powerful support abilities. The first is Spirit of Anguish, a kind of anti-rage effect which scales in strength as the enemy remains in range. The other is Spirit of Hope, which introduces a new mechanic allowing for players to increase the maximum life points of their own units. This second ability is the one intended to directly synergize with Amii Sentinel. Amii Sentinel can turn health into damage through its reflect mechanic, and by adding more total life points to its pool of health, the total damage available through reflection also increases. 
Our goal for Skydancer goes beyond being a summon-once support for Amii Sentinel. In general, XL-sized melee units rule T4, particularly in random PvE, with there being a lot of structural reasons why this is true. While we love XL-units as much as everyone else, we as a team want to start diversifying the unit experience by bolstering other types of strategies. With a solid damage-to-power ratio, a large amount of survivability via both Spirit abilities, and a natural synergy with Transcendence, we hope to see flying armies of Skydancers become a viable strategy in T4, both with and without Amii Sentinel. 
Skydancer is currently planned to release alongside our next major content patch in the summer, including brand-new campaign maps. We are not yet able to announce an exact release date. Please stay tuned for more information, and check in next month for another Amii card reveal!
 
• Input requested: Elemental Mastery

Skylords Reborn can be a daunting game, given the large variety of cards and mechanics. With so many options to explore, there is always more to learn. We want players to get a sense of which faction they play the most, what kind of interactions they have with the faction, and to complete tasks that give them a sense of having achieved mastery with said faction. To support both the learning and mastering process for each faction, we would like to introduce a new category of mini-achievements known as Elemental Masteries. These achievements will be tailored to each faction and divided into two categories:
Individual - these will track specific card actions, such as the number of spawns erupted to death.
General - these will will track player progress with the overall faction, such as how many maps a player has completed with Pure Fire.
Each category will reward minor rewards along the way, mostly in the form of faction-specific cosmetics.
The goal is for each faction to track 5 interactions per tier, as well as 5-10 general faction progress trackers. We are interested in the community's ideas for what types of card actions they would like to track, with focus on things which are commonly repeatable. Focus can be either PvP or PvE, though the final choices will be a mix of both.
 
Examples of Trackable Actions
Due to recent advancements in our understanding of the game, we can track most internal and external card interactions. Below are a list of some of these trackable events, all of which have been taken from Fire cards.  
• Number of units charged by Enforcer
• Enemy spawn buildings erupted to death
• Buildings suppressed (Sunstriders + Suppression)
• Enemies knocked back with Lava Field
• Total time Batariel has spent in his stage 3 burning phase
• Total damage dealt by Fire Dragons
• Void returned with Shrine of War
 
Join our brainstorm
You can share your idea's in this thread on the Forum. Brainstorming is also taking place in our official discord dedicated to discussion of card balancing in Skylords Reborn. Please join us there if you would like to see more elemental mastery suggestions or if you would like to participate in discussions relating to proposed changes to the game before they happen.

 
• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• NEW - Returning Easter Event
Complete any match during the Easter season to collect a free Promo Easter Egg. Additionally, you can collect a special Easter-themed border by completing the community map "The Easter Tree". 
 
 • SECOND PHASE STARTED - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer @Metagross31. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Team changes

We are happy to announce that both a new and a returning member have formally joined the Skylords Reborn team. ElementG is our new 3D artist, assisting the art team with model adjustments. His latest work, Skydancer, has turned out very nicely, so stay tuned for that. Additionally, Chibiterasu has re-joined the team as a Card Implementor. We are delighted to have him return, as his experience with the tools is a welcome addition to our work output.
Minashigo Hiko has concluded his role as an Event Manager. We would like to thank him for his contributions over the years.
As our team continues to grow, Dutchy has taken on the role of HR Coordinator alongside his Lead Moderator duties. Are you interested in helping out with the project but not sure how? Feel free to send him a message!
 
• Contribute to Skylords Reborn

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!

We are especially looking for some more proofreaders (English), to read over stuff like the Community Update and Event posts before they go live. We are also looking for translators (French, Russian) to help with our new campaign maps and more. 
Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: SKYL-ORDS-REBO-RNVR
The code is valid until May 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update March 2024
 

PvP bots sounds really exciting! That's definitely a feature that would help pvp put.
 
The new card's design looks sweet too! 

PvP bots sounds really exciting! That's definitely a feature that would help pvp put.
 
The new card's design looks sweet too! 

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• February Hotfix Patches

Over the course of February, we released several hotfix patches for our most recent major content update. If you are still experiencing any issues, please contact our technical support team and/or use the 'report a bug'-feature on our Discord.
One of these hotfix patches also includes an often-requested feature: spawnable bosses in the Forge. We have added a new 'Leader' tab to the Forge Menu, allowing you to spawn bosses from randomly generated scenarios. 
 
• Upcoming Feature - Map of the Day 

In our last patch, we increased the rewards for playing campaign maps to bring them more in line with rPvE, which players could feel forced to play due to its better rewards. In our continued effort to allow players to enjoy each different game mode, we are working on multiple additional incentives to play the campaign; one being Map of the Day. 
Map of the Day is a feature that highlights a particular multi-player map each day and rewards players additional rewards for completing that map, similar to the PvP Happy Hour. This map is randomly selected each day, and picks from the pool of existing multi-player campaign maps. Our new campaign maps, once released, will also be added to the pool. 

Playing on the Map of the Day rewards players with an additional upgrade on all 2-player and 4-player maps. Players will also receive additional gold for completing the 12-player maps Passage to Darkness and Ascension on Advanced (1200g), and Expert (2400g) difficulties.
Our goal for Map of the Day is to give players an incentive to get together and play one of the various campaign maps, including less popular ones. The Map of the Day will highlight in a similar way to Happy Hours on the World Map, so people know which map is active for additional rewards. 

We are currently working on finalizing the feature, and hope to release it in the near future. 
Disclaimer: text, layout and colors are subject to change.
 
• Skylords Reborn Classic - Legacy Server

BattleForge shut down its servers on October 31, 2013, following its release in March 2009. Our unofficial revival of the game opened its servers on December 18, 2020 as Skylords Reborn. Over the past 3 years since its release, we have added a ton of new content, quality of life changes and balance changes to the game. While we don't have a video covering the last year, our 2-year recap video should give you an idea of what we've added to the game. 
It is not uncommon for communities to provide mod support for older titles. However, those titles are typically still available for purchase or playable offline post-official support. This is not the case for BattleForge. If you want to play BattleForge in 2024, your only option is through Skylords Reborn.  
Our dedicated team, now comprising over 50 volunteers, has always taken this project very seriously, striving to make it the best it can possibly be. We're committed to continually introducing new content and delivering fresh experiences to keep our players engaged. Whether it's through new campaign maps, additional cards, new systems (such as Reforging), or balance adjustments (discussed on our balance discord), we feel a responsibility to keep the legacy of BattleForge in place, while also wanting to prevent the same fate of its downfall. 
However, we acknowledge that some of our past and future changes, while essential for the health of the game, may impact players' nostalgic sentiments. Considering that numerous cards have already undergone modifications compared to the original game, the differences between Skylords Reborn and BattleForge is increasing with each patch. Thus, the concept of a Legacy server has been a topic of discussion within our team over the years.
Yet, implementing a Legacy server isn't as straightforward as reverting to the version of BattleForge at the time of its shutdown. The game simply wouldn't work. Significant overhauls to the game's economy, rectification of critical bugs, and resolution of other technical issues were needed. Now, as we enter the fourth year of Skylords Reborn, we felt it was time to revisit this idea and have devised a way to introduce a Legacy server without impeding Skylords Reborn's ongoing development.
Here is what you can expect of the Legacy server:
• Original cards, maps and balancing
• All cards are available to the player right away
• No progression system
• No new cards
• No balance patches
• No additional rPvE factions (Fire, Nature) or campaign maps
• No technical or moderation support
We have to set up the server this way to prevent additional workload that would impact our actual patch releases for Skylords Reborn, which will continue to be our top priority. Additionally, there may be certain features on the Legacy server that deviate from a true "legacy" experience. For instance, Reforging will be available (though redundant given the complete card collection), and while Achievements and Quests may also be accessible, some may be unattainable due to outdated balance, game systems, or maps. 
The server will work similar to our current test server, you'll log into the Legacy server with a new account, and there will be no interaction between players on this server and the primary SR-server. The SR-server will remain the default server for both new players discovering the game and seasoned veterans seeking fresh content. All our major content patches will be releasing exclusively on the SR-server, including new campaign maps and new cards. Because of this, we don't expect a big split in our player base.      
Nevertheless, we anticipate that the Legacy server will offer a nostalgic journey for Skylords keen on revisiting the original BattleForge gameplay, as well as for players interested in witnessing the evolution of Skylords Reborn.
While we're still finalizing certain details, and things might change before its release. The Legacy server is scheduled to launch alongside our next major content patch.
 
• New Card Reveal - Amii Sentinel

During our Anniversary Stream we announced there would be three new Amii units coming to Skylords Reborn in 2024. We will be revealing those cards in the upcoming Community Updates, the first being revealed today! Here is Amii Sentinel!
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 


 
Grasp of the Earth - 60 power
Activate to reach Amii Golem's fist into the ground, emerging within the target area of 15m and dealing 1800 damage to enemies, up to 5400 in total. Reusable every 20 seconds.
 
Volatile Body
100% of all damage done to the unit will additionally also be distributed among all units within a 20m radius. This damage cannot be warded off with the help of damage reducing abilities because it is able to circumvent every buff or protective shield.
 
Siege
Deals 50% more damage against structures.
 
 
Elusive
Units with Elusive have the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze reduced by 10%.
 
 
Design notes: Our goal for Amii's T4 is to create a micro-intensive deck where most of the damage is unit-based. With Amii Sentinel in particular, our goal is to create a frontline tank that functions as a perfect conduit for Shadow's single-target buff cards. Volatile Body's 100% reflect turns Sentinel's health into a damage resource, which synergizes perfectly with cards like Regrowth, Transcendence, and Lifeweaving.
The active ability "Grasp of the Earth" is designed to one-shot problematic buildings when buffed, which is important because both Shadow and Nature lack fast acting anti-building tools.
Amii Sentinel is currently planned to release alongside our next major content patch, including brand-new campaign maps. We are not yet able to announce a release date. Please stay tuned for more information, and check in next month for another Amii card reveal!
 
• Art Spotlight - Amii Sentinel

It has been a while since we have done an Art Spotlight; diving into the process of our artists coming up with a new card artwork. Amii Sentinel was always part of a combination of three Amii units, combined into a single landscape image. We asked our artist Tweeto to share some work-in-progress artwork and sketches, as well as his workflow. As always, a big thanks to our Art Critiques to offer valuable feedback during the process.

Initial Sketch: I started off with a loose sketch to block in the basic stance and proportions of the character. Keeping the lines dynamic and rough, I focused on the silhouette to ensure a strong, impactful presence that conveys power and stability.
Values Blocking: Next, I moved into grayscale, blocking my values to develop the form and give the character a sense of volume. This is a critical step in figuring how light interacts with the different materials and shapes of the character. To speed up this process, I employed AI generation tools, which allowed me to quickly iterate on different lighting scenarios and value compositions
Color Blocking: After nailing down the values, I started laying in broad strokes of color. Using a muted palette, I began to block in the main hues, thinking about the overall temperature balance and how it will complement the character's environment.

Detailing and Texture: With the base colors in place, I zoomed in to start rendering the finer details. Here, I focused on the texture of the stone, adding cracks and variations to make the surface look realistic. I also added golden ornate details to give it a more intricate look, and connect the character to the Amii aesthetics.

Lighting and Atmosphere: Then, I intensified the lighting effects to emphasize the magical core and the dramatic ambient light of the scene. I worked on the specular highlights on the metal parts, as well as the soft glow emanating from the core, to suggest a powerful energy source within.

Final Adjustments: In the final stage, I made subtle adjustments to the composition and the pose, fine-tuning the contrast and saturation to make certain elements pop. I also added a more pronounced rim light to enhance the character's form against the background, and adjusted the overall color balance for visual harmony.
Polishing: To finish off, I polished the image by sharpening key areas to draw focus, such as the face, the core, and the hand. I also rendered the background elements, ensuring the character look integrated with the environment and reflect the character's influence on its surroundings.

We are very happy with how the Amii faction is now finally coming together, and hope you appreciate all the thoughts and passion that went into creating them! 
 
• PvP Bots

Right now, Skylords Reborn doesn't have a mode where players can practice against computer-controlled opponents before jumping into ranked matches. This missing feature can make it tough for new players to get into PvP (Player versus Player). To help players ease into PvP, we're looking to add bots to the game in the future, and we're asking the community for their support to make it happen.
Below you can see a short video showcasing bots playing against each other:
 
ai_contest_announcement.webm
If you are interested in helping out, be sure to check the PvP AI programming contest below!
 
• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• NEW - Battle of Tactics #6 - Rainbow Road - February 23rd until March 3rd
Try to conquer a modified version of Dwarven Riddle in this crazy colorful contest hosted by Ultralord. In this one player map, you don't build orbs, but have a Rainbow crystal granting you different elements. More information.
 
• FINISHED - Faction Fusion: Embrace the Shift
Skylords were tasked to play the newly redesigned rPvE difficulties to have a chance at receiving one of the new cards, Lost Manabeast and Tectonic Shift. More information.
 
 • SECOND PHASE STARTED - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!

We are especially looking for some more proofreaders (English), to read over stuff like the Community Update and Event posts before they go live. We are also looking for translators (French, Russian) to help with our new campaign maps and more. 
Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: AFTE-RALL-THIS-TIME
The code is valid until April 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update February 2024
 

All this progress is so exciting! Love more themed shrines coming to the game!

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!


• New Patch Release

Our latest patch, Revenant's Doom, has been released! This patch comes with two brand-new cards!
The new Lost Manabeast (card spotlight), in combination with our Lost Soul rework, allows players to lean more into the revenant playstyle of the faction. Meanwhile, Tectonic Shifts (card spotlight) gives Stonekin players the unique ability to bring their very buildings to the frontlines. 
This patch also sees the introduction of a new difficulty for rPvE, alongside a naming adjustment for the difficulty scale to be in line with the campaign map logic of Standard, Advanced and Expert. We have created a video to explain the changes in more detail.  
 

While the popularity of rPvE encouraged us to implement more challenges for players to enjoy, we also have been working on improvements for playing campaign maps. We have replaced the old Need/Greed, Random and Assign system for a clearer post-game screen. Players now earn rewards on a per-player basis, allowing players to pick the upgrades they would like, without feeling guilty towards their fellow players if they want the same upgrade. Meanwhile, disenchanting an upgrade now rewards the same gold regardless of the rarity of the upgrade, while also providing the player with PvE experience, depending on the level of the upgrade. For more information, check out our patch notes. 
 

 
Alongside new cards, our loot rework and the addition of a new rPvE difficulty, we have also implemented multiple balance changes, quality-of-life-fixes, and a smoother new-player experience through tutorial missions. 
 
Full Patch Notes

To celebrate the patch release, we have a small present for the community. Enter this scratch code in the marketplace to get a mini-booster: PLAY-SKYL-ORDS-RPVE, This code has expired. Please see the code at the bottom of this Community Update instead. 
 
• Where is Bedrock?

We know a lot of Skylords are looking forward to our revealed Stonekin card Bedrock. Originally planned for the current patch cycle, we sadly had to either delay the whole patch, or delay Bedrock due to technical complications while implementing the card. We are still hard at work on solving these issues, and while we feel confident we can release the card as intended, we were not able to do so before the deadline.
Our next big content patch of 2024, Echoes of the Amii, which will contain our new campaign maps, will not be released for quite a while. Because we do not want to delay Bedrock for so long, our current plan is to release a mini-patch in-between. Due to the uncertainty of the mentioned complications we are not able to share a release date yet. 
On the topic of Bedrock, many of you have voiced concerns about its card availability, noticing Bedrock will be the first Ultra Rare card released in Skylords Reborn. While the cards' rarity is decided by our rarity design philosophy, we also want to make sure enough players are able to enjoy this and other new additions from the Rebirth Edition. To do so, we are working on a new type of booster, focusing on the new Skylord Reborn cards from the Rebirth Edition. We are still fleshing out the details on how this booster will be obtainable, but rest assured that we will strive for a good balance between rarity and availability. We will share more information about this in the future. 
 
And with Stonekin getting a shiny new Ultra Rare, the Lost Souls couldn't stay behind. Now planned for a release alongside Bedrock, have a look at Gate of Akylos!
 
• New Card Reveal - Gate of Akylos

Today we have an exciting upcoming new card to reveal. At the end of 2022, we hosted a card creation contest where everyone from the community could submit a card design to our jury. Adding a new card to Skylords Reborn is a big undertaking, as has become apparent during the years (if you want to know more about everything that goes into it, be sure to check out episodes #2 and #9 from the interview series from Kapo). 
One of the winning designs of the contest was Lost Obelisk, a card aimed at supporting the Lost Souls faction's revenant gameplay. We have since been hard at work on balancing the original card design from Ult, and are happy to reveal its final iteration: Gate of Akylos!
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 

Gate of Akylos is a powerful tier 3 shrine, making use of our hybrid orb to allow deck diversity among Lost Soul decks looking to play it. Let's break down the card! 
 
Soul Extraction
Activate to extract a revenant from a friendly Tier 3 or Tier 4 Lost Souls unit. A revenant of that unit will appear nearby, and if active, the Revenant's Doom effect will be removed from the unit. The unit cannot activate Revenant's Doom again afterward. Only one revenant can be extracted from a Lost Souls unit in this way. Has a 60 seconds cool-down after the building was built. Usable every 60 seconds.
 
Give up the Ghost
Activate to sacrifice up to 6 friendly Tier 2 Lost Souls units in a 50m radius around Gate of Akylos to extract revenants from their remains. A revenant from all sacrificed units will appear nearby. Has a 60 seconds cool-down after the building was built. Usable every 60 seconds.
 
Ethereal Anchor
Every friendly revenant in the current game will have its duration extended by 25%.
 
 
Design Notes: While we are happy with the recent changes to Lost Souls, the faction still lacks a global support card and all of its revenant effects (Lost Manabeast, Revenant's Blessing) are localized with a lot of micro and power required for upkeep. Gate of Akylos is intended to make revenants more efficient, both in terms of initial cost and overall longevity.
"Soul Extraction" provides a way for Lost Souls units to generate revenants without having to die, and "Give up the Ghost" allows for faster and cheaper transitions of T2 units to revenants, which can combine with Banestone to act as defenders. This gives GoA both an offensive and defensive function. Additionally, all effects work on allies, meaning that players who choose to run Lost Souls together only need 1 GoA between them.

Gate of Akylos will release alongside Bedrock in a mini-patch on a later to be announced date.
Starting next month, we will also start revealing the card designs for the upcoming new Amii cards planned for the Echoes of the Amii patch.
2024 is going to be an exciting year for Skylords Reborn!
 
• Skylords Reborn Resources

Over the years we have released a lot of content, both in-game and on our Forum. From explaining our rarity system, to Deep Dives exploring various factions, there is a lot of behind the scenes information available. We have now placed all these resources into one place, so both new and current Skylords alike will have an easier time finding the information they need.
 
Skylord Reborn Resources

 
 
• New - Map Editor Tutorial

Speaking of resources; our Map Designer r4bitf00t has been working on the official map editor tutorial! Every download of Skylords Reborn comes with the Map Editor, allowing Skylords to create their own maps and creative ideas. 
Split into several parts, this tutorial will guide you on how to work with the BattleForge Map Editor. By the end, you will be able to create your own maps, script them, and publish them to the Community Maps section of the game. If your map is enjoyed by fellow Skylords, it might even earn a place among the featured community maps!
Want to work on more formal map content? Consider applying as Map Designer or Map Developer and help out the team! 
 
Map Editor Tutorial

      
• Events

To celebrate the patch release, we have a new event based around rPvE, with the chance to win the new cards!
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events! 

• NEW - Faction Fusion: Embrace the Shift - February 1st until February 14th 
New cards for Stonekin and Lost Souls are here! Play the newly redesigned rPvE difficulties to have a chance at receiving one of the new cards, Lost Manabeast and Tectonic Shift. More information.
 
• COMING UP - Battle of Tactics #6 - Rainbow Road - February 23rd until March 3rd
Try to conquer a modified version of a well-known campaign map in this crazy colorful contest hosted by Ultralord. 
Stay tuned for more information!
 
• FINISHED - Amii Training Camp
While we eagerly wait for new Amii cards, let's find out if you fully master the existing ones! Play rPvE with only Amii Paladins and Amii Phantoms on Tier 2 and see how fast you can get! More information.
 
 • FIRST PHASE - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! Phase 2 is starting soon! More information.
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!

 
We are currently looking for some more proofreaders (English), to read over stuff like the Community Update and Event posts before they go live. 
Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: LOST-SOUL-STON-EKIN
The code is valid until March 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Resources (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update January 2024

Patch #400045 - Revenant's Doom
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our tenth balance patch for the game, two brand-new cards, a rework of the rPvE difficulty system, tutorial missions, and many other changes, enjoy!

Patch Preview
Two new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Tectonic Shift and Lost Manabeast. Added tutorial missions! New and old players alike can now receive rewards for simple missions meant to explain some of the harder to understand mechanics of BattleForge. A new rPvE difficulty and changes to the existing difficulty system to align it better with the campaign map difficulties. Our much anticipated Lost Souls rework, a large number of buffs to well-designed but underperforming cards, and a change to the neutral unit exclusion rule. A complete rework of the campaign reward system, with individualized upgrades, gold rewards overtime, and gold rewards on-loss.
General Changes
Pause, Speed-up, and Slow-down buttons have been added to the Forge. Standard difficulty has been removed for the 12p maps Passage of Darkness and Ascension. Achievements have been adjusted accordingly.  The game will now remember the difficulty you selected for each map until you restart the game. Removed post-game message "Maximum rank achieved" for those players who are Master of the Forge rank in PvE. The post-game reward screen now always displays the player's current rank and experience earned. A description of the achievement completed has been added to achievement reward mail. Added previews when hovering over card and boosters rewards for achievements.  The networking library used for the client has been updated. Linux users will now need Wine 7.13 or higher to play the game. The game should still work on Windows 7, but support has been discontinued. General Fixes
Improved user interface responsiveness. Longer gaming sessions were previously experiencing slowdowns. Resolved an issue that prevented free PvP decks from being cloned. Fixed a game crash related to map scripts, most commonly affecting the "Titans" map.
New Cards
Tectonic Shift - 50p T3 Stonekin Spell 
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "King of the Giants".
When thinking about Stonekin's design, we determined that more buildings interactions fit well with the faction. More specifically, we thought that a building-based archetype was the natural expansion for a faction of living stones. Tectonic Shift is a T3 spell that adds a teleport ability to friendly Stonekin, Frost, and Nature buildings. This teleportation ability functions highly similar to Phase Tower's ability as a permanent addition, similar to how Santa and Infernal Chain add new abilities to a unit. For more information, check out Community Update - September 2023.
Lost Manabeast - 120p T3 Lost Souls 
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Titans".
As part of our Lost Souls rework, we wanted to add the well-known NPC unit Lost Manabeast to the faction. The player version of Lost Manabeast is a ranged unit, which collects the souls of its victims to reset the revenant timer of allied Lost Souls units. It is a perfect fit for those players wanted to engage in revenant-based gameplay. For more information, check out Community Update - December 2023.
 

Random PvE Difficulty Redesign
A major part of the upcoming update is the addition of a new random PvE difficulty between level 9 and level 10. The significant gap that exists between level 9 and level 10 is well known, and this new difficulty, often referred to as level 9.5, is meant to help players prepare themselves to make the jump into level 10. Alongside this new difficulty, we are also changing the naming scheme of the random PvE difficulties and removing difficulty levels 1 to 3, which are almost never played. We hope this new system will make it easier for players to understand what difficulty is right for their skill level.
[ New Difficulty Naming Scheme ]
Standard difficulty - Old level 4 Standard+ difficulty - Old level 5 Standard++ difficulty - Old level 6 Advanced difficulty - Old level 7 Advanced+ difficulty - Old level 8 Advanced++ difficulty - Old level 9 Expert difficulty - NEW level 9.5 Expert+ difficulty - Old level 10
Campaign Loot Rework
Anyone who plays PvE in Skylords Reborn knows that the most commonly played multiplayer game mode is random PvE. One part of this is due to the ease of matchmaking, you can go to the 4p area and join a random PvE game of any difficulty without needing to jump around the map checking lobbies, and the other part is due to rewards. In most cases, random PvE simply rewards the player better, unless you get lucky while looking for an expensive level 3 upgrade. While our upcoming improvements to campaign map matchmaking will have to wait for a future patch, we are now rectifying the reward discrepancy between the two modes. 
[ Campaign Reward Changes ]
Campaign maps now reward gold over time. The total amount of gold rewarded has been substantially increased at all difficulty levels, even if players previously disenchanted all upgrades. Solo maps and multiplayer maps now give the same rewards. Campaign maps also reward players who lose a map part of the gold they would have obtained had they won. Standard maps reward 70%, advanced maps 40%, and expert maps 25% of the expected gold on-loss. Gold on-loss cannot be earned unless at least 5 minutes have passed in-game. The new Pick reward mode has replaced Random, Need/Greed, and Assign, which have been removed from the game.  Upgrades are now decided on a per-player basis, with each player able to choose the upgrade(s) of their choice. Expert and advanced maps reward 1 upgrade, while standard maps reward 2 upgrades. In the future, players will have the ability to earn more upgrades per map completion under special circumstances. Disenchanting an upgrade now rewards the same gold regardless of the rarity of the upgrade, while also providing the player with PvE experience, depending on the level of the upgrade. 

Tutorial Missions
Twenty-one new tutorial missions have been added to the game. These missions are designed to help new and old players alike to discover basic game features, as well as many of the new functionalities the Skylords Reborn team has added since the game's revival. Completing all 21 missions will reward players with 12 common cards, 8 uncommon cards, 900 gold, and the new in-game title "Lyrish Scholar." These rewards are designed to help new players and function as a supplement to the existing starter decks. All missions are completable within an hour.
Tutorial Missions will be the new focus of attention when opening the rewards window, but focus will revert to quests once the missions are complete. 

 
 

Very excited to see all the new stuff that's coming! 

In addition to the community update, I'd also like to take this time to share some of my personal thoughts as we transition into year 4 of Skylords Reborn. 

3 years and 43 Community Updates in the books! Working on this yearly recap sure was a trip down memory lane with many "Did we really release that this year?". With so many moving parts and various things in development, things can start to blur a bit. Due to the nature of map making, this felt like a year in which we did a ton of work behind the scenes, but couldn't show off our hard work yet. I'm excited we can now finally start to reveal what the team has been working on.
I hope our monthly community updates still managed to show we are hard at work, and had enough to reveal for players to feel engaged with the project. In hindsight, there were some things that we probably announced too early, (for example the Lost Soul Rework) but with so many variables in our project (our team now has 50 volunteers!) that is bound to happen now and then. I am extremely proud of the work our team put out this year, and I can't wait for players to get their hands on our new campaign maps. 
Speaking of the team, we had a bunch of lovely people joining as volunteers! I am super grateful that 3 years in, we still have so many people with dedication and love for the project that they are willing to spend their free time on it. The following Skylords joined in 2023:
CrazyCockerell and Titan as Tech-artists
Piskr as Client Developer
Pierakor as Tool Developer
Lucas Ansei as Web Developer
Ultralord as Video Editor
Volin as Map Tester Coordinator
Damo and Hrdina Impéria as Map Designers
Kayrie as Map Artist. 
Discoheart and Noah.K as Audio Editor 
Vultagx and Linkz as Global Moderator
ElementG is currently in his trial period for Tech-artist

But it would be unfair to not also give a shout-out to the members who left the team during 2023: 
Katchau (developer) left the team
Nukie left the event department
Watermelon Lord, Nukie, Pfirsichkralle and Dallarian left the Moderator department

Thank you all for your work for the project!
Besides the team, I would like to give a personal shout out to Kapo and Dreamlord. You know Kapo from his CCC and Masters of the Forge series, but he does not get nearly enough credit for how much he does for the project and has always been a reliable friend, whether it be proofreading my documents, or getting a Rayman statue imported from another country. Dreamlord has been our favorite Banzaiii Lorrrd and I have been consistently impressed by not only his quality voice acting but his professionalism and willingness to help out, sometimes on short notice. Besides doing voice-overs for our trailers, you can also expect to hear him in our loading screen narrations for the new maps in 2024. I have high hopes for his voice-acting career, and I hope 2024 will be the breakthrough year for him! 
2023 was a year full of highs and lows. My girlfriend and I got our own apartment and a lovely cat named Lyra. At the same time I saw friends struggling with depression, break-ups, war and death of loved ones. The world can be a rough place, so please take care of yourself and each other. 
What was your highlight for 2023? And what are you most excited about for 2024? Would love to hear it in the comments!
Thank you so much for being a part of this lovely community. 

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

 
• Skylord Reborn 3rd Anniversary

Happy New Year, everyone! We hope 2024 will be a wonderful year for every one of you! 
December 2023 marked the 3rd Anniversary of Skylords Reborn, and we are happy you are here to celebrate it with us!
In case you missed it, we hosted a special Anniversary Stream last Friday, which you can rewatch here. 

In this Community Update, we would like to take a look back at 2023, and share what 2024 has in store for Skylords Reborn. We have a lot to talk about, so let's get started!
 
• Looking back at 2023

Can you believe it's already been a year since we added cosmetics? Here is a quick summary of every patch we released in 2023. 
 
January 14th, 2023

Early in 2023, we released our 2nd Anniversary Patch. The patch contained three new cards; Sanctuary, a Tier 4 Nature spell to go along with our ongoing Pure Nature rework, Raven Archwalker, our first Legendary card, and Worldbreaker Gun Promo, the first Promo building in the game. 


This patch also introduced cosmetics; unlockable ways for Skylords to personalize their banner and avatar border. We also added 32 new achievements, many balance changes, and a ton of Quality of Life features; like a longer Marketplace option, more advanced filtering options including a handy in-game guide, and an import/export deck function.


February 27th, 2023

As with most major patches, our follow-up patch was a small one, containing some bugfixes, and the QoL option for players to re-roll the same quest multiple times. The minimum quest reward after re-rolls was changed to 50 BFP. 
 
April 8th, 2023

After our successful Halloween Event, we wanted to surprise Skylords with an Easter-themed event. While the map and general idea were received positively, we probably should not have attached a speedrun contest to it. Players expressed playing the map once was fun, but grinding the clunky Egg-push mechanic for the top time turned out to be a bit tedious. 

Regardless, completing the special map ''The Easter Tree" on any difficulty resulted in the completion of the newly added achievement "Bunny Brawler", which automatically rewarded Skylords with a new Easter-themed banner. We saw that banner equipped a lot around the holidays, so we are happy to see it being received so positively. 

This patch also contained some bugfixes, and a change to the friend list to display only online friends by default, a much requested change. 
 
May 19th - 2023

In May, we released another big content patch, called appropriately called Nature's Awakening. Alongside many Nature-themed changes, the patch also contained one new card: Sleetstorm.

The spotlight for this patch, however, was on the addition of the Nature faction to rPvE, joining Fire as the second Skylords-Reborn exclusive addition to the game mode. Hodron spend a lot of time balancing the faction and making it fun to play against, which you can read more about in our interview. The patch also contained many balance changes, mostly focusing on our Pure Nature rework. 

The patch also included many Quality of Life changes, including a single-player pause feature, key-down vs key-up interaction, the ability to copy text or import a deck from the in-game chat, and gold chests being openable in combat. Lastly, the patch also included our first part of our Gold rework, a few campaign map changes, and a rework of the community map section. 


This rework allows Skylords to have an easier time finding great community-made maps, by showing more information, and having featured maps for maps that are especially good or unique. We also had an event on two of those great community maps: An Expedition South and Lyrish Uprising. We would once again like to stress that every Skylords Reborn installation comes with a Map Editor, so feel free to add your creations to the list! 
 
July 25th - 2023

Sadly, the major content patch came alongside some annoying bugs, the most infamous being the lag in the Forge after playing for a while. The issue should be solved, though we still sometimes receive reports of similar behavior. If this is the case for you, please report it to our team to investigate. 
We also used this occasion to fix some inconsistencies in card descriptions and enabled playback for outdated replays. However, because replays are playbacks (instead of being a video), if cards were used that have since been changed, it can still result in not accurately reflecting the original gameplay. Regardless, it solved a major headache for our Event Department and Community Events to still be able to access replays if the game had been patched in a way that only effected a few cards that were not present in their replays. 
 
October 28th - 2023

For our Halloween patch, we added a new Pumpkin avatar for Skylords to unlock by playing the custom map Spooky Encounters once more during the Halloween season. The patch also contained one new card: the long awaited Soulstone. This card saw the longest development cycle yet, but we are very proud of how it turned out. 

There was one more thing for Skylords to unlock: we released a special Fire-themed Forge, locked behind an achievement we noticed not many players were participating in due to the old lackluster reward. We are happy to see an increase in the completion rate after adding the special Forge. 
Lastly, we also released a bunch of balance changes, bugfixes, and a batch of Quality of Life changes, like a higher deck-limit (500), a warning notification for queuing up with a low deck level for ranked (pointing towards the free PvP decks), and some improvements to comparing profiles. 

The Fire-themed Forge can be unlocked by completing the achievement "Never Thought of Him"
 
December - 2023 -> January 2024

Originally, our plan was to bring out a patch for our 3rd Anniversary in December. Sadly, we had to delay after crucial staff members became sick. Which brings us to...
 
• Looking ahead at 2024

We are kicking off 2024 with our first content patch, and today we are happy to announce the patch date:
January 26th - 2024

Our first content patch of 2024 will contain various previously announced features. You can expect to see the new card Lost Manabeast, our overhaul of the rPvE difficulty system, our Lost Souls Rework, balance changes, and quality of life features, like buttons in the Forge to pause, speed up and slowdown. While we are trying to include previously announced cards like Tectonic Shift and Bedrock, technical issues are plaguing their developments, so we can't make the promise they will be included yet. 
 
2024

While we are not able to provide a concrete roadmap for 2024, we are able to share some general information about what we have planned for the new year. We have spent a lot of 2023 working on map-content, and we are very excited to share what we have been working on! The following content can be expected further along in 2024: 
 
New Campaign Maps

2024 will see the release of some brand-new campaign maps! There are currently four maps in development, three 2-player maps, and one 1-player map. The first two maps you can expect will be Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle, which are part of our new Key of Ashia story campaign, filling in some of the questions the original campaign failed to answer. In Unexpected Visitors, you will face the Lost Souls to protect the last Amii tribe, while Into the Jungle tasks you with finding a new safe haven for them. We did a short live-play of Into the Jungle during our stream.

Unexpected Visitors will be the first new campaign map of Skylords Reborn.
 
New Cards

You can expect more new cards, including three for the Amii faction: Amii Golem, Amii Simulacrum and Amii Skydancer, bringing long-awaited higher tier units to the faction. We will reveal more about these new cards in the upcoming Community Updates. 
Besides new Amii cards, we also have a couple of other new cards in various stages of development. 
 
More voice-acting

Alongside voicing our new campaign-maps, we are also working on providing voices for both new and old cards alike. A teaser of the Amii Golem was already heard in the Amii-teaser above, but we also have talented people working on Burning Spears and other cards that patched without voice-lines. 

To navigate the players through the new campaign, we have also worked on a Frost Skylord named Gaeron, artwork made by our artist Tweeto. Gaeron was an Imperial Captain defending a Lyrish town. He is shortly mentioned in the original lore book in the game, and we thought he would be a fitting candidate to expand upon. We have found a great voice-actor to voice him during our search back in June.
 
Balance changes

We are always tweaking cards and looking for opportunities to make underplayed but cards with potential viable, and 2024 will be no different. Be sure to join our balance discord if you want to join the discussion and/or provide suggestions! A lot of the changes in SR are community suggestions, after all!
 
More Map Content

2024 will continue our vision of focusing on returning content. We are especially excited about Map Modifiers, special conditions that can be activated on campaign maps to provide new and exciting challenges. Modifiers that increase the defense of enemies, or cause them to explode once defeated, are simple examples that can already impact maps drastically. We plan to bundle these with a highlighted Map of the Day campaign map, resulting in additional rewards for Skylords facing the challenge. 

Example screenshot of Map Modifiers. Work in progress.

With new campaign maps, expanding on rPvE and Map Modifiers freshening up the original Campaign Maps, 2024 should be a good year for replayable content! 
 
• Events

Kicking off 2024 we also have a new event to enjoy!
 
• NEW - Amii Training Camp
While we eagerly wait for new Amii cards, let's find out if you fully master the excising ones! Play rPvE with only Amii Paladins and Amii Phantoms on Tier 2 and see how fast you can get! More information.
 
 • FIRST PHASE - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge

In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. There are currently 10 episodes to watch:
• Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator - Watch now.
• Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator - Watch now.
• Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator -  Watch now.
• Episode 4: RadicalX, Faction Designer - Watch now.
• Episode 5: Ult, Server Developer - Watch now.
• Episode 6: Ultralord, Video Editor - Watch now.
• Episode 7: Zyna & Ladadoos, Admins - Watch now.


• New: Episode 8: Maze, Web Developer - Watch now.
In this episode, Maze and Kapo talk about the moderation tool, different APIs, and of course in great detail about Maze' wonderful website, the Skylords Marketplace Journal (www.smj.cards)
 
• New: Episode 9: Windhunter, Lead Designer - Watch now.
In this episode, Windhunter and Kapo talk all about design, the priorities of picking what to change next, the state of the economy and loads of submitted questions from Fire-Frost to Deepdives, and what's upcoming in the next months and years. 
 
• New: Episode 10: Emmaerzeh & Hodron - Watch now.
This episode is all about the art of map-making, in all variations from campaign, rPvE and PvP-maps; with a highlight on how (community) mapmaking is done.
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!


We are especially looking for an active and passionate outreach coordinator, helping us reach new Skylords by contacting streamers, influencers, media, and other potential parties. This role can make a drastic impact for Skylords Reborn! More information.
Please consider applying for this position; we would love to gather both new and old players alike in 2024 to check out our new campaign maps. We are also looking for someone who can help us with our newsletter. 
Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: LOOK-BACK-YEAR-2023
The code is valid until February 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update December 2023

That Manabeast ... it has such beautiful eyes ... 🙂

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

 
• Skylord Reborn 3rd Anniversary

The 3rd anniversary of Skylords Reborn is almost here! After returning to the world of Nyn on the 18th of December 2020, our volunteer team has worked tirelessly to expand upon the original BattleForge with new content, quality-of-life changes, and new features. Skylords Reborn has expanded upon the original game by adding quests, achievements, cosmetics, reforging, new enemy factions for rPvE, overhauls of the community map sections, UI improvements, brand-new cards, new voice-lines, many balance changes, and much more!
We are grateful that we were not only successful in bringing the game back, and are now able to celebrate its 3rd anniversary with this lovely community. For this occasion, we would like to give you a sneak peek of an upcoming new campaign map, planned for release in 2024.
To do so, we invite all of you to join us on Monday, the 18th of December, at 20:00 CET for a special anniversary stream on our official Twitch channel. Alongside some information about our upcoming content, there will also be giveaways and a Q&A. So come chill with us!

Whether you have been with us all this time, or only recently stumbled upon the project, thank you! We hope you celebrate both the past and the future with us on the 18th!
 
• Changes to the recommended system requirements

BattleForge is an old game; it released all the way back in 2009. As Skylords Reborn continues its development, we are having a look at its system requirements. We have decided to remove our minimum system requirements, and increase our recommended requirements. Of course, removing a minimum system requirement does not automatically mean anything lower than the Recommended will not work.
We are dropping the Minimum system requirements
• CPU: Single Core 1.8Ghz
• CPU Speed: Core 1.8Ghz
• RAM: Windows XP - 512MB, Vista and Windows 7+ - 1GB
• OS: Windows XP (with service pack 2) Vista, Windows 7 or higher.
• Video Card: 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 6 Series+ / ATI Radeon 9500+
• Disk Space: At least 13GB. 
Instead, these are now the Recommended system requirements:
• CPU: Core i3 7400T / Ryzen 3 1200 (X86 compatible)
• RAM: at least 6GB
• OS: Windows 10 or higher.
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 / ATI Radeon HD 7770 (Direct X 11 compatible)
• Disk Space: 14GB of free space.
Notes and reasoning
While we don't want to exclude potential players, constantly keeping old and outdated systems in mind is increasing the chance for issues and delaying development. Even so, we'd like to take a moment to explain our reasoning for increasing each requirement.
Skipping over 16 years of CPU might seem like too big of a jump. However, people will default to maximum details on 10+ years old game, and they will play it on significantly bigger resolutions. Back then, 1024x768 was considered big screen, while these days 1920x1080 is considered entry level resolutions, which have 2.64 times more pixels. The same reasoning applies for the GPU. 
A recommendation of 6GB of RAM might seem like an overkill, but we are adding features that consume RAM, and it shouldn't be a problem for most modern PC's to meet this requirement. Rest assured this will never increase again, because the game can't use more than 4GB of RAM (the remaining 2GB are for OS and other applications running alongside Skylords Reborn). 
We are also dropping support for Windows 7. Technically, Windows 7 should still work just fine, but due to the very low % of players running this operating system, we will not be rolling back major updates for it anymore. Lastly, the Disk Space increase. We are currently at 13.3 GB for game files, and community maps, logs, etc. can easily be in 100's of MB. Its likely this requirement will further increase in the future. 
 
• New Card Reveal - Lost Manabeast

A while ago, we showcased some upcoming changes and reworks coming to the Lost Souls faction. We are happy to announce we are nearing completion on this faction rework. Alongside implementing those changes, we have also been working on a new card to add to the faction to further enhance its playstyle. Introducing: The Lost Manabeast as a player card!
 

Design notes: Lost Souls has an odd T3 in that it has two ground XL-units and one flying L-unit with conditional siege range. Of these, only Lost Horror is widely used in PvE, Lost Grigori sees some PvP play, and Lost Vigil is mostly unused except in niche situations. Most factions have a wider variety of viable options in PvE at this point, and Lost Souls lacks a low-cost ground L-unit, forcing players to rely on cards like Ashbone Pyro to fill the gap. We therefore wanted to provide a Lost Souls unit to fit this role for those players who want to play a purely Lost Souls deck, while also adding something to synergize with Lost Souls's unique revenant mechanic. Our first thought was to add in Lost Manabeast, since it has an existing model and artwork. Because the unit was primarily designed for PvE usage, we decided to make it a ranged unit as a player card. From here, we thought about how to make it work with Revenant's Doom without directly stepping on the toes of Revenant's Blessing. Revenant's Blessing extends the lifespan of all revenant units, similar to how Ice Age works with Ice Shields, but once it ends, the timer continues to run down as it did previously. For Lost Manabeast, we decided to create an ability called Immortalize that would refresh the lifespan of a revenant back to 25 seconds. This should allow players to alternate between using Manabeast's free ability and Revenant's Blessing. Immortalize is also usable while Lost Manabeast is a revenant, which should enable players to maintain fully revenant armies more easily and efficiently.
 
 
 
Let's break down the card: 
 
Ectoplasmic Shock
Every 3 seconds, the unit launches deadly ectoplasm that deals 230 damage to enemies in a 10m radius around its target, up to 345 in total. The ectoplasm lingers for 5 seconds, absorbing the life essence of any enemy that dies in the area. Additionally, enemies in the area are slowed and may only move at normal walk speed.
 
Immortalize
Active to refresh the duration of every Revenant's lifetime in a 25m radius. Needs to have gathered the life essence of 7 enemy units first. Reusable every 15 seconds.
 
Revenant's Doom
Activate to bestow the unit with a curse that will make it resurrect in case it dies. The resurrected revenant will only be a shadow of its former self, but it will be endowed with the same abilities and equal in strength. After 25 seconds, the revenant will then die once and for all. May only be triggered once.
 
For the artwork, our artist Tweeto made some adjustments to the NPC-artwork currently in the game, mostly adding that classic Lost Soul flame to the look. Lost Manabeast will be a rare, drop from boosters, and can be reforged into. It will not have different affinities. It is planned for a release in our next content patch. We hope you are looking forward to it!
 
• How to Help - a Community Guide


Kapo made a lovely overview of things a community member can do to help out the project. Ranging from something as simple as giving a like to our official trailer, all the way up to joining the team and helping out as staff. Due to the nature of this volunteer project, community members can make a huge difference for both new and current players. Hopefully some of these suggestions speak to you, and inspire you to take some action: find out more.
HOW TO SUPPORT

Skylords Reborn is truly by the fans for the fans, so we hope we can count on you to make this the best community it can be!
 
• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• NEW - Battle of Tactics #5: Show Me What You Got - 10-12-2023
Battle of Tactics is trying something new: Time for a Tactical-Tome-Tournament! Every player gets a selection of boosters (how many depending on your ELO-rating!) and has to build a PvP deck to compete for prizes! More information.
 
 • FIRST PHASE - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
• FINISHED - Official 1p rPvE Contest - Resurrection of the Lost Soul
Our official PvE contest has concluded and prizes have been sent out, including the new Soulstone cards. Ultralord also showcased the winners in a video. 
 
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge

In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. There are currently 7 episodes to watch:
• Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator - Watch now.
• Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator - Watch now.
• Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator -  Watch now.
• Episode 4: RadicalX, Faction Designer - Watch now.
• Episode 5: Ult, Server Developer - Watch now.
 
• New: Episode 6: Ultralord, Video Editor - Watch now.
In this episode, Kapo and Ultralord talk about his numerous videos he made for the Skylords Reborn Team, as well as his other projects like the Battle of Tactics or his streaming efforts.
• New: Episode 7: Zyna & Ladadoos, Admins - Watch now.
In this episode, Kapo is joined by both Ladadoos and Zyna, Developers and Project Leads who have been stuck around with Skylords Reborn since a very, very long time. They discuss what it's like to lead such a big volunteer team, old and new changes to the core systems of the game, and take a look what the future may bring in the upcoming months and years.
Episode 8 will be hosted live on the 2nd of December and feature Maze, Web Developer. Tune in live on Twitch, or watch back on YouTube the day after.  
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 45 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!


We are especially looking for an active and passionate outreach coordinator, helping us reach new Skylords by contacting streamers, influencers, media, and other potential parties. This role can make a drastic impact for Skylords Reborn, so please consider applying.
• Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator
As a Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator, you are responsible to spread the word and create awareness about Skylords Reborn, attracting veteran and new players alike. 
Your tasks will include actively researching and reaching out to potentially interested streamers, YouTubers, Discord channels, game magazines, among others. You will be responsible for the communication to and from interested parties and for any promotion deals (for example involving scratch codes). Please note that Skylords Reborn cannot do any paid promotions. 
More information. 
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: LOST-ANDF-OUND-MANA
The code is valid until January 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update November 2023

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

 
• Halloween Patch

Happy Halloween Skylords! Last weekend, we released a surprise Halloween patch. This patch contains various bugfixes and quality of life changes. Additionally, we have implemented some balance changes, including the previously announced Stronghold changes. 
We have also added the Fire-themed Forge. Keep yourself warm this month with this special themed Forge (active as a featured Forge till the end of November), or complete the achievement ''Never Thought of Him'' to permanently unlock the Forge in addition to 100.000 gold. This reward is retroactive, meaning those who already completed the achievement in the past automatically have the Fire-forge. 
Skylords might remember our Spooky Encounters Halloween Event from last year. We have now implemented a returning achievement, where you can earn a Lost Souls booster and a special Pumpkin-avatar for beating the map during the Halloween season. 
For those looking for a more classic event, we also have a Halloween event that went live earlier today. 
We hope you enjoy this special Halloween patch. You can find the full patch notes here. 
 
• New Card Reveal - Soulstone

This patch also contained the surprise reveal and release of Soulstone!
Today we would like to dive a bit deeper into its design, and how the release is both sudden and overdue.  
 

 
Soulstone is the very first building card we have introduced in the Rebirth Edition (if you don't count our Promo Worldbreaker Gun). It is a Frost card requiring only a single Frost orb, but with a unique twist: Skylords are able to upgrade the card to tier 2 once they have a second orb available. This allows the card to transition throughout the game, powering up alongside the other tools at your disposal. 
Upgrading the card reduces the cost for its memorial ability, and increase its lifepoints. Soulstone is a rare card and can drop from boosters or be reforged into. We also have a special Halloween event where you have a chance to earn it, more about that later in this Community Update.
 
 
 

Let's break down the card: 

Frozen Ward
Activate to trigger a global shielding spell that enchants every friendly structure to grant friendly units within a 20m radius an Ice Shield that absorbs up to 120 damage for 10 seconds. Units that already have an Ice Shield are unaffected. Each unit can only be affected once every 10 seconds. Lasts for 30 seconds. Also affects structures that are still under construction. Has a 60 seconds cool-down after the building was built. Reusable every 60 seconds.  
 
Memorial (mode change)
Activate to regenerate the full power of the Soulstone. After 2 seconds, the building gains Soul Armor and loses Frozen Ward. Requires 2 orbs to activate. Has a 60 seconds cool-down after the building was build. 
 

Soul Armor
Activate to trigger a global shielding spell that enchants every friendly structure to grant friendly units within a 20m radius an Ice Shield that absorbs up to 180 damage for 10 seconds. Units that already have an Ice Shield are unaffected. Each unit can only be affected once every 10 seconds. Lasts for 30 seconds. Also affects structures that are still under construction. Reusable every 60 seconds.
 
Soulstone has been in the making for quite a while now, and we would like to share some behind the scenes' information about its road to release. To do so, Lead Designer Windhunter will take you all the way back to 2021.
 
• Soulstone Design Notes

The release of Soulstone is a testament to how far the Skylords Reborn team has come in its development capacities. The original design concept for Soulstone dates back to June 2021, where it was one of the first cards ever designed by the faction design department. Soulstone's initial design pattern was very closely on the Soulstone players encounter in Defense of Hope, similar to how Banzai Lord is patterned closely on its eponymous mini-boss in Mo. The idea was that the player Soulstone would achieve its full its strength upon reaching T2 just as the Soulstone in Defense of Hope regenerates its strength partway through the mission, summoning Skyelfs to defend itself. We did not think that Frost needed a Skyelf spawner, but we did believe that Frost needed early game sustain and that providing shields would fit well with Soulstone's existing identity. In terms of initial vision and final design, the Soulstone we released a few days ago and the Soulstone we originally designed 28 months ago are highly similar. So why did it take so long?
The challenge of creating a card like Soulstone that could transform into a stronger version of itself upon reaching a higher tier was riddled with technical hurdles. Despite how much we have achieved, it is important to remember that we do not have the source code for BattleForge. Much of what we do is a slow process of reverse engineering and subsequent tool development to allow ourselves to make use of that reverse engineering. Many of our new cards and major redesigns to existing cards have required at least one new mechanic to be successfully reverse engineered before they could proceed. It is a frequent occurrence for our team's faction designers to put forward an idea, have it be accepted as worthwhile to pursue, only for development to hit a wall while we wait for our developers to play Marco Polo with the game engine until they can isolate the correct variable that then allows our card implementers to make the card a reality.
For Soulstone, the primary challenge was the description length. Embedding the functionalities of two cards would result in an exceedingly lengthy description, unprecedented in the game. When we run into major issues like this, we ask ourselves, can we design around it? The best idea we had was to make the Memorial ability self-destruct the existing Soulstone and summon a new, better Soulstone in its place. Altar of Chaos and Portal Nexus both summon new buildings, so this was clearly possible. A little janky, but a promising workaround nonetheless, except that both Altar of Chaos and Portal Nexus' summon abilities are hardcoded, meaning that if we add the ability to a different building, it will always and only summon the building from the original ability. Additionally, even the ability icons were hardcoded, so even if we got it to work, Soulstone would have had an Altar of Chaos icon on it. For regular followers of our Community Updates, you may have pieced together that this same issue would seem to be true for our upcoming card Bedrock, which summons its own Stone Launcher, and if so, you would now have a better understanding of one reason for why said card is not yet released. Anyway, the workaround also proved impossible, so we decided to adjust the design so both the T1 and T2 version could reasonably fit into a single card.
While lacking its originally intended evolution mechanic, Soulstone would have still made a good addition to the game. We implemented the global shields and found that it worked fine. Then we started designing a slightly frostier texture for the building, the original is quite gray, only to find that when we tried to construct the Soulstone in-game that the building got stuck under the ground. It was there, but completely buried. With no knowledge of how to fix this issue, we had to abandon the possibility of using the Soulstone building itself. What we knew we could do was retexture existing buildings with functioning build animations, so we decided to change the name and use a different building instead. Our most promising attempt was trying to retexture Fountain of Rebirth, turning its roots into icicles in the process.
After a half dozen aborted tries leading to more and more frustration from the art team, and in light of the ongoing implementation struggles, we made the decision to shelve the development of Soulstone for the time being. This, while the right decision, became very awkward for us as a team because we justified several changes to Frost T1 cards with the reasoning that a new "Frost T1 sustain option" would be releasing next patch. Obviously, this was no longer true, so we scrambled to make changes to Northern Keep as compensation. Instances like this one are one reason we are careful not to announce things until we are sure they are possible.
For nearly two years, Soulstone sat untouched and largely forgotten until early this summer one of the team members pointed out that the original Soulstone design was now fully possible. We did a few preliminary tests and discovered that the team member was correct. In the course of two years, we had advanced our understanding of the game to the point that what was previously impossible was now relatively simple. Once the various card and ability artworks were finished, the building retextured, and the 3D FX crafted, the card implementation took a little under a week. At long last, on Oct. 28th 2023, Soulstone made its way into the Forge.
 
• Events

If you want to get your hands on the brand-new Soulstone card, be sure to participate in our official Halloween event! We will distribute the card among 50% of the participants, and there are also Lost Souls boosters to be won! 
 
• NEW - Official 1p rPvE Contest - Resurrection of the Lost Soul
The Bandits have disturbed our rest for too long! It is time for the Souls to hunt the Soulhunters, show the Power of Lost Souls in this rPvE 1p Contest. The more participate, the more Soulstones we will Raffle! More information.
 
 • FIRST PHASE - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
• FINISHED - PvP Rookie Tournament
Last weekend, Triggz hosted a special Rookie 1vs1 Tournament. 22 inexperienced players entered the ring and battled it out. The tournament was streamed live, and can be rewatched on the YouTube-channel of Eirias. More information. 
 
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge

In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. There are currently 5 episodes to watch:
• Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator - Watch now.
• Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator - Watch now.
• Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator -  Watch now.

• New: Episode 4: RadicalX, Faction Designer
In this episode, Kapo and RadicalX talk about Radicals fame as one of the best players in speedrunning and PvP, but also about design (decisions) and loads of topics submitted by user questions. Watch now.

• New: Episode 5: Ult, Server Developer
In this episode, Kapo and Ult talk about the server side of the game, especially about systems like the achievements or cosmetics, as well as future projects like map modifiers. Watch now.
Episode 6 will be hosted live on the 4th of November and feature Ultralord, Video Editor. Tune in live on Twitch, or watch back on YouTube the day after.  
 
• Team changes

During the past month, WaterMelonLord, Nukie and Dallarian have moved on from the team for various reasons. All three of them helped us out with moderation. Additionally, Nukie managed the Event Department, where Dallarian helped the Map Department set the first step into new campaign maps. We appreciate their contributions and wish them well in their future endeavors!
Meanwhile, Noah.K has joined the team as our second Audio Editor. He is helping us out with adding new voicelines into the game by providing editing and advice regarding the recorded takes we have received from our voice-actors. In the moderator department, Linkz has been promoted to Global Moderator. 
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 45 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!


We are especially looking for an active and passionate outreach coordinator, helping us reach new Skylords by contacting streamers, influencers, media, and other potential parties. This role can make a drastic impact for Skylords Reborn, so please consider applying.
• Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator
As a Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator, you are responsible to spread the word and create awareness about Skylords Reborn, attracting veteran and new players alike. 
Your tasks will include actively researching and reaching out to potentially interested streamers, YouTubers, Discord channels, game magazines, among others. You will be responsible for the communication to and from interested parties and for any promotion deals (for example involving scratch codes). Please note that Skylords Reborn cannot do any paid promotions. 
More information. 
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a Lost Souls booster: SOUL-STON-ENOW-LIVE
The code is valid until December 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update October 2023

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• General Update

It's been a while since our last content patch, and we'd like to provide a brief update on the project. Skylords Reborn relies entirely on the free time of our dedicated volunteers. While we strive to address sudden spikes in inactivity as effectively as possible, there are occasions when unexpected delays are inevitable. Our aim is to strike a balance between revealing upcoming new content and features and getting them into your hands. Currently, this balance is a bit off, resulting in the announcement of some upcoming features a while ago, while they have not yet been implemented. We hope for your understanding in these matters and that you still appreciate us showing what we are working on.
We'd also like to inform you that progress on our upcoming campaign maps is proceeding smoothly. Although we haven't disclosed specific details yet, this decision was made deliberately. The process of map creation can be complex, and even in the late stages of development, maps can undergo significant changes. We want to ensure that our new maps earn their place alongside the existing campaign, so we've invested substantial time in establishing the foundational elements to build upon. Our dedicated testers are currently working to ensure these maps provide an enjoyable playing experience, and we're confident that the end result will be something you'll greatly appreciate. Please stay tuned for more updates!
 
• New Card Reveal - Bedrock

In June, we unveiled the artwork for our highly anticipated tier 4 Stonekin turtle. Since then, people have been curious about the card and its associated effects. Today we are excited to show you the design for the upcoming Stonekin unit: Bedrock.
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers, effects, and its rarity might still change before release. 
 

 
Delving further into the building-focused Stonekin archetype, Bedrock offers Stonekin players an exciting and versatile tool for the endgame. If you want to learn more about this archetype, please check out the Stonekin Deep Dive!
Bedrock stands as a formidable elemental destroyer, capable of both laying siege to enemy buildings and constructing new ones. Additionally, it possesses the ability to fortify friendly structures with an Ice Shield. This card has a ranged auto-attack, siege, two active abilities, and, naturally, the Stonekin passive ability.
Bedrock will be available in two different affinities, each influencing its unique Sculptor ability. Once released, the card will drop from boosters and can be reforgable. 
Bedrock will be the first Ultra Rare card from the Rebirth Edition. To make sure enough players will be able to enjoy the card, we are considering hosting an event around the release where you can earn the card. Stay tuned for more information.  
 
 
 
Let's break down the card: 
 
 Rock Throw (auto attack)
Range: 30m
Every 3 seconds, unit fires a molten stone dealing 633 damage, up to 950 in total. Knocks back small and medium units.
 

Blessed/Tainted Sculptor
Range: 30m
Place a Stone Launcher with an affinity towards Frost/Shadow that deconstructs after 30 seconds at a target location within a 30m radius. Only one tower may be placed at a time. Can be placed nearby enemy units and structures. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
Living Rampart
Cost: 50p - Range: 30m
All friendly buildings in a 30m radius will be fortified, gaining an Ice Shield that absorbs 1800 damage for 15 seconds. The Ice Shield renews itself once after 15 seconds to absorb an additional 1800 damage. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
 Siege
Deals 100% more damage against structures.
 Adamant Skin (Stonekin faction passive ability)
The unit takes 15% less damage
 
Bedrock has been in the making for quite some time now, and we still need a little more time to work on some technical implications. Alongside the new Tectonic Shift card and some upcoming balance changes, we hope to improve and explore the playstyles of the Stonekin faction. We are currently not able to communicate a release date yet.
 
• Look reveal - Bedrock

And finally, here's a sneak peek at how Bedrock will appear in the game!  We hope you are looking forward to our new favourite stone turtle!
   • Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge

Skylord of Honour and CCC-host Kapo started a new project this month: Masters of the Forge.
In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. In his own words:
Masters of the Forge will shine a light on all those people working so tirelessly on Skylords Reborn - for the average Skylord, [Game Masters] are elite, mythical creatures too many know nothing about, and we will hopefully change that. So, in this dev-talk-like podcast series we will meet several Masters of the Forge in person, and hopefully I will be able to ask them questions that are interesting to you. And, you will also get the chance to ask them some questions! The series will be streamed on Twitch and afterwards uploaded on YouTube.
Please note that while the content created is supported by the SR Team and will be all about Skylords Reborn, this is no official event or dev-talk. The focus will be around the guest, what their duties are, how they feel about the game and its development - we will not elaborate future changes in depth or announce anything fancy. But hopefully we will know more about the guest and how It's like to be part of the SR Team.

There are currently 3 episodes to watch:
• Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator
In this episode, Kapo and Dutchy discuss various moderator-related topics. Find out about how our moderators keep Skylords Reborn a fair community. Watch now.

• Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator
In this episode, Kapo and yours truly talk about the Community Updates and Project Coordination. We also go over what goes into creating a new card for Skylords Reborn, and which departments are needed to make it happen. Watch now.

• Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator
In this episode, Kapo and Volin dive into the topic of testing, a crucial part of the game. As a special treat, Volin showcases the new rPvE difficulty 9.5, as previously announced in our community update. Watch now.
Episode 4 will be hosted live on the 7th of October and feature RadicalX, Game Designer and PvP expert. Tune in live on Twitch, or watch back on YouTube the day after.  
 
• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
 • NEW - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Contribute - Spotlight

If you are interested in helping out with our upcoming new campaign maps, Map Tester might be of interest to you!
 
• Open Position - Map Tester
As a map tester, you get early access to new maps and game modes and are responsible to playtest them and provide feedback to the other map developers about possible issues or improvements. This includes checking how balanced the map is, how fun it is to play, if there are any exploits, if areas on the map need to be prettified etc. Map developers/designers/artists should be able to rely on you to make sure maps that are released or changed are done so properly.
More information.
 
But there are more roles available. Below, you can take a look at all our open positions. 
Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 45 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
 

 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a Stonekin booster: DOYO-ULIK-ETUR-TLES
The code is valid until November 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update September 2023

New card hype! Taking a hiatis right now to play other new games, but it's always exciting to see new content for the game!

Also the effects of Tectonic Shift look really polished! Love it!

Looking Forward to Work with this awesome Team ♥️
 
PS: keep an eye on Future Maps, they will be very Impressive! 

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Yearly Survey Results

Once more, a huge thank you to everyone who took part in our 2023 Survey. This year, more than 1700 of you generously shared your feedback on a wide array of topics, ranging from general perceptions of the project to thoughts on balance and upcoming features. As always, your insights will be instrumental in shaping our future updates and guiding our areas of focus. Just like last year, we have gathered all the responses and condensed them into a brief presentation.


 
• New Card Reveal - Tectonic Shift

Today we have an exciting upcoming Stonekin card to show you, first teased in our Stonekin Deep Dive. Take a look at Tectonic Shift!

 
Terrestrial Gate
Grants the targeted friendly Stonekin building the ability to relocate to another spot within a 100m range. After the relocation, the building will be more vulnerable, taking 50% more damage for 20 seconds. Reusable every 20 seconds.
 
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers, effects and artwork might still change before release. 







By casting this spell on your Stonekin building, you grant it a permanent teleportation ability, akin to the mechanics of the Phase Tower. Once the spell is cast, you'll have the liberty to teleport the building multiple times throughout the match at no additional cost. It's worth noting that the teleportation range spans an impressive 100 meters, which is twice the distance covered by the Phase Tower (50 meters)
Tectonic Shift is meant for the building-focused Stonekin archetype. If you are interested in more information about this archetype, please take a look at our Stonekin Deep Dive! 
Below, you can see the teleport effect in all its glory:
 
• Voice Acting – Update

We have successfully completed our search for voice actors to bring our upcoming new cards and characters to life!
The next steps will be to finalize the scripts and get the voice actors to record their lines. We are very happy about the chosen candidates, and can't wait to show you more in the future. 
Everyone who applied as a voice actor should have received an e-mail about the results of their trail take. If, by any chance, you haven't received this email, please don't hesitate to reach out to me (Majora) directly via Discord or by sending a direct message on the Forum.
Thank you, and to be continued!
 
• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• FINISHED - CCC #12 - Say Goodbye To One
This CCC was a throwback to the very first CCC, where Skylords had to complete rPvE on difficulty 1 as fast as possible. Enough players participated to unlock a scratch code for the whole community! More information.
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31 or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
 • Gameplay Trailer

Continuing from our cinematic trailer, we're thrilled to present a fully voiced gameplay trailer for the game! We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Dreamlord for once again lending their voice to this project. We are already seeing an increase in new Skylords finding out about the project after watching the trailer, which is lovely to see!
As a volunteer project, we are very limited to what we can do on the marketing side, so this trailer reaching the masses is super important for us. Please help us out by liking and sharing the trailer! As a thank you, we have also added a scratch code in the comment section of the video. Please don't share this code with other players directly, but point them towards the trailer instead!
We hope the community can come together to make this trailer a great success!

As a labor of love carried out by volunteers, Skylord Reborn's growth has been dependent on word-of-mouth recommendations and reconnecting with BattleForge's former playerbase. With over 130,000 registered accounts, we've been pretty successful in doing so. However, we remain convinced that there is still a lot of untapped potential. While a substantial portion of our player community comprises BattleForge veterans, there exists a vast expanse of real-time strategy (RTS) and trading card game (TCG) enthusiasts who are yet to discover this unique blend of genres. The above trailer was created with this in mind, showcasing the game for what it is in a way that does not require BattleForge knowledge. The next step is to actually reach those players, which brings us to....
 
• Contribute - Spotlight

There are two roles in specific we would like to highlight this month.
First off, we are looking for an active and passionate outreach coordinator, helping us reach new Skylords by contacting streamers, influencers, media, and other potential parties. This role can make a drastic impact for Skylords Reborn, so please consider applying.
 
• Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator
As a Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator, you are responsible to spread the word and create awareness about Skylords Reborn, attracting veteran and new players alike. 
Your tasks will include actively researching and reaching out to potentially interested streamers, YouTubers, Discord channels, game magazines, among others. You will be responsible for the communication to and from interested parties and for any promotion deals (for example involving scratch codes). Please note that Skylords Reborn cannot do any paid promotions. 
More information. 

Second, we are looking for someone to help us in the Event Department. Where an Outreach Coordinator draws in new players, Event Managers try to keep them invested by providing fun events to participate, either by hosting them or supporting community members in doing so.
 
• Event Manager / Organizer
As an event organizer, you are responsible to design and organize official events and tournaments from start to finish. This process includes research for new and fun event ideas, design the event and rewards, promote and organize the event and ensure it runs smoothly as a whole. 
Furthermore, you will also be responsible for the communication from and to the community for anything event and tournament related and to guarantee all rewards are handed out accordingly. Lastly, as an event organizer, you are also the contact person for unofficial community events and tournaments seeking for sponsorship from the project. 
More information.

But there are more roles available. Below, you can take a look at all our open positions. 
Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 45 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
 

 
• New Team Members

We had five new members join the project the past month!

We have two new moderators; Linkx is our new Discord Moderator, while Vultagx is our new Global Moderator. Feel free to contact them if you have a question or run into any issues in the game or on our Discord.
We also have two new developers; Pierakor is our new Tool Developer. His initial focus will be on the Special Effects Editor, which we use for editing and creating new special effects in-game. He will work closely with our two Tech Artist to improve our tool according to their needs. Lucas Ansei is our new Web Developer. He will be working with our other developers on the internal web-interface.
Last but not least, Kayrie has joined the team as a Map Artist. He will help out the Map Department who are currently working on new Campaign Maps, making sure they will look visually appealing. 
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a Stonekin booster: NEWT-ECTO-NICS-HIFT

The code is valid until October 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update August 2023

Patch #400043 - 25 July 2023
Welcome to the long-awaited quality of life patch. After this update, the Forge will finally be running smoothly again. Amongst other minor bug fixes and improvements, this patch will also allow you to watch outdated replays. Keep in mind that replays with gameplay affected by patches will still desync.
 

General Changes
Enabled playback for outdated replays. However, replays may not accurately reflect the original gameplay if the replay contains actions that have since been affected by balancing patches.
General Fixes
Improved overall performance in the Forge and while within game creation lobbies.  Improved the remaining days display of auctions in German. Improved the RPvE Cosmetic Portrait Names to be more consistent. Improved the descriptions of various achievements to be more consistent: Codebreaker Lone Ranger The Nightmare's Nightmare Urban Planner
Card Fixes
Player Cards:
 Abyssal Warder (Fire) / Abyssal Warder (Frost):
1. Active ability Crystal Spikes: Improved description to be more accurate in German.
 Burning Spears:
1. Toggle ability Weapon Change: Ability display on the card visualization has been reordered.
 Fleshbender (Shadow):
1. Fixed tooltip to show correct English name in non-English languages on upgrade 3.
 Hammerfall (Frost):
1. Passive ability Breeze of Strength:
   A. Fixed ability tooltip to display 40 instead of only 15 shielding capacity regeneration.
   B. Improved description to be more consistent.
 Life Weaving:
1. Pain Link: Fixed the damage transfer to no longer target nearby structures but only units.
 Lord Cyrian:
1. Fixed the description of the upgrade card for upgrade 3 in German.
 Lyrish Knight / Lyrish Knight (Promo):
1. Passive ability Steadfast: Ability is now displayed as a 5th ability in the card tooltip (does not fit on the card visualization).
 Mind Control:
1. Infinite Domination: Added the missing origin name of the debuff immunity tooltip.
 Regrowth:
1. Emerald Blessing: Improved the translation of the Godspell name to be more accurate in German.
 Sleet Storm:
1. Heavy Rain: Improved the upgrade card visualization of upgrade 1.
 Stone Warrior (Frost):
1. Active ability Blessed Shatter Lance: Fixed the ability to properly work against some frozen conditions.
 Sunken Temple (Nature):
1. Autocast ability Gifted Plague: Fixed an issue that caused upgrade U0-U2 to not spawn Pest Creepers.
Non-Player Cards:
 Lost Crawler:
1. Passive ability Blowout: Improved the description to be more accurate.

[Disclaimer: The following is about the entities introduced by the nature battlegrounds preset.] 
 Caustic Sentinel:
1. Autocast ability Acid Spit: Added an impact visual effect to the projectile.
 Overmind:
1. Autocast ability Infinite Domination: Fixed a bug where the ability did not change the population count when mind-controlling a unit.
 Swamp Drake:
1. The general mind-control immunity that allowed power expenditure without actually granting the target has been removed.
 Wheel of Juvenescence:
1. Fixed a typo in the card's name.
2. Gift of Juvenescence: Improved description to be more consistent in non-English languages.

[Disclaimer: The following is about the testing entity, exclusively available on the test server.] 
 Teststrike:
1. Adjusted the internal classifications and removed the visualization of a Fire affinity.
2. Increased the unit's life points from 5,000 to 10,000.
3. Increased the average damage dealt over 20 seconds from 5,000 to 10,000.
4. Changed the size type from XL to L.
5. Decreased the visual model size scaling from 200% to 135%.
6. Added a German card name to search for it.
7. Active ability Fire Lance:
   A. Fixed incorrect handling of overkill damage.
   B. Removed M-sized counter damage bonus.
   C. Improved description to be more consistent.
8. Passive ability Fiery Birth:
   A. Increased damage from 10,000 (30,000 in total) to 30,000 (90,000 in total).
   B. Fixed incorrect handling of overkill damage.
   C. Removed M-sized counter damage bonus.
   D. Improved description to be more consistent.
 

That's all for this patch! See you in the Forge!

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• QoL Patch

Last week, we released the long-awaited quality of life patch, resolving various minor bugs and improving the Forge's performance to ensure smoother gameplay. Additionally, this update now allows you to watch outdated replays, although replays impacted by patches will still experience desync issues. Check out the full patch notes here.
We are also still hard at work on our next content patch. We apologize for announcing the Lost Souls changes too early. Our bottleneck in card descriptions has been underestimated, as all cards in Skylords Reborn require translation into English, German, French, and Russian. This translation process, especially for the changes made to cards, can significantly impact our progress when translators are occupied or inactive. If you would like to assist with this effort, please check the contributor roles available for translators.
 
• Cinematic Trailer

A few months ago, we released a video showcasing the significant changes and improvements made to Skylords Reborn compared to the original BattleForge over the past 2 years. As part of our ongoing effort to attract more new Skylords, we have now created a cinematic trailer designed for RTS players unfamiliar with the original game.
Please support the game by sharing it with your friends who might be interested in the game!
 
• Card Rework Spotlight - Stronghold

While new cards usually get the spotlight, reworking existing cards can be just as exciting and impactful. Skylords Reborn has a lot of unused and underpowered cards, which, if reworked, would functionally constitute an entirely new tool for players to use. Stronghold is one such card. The T3 Frost tower is beautiful and imposing, promising an unconquerable fortress, a powerful and immovable bastion able to hold off hordes of enemies by itself. Unfortunately, anyone who has used the card knows this description is fantasy. We have been working on Stronghold for a while now, and are happy to showcase our new design, which we think will make the card worthy of its name and image.
To help Stronghold become a fearsome fortress, we intend three major changes to its existing design. First, we are increasing Stronghold's single-target damage from 2420 dp20 to 4000 dp20. Second, we are giving Stronghold two new abilities. The active ability will allow the player to defend against 50m siege units like Lost Dancers without needing an additional unit or building, and “To the Last!” will make Stronghold more deadly as it loses life points. This will synergize well with Frost building supports like Glacier Shell and Shield Building, allowing the player to keep Stronghold at a lower health threshold without endangering their defenses. The idea of "To the Last!" is to tap into the image of Frost as a faction which does not easily give up. Instead of losing hope in difficult situations, the Lyrish defenders manning the Stronghold dig in their heels and fight even more tenaciously in the face of danger. 
 
Cannon Turrets
Every 3 seconds, turrets deal 164 damage each to enemies in 10m radius, up to 246 in total.
 
 
Bombardment - Active Ability 
Cost: 40p
Activate to shoot a mortar shell that deals 800 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around its target, up to 3200 in total. Knocks back small, medium, and large units.
 
To the Last! - Passive ability
If the fortress has equal to or less than 3000 life points left it will deal 25% more damage and take 25% less damage. 
 
 
To the Last! - Passive ability
If the fortress has equal to or less than 1500 life points left it will deal 50% more damage and take 50% less damage.
 
 
Slowed Construction - Passive ability
Construction time is increased by 50%.
 
 

We also added a new visual indicator to show the various states of "To the Last". Below, you can see the Bombardment ability in action:
 
 
We hope you are looking forward to these changes coming to Stronghold! They are planned for release alongside our new content patch. We are not able to share a release date yet, so stay tuned!

• Survey - Update

A big thank you to the 1500 Skylords who have already submitted their feedback in our yearly survey! The survey will close at the end of the week, so if you haven't shared your thoughts yet, please take a moment to do so. Your feedback will be anonymous.
As Skylords Reborn is a community project, we value knowing what our players like and what could be improved. Your feedback is crucial for our continuous game improvement and player base growth! As a token of appreciation, everyone who fills in the survey will receive two boosters.

• Voice Acting – Update

A quick update on our search for new voice actors: We're thrilled to announce that we've received 24 trial takes, offering a diverse selection of voices to choose from.
Now, our Audio Editor will carefully assess the sound quality of each file, followed by selecting the voices that best match the characters. We're excited to bring these unannounced characters to life and can't wait to share what we have in store for you!
 
• Fire-themed Forge

As we progress with the development of upcoming campaign maps, we have also been working on a new Fire-themed Forge skin as a side project. Although it is not officially a Summer Forge, players will soon have the option to select from the default Forge, the Winter Forge, the Spring Forge, and the upcoming Fire-themed Forge. Check out the teaser below:

Players automatically have access to the Winter and default Forge, while the Spring Forge is initially locked behind the "Outsourced Content" achievement, which requires completing 8 different community maps on Expert.
The Fire-themed Forge will also be associated with an achievement called "Never Thought of Him," which tasks the player with completing the Mo campaign using only Fire cards on the maps Convoy, Mo, Oracle, Ocean, Raven's End, and Slave Master. We have received feedback that the current reward for this achievement feels insufficient, and we plan to enhance it to provide a more appealing incentive for completion.
Players who have already completed this achievement will receive the additional reward once the Forge is released. Please note that the Forge is not yet available, but you are able to start working on the achievement in advance.

• Mapmaking fundamentals

We always strive to keep the playerbase informed about upcoming changes and the rationale behind them, whether it's through Community Updates, balance discord discussions, or Deep Dive documents detailing our design decisions. Originally intended as an internal guide for our current developers of new campaign maps, we decided to share the following guide with interested players, hoping it will also serve as a useful tool for aspiring community mapmakers. Don't forget, every Skylords Reborn download includes the Map Editor!
BattleForge campaign maps have a particular feel to them, and this feel is a fundamental component of the unique experience which is playing BattleForge. The goal of this design guide is to use existing campaign maps, particularly the best campaign maps, to understand and to categorize the distinct features of the camps in BattleForge’s campaign, such that we can better design future campaign maps. This guide is therefore intended to categorize the design choices of the original devs and to act as a reference for future development for both community and official map development.
Click here to check out the mapmaking fundamentals guide.
 
• Team Changes

Nukie has decided to step down from his role as Event Manager to allocate more time to his new job and personal life. Despite this change, he will continue to support the project with Moderation duties. We are grateful for his dedicated work during his time as Event Manager! 
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31 or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 40 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
 

 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: THAN-KYOU-SKYL-ORDS

The code is valid until September 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update July 2023

Can't talk for the whole team but:

Love for the game. Me and most of us were there when the original servers were down, and I was pretty devastated about it, having wonderful memories of playing it with my brother, ex girlfriend and friends. Its quite rare (especially for an online-only game) to be revived, so I personally count my blessing to be able to enjoy it once more. 

Potential. This game is super unique. I have not encountered anything like it. While it has some issues because of this (how on earth do you market this?) I still fully believe in what this game has to offer, and still hold on to hope that sometimes it will be discovered by the right group of people. 

New players. We still have an influx of new players coming in, either returning from the EA days, or finding the game as its own thing. This is not a case of a group of people slowly dwindling, there are people coming in and going out. 

Non-active players. While active players go up and down, there is still a large number of players with warm feelings towards Skylords Reborn, as we tend to see with, f.e. the Yearly Feedback Survey. As was mentioned in this topic already, we also see numbers go down a bit during summer time in general. I also don't expect people to continue playing daily for 2+ years straight. There is only so much content to experience and replay. But most of them keep a close eye on the project and return for big patches or other exciting changes. Leading to:

Upcoming new Campaign Maps. When I joined the team, one of my first pushes was for new cards to enter development. The team achieved bringing back BattleForge into a playable state, but if we wanted it to not face the same fate, we had to keep improving on it, and the easiest way to communicate new stuff is new cards. But new cards only do so much for time spend playing the game; we need people to actually have new content to play. Achievements, rPvE Nature and Fire and the upcoming 9.5 difficulty are good examples of this (and previously mentioned Map Modifiers will also do a ton for replayability) . But the biggest ask from the Community has been New Campaign Maps. We still have this up our sleeve, and I fully expect a lot of those non-active players will return to take a look once we start releasing them. Non-active players need a hook to come back, and I expect this will do the trick.

The Community. Skylords Reborn has an amazing community. Its a bit of a cliché for a Community Manager to say this is the best community to be in, but honestly, the absolute majority of our players are amazing! When things get rough, I sometimes take a look at the kind words our players mention in f.e. the Survey. At the end of the day, everyone is grateful for all the hours we pour into this, and its important to remember this.
Though I will admit, sometimes I wish some players remember a bit more that we do this in our free time as well 😅 There have been a couple of moments where some of our teammembers, myself included, got very demotivated by the way certain players expressed their disagreement. So to everyone reading, if I could ask for a single favor to keep the motivation up for both me and the team; please keep in mind we are all volunteers. We do not get paid, yet we show up day after day, working on the game while we have a lot of things to deal with, both in Skylords Reborn and outside of it. Most of us combine the hours we pour into this game with a job, study, kids, marriage, etc, to the point where we don't even have time to play the game we put so much hours in as much as we would like. We love the game, and want to see it succeed, and for that we absolutely want to hear your feedback, we create this game for our players after all. But be constructive, and be kind. It really goes a long way for our motivation and the health of the project. 
Thank you for being a part of this game. ❤️
 

Making an easier version of rPvE 10 makes a lot of sense! Very cool include!

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Share your feedback, get two boosters!
Our yearly feedback survey has become a tradition by now. Because Skylords Reborn is a community project, we want to know what our players like about Skylords Reborn, and what could be better. We want to keep improving the game and growing our player base, and your feedback is crucial for us! 
As a thank you, there will be two boosters for everyone who fills in the survey. Your feedback will be anonymous.

• Announcing a new rPvE difficulty
As mentioned in previous Community Updates, we are currently hard at work creating more map-based content, like the much anticipated new campaign maps. But we are also aware that one of the most played game-modes in Skylords Reborn is rPvE, specifically difficulty level 9. Today we are excited to announce we are close to complete a new difficulty for rPvE, sitting between difficulty 9 and 10!
We sat down with one of our designers to share some more information about this upcoming new difficulty. Take it away, RadicalX! 
 
What was the motivation to create rPvE 9.5?
Based on game data, we noticed the difficulty spikes from rPvE difficulty 9 to 10 are too big. The change in win rate is even greater than the difference between difficulty 5 and 9, and the majority of games at the highest difficulty just result in a loss.

What makes rPvE 10 so difficult?
Outside significantly strengthened camps and waves throughout the entire game, early layout changes from single to double camp at the T2 row greatly increases difficulty. These camps also include spawn buildings, resummoning dead units and sending out very early waves towards the players. This requires a different strategy compared to lower difficulties. Getting used to these new threats takes some time, but since none of the other difficulties work in the same way, it’s hard to prepare and practice strategies.
 
What are the goals of rPvE 9.5?
The new difficulty is supposed to achieve two things. First, we want to provide players a more enjoyable experience by adding a more linear difficulty scaling in rPvE. Whereas single player rPvE already functions like that to some extent, 4-player rPvE lacks a proper difficulty scaling, currently generating the same amount of games as all other difficulties combined. Second, we want to provide players an environment that allows them to learn and understand how rPvE 10 works on a structural level.
 
What can players expect from rPvE 9.5?
In order to achieve the two previously mentioned goals, rPvE 9.5 is using the same layout as difficulty 10. To smoothen out the early game experience, all fliers are removed from camps in the T2 row. Starting void was increased towards the level of rPvE 9. The T3 area will not feature spawners, reducing the total wave income in the early game. This makes more methodical approaches viable and removes some of the toughest mechanics rPvE 10 has to offer. Camp density in post T4 camps is reduced a little bit, waves will generally be comparable with difficulty 10.
From that point we did further tweaks based on map tester feedback, to address more specific preset dependent issues. Because rPvE 9.5 is a systematic change, certain rPvE layout issues are inherited. That said, the adjusted unit compositions and wave spawn structures should still help with making these very unforgiving maps appear less frequently. Ultimately, this should give players a new challenge beyond difficulty 9 and also give a better indication on what difficulty 10 will look like.
 
Alongside this new difficulty, we will also be changing the naming of the rPvE difficulty scale. 

New Name      Difficulty according to current scale
Standard           (4)
Standard +        (5)
Standard ++     (6)
Advanced          (7)
Advanced +      (8)
Advanced ++    (9)
Expert               (9.5) New!
Expert +            (10)

As you can see, we will be removing rPvE levels 1, 2 and 3. Data shows us these levels don't see play, and their difficulty and rewards are very lackluster. By using this new logic, the difficulty should also be more in line to the campaign difficulty scaling, giving new players more clarity of what they can expect. 
Difficulty rPvE 9.5 will be available for 1, 2 and 4-player scenario's, and contain all factions, meaning our newly added Nature and Fire factions will also appear in the pool of enemies. This new difficulty will go live alongside our next patch, currently planned for a Summer 2023 release. 
We hope players are looking forward to face these new challenges!

 

• Voice Acting – Update
Last month, we started looking for voice actors who could help us to bring upcoming characters to life. We are about to close the application window for the second wave of voice-acting, so be sure to apply this weekend if you are still interested!  
We are looking for a variety of voices (both male and female), and encourage everyone who is interested (and has a decent microphone!) to apply. You are also welcome to apply if you did so in the original application round in 2021! 
To apply, fill in a brief survey to provide us with some information about yourself and select which characters you are interested in. We will be in touch with you for a trial script, and select our favourites from the provided recordings.  
 

 
• Tournaments and Events
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
 • FINISHED - Official Event #9: Who Dares Wins! 
Ultralord will be hosting a stream to showcase the winners of the last official event. Join us on June 3rd at 19:00 CET on his Twitch channel, which you can find here. 
 

• NEW - Crappy Community Contest #11: Meme-fy BattleForge - Until July 3rd
A non-gameplay event where you create GIF-content for our Discord. Meme content, emotions, ingame scenes – everything is welcome. Help unlock a booster code by participating! More information.



• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, @Metagross31, @Minashigo Hiko or @nukie! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Contribute
Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 40 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!
 

 
• In Conclusion
That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: SOON-RPVE-NINE-FIVE
The code is valid until August 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update June 2023

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Patch Overview Video
Our latest patch, Nature's Awakening, has released! We have made a short overview video to celebrate the occasion, highlighting some of the changes we have made to the game. We hope you enjoy it, and be sure to share it with your friends!

If you want to read the full patch notes, you can find them here. 
 
• Patch Feedback Thread
As always, we highly value your feedback on the changes implemented in our latest patch. To facilitate this, we have once again created a dedicated feedback thread where you can express your thoughts about what you liked, disliked, and any other suggestions you may have.
We kindly request that you provide constructive feedback regarding aspects you would like to see improved, while also sharing the elements you enjoyed. Your input is invaluable to us!
 
• Voice Acting – Apply Now! 
Back in October 2021 we initiated the search for voice actors to enhance the game with new voice lines. The new cards Amii Paladin and Banzai Lord were voiced by community members, bringing these characters to life. At that time, we had plans to expand the range of voice lines in the game further. Unfortunately, due to the absence of an audio editor, we faced limitations in what we could achieve, resulting in the regrettable need to even reject fully recorded lines. Consequently, voice-acting was temporarily put on hold.
However, we are delighted to announce that we now have an Audio Editor on our team, and with our current focus on creating new campaign maps, we are once again actively seeking individuals who are interested in contributing their voices to Skylords Reborn!
We are looking for a variety of voices (both male and female), and encourage everyone who is interested (and has a decent microphone!) to apply. You are also welcome to apply if you did so in the original application round in 2021! 
To apply, fill in a brief survey to provide us with some information about yourself and select which characters you are interested in. We will be in touch with you for a trial script, and select our favourites from the provided recordings.  
 

 
Don't miss your chance to make a lasting impact on Skylords Reborn! Apply today and maybe your voice will be heard in the game!
 

 
• Art Spotlight – Bedrock
In our Stonekin Deep Dive, we previously mentioned our plans for a new tier 4 Stonekin unit based on the Moloch model. Today, we are excited to offer you a sneak peek of this unit by unveiling the artwork we have created for it. Additionally, we would like to share some insights into the process our artist, Spirit Alpha, went through to achieve the final result.
 
Sketch and Early Draft
Spirit Alpha initiates his artwork by creating a sketch or draft, outlining the general ideas to establish the artwork's direction. For this particular piece, we aimed to capture the essence of a formidable Stonekin creature emerging from the water.

It is important to consider the card frame when creating artwork. As you can see, while the left piece looks impressive on its own, the head partially falls off when placed within the card frame. This issue becomes even more apparent when displaying the creature type and charges in the game. This is why working with sketches and exploring various compositions is crucial before settling on a final design in Skylords Reborn.

Settling on a Design
Spirit Alpha explored several other options, some of which are highlighted below, while receiving feedback and suggestions from our art critiques along the way.

The design on the right showcased the most potential, and work continued with that version. 

Finalizing the Design
Although we were fond of the design, feedback indicated that the head of the creature should be tilted to the right instead of the left.

Throughout the process, Spirit Alpha also experimented with various designs for the creature's belly, ranging from a nearly fully closed appearance to a more open one.

Colour Scheme
Ultimately, we opted to retain a more closed design, and significant effort was invested in ensuring that the card followed the Stonekin colour scheme, preventing it from potentially resembling a Frost unit.


Final Adjustments
Spirit Alpha submitted his final design, and our lead artist, Tweeto, made some last minor adjustments to produce the final artwork. One of the modifications involved tilting the "volcano" slightly to ensure it remained within the card frame. Can you identify the other changes? 


Here are Tweeto's final adjustments: 
We are extremely pleased with the final outcome of Bedrock and sincerely hope that you can appreciate the dedication and effort that went into its creation. A heartfelt appreciation goes out to Spirit Alpha for his hard work!
 
• Tournaments and Events
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
 
• NEW - Community Run Event: Old School Efficiency
Fancy a challenge? Complete Encounters with Twilight on standard using as little power as you can! Please check in tomorrow for more information.
 
 • COMING UP - Official Event #9: Who Dares Wins! - June 17th until June 25th
Look out for our next official event later this month. Do you have what it takes to aid Rogan?
 

• COMING UP - Crappy Community Contest #11 - June 26th until July 3rd
The next CCC will be a creative contest held on the forum. Look out for the forum post on June 26th!



• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, @Metagross31, @Minashigo Hiko or @nukie! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
 
• Team Changes
We are thrilled to announce that the creators behind the maps used in the previous community event Through Ice and Flames have officially joined our team as Map Designers! With the addition of both Damo and Hrdina Impéria, our team's focus on creating new campaign maps has been further strengthened, and we can't wait to release some exciting content in the future. Welcome both, and thank you for your contribution! 
More than a year after the position was first listed, we have found an Audio Editor in Discoheart! He will be able to help us out with the needed editing for adding new voice lines into the game, both for cards and upcoming campaign maps. We are glad to have him, and excited to continue adding new voice lines into the game. 
 
• Contribute
Interested in joining the team yourself? Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 30 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!
 

 
• In Conclusion
That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a General booster: APPL-YFOR-VOIC-ENOW
The code is valid until July 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update May 2023

Since I have now seen this a few times: Frost Mage was not nerfed. We fixed the knock back bug it has had since game release. This is at minimum a bugfix, at maximum a buff. 

Holy, the amount of things that have been changed is really amazing! I think my favorite changes have been the campaign map changes, and the multiple global buff UI change, which I didn't think would even be possible.
 
Absolutely amazing job, it was really exciting to read it all!