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SunWu

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  1. Metagross31 liked a post in a topic by SunWu in Slow and Slower   
    The main problem is that construct already comes  with a lot of strong abilities - long range, siege and XL-knockback. So other than flying units and bosses nothing can stop it. Every ground unit gets knocked around, buildings get destroyed from far away - the only attribute stopping it from being superior to every other T4 unit is the fact that it's slow. Removing it (even conditionally like battleship) will probably leave it as too strong.
    There are also ways to make it more mobile wich are sometimes used to play constructs in rPVEs:
    - use deepcoilworm (as a mobile tunnel) and burying ritual to teleport the constructs
    - netherwarp (using incredible Mo's yellow ability circumvents port immunity after a port)
  2. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - March 2024   
    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
     
  3. Metagross31 liked a post in a topic by SunWu in Updated: BattleForge PvP Guide - by Hirooo & RadicalX 2.0   
    Tried that and it turns out: bloodhorn is indeed pretty good vs pure frost! That was the cheese i needed, thanks very much!
  4. SunWu liked a post in a topic by RadicalX in Updated: BattleForge PvP Guide - by Hirooo & RadicalX 2.0   
    I agree, that Frost is at an advantage in the matchup against pure Shadow right now. A few considerations for the matchup:
    - Nightguard is still very good against War Eagle. She will neutralize a lot of the pressure a Frost player can throw at you. Assuming you can make good use of Netherwarp to get your hands on some of the unbound eagles, it might open up a direct win condition too. 
    - The main reason I mentioned Nox Carrier is the value that comes from stacking unbound unit counts over time against the low dps of Frost on T3. This is a different playstyle from building a lead through kicking powerwells, which can be tough due to Amii Ritual. In order to execute the strategy you prioritize getting a lot of rippers and keep them alive for some time so you can launch a major attack once void returned to your power pool. There will be a few buffs to some of the cards pure Shadow wants to use on T3 next patch, Nox Carrier is one of them. 
    - A possible move to cheese Frost or hyperscaling players in general is to handshake a lot of bonus wells in the early game (ideally you want 8 or more). This opens up an economy which not only allows a fast T3, but also makes T4 an actually realistic move. Frost does not really get map control, so by contesting the center in the early game you can secure the orb spots for such a strategy. Pure Shadow has quite a few flex slots, so there is space to prepare for this without really sacrificing too much early game strength.
  5. 4esan4o95 liked a post in a topic by SunWu in Updated: BattleForge PvP Guide - by Hirooo & RadicalX 2.0   
    I started playing pure shadow again and am really struggling against pure frost so i reread this guide again. If i win it's by rushing frost's first extra well wich seems like my only realistic chance (if the frost player doesn't get too greedy and i can nightcrawler spam vs his T1). But once the matchup reaches T2 vs T2 i stand no chance, in T3 Satanael gets destroyed by timeless + core dredge (blue). Nox carrier is mentioned, but i don't see how it helps - it can either be frozen and killed before reaching a well or the rippers get easily countered by frost mage or silverwinds. For me this matchup seems really, really bad...you get the rare map control win, but that's only possible on Uro and some random maps, so my question is: are there any niche counter cards or strategic approaches i didn't think of yet?
  6. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - February 2024   
    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
  7. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - January 2024   
    Understandable, let me right that wrong:





     
  8. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - January 2024   
    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
  9. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - December 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!

     
    • 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
  10. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Ultralord in Battle of Tactics #5: Show Me What You Got - PvP Tome Tournament on: 10.12.2023   
    Great greetings, people of the Sky
    Battle of Tactics is trying something new: Time for a Tactical-Tome-Tournament!

    Different to a normal Tome-Tournament?
    1. Public visible boosters
    The content of all Boosters of each player will be visible publicly
    2. Booster Types
    Players have multiple general booster but also Wild-Boosters.
    With these they can open all types of boosters, like a Pure-Fire-Booster to increase the chance of a key fire card for their planed deck.
    3. Boosters per Player
    The number of boosters is linked to their ELO. A higher experienced player has to work with a lower amount then a beginner:
    S-Tier 139k-999k ELO  -->  9 General Boosters + 1 Wild-Booster
    A-Tier 124k-139k ELO  -->10 General Boosters + 2 Wild-Booster
    B-Tier 112k-123k ELO  --> 11 General Boosters + 3 Wild-Booster
    C-Tier 100k-112k ELO  --> 12 General Boosters + 4 Wild-Booster
    D-Tier 000k-100k ELO  --> 13 General Boosters + 5 Wild-Booster

    Managed via Website
    To support this event and future Tome games ,I have made a new website:
    https://tome.t1421.de
    On this website, players can open their boosters and have a public view on all opened ones.
    There is also a filter code which can be added to your "custom_filter_extensions.json" for easier deckbuilding in game.
    I have made a video about the features of the page, as well on how to use it:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMLBZydTQPE

    Rules
    The tournament will be on the testserver, so all players have all cards.
    To start the testserver, use the "LauncherTest.exe" in your BattleForge folder. The match format is Best Of 3 with no looser bracket. There is a group phase with a max of 8 players per group.
    Only the best of each group will go into the final rounds. Disconnection during a game results in a default loss. If both sides agree, it is possible to have a remake. Not showing up to your match after 15 minutes results in a default loss. The plan is to play a round of matches every ~30 mins. After your match, go to Challonge and insert the result. That is done by clicking on your match and selecting the winner/stats.
    The brackets will be updated automatically. The Map Pool is: Haladur, Simai, Elyon, Lajesh, Uro and Yrmia. The map of round one will be Haladur, after that its losers choose.
    Against the second opponent, you start with Simai. third Elyon, etc.
    (I will make notes in Challonge) First deck lock is done by a coin flip. (/roll 1) 
    After that, the winner has to lock in first.
    How to join and schedule
    The event starts on                            10.12.2023 12:00
    You can join till                                  10.12.2023 11:00
    I will stream the event starting at      10.12.2023 11:20 Here is my twitch.tv/ultralord_t1421
    Player can start opening boosters at 10.12.2023 11:30
    You can join the tournament by messaging me directly over
    Discord
    Forum  

    There is a maximum of 32 players for this tournament.
    If we end up with with fewer players, we might reduce the groups or the players per group.
    I will have a discord server of easier communication. You still need to have a Challonge account!
    https://challonge.com/de/xejiknwu

    Prizes
    There are prizes for everyone that joins and participates in the event. (if you don't show up - you won't get anything)
    Group Prizes:
    Group Place 4: If you lose your first set of matches (max 4 players per group) you will receive:
                          1 random rare or ultra rare card
    20.11.2023   + A split of 5.000BFP
    Group Place 3: If you lose your second match (max 2 players per group) you will receive:
                          1 general booster + 1 random rare or ultra rare card
    Group Place 2: If you lose the group final (max 1 players per group) you will receive:
                          2 general booster + Wheel of Gifts
    Group Place 1: If you win the group final (max 1 players per group) your go into the final and receive final Prizes
    Final Prizes:
    Final Place 3: If you lose your first finale round you will receive:
                          4 general boosters + Amii Monument
    Final Place 2: If you won the first match of the final, but lost in the final match you will receive: 
                          6 general boosters + Firedancer
    Final Place 1: If you win the tournament you will receive: 
                          8 general boosters + Promo Lyrish Knight
     
    So in total the prize pool is:
         24x Rare and Ultra Rare cards
           4x Wheel of Gifts
           2x Amii Monument
           1x Firedancer
           1x Promo Lyrish Knight
         38x General boosters

    Thankyou:
    @Maze                                                  For providing the SMJ-API and providing feedback on the webpage
    @RadicalX                                              For giving a lot of input to the rules like ELO-System and Wild-Boosters
    @Metagross31  &  @Minashigo Hiko For input, feedback and finalizing the event
    Anonymous                                               For sponsoring Firedancer, Amii Monuments, Wheel of Gifts and a lot of the Rare and Ultra Rare cards
    @triggz                                                  For helping as Co-Admin on the Tournament day
    SLR-Team                                                   For the 38x General boosters
    @Vysnia                                                 For 5.000 BFP
     

    Closing words:
    You want to host an event or tournament of your own as well? Contact our Event Organizers, they will be happy to support your event:
    @Metagross31 (metagross31), @Minashigo Hiko (minashigohiko)
    I hope you all will have fun playing or watching the new type of Battle of Tactics. See you in the Forge!
    Ultralord

    FAQ:
     
  11. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in 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
  12. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Carofex in Skylords Reborn PvP Rookie Tournament Fall 2023   
    I will add a promo Manawing for each of the first 16 places. Looks like a reasonable number of participants. Let's have a good turnament.
  13. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - August 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!

    • 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
  14. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in 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. ❤️
     
  15. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - July 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!

    • 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
  16. SunWu liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400042 - 19 May 2023   
    Map & NPC Changes

    [ NPC Balance Changes ]
     Lost Reaver:
    1. Reclassify Lost Reaver as a melee-unit instead of a ranged-unit.
    Players are likely familiar with the fact that a Lost Reaver will spawn its Lost Crawlers and then stand off to the side while it and its allies are slaughtered. This has now been fixed. Lost Reaver will use its ability and move towards and engage enemies in melee combat. This should constitute a slight buff to the unit's strength as an enemy.
     Lost Wanderer (shield variant):
    1. Ice Shield duration: Infinite ➜ 20 seconds
    2. Targets: All available targets in a 20m radius ➜ 5 closest units in a 20m radius
    3. New passive effect: The duration of friendly Ice Shields is extended indefinitely within a 20m radius around Lost Wanderer.
    These changes aim to make the unit more fair through changing Lost Wanderer's Ice Shields to only be conditionally permanent and to have an upper limit on the number of allies that can be shielded at a time. This should enable more counter play on the player's end, as a player can now focus on Lost Wanderers to give the Ice Shields the possibility of wearing off.
     Twilight Evil Eye:
    1. Remove passive Pain Link damage reflection ability
    Twilight Evil Eye possessed the same Pain Link ability as the player version of Wrathgazer. Pain Link is only supposed to work on Evil Eye's allies, but there is a common bug with the ability which causes it to frequently enemies as well. This would lead to situations where a player would kill their own units by killing an Evil Eye, an issue which disproportionally affected melee unit compositions due to Pain Link's small radius. While this therefore constitutes a buff to players in niche situations, the removal of Pain Link will also make late game Twilight camps more durable by no longer distributing additional damage to Evil Eye's allies.
     Twilight Leech (Siege of Hope Mini-boss):
    1. Enemies affected by the unit's teleport ability now have a 10-second immunity to further teleports to prevent infinite teleport ping-ponging of units around camps.
     Twilight Minions:
    1. New passive ability: Increase damage of Twilight Minions by +20% for each friendly Twilight Minion nearby.
    While Twilight Minions currently claim they deal more damage based on nearby allies, this is not actually true. We are therefore adding such an ability which scales based only on other nearby friendly Twilight Minions. The current numbers and effect are relatively small as we want to ensure we do not potentially over buff the unit in early campaign scenarios.
     Twilight Willsapper:
    1. Rework Willsapper's auto-cast paralyze substantially.
       A. Every 4 seconds, up to 2 hostile units within a 40m radius will be paralyzed for 11 seconds upon inhaling it. After the effect wears off, targets are immune against Paralyze for a short time.
       B. Recast timer: 4 seconds
       C. Targets: Closest 2 hostile units not currently paralyzed or immune.
       D. Duration: 11 seconds
       E. Range: 40m
       F. Immunity: 5 seconds
    Up to 6 units can now be paralyzed by Willzapper at once, each for 11 seconds. They then have a very short (5 second) immunity period. The effect targets the closest non-paralyzed hostile units because otherwise it would permanently target the 2 closest units and be ineffective. Willsapper should no longer paralyze enemies after its death, and enemies will now have a short window to respond before being re-paralyzed. This is in contrast to the previous implementation, which allowed Willsapper to permanently paralyze up to 5 enemy units at once. We hope these changes will make this iconic enemy building more fair while still providing a substantial challenge when facing the Twilight faction.
     The Red King (Empire Boss):
    1. Now casts an Amok ability periodically, causing enemies to attack each other in a large radius around him.
     Bandit Lord (rPvE Boss):
    1. Change Name: Bandit Lord ➜ Banzai Lord
    2. Add boss immunity
    3. Life points: 7000 ➜ 20000
    4. New ability, "Bird Calling":
       A. Spawns Banzai Birds, identical to U3 player tainted affinity.
       B. Casts every 10 seconds
    5. Add “Flesh Feast” ability from Overlord to description
    It is well known that Bandits are the easiest enemies in rPvE by a good margin. One contributing factor to this is that the Bandit Lord enemy is counted as a boss when generating rPvE matches, despite being no more than a slightly beefier and reskinned Overlord. We have decided to change this mini-boss into a real boss, akin to the player and campaign versions of Banzai Lord. This boss will both regenerate life points based on nearby corpses and spawn powerful Banzai Birds to destroy the armies of players. We hope players enjoy this first step towards making Bandits a more fearsome and interesting faction to fight in rPvE. 
     Lost Crawler (Lost Souls rPvE)
    1. The non-shielding variants of Lost Wanderer have been replaced by Lost Crawlers in the Lost Souls preset in random PvE.
    These are M-sized units that explode on death, which many players have seen before in our Halloween event map Spooky Encounters. This should present a slight increase in the difficulty of early game Lost Souls compared to similar situations prior to the patch. 

    [ Systematic Changes ]
    Spring Forge has been added to the game. Available via an achievement to win several featured community maps. Random PvE factions have had their probabilities redistributed to account for the addition of Nature rPvE [ General Fixes]
    Removed a broken variant of Portal Nexus from the map editor. Battlegrounds: Fixed a typo in the lobby setup screen in English. The Treasure Fleet: Improved localization of the goals to be more consistent: Properly translate "first" to "erste" rather than "nächste" in German. Always lowercase "chariot" in French. Always end goals with a period in Russian. The Guns of Lyr: Fixed a typo in the goal (F) description to find and slay all remaining enemies in English. Slave Master / Mo: Capitalized the gameplay term "Health" for usage in the goal "Mo's Health" for consistency.
    [ Campaign Map Changes ]
     Behind Enemy Lines:
    1. Auto-destroy top left wall if 50% of barrier modules are already destroyed.
    2. Added a Flightblocking / Vision Block to the top left base to prevent the Twilight Dragon from aggroing onto units at the player's T2/T3 location.
    3. Line of Sight improvements along the bottom middle Twilight Disciple path.
    Blight:
    1. Fixed a line of sight issue at the top right starting position, which prevented ranged units from attacking enemies without closing to almost melee range.
    2. Added two new bridges connecting the left and right sections of the map on both the top and the bottom.
    3. Updated minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

     
     Convoy:
    1. Command Walker spawn frequency (delay between the spawns of two Walkers) on expert difficulty: 120 seconds ➜ 180 seconds
    2. Amii Spell Device effects:
       A. "Area Freeze" (Coldsnap):
          - Maximum number of targets: 7 ➜ 12
          - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
       B. "Healing Radiance" (Ray of Light) maximum healing: 3600 ➜ 4400 life points
       C. "Meteor Shower" (Inferno)
          - Scatter radius of meteor impact area: 20 ➜ 15m radius
          - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
    Convoy on expert difficulty has an 18% successful completion rate, the lowest of any campaign map in the game by far. Part of this is the map's seemingly infinite scaling potential, where attack waves progressively get harder and harder, even very late into the game. Part of this is the unique mechanics of the map, which often confuse players. And part of this is that success or failure on this map, when not cheesing it with Rifle Cultists, Voodoo Shack, or Enlightenment, is RNG. A player can do identical actions from one game to the next, with one playthrough succeeding and the next failing. It all depends on how many units the Command Walker gets attacked by on its way north and how many of these units it fails to kill due to poor target selection. In several test runs, we found that the number of units which congregate to attack the Command Walker, while it itself is attacking the Power Shrine, can range from 7 to 13 without any player intervention. Enemy groups at the lower end of the range are beatable using only the map's mechanics, while enemy groups at the upper end of the range more can kill the Walker, which often led to failure even when the players executed perfectly.
    Winning or losing a map due to the target selection of an AI controlled unit is not acceptable. If two players execute well, they should not lose because the map's core mechanic is poorly designed and poorly balanced. To fix this issue, we are increasing the time between Command Walker spawns by 30 seconds. This will increase the total available time for players to prepare by approximately a minute without effecting other portions of the map. We are also strongly buffing the spell effects available to the player when they capture nodes and gather Stonekin spell charges. The Coldsnap effect has had its target count increased to 12, allowing it to freeze all enemies around the Walker in the vast majority of cases, even if the Command Walker has the worst possible target selection. The Ray of Light effect has been buffed by 22%, while the Inferno effect's tightened scatter radius will allow the player to pick off priority targets with increased reliability. Overall, the goal is that a team which has captured and successfully defended 2 nodes, while also having gathered 20 Stonekin charges by the time the 3rd Walker reaches the Power Shrine, should be able to win the Command Walker mini-game with 100% reliability as long as they use the Amii Spell Device somewhat competently. 
     Nightmare Shard:
    1. Replace the Twilight Deathglider spawned at the "Shadow Camp" on expert difficulty with Twilight Mindbenders.
    Most veteran players approach this map by immediately rushing the spawn buildings of the Shadow Camps on both sides with either Nomad + Eruption or Mana Wings. They do this because it prevents the spawn of several camp defenders, the most notable of which is the Twilight Deathglider. Twilight Deathgliders have an AoE knockback of S and M-units. Additionally, the pathway into the Shadow Camp is incredibly narrow, meaning that a single Twilight Deathglider can, and often does, permanently CC an infinite amount of player units on this map. By changing this singular unit, we allow players to play the map in the normal way without facing an enemy that single-handedly counters every non-Fire faction at T1. At the same time, we do nothing to change the map for veterans and speedrunners.
    Nightmare's End:
    1. Decreased the pond size at the starting location on the left side of the map (see minimap image), allowing for enough space to build a second tower defending the southern wall.
    2. Decreased blocking on the right side of the map (see minimap image).
    3. Updated Minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

     Sunbridge:
    1. Fixed several terrain and water visual issues.
    2. Moved the single Power Well on the right side down a bit.
    3. Moved the 3 Power Wells and Monument on the right side down a bit.
    4. Slightly improved blocking to allow better spawning of units at wells near terrain.
    Minor quality of life improvements. The changes to the Wells and Monument on the right side of the map should hopefully prevent the player from aggroing the next camp simply by claiming the Wells and Monument. 
  17. SunWu liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400042 - 19 May 2023   
    Card Balance Changes

    Global Balance Changes
    Random PvE Boss Leader Immunity:
       - Added Steadfast to all rPvE bosses.
    Ranged attack delays re-randomized:
       - Towers and ranged units are now assigned a randomized 0.3-0.7 second delay on a per-attack basis instead of a standardized 0.5 second delay on spawn. This only modifies cards affected by the bug, many ranged units and towers will be unaffected by the change. 
    Last patch, we changed the randomized attack delay assigned on spawn from ranging between 0.1-1.1 seconds to a standardized delay of 0.5 seconds. While this successfully achieved our goal of making each unit and tower a player spawns equal, it introduced other problems. The chief concern reported by the playerbase was an aesthetic one. While previously battles in BattleForge felt very alive, with units and towers on each side attacking continuously, with the standardized delay combat started to feel more turn-based. Your units would attack, their units would attack, then your units would attack again. This also led to easy kiting of enemies, particularly NPC enemies, because you could play around the standard delay to unleash volleys of attacks then retreat until the next volley was ready. Given the widespread and consistent feedback we received that something unique to the BattleForge experience had been lost by this change, we decided to pursue a few alternative solutions that would fix both the old and the new problems. The solution we settled on was to re-add the attack delay with a smaller range and to make it apply on a per-attack instead of a per-spawn basis. This means each affected unit or tower will have a slightly different attack speed for each attack, but will on average have the same attack speed over a long enough period. The chaotic nature of combat should also return, with both sides continuously attacking instead of engaging in a semi turn-based encounter.
    Revenant's Doom Costs Standardization:
       - Standardize Revenant's Doom costs by tier, with an increasing discount as the tiers progress: T2: 75%, T3: 65%, T4: 50% of unit's normal power cost
    NPC Building Power and Orb Cost Fix:
       - All NPC buildings now have an assigned power and orb cost. 
    Similar to how we fixed the missing power and orb costs for NPC units several patches ago, we have now given each NPC building its own power and orb cost. One motivation for this change is to allow us to add new cards and card abilities that can be limited in terms of which buildings they can and cannot be taken over, which would otherwise not be possible. A second motivation is to create consistency between NPC buildings. Prior to this change, buildings added with Fire rPvE had properly assigned costs, which is also true of the new Nature rPvE buildings, while the original buildings did not. This created a major inconsistency between and within game modes in regard to Matter Mastery, making it difficult or impossible to know when to bring one or the other affinity. A third motivation was to create a real distinction between the two existing affinities of Matter Mastery. Previously, before this change, the nature affinity could overtake every building in the game, meaning there was no real reason to use the tainted affinity or for it to exist. At the same time, we do not want to strongly nerf the nature affinity, which we do not view as inherently problematic. As such, as part of this change, we are also changing the nature affinity of Matter Mastery to work on T3 buildings, up to a power cost of 140p. Below, we have listed each building affected by this change and what will be its new tier and power cost.
    Tier 2 - 100p
    Bandit Launcher, Stonekin Hurler, Twilight Infected Tower, Lost Launcher
    Tier 3 - 140p
    Bandit Sky Defender, Bandit Waystation, Bandit Wizard Tower, Stonekin Deepgorge, Stonekin Launcher, Stonekin Shatterer, Twilight Fleshbender, Twilight Hatecaster, Twilight Skyscorcher, Lost Banestone, Lost Converter, Lost Disruptor
    Tier 4 - 200p
    Bandit Artillery, Stonekin Hammerfall, Stonekin Shredder, Twilight Bombard, Twilight Willsapper
    XL-unit Turn Speed Increase:
       - Increased the turn speed of all player XL-units based on category.
    Ground XL: 25% faster turn speed
    Flying XL: 40% faster turn speed
    Worm XL: 200% faster turn speed
    Global Disenchant Hostile versus Friendly Root Distinction:
       - Disenchant's immunity no longer prevents the application of the Immobile, Immobileroot is still prevented.
    BattleForge has two types of root effects, one called Immobile and the other Immobileroot. The distinction between them is that Immobile is only applied by friendly effects, while Immobileroot is applied by hostile effects. This change makes it so that a friendly effect which causes a unit to be rooted in place is no longer prevented by Disenchant's immunity effect. The primary reason behind this change is that effects which self-root a unit or its allies are baked into the balancing considerations of a card and its effects. The ability to bypass this downside, which has become easier as we have added, and likely will continue to add, more ways to apply Disenchant, has therefore become a constant balance consideration for both upcoming and existing cards. We are forced to ask ourselves if we can really buff Forest's Vim if we have to account for a Razorleaf that can walk around at normal speed, attacking the entire time. As we work on campaign maps with longer T4 sequences, we have to consider that a player can summon a Dreadnought and have it permanently stay in its Pledge of the Giants mode while walking around, trivializing vast portions of the map with ease. In such cases, do we nerf the Dreadnought and the Razorleaf, or do we nerf the mechanic which is causing the issue? Our decision was to nerf the Disenchant interaction.
    Squad Position Fix:
       - Game now checks and updates the Squad position to the unit position if they are too far away from each other.
    Any unit has two positions. A squad position and a unit position, which is equal to what we see on screen. This position tends to be close or equal to the units position itself but seems to behave slightly different for some actions. For example,. a Magma Hurler will shift his squad position slightly behind himself when attacking. This is not problematic. But some actions lead to only the unit position being updated while the squad position remained stationary. Prime candidates for this are hold position orders or rooting effects. The squad position can remain at the initial spot while the unit including its unit position can move to attack. Squad position is used by many abilities and spells to check if they should apply to the corresponding unit. Meaning, a unit with a squad position far away from its unit position would no longer be hit by things like CC or AoE attacks targeting the unit position. The fix going live now checks and updates the Squad position to the unit position if they are too far away from each other. Worms are not included here due to issues with worm movement.

    PvE Balance Changes
    While changes are split here between PvE and PvP sections, many of the changes have important consequences for both game modes. Our PvE and PvP balance teams work closely together to ensure that the impact of all changes are evaluated for both game modes. Below, we have listed both the changes and our reasoning behind them. 
    [ Tier 1 ]
     Banner of Glory:
    1. Life points: 500 ➜ 300
    2. Void return percentage: 33% ➜ 40%
    Higher percentage void return will allow more efficient cycling of lower tier units into real power. The life points were lowered to avoid situations in PvP where it becomes too strong, such as offensively inside an Aura of Corruption.
     Decomposer:
    1. Void return percentage: 50% ➜ 60%
     Frost Mage:
    1. Remove knock back from damage cone
    2. Add non-damaging cone with reduced range, that applies knock back. A 33m knock back cone should result in Frost Mage consistently applying damage to squads she attacks, fixing the issue where units are knocked outside of her damage range, but she continues to attack them anyway.
     Imperials:
    1. Add passive, "Protected Rush:" While under the effect of an Ice Shield, the unit gains significantly increased movement speed.
       A. Only works while Defensive Stance is active
       B. Movement speed while shielded = 4.8 m/s
    Improve Frost Sorceress and Ice Shield Tower synergy with Imperials. 
     Scorched Earth (p):
    1. Tainted Deconstruction (p):
       A. Damage debuff: 50% ➜ 75%
       B. Remove “The erection of buildings that are presently under construction will be interrupted and it will not be possible to repair anything.” from functionally and description.
    The increase of Scorched Earth(p)'s debuff allows it to become a semi-suppression of buildings in a large area (20m) and to protect your fragile Fire units in PvE. We removed the construction-suppression effect to reduce double-scorched usage in PvP, which also gives each affinity a role in either PvE or PvP. 
     Snapjaws:
    1. Remove Splash Damage: 5 damage, up to 9 in total ➜ 7 damage
    Snapjaws have an abysmal splash radius of only 3m. This is so small it effectively does not exist and only serves to reduce the unit's damage against squad units. We are removing the splash and changing the unit's damage to single-target. This increases the unit's single-target damage from 138 to 193 dp20, a +40% increase in total effective damage. This will change the damage of Satanael's Snapjaws from 414 dp20 to 579 dp20.
     Tunnel:
    1. Power cost: 40p ➜ 35p
    2. Life points: 880 ➜ 600
    Encourage Tunnel play by slightly lowering cost. HP reduction to prevent issues with an overly health efficient Tunnel.
     Witchclaws:
    1. Power cost: 65 ➜ 70
    2. Damage: 630 ➜ 680
    3. Add passive, "Corpse Gathering:" Harvests energy from nearby corpses equal to their former maximum life points to enable more powerful explosions. A maximum of 3000 life points can be stored at once.
    4. Infiltration Rework:
       A. Damage (both affinities): 330, up to 1650 in total damage + up to 600 damage per target, up to 5 targets in total based on the number of corpses gathered
       B. Enable splash overflow fix for ability.
       C. Both affinities now damage units and buildings.
       D. Explosion radius: 20m ➜ 15m
       E. Fire affinity: Additionally, when 3000 corpses have been gathered, Witchclaws deal 50% more damage after teleporting.
       F. Shadow affinity ➜ Frost Affinity: Additionally, when 3000 corpses have been gathered, Witchclaws take 50% less damage after teleporting.
    [ Tier 2 ]
     Breeding Grounds:
    1. Power cost: 70p ➜ 90p
    Breeding Grounds is one of the stronger cards in the game and has some of the best scaling of any T2 card or building. At only 1 Nature orb and available as easy as T2, it grants a permanent -25% discount to all own and allied units. While the card is something of a third rail due to its popularity, now that we have significantly buffed nearly all parts of Nature, we believe it is time to give the card a minor nerf. When considering what to do with the card, we considered several options, such as making the discount scale upwards or downwards with tier (i.e. 15% discount if player is T2, 20% if T3, etc.) or just nerfing the -25% discount outright. In the end, we settled on a slap-on-the-wrist nerf, at least initially. The increased bound power will delay players initially in T2, but only cost them 2 extra permanent power if they destroy the building. At the same time, the increased bound power cost should encourage players to actually destroy Breeding Grounds made obsolete by map progression, and it will provide a much needed nerf in the PvP game mode as well. 
     Burrow Ritual:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Nature (T1)
    Reducing the card's tier should allow more synergy with Tunnel, allowing for more strategies to emerge and helping to better justify Burrow Ritual's inclusion in a deck.
     Defenders:
    1. Crossbow Attack damage: 9 per shot (540 dp20) → 10 per shot (600 dp20)
    2. Life points: 810 → 750
    Stat realignment to make Defenders more viable offensively and a more attractive option. Life points are worth less than damage when considering stat efficiency, particularly amongst ranged units in PvE.
     Earthkeeper:
    1. Fixed a bug which allowed Earthkeeper to make connected units immune to all damage while also not affecting Earthkeeper. 
     Lost Priest:
    1. Exhaustion:
       A. Cast range: 30➜ 40m
       B. Total targets: 5 ➜ 10
       C. Debuff Timer: 20 sec ➜ 30s
       D. Jump speed increase
       E. Debuff strength: 30% ➜ 40%
    Improvements to Lost Priest's support capacity will help its viability in PvE, particularly in combination with other units such as Lost Shade and Lost Dancer. 
     Matter Mastery (g):
    1. Gifted Takeover (g): maximum of 2 orbs and 100 power costs ➜ maximum of 3 orbs and 140 power costs
    See Global Balance Changes above for more details. We are also considering more substantial changes to the tainted affinity in a future update. 
     Revenant's Blessing:
    1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
    2. Radius: 20m ➜ 25m
    3. Gifted Immortal healing: 15 ➜ 30 life points per second
    4. Infused Immortal damage: 25% ➜ 30% more damage
    5. Bugfix: Allow overlapping Revenant's Blessings to reapply the effect without requiring the unit to exit and re-enter the area.
    We are working towards improving the current use case of Revenant's Doom through direct buffs to it and through improving its support tools. With this change, Lost Shades are usable without needing Viridya and the spell scales better into the higher tiers for those you want to use revenants. More support to the faction and to revenants in particular will come in the next patch when we finish the rest of the upcoming Lost Souls rework. 
     Root Nexus:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Nature (T1)
    2. Life points: 850 ➜ 650
    Moving Root Nexus to T1 gives Treespirit a much-needed support card. Life points reduced to prevent too health efficient blocking options in T1. 
     Spikeroot:
    1. Waves per root attack: 2.5 spike waves ➜ 2 spike waves
    2. Damage per wave: 100, up to 150 in total ➜ 125, up to 190 in total (+25% increase)
    Overall damage remains identical. Spikeroot now always deals the same damage at each point in its attack, instead of having high and low points. 
     Sunken Temple:
    1. Added Mode-change, "Hibernate:" Pest Creepers enter a state of dormancy and are no longer summoned.
    2. Pest Creepers now aggro against enemies in an area around the Temple.
    The new mode change will allow the player to temporarily turn off Pest Creepers. This will be especially helpful when using a large number of Sunken Temples, which quickly fill up the unit population limit, and you want to summon new non-Creeper units. The other change will make it so that Pest Creepers no longer stand around waiting for enemies to either attack them or move within a short distance. They will now actively aggro on enemies that come within a moderate radius around the Temple which spawned them. Overall, these changes should make the card function much more fluidly. 
     Unholy Power:
    1. Stored Strength (ammo): 2000 ➜ 3000
    2. Ammo is refreshed whenever Unholy Power is recast on a unit already affected by another instance of Unholy Power.
    3. Bugfix: Unholy Power no longer decays all remaining ammo when a previous instance of the spell expires. 
    Unholy Power is a highly inconsistent spell, and a lot of that regards bugs in its original implementation. By fixing the decay issue, new applications of Unholy Power existing concurrently with previous applications should no longer be removed by older instances expiring. Additionally, new applications, in addition to continuing to stack additively, now refresh the card's ammo pool back to full. On top of these important changes to the card's functioning, we also increased its total strength pool by 50% from 2000 to 3000 which should help it to scale better into T3. With all these changes, Unholy Power should become a significantly stronger and more consistent buff spell.  
     Viridya (normal and promo versions):
    1. Viridya’s Blessing is now able to restore lost squad members
     Wallbreaker:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Fire (T1)
    Opens up several early use cases for the card on Titans, Dwarven Riddle, and Sunbridge. 
    [ Tier 3 ]
     Abyssal Warder:
    1. New Active ability for large and medium-sized golems, "Reassemble:" Bond with two other Abyssal Warders of the same size in a 20m radius to reform into an Abyssal Warder of a larger size.
    2. Frost affinity effect, Ice Shield duration: 15s ➜ 30 seconds
    There is a large disparity between the usefulness of the two Abyssal Warder affinities in terms of effects. The fire affinity (r) provides a permanent buff, while the blessed affinity (b) only grants an Ice Shield for 15 seconds. In an attempt to partially remedy this issue, we have doubled the length of the smaller Warders' Ice Shields to 30 seconds. Additionally, we have finally been able to add a new effect to the small and medium sized Warders which will allow them to rebuild themselves into a larger Warder. Reassemble requires 3 Warders to work, meaning that it is not inherently efficient, though it provides another strong synergy with Promise of Life and builds on the buffs to Abyssal Warder last patch. 
     Blood Healing:
    1. Charges 12 ➜ 16
     Thornbark:
    1. Melee damage: 1400 dp20 ➜ 1550 dp20
     Mutating Frenzy:
    1. Sacrifice cooldown: 15 sec ➜ 5 sec
     Santa Claus:
    1. Blue Gift, Red Gift, Christmas Peace cooldown: 60 seconds ➜ 40 seconds
     Satanael:
    1. Fealty (both affinities):
       A. Cannot be activated if the player is at or above 125 population. 
       B. Summoned Snapjaws damage: 200% ➜ 120%
    Removing all instances of infinite spawning in the game due to the attendant performance issues they cause. Buffing Snapjaws individually as compensation. Overall, the damage of each summoned Snapjaws squad is increased slightly. 
     Shrine of Martyrs:
    1. Void return per frozen unit: 12% ➜ 18% of current void pool
    2. Bugfix: Void return effect is no longer triggered multiple times per entity.
    Regular users of Shrine of Martyrs know that the void return effect is often inconsistent. The same group of enemies could provide wildly different void return rates when frozen due to the fact that the effect would switch between applying once or multiple times per enemy. We fixed this inconsistency, but it left the shrine, which is likely already the weakest of the four standard options, even weaker. As such, we have given it a large +50% buff to its void return percentage in compensation for removing the existing bug. This change will allow players to develop an intuitive understanding of how much void is actually returned per frozen enemies. The percentage we chose is a bit of a guess and is subject to change based on the feedback we receive from player testing.  
     Shrine of War:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 2 Neutral (T3) ➜ 2 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3)
    When we first began nerfing cards, many people asked us when we were planning on touching Shrine of War. We previously delayed any changes to the card due to its importance to the rPvE game mode at all levels and because other factions, such as Frost and Nature, lacked sufficient methods of void return, an aspect we think is integral to the balance of all factions. Now that all factions have a viable method of void return, we have decided to give Shrine of War a nerf. We were between the two ideas of nerfing its void return percentage or increasing its orb restrictions. While Shrine of War has by far the most efficient void return when accounting for multiple players out of all the available options, we decided that we did not think its efficiency was outside the line of acceptability, but that the Shrine was too splashable compared to the other options. As such, we choose to leave Shrine of War as the best void return shrine in the game, but to require the player to invest into 2 Fire orbs to access it. 
    [ Tier 4 ]
     Altar of Chaos:
    1. Change Nether Bomb cast range to work like spells instead of like units & buildings. Still limited to own ground presence only.
    This seemingly small change substantially increases the positioning capacities of the Nether Bomb and allows own units to be much farther away when placing bombs. 
     Battleship:
    1. Barrage damage per shot: 550, up to 3300 in total ➜ 800, up to 2400 in total
    Battleship's ability has a long range of 50m and can be used to snipe out enemies far into the enemy's backline while remaining safe itself. The ability has a very large amount of splash damage, able to fully damage up to 6 enemies in its target radius. At the same time, the target radius is only 12m making it very unlikely there are 6 enemies to damage. Additionally, despite its long animation and unleashing 5 shots, the single-target damage is not even able to destroy a large spawn building. We are reducing the total splash damage in favor of higher single-target damage, increasing the damage dealt to one target from 2750 to 4000 in total. 
     Cluster Explosion (p):
    1. Tainted Burst radii per successive explosion: 25m / 20m / 15m / 10m / 5m ➜ 25m / 20m / 15m / 12m / 10m
    Increased the radius of the explosion for the 3rd and 4th waves of Cluster Explosion (p). These radii were so small, they often failed to hit any enemies. By increasing them, we hope to give a slight buff to this affinity in ideal situations with a lot of closely clustered enemies. 
     Earthen Gift:
    Earthen Gift Redesign
    1. Charges: 4 ➜ 8
    2. Infused Earth (r) ➜ Blessed Earth (b):
       A. Damage buff: 30% ➜ 50%
    3. Tainted Earth (p) ➜ Gifted Earth (g):
       A. Affects Elemental units, not structures
       B. Remove "Every hostile building in the current game will deal 50% less damage."
       C. Damage buff: +50% more damage
       D. Healing per second: 10% ➜ 5%
    Earthen Gift is one of the worst cards in the entire game. Before Reforging, its normal price was 3 BFP despite being a Rare spell. As Stonekin's Pure T4 spell, it ought to be one of the reasons why a player goes 2 Nature and 2 Frost orbs, but right now it is a waste of a card slot. The card's existing identity is as a combined buff and healing card, but it is restricted to only work on structures. Even on structures it is not useful.
    Instead of completely rejecting the card's initial design, we are attempting to improve on it for the one affinity by increasing the damage buff where it may prove useful upon the release of defensive rPvE. For the other affinity, we are swapping its effect from structures to elemental units, which includes all Stonekin units, and modifying its heal and damage buff accordingly. The idea is to potentially allow the spell to replace Regrowth while also giving Stonekin access to a minor damage buff for itself and any other friendly elemental units. Between this and the Grinder buff, Stonekin's T4 should feel significantly stronger.
     Evil Eye:
    1. Damage now ticks every 0.5 seconds instead of every 1 second. Rage still takes the same amount of time to activate.
    2. Initial damage delay for Evil Eye's Searing Sight has been removed. Damage will now starts as soon as Evil Eye targets an enemy.
     Grinder:
    1. Harmony: Added a yellow bar akin to Mountaineer showing when the healing effect will next occur.
    2. Provoke (both affinities): Single target ➜ All enemies in a 15m radius
       A. Infused Provoke Buff: 50% more damage ➜ 75% more damage
    Quality of life change to Grinder's harmony ability. Added some increased strength and flexibility to Grinder's taunt by allowing it to affect multiple targets in a small area. This will also allow Grinder (r) to taunt the empty air versus bosses, allowing it to still generate the personal damage buff, which has been increased to +75%, regards of whether or not any enemy units are actually taunted. Stonekin struggles against strong single target enemies such as bosses and this is one step in an attempt to remedy that without damaging the faction's existing identity.
     Lost Evocation:
    1. Charges: 4 ➜ 8
    2. Cast time reduction: 2 seconds ➜ 0.8 seconds
    3. Infused Revenant damage buff: 50% ➜ 100%
    The charge increase allows Lost Souls to get access to its primary support spell without having to use two deck slots on Rifle Cultists + Offering. The cast time reduction prevents the use of both Evocations simultaneously, while the buff to the fire affinity (r)'s damage buff makes it a more compelling option for a faction whose main damage dealing occurs through units.
     Shadow Worm:
    1. Increase turn rate of disintegration turrets: 200 ➜ 260
     Tempest:
    1. Whirlwind splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Twilight Pestilence:
    1. Damage: 44 ➜ 64 life points per second
    2. Healing (both affinities): Both affinities now heal friendly Twilight units by equivalent damage as they deal to enemies.
    3. Change Gifted Affinity (g) ➜ Infused Affinity (r)
       A. Add +30% damage buff for friendly Twilight units
    Improvements in nearly all aspects of Twilight's marquee spell. Previously, the blessed affinity (b) was the only one worth using due to the damage reduction it provides. We decided to roll the healing effect of the gifted affinity (g) into the base spell and create an alternative damage buff variant instead. The goal with this change is to allow Twilight Pestilence to be a more flexible spell, one able to provide a supportive effect while also clearing minor enemies and recovering chip damage to player units that might otherwise prompt the player to cast an additional healing spell. 
     Void Maw:
    1. Void Shear ability cost: 75p ➜ 60p
    [ Tower Changes ]
    It is the general principle of the faction design team not to change abilities or introduce complex mechanics needlessly. Cards should generally perform a single function and perform that function well. A lot of the buildings in the game are already well-designed, but lack sufficient stats or possess too strict of requirements. As such, we have opted wherever possible to introduce simple changes to bring towers up to the appropriate power level. If you would like to learn more about our thought process behind the tower changes, please head to Skylords Reborn Documents to read our design Deep Dive on Towers, as well as other design documents. 
    Tower Targeting Fixes:
    1. Changed the damage delay of the auto-attacks for a large range of towers to the standard delay of 0.1 sec. These towers should now have an easier time hitting moving targets, including swift units. 
       A. Affects the following towers, including both affinities when applicable: Artillery, Hammerfall, Defense Tower, Lifestealer, Northern Keep, Primal Defender, Twilight Bombard, Tower of Flames
     Blaster Cannon:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    2. Tainted Magma: 15m ➜ 20m
     Defense Tower:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Howling Shrine:
    1. Essence Bolts firing arc: 90 degrees ➜ 135 degrees
    2. New passive, “Restoration:” Regenerate 30 life points every second.
    To truly fulfill its role as a fortress and to provide a meaningful choice between itself and Razorleaf, Howling Shrine must be a self-sufficient defender able to justify the massive amount of space it occupies. The restoration effect will allow the tower to persist even absent player attention or when facing continuous attack waves that prevent repair. The increase to the firing arc of its main weapon is a much needed change. Prior to this, Howling Shrine could only target most enemies with one turret at a time and XL units with two turrets only if the tower was positioned perfectly with respect to the XL unit's path. The tower should now be able to target units of all sizes with two turrets in most cases. 
     Lifestealer:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    2. Still alive regeneration: 5 life points per second ➜ 8 life points per second
    3. Sacrifice cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 3 seconds
     Lost Disruptor:
    1. Damage: 300, up to 330 in total ➜ 300, up to 450 in total (3000 dp20)
    2. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 10m
    3. Disruption cost: 50p ➜ 20p
    Increase Lost Disruptor's effectiveness against multiple enemies. Also, Lost Disruptor's ability is one of the better counters to Shrine of Memory in 2v2 PvP. By decreasing the cost, we better enable players to make use of the card simply for its ability effect.
     Northern Keep:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Primal Defender:
    1. Earthstrike splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    2. Cloudstrike:
       A. Damage (add splash): 225 ➜ 250, up to 375 in total (2030 dp20)
       B. Splash radius: 0m ➜ 8m
    Buff to Primal Defender's anti-air capacity. This leaves it as a middle ground between a non-raged and a fully raged Blaster Cannon, and should hopefully allow the tower to better aid Nature T1 in dealing with anti-air threats, particularly those which can counter small and medium units.
     Rocket Tower
    1. Orb cost: 2 Fire ➜ 1 Fire, 1 Neutral
    2. Power cost: 80p ➜ 70p
    3. Life points: 2000 ➜ 1480
    4. Rocket Barrage:
       A. Total rockets: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 ➜ 4 on all upgrade levels
       B. Attack speed: Every 5 seconds ➜ every 4 seconds
       C. Damage per rocket: 85 ➜ 90 (900 dp20)
    Fire T2 currently lacks a splash tower, while Pure Fire T2 has 2 towers. We think Pyromaniac sufficiently fills the slot of T2 tower for Pure Fire, so we are transitioning Rocket Tower into a splash card. As part of this change, we will be cutting down on its large pool of life points while otherwise increasing the consistency of Rocket Tower, both in terms of knockback and damage dealing. Even with the cost decrease, this change will make Rocket Tower mildly less stat efficient against large groups in exchange for a lower start up cost and the ability to consistently knockback multiple enemies due to the fixed targeting and increased rate of fire. These changes should allow Rocket Tower to fulfill its role as a knockback-centric tower while its high damage allies provide the necessary fire power. 
     Skydefender:
    1. Damage: 128 up to 192 in total ➜ 153 up to 230 (2300 dp20)
    2. Life points: 1400 ➜ 1600
    3. Range: 40m ➜ 50m
    4. Splash Radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    Substantial buff to Skydefender to give it more teeth against the T3 and T4 air threats it is designed to counter. The range increase will make it able to fight back against Raven Battleships, which are one of the most common flying enemies in the campaign. 
     Time Vortex (p):
    1. Tainted Void Shock (p), attack speed increase void levels: Above 150, 300, 600, 1200 void ➜ Above 100, 200, 400, 800 void
    Improve the efficiency of the tainted affinity (p) by decreasing the amount of void which is required to trigger each attack speed increase.  
     Volcano:
    1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 200p
    2. Damage: 581, up to 872 (3990 dp20) ➜ 766, up to 1149 (5270 dp20)
    3. Life points: 4390 ➜ 5690
    4. Infused Eruption (r) Rage:
       A. Rage scaling: 100% 1st stage, 200% 2nd stage ➜ 75% 1st stage, 150% 2nd stage
       B. Rage reset timer: 7 sec ➜ 10 seconds
    5. Lava Sea:
       A. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
       B. Bugfix - Lava Sea now works as described
       C. Added a new visual effect
    The goal is to make Volcano more "dense" by increasing its power cost and then adjusting its stats accordingly. Making each Volcano more powerful helps to mitigate the tower's large size and also makes it a better target for building buff effects such as those provided by Frost's Skyelves. Total damage when enraged is slightly increased despite the Rage nerf (12,000 dp20 ➜ 13175 dp20). Overall, Volcano loses a very small amount of total stat efficiency, but gains in total strength by having an ability that actually works. The old Lava Sea provided zero value to the tower because it did not work. The new Lava Sea, which functions as described on the card, turns this Fire fortress into a terrifying strongpoint capable of wiping out hordes of enemy units.  

    PvP Balance Changes
    [ Tier 1 ]
     Life Weaving:
    1. No longer affects buildings.
    Life Weaving changes are made to weaken its scaling potential into higher tiers considering most shadow splashes tend to be fairly strong at later game stages anyway. Buffed single unit attacks with straight well focus are very easy to execute and fairly annoying to play against when any damage on the target also increases the damage against your Power Well.
     Sunstriders:
    1. Suppression Fire ability cost: 25p ➜ 10p
    In PvP, Suppression Fire's most relevant applications arise on higher tech levels, where a 50 energy investment for a fragile T1 unit is already enough of a restriction. As a result, there is room to buff the ability power cost for those niche cases.
    [ Tier 2 ]
     Bandit Launcher:
    1. Power cost: 60p ➜ 50p
    2. Firebug ability cost: 40/35/30/25p ➜ 40p on all upgrade levels
    The addition of a weaker building with reduced construction time led to some rather unique T2 strategies, but the high bound power requirements restrict its relevance. This change should open up some more room for creative usage of Bandit Launcher and the Fire Bug ability.
     Bandit Minefield:
    1. Mine spawn speed reduced by 0.25 seconds per mine. 
    Bandit Minefield has been a fairly controversial topic. The spell was very powerful and played an important role in every game mode. Based on play rates and general feedback, our PvP faction overhaul succeeded in making Bandits more viable and fun to play, but there was a lot of frustration when playing against the faction due to an overly dominant Minefield. After recent tweaks, play rates have dropped by about 20% and Bandits seems to be in a very healthy position based on global faction popularity and high ELO presence ever since. However, the experience of playing against Minefield continued to be perceived as frustrating by many of our players. The intended goal of this set of changes is to keep the faction at a similar level of strength, but distribute its power more evenly across Bandit T2 cards and strategies.
    Mine spawn speed will be reduced to enable counter play without removing its zoning power and damage potential upon being ignored. The design direction of allowing placement under units is absolutely intended, crucial for the faction viability, and differentiates the card from basic trap card design. Due to a lack of crowd control and building protection, Bandits needs a tool to defend vs melee unit well focus consistently. A major issue in PvP is that outside of its intended design direction (melee unit zoning and S unit denial), Minefield generates too much trading value as its damage is almost guaranteed. The spell tends to trade up against anything except for swift unit micro. This should be addressed.
    In return, we will buff Commandos, Sniper, and Bandit Launcher in compensation. As Warriors Death came up to the discussion for compensations: The card design is not healthy for PvP due to a lack of counterplay, as such we will just leave the card as is since its mechanic is also powerful in end game PvE content.
     Bandit Sniper:
    1. Damage: 75 dmg per hit (750 dp20) ➜ 78 dmg per hit (780 dp20)
    Slight damage increase to compensate for Bandit Minefield nerfs.
     Commandos:
    1. Power cost: 75p ➜ 65p
    2. Concentrate ability cost: 10p ➜ 20p
    After some testing, we think it is safe to make Commandos a little stronger, as long as the upfront cost of mode-switching remains the same. This should be beneficial for the card in all game modes.
     Gravity Surge:
    1. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
    Allow Gravity Surge to be more functional as a niche counter for air unit heavy strategies.
     Lyrish Knight:
    1. Damage: 400 dp20 ➜ 800 dp20
    2. Life points: 980 ➜ 900
    3. Surge of Strength:
       A. No longer increases damage by 100%
       B. Now increases damage dealt to frozen targets by 50%
    While we had the intentions to give Lyrish Knight a more meaningful role in the game, finding a healthy buff for the card just by tweaking the stats has not proven easy. The extraordinarily high health ratio makes the unit very powerful when combined with health scaling mechanics like Nasty Surprise. Furthermore, the card is easily spammable and can take over games. As a result, we will allow the card to interact more with Frost's spell arsenal rather than just adding value through raw stats.
     Mauler:
    1. Power cost: 75p ➜ 70p
    After Mountaineer fell out of the meta, Mauler lost its main purpose in PvP. A slight cost reduction should help him shine more in niche situations.
     Mountain Rowdy:
    1. Tainted Ice Block damage (p): 25 dmg/sec ➜ 20 dmg/sec
    2. Blessed Ice Block (b):
       A. Damage reduction: 25% ➜ 30%
       B. Now affects friendly air units.
    With the previous changes, Mountain Rowdy (p) played a strong role in pure Frost due to its high damage potential, which made it a little too effortless to shut down T2 aggression. While Frost should be strong at deflecting attacks around own structures, we want to give players a fair chance to punish the faction when a player acquires a strong tempo lead. Mountain Rowdy (b), on the other hand, has been rather underwhelming, so we will buff the damage reduction percentage a bit.
     Shadow Mage:
    1. Sacrifice range: 30m ➜ 40m
    2. Foul Play:
       A. Damage percentage: 300% ➜ 400%
       B. Duration until explosion: 20 seconds ➜ 12 seconds
       C. Cast range: 30m ➜ 40m
       D. Now deals half damage to buildings
    Despite her great stat efficiency, Shadow Mage's abilities have been rather underwhelming in relation to what the card is supposed to do with them. By adding a burst limit against structures, we open up a lot of room for Foul Play buffs in order to make this ability more rewarding in unit combat.
     Spirit Hunter (p):
    1. Tainted Bow Attack poison damage: 20 dmg per second ➜ 25 dmg per second
    The current damage loss compared to the green affinity does not get compensated by the additional piercing damage. This change should grant Spirit Hunters purple some better niche uses.
     Stone Shards (b):
    1. Blessed Fury ➜ Shatter Ice
       A. No longer deals increased damage to demons and undead
       B. Now deals full damage to frozen targets
    Stone Shards (b) are currently unused across all game modes. The affinity effect being effectively useless plays a big role here. This change is supposed to enable alternative strategies in Stonekin (Shards (b) + Spirit Hunters (p) + Coldsnap) without overbuffing the already powerful T2.
     Stone Tempest:
    1. Stone Rest healing: 20 life points per second ➜ 40 life points per second
    This change is supposed to give the self-heal ability a more meaningful role given that the self-cc almost always outweighs the benefits of using this mechanic. As many of the factions received more tools to counter the unit (i.e. Burning Spears release), we think it is safe to enable more ways to use the card without directly strengthening patterns that have been perceived as oppressive in the past.
     Twilight Curse:
    1. Cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 2 seconds
    Allow Twilight Curse to scale into high energy T2s without increasing card efficiency.
     Warlock (r):
    1. Infused Witchcraft damage buff: 15% ➜ 25%
    We agree that the previous buff reduction was unnecessary when we reduced unit power cost. This has now been reverted.
    [ Tier 3 ]
     Drones:
    1. Life points: 1760 ➜ 1840
    The recent changes for Drones did not help the card as much as we had hoped. Stat efficiency will be increased a bit further.
     Nox Carrier:
    1. New passive, "Push the Cart:" Increase movement speed to 6.4 m/s when at least 3 friendly units are within a 25m radius
    Based on some previous suggestions by the community in the balancing discord, we will add a conditional movement speed increase to Nox Carrier in order to make sure it actually reaches its destination.
     Sandstorm:
    1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
     Shield Building:
    1. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
    Shield building has been very powerful for a long time, and a card nerf has been requested by the community rather frequently. We agree. 100% uptime on a shield, strong enough to outlast XL unit focus, is too much value even if you invest a full deck slot for a purely defensive spell.
     Timeshifter Spirit
    1. Healing per jump: 275 / 220 / 165 / 110 / 55 life points ➜ 300 / 240 / 180 / 120 / 60
     Tremor:
    1. Ground Slam:
       A. Ability cost: 30p ➜ 40p
       B. Cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 20 seconds
    2. Tremor's walk speed (2.4 m/s) is now half of its normal speed (4.8m/s), instead of being identical. 
    Tremor is one of the most popular and most powerful siege units in T3. We will be making some minor changes to the ability in order to bring it more in line with other T3 options.
     Unstable Demon
    1. Demonic Rage:
       A. Bonus movement speed: 25% ➜ 60%
       B. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
    After the initial round of changes, Unstable Demon is not being used as much as we had hoped. As the card is very difficult to use, we will strengthen it to reward good unit management a little bit more.
  18. SunWu liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400042 - 19 May 2023   
    Patch #400042 - Nature's Awakening
    Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our eighth balance patch for the game, a brand-new card, all kinds of quality of life features, and many other changes, enjoy!

    Patch Preview
    - One new card is now available! Jump in-game to collect Sleet Storm.
    - Nature becomes the next faction to join the party in random PvE. 
    - The first half of our two-part gold rework for PvE game modes and card upgrade costs.
    - The Community Map menu has been completely reworked to increase usability. Also, gold rewards and a new achievement have been added for community maps. 
    - Our third balance pass on towers, numerous buffs to well-designed but underperforming cards, and some of our first changes to NPC enemies.
    - New quality of life features including a single-player pause feature, key down versus key up interactions, the ability to copy text from the in-game chat, the ability to immediately import a deck when a valid code is pasted in chat, and many more!

    General Changes
    The Community Map section has been completely revamped. Players can now better filter between maps, rank maps themselves, search for high-rated maps from other players, and receive overtime gold rewards while playing both featured and non-featured community maps. Cards played in featured community maps now also count towards daily quest rewards, and a new achievement to play and beat featured community maps will reward players with the Spring Forge skin. This rework will open up a lot of new content with which players can engage, and hopefully encourage more community members to bless their fellow Skylords with their map making talents. For more information, check out the February 2023 Community Update. Players can now pause PvE matches when they are the only active player in the game, including situations where multiple players were previously active in the match but have since left. The game automatically pauses whenever you open the options menu, showing a pause message while darkening the screen, and automatically unpauses when you close the options menu. Players will still be able to earn progress towards quests and achievements when pausing, but any game where a pause occurred will be removed from the leaderboard. Pausing solo matches can be disabled in the config file by changing the "allow_pausing_solo_games" option under the "application" section to false. The game now handles global key events on key down rather than on key up interactions. BattleForge is an outlier among modern games in that hotkeys are activated when a player releases a key, not when it is first pressed. By changing this, the game now feels much smoother and more responsive. Players can change back to using key up interactions by changing the line "global_key_events_on_key_down" in the config file to false. Gold rewards for rPvE have been changed. Random PvE now rewards players with overtime gold rewards based on map difficulty and whether they are playing 1p, 2p, or 4p. Gold earned from a 4p level 9 match will be roughly identical, while the gold reward for most other levels has been increased. 1p and 2p rPvE matches now reward significantly more gold than previously. Additionally, all rPvE matches now reward 15% of the expected rewards on-loss.  The gold cost to purchase and apply upgrades has been restructured. Previously, the application cost accounted for 28% of the total gold cost; it has now been increased to 40% while the cost to purchase upgrades has been decreased proportionately. Additionally, common and uncommon cards now have higher gold costs, while rare and ultra-rare cards have lower gold costs. The total cost to purchase and apply all upgrades, approximately 5.7 million gold for all cards, remains unchanged. This change is intended to make higher rarity cards easier to upgrade for newer players, while making lower rarity upgrades more valuable. More changes to upgrades and their procurement will be coming in a follow-up patch when we rework and increase the rewards for playing campaign maps.  Card upgrade drop locations are now provided in-game. When upgrading a card, it will now tell players where they can find the other upgrades they are missing. Additionally, each map now has a "Show Upgrades" button where players can filter and search for what upgrades the map provides at each difficulty level. For more information, see the March 2023 Community Update. All card upgrades have had their locations changed. Each map now has a roughly equal amount of commons, uncommons, rares, and ultra-rares. The 12p maps Passage to Darkness and Ascension are unchanged and will continue to only provide gold.  Players now have the ability to compare their profiles. Right now, this feature is limited to just comparing what achievements each player has completed, though it may be expanded to include more details in the future depending on community feedback. The feature is set to "Friends only" by default (meaning only people that you personally have added as a friend can see your profile), but it can be opened to the public or restricted completely in the settings.  Nature has been added as an enemy faction in rPvE. Face iconic Nature units, discover new bosses, battle through enemy root networks, and overcome the ultimate control faction in this newest addition to the random PvE game mode! For more information, and an interview with the designer, see the May 2023 Community Update. Shaman users rejoice, gold chests are now openable in-combat! Two new chat options have been added to the right-click context menu. Players can now copy messages directly from the chat and import decks from any message that contains a valid deck code automatically. Additionally, the context menu now only shows currently available actions instead of every possible action at all times.  Major changes have been made to the global effects system. More than 5 global effects are now shown at the top-left of the match window, with temporary effects, like Shrine of War, taking precedence over permanent effects, like Wheel of Gifts. Players should now be able to see all, or nearly all, global effects currently active in the game.  Twilight Transformation now counts as playing a card for the sake of achievements, meaning it can no longer be used to bypass achievement unit or card restrictions. Does not affect Not Even My Final Form.
    New Cards
    Sleet Storm  - 60p T3 Frost  
    You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Defending Hope.
    Two issues plague Frost in the higher tiers of PvE. The first is that the faction's only source of area CC is freeze. Given that a unit or building can only be frozen once, freeze application cards overlap in non-productive ways. The second issue is that while one orb of other factions gives the player powerful tools, the same is not true of one Frost orb. Most good Frost cards are locked behind 2 Frost orbs. We therefore wanted to address both issues at once by releasing a new Frost CC which was fully splashable. We made it an area Gravity Surge effect to synergize with Construct and to give other deck archetypes that lack anti-air easy access to it. For more information, check out the April 2023 Community Update.

  19. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Kapo in BFP #1 - Bounty for Pro's - Bad Harvest Solo - CLAIMED by Hirooo   
    Check out the Video made by Ultralord here:
     

    Here is the replay of Hirooo's Run: Bad Harvest Expert - Hirooo - 12.40.pmv
    Congratulations to Hirooo again, and thanks to everyone that showed interest in this challenge - and special thanks to Ultralord for presenting it in such an awesome way!

    If you have a suggestion for other BFP's, please send me a message.
    Kapo
  20. Draconnor liked a post in a topic by SunWu in Pure Nature 2.0 - Main Thread   
    There was a lot of discussion! Mostly because bad harvest turned into this at some point:

  21. Xamos liked a post in a topic by SunWu in Pure Nature 2.0 - Main Thread   
    There was a lot of discussion! Mostly because bad harvest turned into this at some point:

  22. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - March 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!

     
    • Forge Lag and Leaderboard Achievements

    We want to take a moment to address the Forge lag issue that many of our players have been experiencing. We understand that it has been causing frustration, and we're sorry for any inconvenience it has caused. Luckily, we're happy to report that we've made significant progress in resolving the issue. Because we introduced major features such as cosmetics with our latest patch, it took us some time to pinpoint the cause of the lag, but we have now identified and fixed the issue through a patch. You should now experience a smoother and more enjoyable experience in the Forge.
    In addition to addressing the lag issue, we have also fixed the problems with leaderboard achievements and retroactively distributed rewards for the past month. Furthermore, we've fixed a bug that affected the display of achieved rankings for this month's leaderboard achievements. The displayed rankings now accurately reflect your current rank, so you can see how you're doing and earn rewards accordingly.
    Click here to read the full patch notes. 
     
    • Upcoming Feature: Drop Locations

    Upgrading cards is a fundamental aspect of Skylords Reborn, and finding the locations of these upgrades can be challenging, especially for new players. We understand that browsing external sources like the Wiki can be a significant barrier for players to gather information. That's why we're happy to announce the upcoming feature of in-game drop locations!

    With the new "View Upgrades" button added to the create-a-lobby screen, finding upgrade locations is just one click away. You can easily access the upgrade locations you need without ever leaving the game, making the process of finding the upgrades you need more straightforward and easier.


    Clicking on the "View Upgrades" button will reveal a list of upgrades that can be found on the map. You can filter the list by colour, difficulty, and whether you already own the upgrades. This will help you to quickly and easily find the upgrades you need. 

     
    Moreover, we've added an upgrade location feature to the "Claim Upgrade" section of your cards. Right-click a card from your inventory, click "Upgrade", and you will now be able to see the drop location of the upgrade. This is in addition to the existing feature of purchasing the upgrade with gold. This makes it easier for you to decide whether to spend gold on an upgrade, or complete the map to try to gather it. 
     


    We are happy to introduce this feature into the game, and believe it will help our players to more easily complete their collection. We hope to include this feature in our next patch and are excited to see how it will improve the player experience in Skylords Reborn.
     
    • Upcoming Feature: Comparing Profiles

    In our latest patch, we introduced new cosmetics and achievements, which brought a fresh set of challenges for players. We are excited to announce that we are working on a new feature – Comparing Profiles – that will allow players to compare their progress with others.

    With this feature, you'll be able to right-click on another player and compare your profile with theirs. This comparison will show your achievements and progress in the game, helping you to see how you stack up against other players. We believe that this feature will encourage more players to collaborate and tackle the most challenging achievements together.
    To ensure that everyone feels comfortable sharing their progress, profiles will be publicly visible by default, but players will have the option to set their profiles to private, friends-only, or group-only. This will give you control over who can see your progress, and ensure that you are only sharing your achievements with the audience you choose.

    We are currently finalizing this feature and are already able to share a sneak peek of how it will look in the game:

    We believe that this feature will be a great addition to the game, and we plan to include it in our next patch. We hope players are looking forward to it!
     
    • Behind the Scenes: Fire Wormlings

    As Skylords Reborn continues to evolve, we're constantly hard at work creating new content and cards to keep the game fresh and exciting. However, as with any development process, we sometimes encounter unexpected challenges along the way.
    Today, we want to take you behind the scenes of one of our recent projects that didn't go according to plan – the implementation of a new card called "Fire Wormlings", and share some of the challenges we faced.

    Fire Wormlings, Artwork by Tweeto
    Designed as a squad of six small worms based on the card "Fire Worm", the Wormlings were intended to be a strong S-squad archer-unit, perfect for our upcoming defensive rPvE mode. Unfortunately, we ran into several unexpected issues during development.
    For example, we encountered problems when attempting to mount the squad on walls. This was problematic, since the goal of the card in the first place was to provide additional archers to be used in late game defensive scenario's. Placing the squad on a wall would result in a buggy model with the worms' tails sticking out of the wall segment, looking quite silly in the progress:
     
    Additionally, the death animation of the worms didn't quite look right, as it was designed for a single XL unit, rather than a squad of small S units. Facing them in combat sure looked... dramatic:
    Despite these challenges, we're still committed to finding a solution that meets our standards and gives our players new enjoyable cards to play with. We're currently exploring other ways to incorporate the "Fire Wormlings" into the game, though it might be a while before you see them again.  
    We appreciate your patience as we work through these challenges. We know that players are eager to hear about actual upcoming content, so we would like to know: do you enjoy these behind-the-scenes at our development process, or would you prefer us sticking to announcing more concrete upcoming content? Please let us know in the comments below! 
     
    • PvP Guide Update

    Our latest balance patch resulted in significant changes to both the PvP meta and the free PvP decks. To ensure that you're up-to-date with the latest strategies, the PvP Guide has been updated accordingly.
    Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned player, this comprehensive guide has got you covered. It includes deck descriptions, tips and tricks for each match-up, and an overview of the pros and cons of your deck. We also indicate how beginner-friendly each deck is to play.
    The guide is written by RadicalX and Hirooo, two of the top players in the game. You can trust their expertise and insights to help you level up your PvP skills. So make sure you read up on the latest updates and get ready for the upcoming PvP tournament on Sunday!

     
    • Tournaments / 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 PvE Contest #8: Insane God
    "One of Urzachs Minions is heading for an altar. sToP tHeM!" The results are in: check out the winner reveal stream, hosted by Ultralord, of our Insane God event this Friday the 3rd. More information.
     
    NEW - Skylords Reborn Championship #2 – Sunday 5th of March
    Get ready for our PvP tournament, the Skylords Reborn Championship! This event is open to players of all skill levels, and will be live-streamed by RadicalX. There are many prizes to be won, including for the audience! Don't forget to sign up in advance if you want to participate. More information.
     
    NEW - CCC #10 Ashbone Pyro vs. Magma Hurler - UNTIL 12.03.2022
    In the next installment of CCC, players will answer the ultimate question: Ashbone Pyro or Magma Hurler? Show your allegiance and fight for supremacy in the latest Crappy Community Contest! More information.
     
    • Host your own tournament / event
    Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, Metagross, 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.
     
     
    • Join the Team

    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 take a look at our open positions!
     


    • Newsletter


    While we aim to keep our community in the loop with monthly news through our Community Updates, we understand that sometimes these updates might not reach you. That's why we offer a newsletter that will notify you when a new patch or update is released. Don't worry, we respect your privacy and promise not to send spam or use your data in any other way. Click here to sign up.

    If you provided your email address during our summer survey to stay up to date, then you are automatically subscribed to our newsletter. We recently sent out our first newsletter, which announced the release of our latest patch.
    • 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: DROP-LOCA-TION-MAPS

    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.

    Archive
    • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
    • Overview Community Updates
    • Community Update February 2023
  23. SunWu liked a post in a topic by Kapo in BFP #1 - Bounty for Pro's - Bad Harvest Solo - CLAIMED by Hirooo   
    The bounty has been completed, stay tuned for upcoming additional infos (deck and replay).

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