SunWu

Greetings Skylords!

It's been two weeks already since our second community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!
Promo Snapjaws
Collectors rejoice! Promo Snapjaws will be trade-able after the next maintenance update. This promo was handed out through a scratch code that was only valid around the time of the game release. If you missed out on this one, you can now trade or buy them in the AH from other players. If they are willing to part from it of course!
There are currently no plans to distribute the Snapjaw Promo through boosters.

New Patch on the Test Server
A new patch has hit the test server with quite a lot of changes in all kind of categories. Full notes can be found attached to this post, but here are some things that are currently being tested. Please note: none of those are final, and they will not necessarily make their way to the live server in this state! Please give us feedback regarding those changes on the balance discord!
Global Changes
Various tier 3 units (Swamp Drake, Bandit Lancer, Fallen Skyelf, etc.) have had their charges increased. 
PvE Changes
Thugs have received a new ability to compensate for the nerfs they received with the removal of looter. There is also some love for pure frost. 
PvP Changes
After some necessary nerfs in the last few patches, we are now in a position where we can also buff some cards to provide more options and playstyles. Various tier 3 units (Drones, Unstable Demon, Magma Hurler, etc.) are seeing some buffs, while counter units like Lyrish Knight and Gladiatrix are also being looked at. 
Bug Fixes
A couple of bug fixes and a change that makes Bloodthirst and Unity stackable with every other regeneration ability in the game (others will follow).
Class Fixes
Some units have had their class changed or fixed. This can mean the correct melee or ranged class, but also creature class (Deathglider is now a Demon for all you Eliminator lovers out there!). 
QoL description changes
Some nice Quality of Life changes in descriptions have been made to make cards easier to understand or consistent. Please note this is not the big description changes mentioned in an earlier update yet; that is still in the works. Noteworthy would be the Mountaineer: It now shows the hidden ammo generation used for its attack and ice shield, so one can better use the card. Additionally U0 now also has the Glacier Shield for consistency with the shown ammo system.

As mentioned before, those changes are still on the test server and you can find the full list of changes in the document attached to this post. Please note that for the changes to be implemented, we had to clear the test server accounts. So don't be startled if you have to create a new account. 

Skylords Reborn Design Philosophy
Now that Skylords Reborn has been released fully, we are looking at the future of the game for the next couple of years. Over the past months there have been a lot of discussions and feedback regarding the state of the game and the changes to make (or not make) moving forward. In the attached document, we go extensively into this topic. We understand not everyone will be interested in reading 12 pages, but we did want to take the time to clarify our vision for the future as much as possible.
As unique as Battleforge is, it also has some unique concerns in regards to balance. Where most RTS games only provide a limited number of factions to play, the number of decks in Battleforge is virtually uncountable. And while most other RTS games limit their balancing concerns to either competitive or cooperative play, Battleforge has to serve them both. Fortunately, this is mitigated by the fact that PvE and PvP are often build around different core-cards. However, some overlap between cards is inevitable and some changes will have ripple effects in other formats.
In this document we have striven to detail the thought process behind how we will be balancing the game moving forward. We have broken the document into three parts: Introduction, PvE Balance, and Fundamental Game Principles.
The reason we have written this document is to give you, the community, a clear view into our philosophy and stance on certain topics. We will use the topics described here as guidelines for the changes we will make in the coming months.
This is just a start that covers our fundamentals for faction design and more concrete documents will follow. We want to analyze and discuss each faction in particular and shed light into our roadmap.
As always, we are open to constructive feedback. 
Upcoming Tournaments

• NEW: Skylords Open #8
Next week (30th of May) you can again battle it out in the Skylords Open #8. A 1vs1 community tournament hosted by Toggy, open for everyone, and with prizes! 
If you want to participate, it helps a lot if you sign-up in advance!

• Community Challenge #3: King's Ridge
The King's Ridge PvE contest is still going on until the 31th of May. Try to complete the community map King's Ridge as fast as you can in the Community Challange #3 for a chance to win some prizes!

• NEW: Official PvE Contest#1 Siege of Hope 
Our first official PvE contest is here! play Siege of Hope Expert with a twist! Our Event Organizer has created a point system that allows multiple strategies and hopefully rewards thinking outside of the box. Speedrunning still gets you points, but speedrunning alone won't be enough to win this one! A promo of your choice is one of the prizes, so make sure to check it out!

New Team Members / Team Changes
Another new member, HardwareHeinz, has joined the Skylords Reborn team. We are happy to have him as our new Global Moderator.
We would also like to take this time to thank MrXLink for all the work he put in Skylords Reborn over the years. After many years and many roles, he has decided to step down as a member of the Skylords Reborn team. You can read his full explanation here. We wish him all the best and are grateful for all his hard work. 
We are still looking for new team members! If you want to see Skylords Reborn succeed, please take a look at how you can help. We recently added these new positions: backend web developer, frontend web developer and C# developer.

In conclusion
And that's it for this Community Update! We hope we were able to share something you like. See you again in 2 weeks!
What do you guys think of this biweekly status update? Is there something you would want to see covered more? We are open to feedback so please let us know. 
Thanks for reading! Here is a scratch code you can redeem in-game for 100bfp. The code is valid till June 5th.
COMM-UNIT-YUPD-ATE3
Archive
Community Update #1
Community Update #2
Attachments
Balance_Philosophy_Skylords_Reborn.pdfTest_Server_Patch_Skylords_Reborn.pdf

With all the work you put in i hope you'll find at least time to play a little here and there in the future.
Thank you for being part of a dream come true!

With all the work you put in i hope you'll find at least time to play a little here and there in the future.
Thank you for being part of a dream come true!

Had to pop back in for this.

We (hopefully) all appreciate the work that you have done for the community and wish you the best in whatever lies ahead for you!

Good luck!

Previously i was undecided on this topic, but these days lots of ,,feeders searching for runner'' messages make me think a change might do more good than bad.
arguments against a change:
- Obviously decomposer plays a big part in speedrunning on a lot of multiplayer maps, changing it would mean one of the most significant shifts in this category ever. No speedrunner myself but it seems like most of them seem to oppose this change.
arguments for a change:
- Card description indicates that the current decomposing of allied units is just an oversight and not a wanted feature.
- BH decomposer speedruns have somehow gained lots of poplarity. It lets new players solve an expert map without having the necessary skill or knowledge. Eventhough this doesn't have an immediate negative effect on other players i can't imagine that this is healthy for the playerbase in the long term.
- Speedrunners will have to develope new - probably more interesting - tactics. Formerly highly optimized speedruns will enter a new post-decomposer era.
Edit: less griefing also, but thats rare anyway in my experience

It's really not that complicated:
Frost is the strongest in close well situations. This has nothing to do with playstyle, meta or players adapting to mapping... Ice guardians are just really strong and in close well situations you actually get to use them. Fire and shadow really struggle cause they can't rely on their S sized M counters as usual, cause they get destroyed by master archers.
So: big map bad for frost. Small map good. There's no adapting to that, it's been like that for years. One of the reasons frost was never really popular, a lot of players don't want to be that dependant on rng.

It's really not that complicated:
Frost is the strongest in close well situations. This has nothing to do with playstyle, meta or players adapting to mapping... Ice guardians are just really strong and in close well situations you actually get to use them. Fire and shadow really struggle cause they can't rely on their S sized M counters as usual, cause they get destroyed by master archers.
So: big map bad for frost. Small map good. There's no adapting to that, it's been like that for years. One of the reasons frost was never really popular, a lot of players don't want to be that dependant on rng.

It's really not that complicated:
Frost is the strongest in close well situations. This has nothing to do with playstyle, meta or players adapting to mapping... Ice guardians are just really strong and in close well situations you actually get to use them. Fire and shadow really struggle cause they can't rely on their S sized M counters as usual, cause they get destroyed by master archers.
So: big map bad for frost. Small map good. There's no adapting to that, it's been like that for years. One of the reasons frost was never really popular, a lot of players don't want to be that dependant on rng.

Is proud of ,,not playing by the book'' - plays curse well lmao
Curse well was one of the lamest most played cards in the top 100. If you don't want to play by the book try one of the cards devs carefully buffed to achieve more diversity. Getting a little annoyed by people getting a whole meal for free and complain because one of the side dishes is not exactly their taste. I'm totally fine with well mannered feedback/criticism like Chronopie did, but if i read something like ,,again devs ruining the game'' i gotta stay away from the forum for a while...

Is proud of ,,not playing by the book'' - plays curse well lmao
Curse well was one of the lamest most played cards in the top 100. If you don't want to play by the book try one of the cards devs carefully buffed to achieve more diversity. Getting a little annoyed by people getting a whole meal for free and complain because one of the side dishes is not exactly their taste. I'm totally fine with well mannered feedback/criticism like Chronopie did, but if i read something like ,,again devs ruining the game'' i gotta stay away from the forum for a while...

You obviously didn't notice they reworked a lot of the maps so that frost now has much better chances of gaining mapcontrol / defending swift rushes.

Possible paradox: 2-3 min BH runs make some new people grind more than less. New players see/hear how easy it is to get gold and a shiny rank with these runs and stop caring about the rest of the game and don't check out other maps and modes. I don't think that's a good introduction to this game. Yeah, old players dont want to grind, but we're still on the same page when we say we want to get and keep new players, right?

Possible paradox: 2-3 min BH runs make some new people grind more than less. New players see/hear how easy it is to get gold and a shiny rank with these runs and stop caring about the rest of the game and don't check out other maps and modes. I don't think that's a good introduction to this game. Yeah, old players dont want to grind, but we're still on the same page when we say we want to get and keep new players, right?

Possible paradox: 2-3 min BH runs make some new people grind more than less. New players see/hear how easy it is to get gold and a shiny rank with these runs and stop caring about the rest of the game and don't check out other maps and modes. I don't think that's a good introduction to this game. Yeah, old players dont want to grind, but we're still on the same page when we say we want to get and keep new players, right?

Fully understand that Gold/XP distribution is the problem of this tread and not decomposer, still i think you made some flawed arguments.
Nobody said that the problem is playing the game as it's not intended (complaints about amii monument go more in that direction). The problems stated were more about the consequences of totally unbalanced XP/gold rewards for 2-3 min BH runs wich a lot of new players do now since they heard of it. And a card being a certain rank in most played cards doesn't make it problematic or unproblematic. I'm sure amii monument isn't in the Top 50 and a lot of people have complained about it. I'm even more sure decomposer wasnt intended to be what you say. Doesn't it even say ,,own units'' on the card lol?
I think the real problem and some possibly good solutions have been pointed out, but i still wanted to give my 5 cents cause you're all jumping on him and some arguments here i found to be rather weak.

Introduce that not completing all quests on a map no longer gives 100% of the gold and XP, in BH as an example, you will do the cannons nor the deffence on the wagon, so skipping a large part of the map. If you assume that 100% is 4k gold, you could say 10% is the minimum you would get if you skipped everything, and for every quest you do you get a percentage more gold. In BH, I think it's 4 cannons, 1 wagon deffence, 3 stone lords, 1 jorne.
So 9 quests in total. 
10% if you do nothing and win
spoeedrun (3 lords 1 jorne) 50%
all cannons and defence are also 5 quests, so also 50%.
So the speedrun would still give 2k gold, which i think is still too much to stop goldfarms from playing zombie mode on BH. 
Therefore my suggestion: what has to be done for a map (at BH the 3 lords and jorne) give a maximum of 25% of the reward, everything else that is "voluntary", which can be skipped by a tactic, give 75%.
This is how you have regulated it not only for BH, but for all maps. Because we all know that if BH can no longer be made, the next map will come, probably GoL, and then the map will be destroyed for speedruns by map changes or cards. After GoL comes the next map that can simply be used for gold farms, then the next, and this until it is no longer fun to play any map because you have to clear any map completely for getting done, which is just boring from a speedrunner's point of view, apart from RPVE perhaps.
 
In my point of view it would be good, if speedruns themself get nerved that rewards are way more smaler by  skipping things on map who are not 100% nessesery (like the cannons in BH), but still is playable for the Fastest time. 
 
/wanky
 
 
edit: btw, this is what we are talking about since weeks/months, we startet talking about rework reward system after some streamers start to farm gold and Xp live on twitch, cause we clearly saw this abuse coming für gold/XP farm.

Greetings Skylords!
We are happy to bring you the first official community update, a biweekly update to give you an overview of whats happening (and going to happen) in Skylords Reborn. We have heard your desire for communication loud and clear, and as your fresh Community Manager, I will do my best to deliver. 
The goal of these updates is to give you an idea of the things going on behind the scenes and cool stuff that you might have missed. Not every update will have the same content, but we hope to provide you with some cool details and insights. 
Without further ado, lets get to it!
Balance Patch #2
What better way to start than with a new patch announcement! Balance Patch #2 is hitting the live servers soon, bringing with it a lot of PvP balance changes and map updates. We have decided to wait with the release until Toggy's PvE contest is finished to not cause issues for the contenders. You can expect the patch to go live at the beginning of May. The patch notes will be posted soon. 
In-game Tournament tab
Once logged in, you will now be greeted with a tab showing upcoming tournaments and events in Skylords Reborn. Full event details will still be posted on the forums, but we hope this will help tournament organisers with spotlighting their events. 

We would like to take this moment to point out we are still looking for an Event Manager. If you are up for the task, please apply! Check our Open Staff Positions for more information.
Upcoming Community Tournaments
There is a 1v1 tournament hosted by Toggy this saturday. Because we had to delay the patch, it will be played on the test-server.  

Toggy is also giving PvE players a challenge with his speedrunning contest of the map Ocean. 

Both tournaments will reward booster prices. 
PvE
Don't worry PvE players, you are not forgotten. We are not ready to bring you a PvE patch just yet, but rest assured that a lot of work is put into improving the PvE experience. 
There have been a lot of heated arguments in the forum and the discord about what the ideal PvE scene should look like. We will release a philosophy document in the near future explaining our stance on certain topics and what you can expect from the balance team going forward. We cant share any details yet, but WindHunter will soon be in touch with you with more information. 
Balance Discord
Most of you might be aware, but alongside the regular discord we have a discord specifically focused on balancing PvE and PvP. You are encouraged to discuss potential changes and ideas with us here. 
Card Description Project
You might have noticed that cards in Battleforge aren't always very consistent or clear. A group of volunteers has started the huge undertaking to fix this. Not only are they clearing up sentences and details for every single card, they are also adding relevant hidden information like gender (girl-power anyone?), abilities, movement speed, a better reflection of a cards true damage output and much much more. Here is an example:

  *please note this is a mockup and not final yet
With hundreds of cards this might take a while before you see this in game, but I wanted to mention it already. I'm truly baffled by all the hours people put into this project behind the scene. If you want to help out with this project, they are currently in need of a French translator. If you know anyone, please reach out to them via the Description Changes Discord.
Map Testers
Some new map testers are helping us out with the project as well. They have already been a great help and we are grateful for their time. Thank you cswordmaster, LEBOVIM, LegitNacho, Liorans, Mister_Mv, Perthos and Wanky [CH][Ger]. 
New Team Members
To those who missed the announcements, we added two new members to the team in the past weeks. 
Going forward I will be your community manager and will be in charge of keeping the community updated on the latest information, while also making sure suggestions and concerns from the community reach the developers.
Tweeto has also joined the team as a 2D artist. He has already created two beautiful artworks for Amii Phantom and a possible new Amii card. We will have a staff meeting soon to get him underway to create even more awesome artwork. If you are interested in seeing how his artwork comes to live, we can also share that kind of information in the future. 
  
 
We still have some open positions on our team to help with the project. We are looking for map artists, designers, discord moderators and more. Please have a look at the Open Staff Positions for more open positions and information on how to apply!
Twitter and Facebook 
Are you following us on Twitter and Facebook already? They have been inactive for a while, but I have heard from a very reliable source that going over there might be.. rewarding for you. Expect us to use those channels to keep you updated from now on as well. 
In conclusion
And that's it for your very first Community Update! Just to set expectations: we definitely wont be releasing a new patch with every update and some weeks will have more news than others. 
In future updates, we would also like to take a moment to give some information on what we can and can't do in the game, and what a realistic flow of content will be. As you might have noticed, we have added quite a few members to the team lately and in the past week I have been absolutely blown away by all the work that is being done behind the scenes. I look forward to sharing more with you in the future.  
What do you guys think of this first biweekly status update? Is there something you would want to see covered more? We are open to feedback so please let us know. 
 

The true true PVP experience:

Shadow Mage goes
 

what would be really cool is to add special signature Promos (untradeable!) if you complete with Pure Decks. Like a Promo Shaman, Frost Mage, Nox Trooper/Dreadcharger and erm ... maybe Sunderer (?) that you can show off.
Simple, not disturbing the economy, and something to "show off" for those who did it.

I don't like the idea of every deck being nature + X. You can totally play lost souls with bloodhealing. Yes, regrowth and equilibrium are easier to play and stronger but heals aren't a necessity, they are a convenience.

Isn't pvp far too complex for a bot? A simple decision like a) retreating or b) stay attacking depends on so many factors like: whats the HP of the attacking unit, whats the HP of surrounding enemy units, whats their damage? What CCs or dmg spells do i carry, wich does the oponent carry? you have decisions like this literally every second - is it even possible to make a bot wich isn't just a slightly better PVE AI?

new record for Bad Harvest 2:01.6 by Kamen + Mocaak + XxLegitNachoxX + Asj

The answer varies depending on things like:
- wich spells does the bloodhorn player carry? Here he plays nature wich gives you thunderstorm, but with one more fire orb he could have gone for cluster explosion wich deals way more and faster damage.
- what's the oponent? Lost Souls maps are nice for Spirit Ship spam, a twilight map makes ground presence much more valuable.
- Are there bosses? LSS spam has problems with twilight infestor, you can kill him but it takes forever. Other bosses also take a lot of time cause LSS's single target dmg is really low while buffed bloodhorns kill every boss pretty quickly.
- Is he only allowed to play 2 bloodhorns? With the power for 12 LSSs you could play like 7 bloodhorns and still spam spells thx to shrine of war.
Generally i'd say bloodhorns beat ship spam almost all the time cause and spells deal so much damage in a short amount of time its insane with shrine of war. You can also let infect nightcrawlers finish off stuff while bloodhorns are on their way to the next base.

The answer varies depending on things like:
- wich spells does the bloodhorn player carry? Here he plays nature wich gives you thunderstorm, but with one more fire orb he could have gone for cluster explosion wich deals way more and faster damage.
- what's the oponent? Lost Souls maps are nice for Spirit Ship spam, a twilight map makes ground presence much more valuable.
- Are there bosses? LSS spam has problems with twilight infestor, you can kill him but it takes forever. Other bosses also take a lot of time cause LSS's single target dmg is really low while buffed bloodhorns kill every boss pretty quickly.
- Is he only allowed to play 2 bloodhorns? With the power for 12 LSSs you could play like 7 bloodhorns and still spam spells thx to shrine of war.
Generally i'd say bloodhorns beat ship spam almost all the time cause and spells deal so much damage in a short amount of time its insane with shrine of war. You can also let infect nightcrawlers finish off stuff while bloodhorns are on their way to the next base.