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WindHunter

Lead Designer
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  1. Nightmare's End - Proposed Changes - Iteration 2 A major issue with Nightmare's End is that the map requires the player to defend a substantial amount of locations, but almost none of these locations are capable of being fortified. This encourages players to fight back against the map, warping its mechanics in an attempt to reduce the defensive load on the player. Our goal with these proposed changes is to improve the experience of playing the map in the way intended by the original designers, without impacting the creative approaches to conquering the map that have emerged over the years. All changes mentioned here are proposals. Some, all, or none of the proposed changes might make it into the game depending on the results of community feedback and map testing. Elemental Node Changes All nodes have been moved to the back of their respective area, freeing up more space for buildings and maneuvering units All nodes now have buildable walls behind the Amii Gates, allowing players to fortify their position and defend the nodes more easily. Note: the walls in the pictures below are not pre-built, they are only shown that way for illustrative purposes. Shadow Node Nature Node Fire Node Frost Node Shard of the Forge Changes Add buildable walls to the left and right side of the Shard of the Forge. This will help to foreshadow the final defense for new players and give everyone a more stable defensive location. This is particularly important because the final attack adds a major point of failure to a map that exceeds 40 minutes in average playtime. Move the final wave spawn caves to prevent the attack waves from instantly aggroing onto the new walls surrounding the Shard. Shard Defensive Walls Final Attack Wave Spawn Locations Southwest Spawn & Monument Changes Move the Monument + 3 Power Wells in the southwest to the right to create more space to place defenses and lengthen the time between when attack waves arrive. Move the spawn cave north to see if we can redirect the waves to attack the western player's T1 location which has defensive walls to aid the player in defending. This change is experimental and will require testing to see if it works. Southwest Monument + Well Location Southwest Spawn Cave
  2. The gold system and the bfp system are designed to be entirely separate systems. This separateness makes it easier for us to balance them individually, and it also ensures that we avoid gold selling schemes which could get the project in trouble. After we released some veteran-oriented achievements in January 2023, we spent the last year working on the early to mid-game experience. We think these are now in a good place with the gold rework, tutorial missions, and early game achievements. As such, we will be focusing on late-game content moving forward with one of the intentions being gold sinks.
  3. Hey ReleeSquirrel, All friendly buildings cause the units around them to passively regenerate a percentage of their life points each second, as long as they have not taken damage recently. So this is a feature not just of Construction Hut, but also your wells, orbs, and all other buildings. This passive regeneration is a big reason why people bring Ice Barrier in Frost decks, because it can function as a 20p healing location. The blue ring around Construction Hut reflects the area in which the "Maintenance" effect takes place. The area in which units can passively regen is likely 5-10m smaller.
  4. The post is too large to comment on everything so I will give a few impressions based on what I did read. The proposed story takes too long and an insufficient amount of plot occurs in each map. There are 9 proposed maps here to finish off the Behind Enemy Lines story and then set up for the next actual story arc. BattleForge just does not tell story in this manner. Consider the Renegade campaign. It follows the treasure fleet, introduces and crowns Mo king, and tells the story of Blight's reemergence and fall. All of this happens in 7 maps. While it could be argued this is rushed, and it likely is, the amount of story that occurs per map is far in excess of what is presented here. BattleForge maps jump into moments of intense world-changing action, then tell everything else in the lore book. I would much rather see 2-4 very carefully crafted maps which are absolutely overflowing with story, then spread this same content over 9 maps. It was smart to introduce new characters, because we cannot use the old ones. We do not have Moon's voice actress anymore. Therefore the story cannot be told by her, she needs to become a background character. I appreciate the attempt to combine new cards related to the maps with the map themselves, but in the future I would recommend just focusing on one aspect. Card design should ultimately flow out of gameplay considerations, with lore performing an inspirational role. I think you are a bit out of the loop as regards our currently announced plans. We already announced the next 2 campaign maps and the Amii are good guys in them. See here: 3rd Anniversary Stream Lastly, I do not like the Amii twist. It flies directly in the face of the Amii's established identity and frankly makes no sense. It also ruins the existing Amii plotline. The Amii manifested themselves physically for the sole purpose of freeing the enslaved mortals. Those same Amii, after failing, sold the Key of Ashia to the Assemblers to purchase the Forge to accomplish the liberation they themselves had failed to achieve. Eventually the Amii returned themselves to the elements after performing a mass ritual, but not before carefully constructing structures across Nyn that the future gods and skylords would be able to use in the coming war against the giants. That these Amii would then be revealed as the puppet masters behind the Twilight and the Lost Souls just makes no sense. And as I said it ruins the existing storytelling. The Amii are meant to be a tragedy and they are a very well written tragedy. They come to Nyn, fail, and then not understanding the importance of an afterlife because they are immortal spirits, they trade temporal freedom and satisfaction for eternal denial and slavery. They inadvertently cause the creation of the Lost Souls, who themselves then create the Twilight. This makes the Amii the ultimate cause of the events of the campaign, but they are hardly the villains. It is the law of unintended consequences and a lesson that the best intentions do not cover up poorly made decisions. The Amii make every decision with the best of intentions, but hyper-focus on mortal liberation so much they accidentally create a cosmic evil which almost leads to mortal extinction. Making them suddenly come out as evil the whole time ruins this tragic story and underlines the moral power of the existing story.
  5. We have considered using AI artworks before and have had less than satisfactory results. While our artists sometimes still use it for the concepting phase, the actual quality is far below our art standards. As an example, I have included 4 artworks from SR-team released cards below. Which ones do you think were drawn using an AI base and which ones do you think were hand drawn? Also regarding the examples here, the gems look like mobile game icons to me. While I think AI art might eventually be decent enough to use assuming we can train it on existing BattleForge artwork, I do not think the public-facing tools are quite there yet, particularly when you consider that we do not have any budget to use for high-end tools.
  6. Beyond an initial wipe, the timers are the only method of loss in random PvE. They are therefore a necessary component of a mode which is based around speed. If the timers are leading you to regularly lose matches, I would recommend playing at a lower difficulty level until you can get used to some of the mode's mechanics. Our recent changes to the gold rewards are ensured that lower levels of random PvE properly compensate players for their time.
  7. I would recommend giving the new Infernal Chain a spin before writing it off. It is far more user friendly and better in 99% of situations, particularly as relates to high-end PvE content. While the changes might look like LSS was significantly nerfed, this is less true than it first appears. First off, the card has the same stat efficiency as previously due to the cost decrease. Additionally, the Crystal and Recycle changes are substantial buffs since you can now vacuum up revenants, who will die eventually anyway, as fodder for the Crystal. The splash reduction is a direct nerf, but the removal of S & M-knockback is actually a buff. It would knock back units, particularly S-squads, so far that it and other splash cards could no longer damage them. Additionally, there is a hitbox bug with flying S-units which makes it so that when they are knocked back their "click-box" extends over a massive radius. This issue was a major problem for LSS which is supposed to move around the camp to stay safe and to damage enough targets, as the player could no longer click a location to move, but now only press "attack" on the displaced S-unit." Finally, given its new revenant synergy, LSS is much stronger when used in a dedicated Lost Souls deck. It acts as both damage dealer and healer (or speed buff provider) while Lost Warlord and Lost Evocation make sure it always has enough stored life points for another Crystal.
  8. Patch #400045 - Revenant's Doom Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our tenth balance patch for the game, two brand-new cards, a rework of the rPvE difficulty system, tutorial missions, and many other changes, enjoy! Patch Preview Two new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Tectonic Shift and Lost Manabeast. Added tutorial missions! New and old players alike can now receive rewards for simple missions meant to explain some of the harder to understand mechanics of BattleForge. A new rPvE difficulty and changes to the existing difficulty system to align it better with the campaign map difficulties. Our much anticipated Lost Souls rework, a large number of buffs to well-designed but underperforming cards, and a change to the neutral unit exclusion rule. A complete rework of the campaign reward system, with individualized upgrades, gold rewards overtime, and gold rewards on-loss. General Changes Pause, Speed-up, and Slow-down buttons have been added to the Forge. Standard difficulty has been removed for the 12p maps Passage of Darkness and Ascension. Achievements have been adjusted accordingly. The game will now remember the difficulty you selected for each map until you restart the game. Removed post-game message "Maximum rank achieved" for those players who are Master of the Forge rank in PvE. The post-game reward screen now always displays the player's current rank and experience earned. A description of the achievement completed has been added to achievement reward mail. Added previews when hovering over card and boosters rewards for achievements. The networking library used for the client has been updated. Linux users will now need Wine 7.13 or higher to play the game. The game should still work on Windows 7, but support has been discontinued. General Fixes Improved user interface responsiveness. Longer gaming sessions were previously experiencing slowdowns. Resolved an issue that prevented free PvP decks from being cloned. Fixed a game crash related to map scripts, most commonly affecting the "Titans" map. New Cards Tectonic Shift - 50p T3 Stonekin Spell You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "King of the Giants". When thinking about Stonekin's design, we determined that more buildings interactions fit well with the faction. More specifically, we thought that a building-based archetype was the natural expansion for a faction of living stones. Tectonic Shift is a T3 spell that adds a teleport ability to friendly Stonekin, Frost, and Nature buildings. This teleportation ability functions highly similar to Phase Tower's ability as a permanent addition, similar to how Santa and Infernal Chain add new abilities to a unit. For more information, check out Community Update - September 2023. Lost Manabeast - 120p T3 Lost Souls You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Titans". As part of our Lost Souls rework, we wanted to add the well-known NPC unit Lost Manabeast to the faction. The player version of Lost Manabeast is a ranged unit, which collects the souls of its victims to reset the revenant timer of allied Lost Souls units. It is a perfect fit for those players wanted to engage in revenant-based gameplay. For more information, check out Community Update - December 2023. Random PvE Difficulty Redesign A major part of the upcoming update is the addition of a new random PvE difficulty between level 9 and level 10. The significant gap that exists between level 9 and level 10 is well known, and this new difficulty, often referred to as level 9.5, is meant to help players prepare themselves to make the jump into level 10. Alongside this new difficulty, we are also changing the naming scheme of the random PvE difficulties and removing difficulty levels 1 to 3, which are almost never played. We hope this new system will make it easier for players to understand what difficulty is right for their skill level. [ New Difficulty Naming Scheme ] Standard difficulty - Old level 4 Standard+ difficulty - Old level 5 Standard++ difficulty - Old level 6 Advanced difficulty - Old level 7 Advanced+ difficulty - Old level 8 Advanced++ difficulty - Old level 9 Expert difficulty - NEW level 9.5 Expert+ difficulty - Old level 10 Campaign Loot Rework Anyone who plays PvE in Skylords Reborn knows that the most commonly played multiplayer game mode is random PvE. One part of this is due to the ease of matchmaking, you can go to the 4p area and join a random PvE game of any difficulty without needing to jump around the map checking lobbies, and the other part is due to rewards. In most cases, random PvE simply rewards the player better, unless you get lucky while looking for an expensive level 3 upgrade. While our upcoming improvements to campaign map matchmaking will have to wait for a future patch, we are now rectifying the reward discrepancy between the two modes. [ Campaign Reward Changes ] Campaign maps now reward gold over time. The total amount of gold rewarded has been substantially increased at all difficulty levels, even if players previously disenchanted all upgrades. Solo maps and multiplayer maps now give the same rewards. Campaign maps also reward players who lose a map part of the gold they would have obtained had they won. Standard maps reward 70%, advanced maps 40%, and expert maps 25% of the expected gold on-loss. Gold on-loss cannot be earned unless at least 5 minutes have passed in-game. The new Pick reward mode has replaced Random, Need/Greed, and Assign, which have been removed from the game. Upgrades are now decided on a per-player basis, with each player able to choose the upgrade(s) of their choice. Expert and advanced maps reward 1 upgrade, while standard maps reward 2 upgrades. In the future, players will have the ability to earn more upgrades per map completion under special circumstances. Disenchanting an upgrade now rewards the same gold regardless of the rarity of the upgrade, while also providing the player with PvE experience, depending on the level of the upgrade. Tutorial Missions Twenty-one new tutorial missions have been added to the game. These missions are designed to help new and old players alike to discover basic game features, as well as many of the new functionalities the Skylords Reborn team has added since the game's revival. Completing all 21 missions will reward players with 12 common cards, 8 uncommon cards, 900 gold, and the new in-game title "Lyrish Scholar." These rewards are designed to help new players and function as a supplement to the existing starter decks. All missions are completable within an hour. Tutorial Missions will be the new focus of attention when opening the rewards window, but focus will revert to quests once the missions are complete.
  9. Card Balance Changes Global Balance Changes Neutral Units are now limited on a per-player basis: - Each player will now be able to play one copy of each neutral units. Neutral buildings are still limited on a per-team basis. We have been increasing neutral unit synergies and releasing new neutral cards, but an issue is that if one player is running a neutral archetype, say Ravenheart & Raven Archwalker, the other members of the team are also restricted in their deckbuilding choices. We think this is contrary to the spirit of the game, and since there are no balance considerations preventing a change, we are loosening the restriction while keeping the uniqueness of neutral units intact. 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 ] Envenom: 1. Base damage: Restored one missing tick on both affinities 2. Infused Intoxication: Scaling damage: Each time the 80 dmg threshold is reached, the poison damage increases by 10, stacking up to 6 times up to a maximum of 95 damage per second, and refreshing the spell duration. This change should allow the card to remain near its current state in PvP by allowing the player to micro their unit away before the poison stacks out of control, while providing a powerful new tool for Nature T1 in PvE as powerful singular units steadily kill themselves by stacking the poison damage higher and higher. Mumbo Jumbo: 1. Power cost: 40p ➜ 50p 2. Targeting: Units only ➜ Units and buildings 3. Debuff strength (both affinities): 25% ➜ 35% Improve Mumbo Jumbo's usability in PvE by allowing it to target buildings. This will be especially useful with the infused affinity (r) which increases damage taken by 35%. This should help Nature T1 focus down troublesome towers and spawners. [ Tier 2 ] Earthkeeper: 1. Damage: 540 dp20 ➜ 660 dp20 2. Back Up, power cost: 25p ➜ 0p Improve use cases for Back Up by removing activation cost and give the card slightly more in-combat power by giving it a 22% damage boost. Lost Reaver: 1. Mob: A. Targets: Hostile and friendly units ➜ Hostile units B. Corpse cost: 1500 ➜ 2000 C. Crawler health: 310 ➜ 440 life points 2. Corpse Gathering maximum amount: 1500 ➜ 2000 Lost Reaver's ability seems made for PvE, but it has anti-synergy because it damages other friendly units and even its fellow crawlers. We have increased the corpse cost to make it slightly harder to use in PvP, while increase crawler health for better survivability. Additionally, and most importantly, we have removed the ability's friendly fire, which will allow players to spawn multiple crawler groups at a time without worrying about them killing each other instead of the enemy. Lost Shade(p): 1. Tainted Union A. Remove existing reflect effect. B. New effect, "When surrounded by at least 2 other Lost Shades, each individual unit will deal 61/61/61/68 damage per second and take 15% more damage." Lost Shade(p)'s reflection effect has never quite worked, the more shades are in the union, the less damage is actually reflected. Instead of attempting to salvage an affinity effect we think is unfitting to the unit, we have instead decided to make the tainted affinity the true opposite of its frosty counterpart. Tainted Shades will receive more damage but deal more in turn, making them a high risk-high reward option. Vileblood(g): 1. Gifted Liquids (g) healing per wave: 300 life points equally spread ➜ 160 life points, up to 800 in total Now works similar to Forest Elder's healing ability, with a separated single-target and multi-target healing amount. There are 6 total healing waves, meaning this changes the spell from 1800 total healing to 960 single-target healing to up to 5 targets. [ Tier 3 ] Ethereal Storm: 1. Charges: 8 ➜ 16 2. Power: 150p ➜ 130p 3. Duration: 21 / 21 / 21 / 26 ➜ 25 seconds on all upgrade levels 4. Now only damages hostile units. 5. Blessed affinity (b): All enemies in range take full damage, even when frozen (everything does full damage). 6. Infused affinity (r): Enemy units take 20% more damage. 7. Remove all stages except 1: A. Only one stage, baseline (0 Revenants) and stage 1 (1 Revenant). B. Baseline: 40 damage / Stage 1: 100 damage The existing scaling effect is bugged, so we are simplifying the mechanic. There is now a base effect and an improved effect if one Revenant is present. This gives LS a consistent damage spell for itself but with reduced effectiveness in helping allies due to a lack of Revenants unless the player also casts Lost Evocation. The affinity effects provide missing things in the faction, such as the ability to ignore freeze's damage reduction. Lost Banestone: 1. Underworld Gate: A. Remove existing effect B. Add affinities, Tainted and Blessed C. Now spawns an own Lost Shade Revenant of the respective affinity D. Duration: Infinite ➜ 20 seconds E. Cooldown: 60 seconds ➜ 40 seconds 2. Tainted Underworld Gate (p): A. New effect: "Activate to curse the targeted enemy unit. Every second, the targeted unit will lose 40 life points. Additionally, if the target dies, it explodes dealing 300 damage to every enemy in a 10m radius and a Lost Shade revenant with an affinity toward Shadow will spawn out of its corpse with a lifetime of 25 seconds." 3. Blessed Underworld Gate (b): A. New effect: "Activate to curse the targeted enemy unit. Every second, the targeted unit will lose 40 life points. Additionally, if the target dies, Lost Banestone is fully repaired and a Lost Shade revenant with an affinity toward Frost will spawn out of its corpse with a lifetime of 25 seconds." 4. Glacial ➜ Everlasting A. Remove affinities, now one effect B. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m C. Now suspends the duration of any friendly revenants in the area. With its new aura and the ability to generate unbound defenders, Lost Banestone will allow players to transition their T2 offensive units into T3 defenders. This fits in line with the new Revenant-based playstyle we envision for the faction. This will also remove the exploit where Banestone can permanently stop enemies on some cPvE maps from spawning, such as Bad Harvest and Siege of Hope. While this exploit is well known and used, these maps are perfectly completable without them, and they trivialize defending by functionally turning the map off. Promise of Life: 1. Affected units can no longer be healed. 2. Blessed Revive (b): A. Spawn delay: 15 seconds ➜ 10 seconds B. Ice Shield strength: 800 ➜ 1500 Improve blue affinity without impacting the current workaround to spawn extra legendary units. Additionally, add a new effect to both affinities preventing units affected by Promise of Life from being healed. This should especially help in multiplayer, where well-intentioned allies heal units you want to die. Stone Launcher: 1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Frost, 1 Hybrid (T3) ➜ 1 Nature, 1 Frost, 1 Neutral (T3) Twilight Slayers: 1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Fire, 1 Hybrid (T3) ➜ 1 Nature, 1 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3) [ Tier 4 ] Green Peace: 1. Protect the Environment! allied buff duration: 20 seconds ➜ 30 seconds 2. Protect the Environment! (r) damage buff: 50% ➜ 60% Infernal Chain: 1. Orb cost: 2 Shadow, 2 Neutral (T4) ➜ 4 Shadow (T4) 2. Power cost: 150p ➜ 100p A. Spell now costs 50p to cast once applied to the unit. 3. Ability Rework: A. Target: Single-target ➜ Up to 5 enemy units B. Bugfix: Allow Infernal Chain's healing to regenerate squad members 3. Blessed Bond (b) ➜ Tainted Bond (p): A. Remove 50% damage reduction for caster ➜ Add healing effect (55 per second) for each bond established B. Affected enemies now return 12% of current void power as power from the void 4. Gifted Bond (g): A. Healing: 75 per second ➜ 55 per second per bond B. Stuns affected targets after 5 seconds for 15 seconds. Two dedicated Shadow orb decks already have a lot going for them, 3 dedicated Shadow orb decks have both Death Ray and Plague, and Shadow Worm fails to provide a sufficient reason to go Pure Shadow on its own. The changes allow multiple bonds, with healing occurring per bond. This is intended to synergize with Shadow Worm's life loss from Mass Disintegration. Each affinity has a different role: the shadow affinity provides in the field void return, and the nature affinity grants a crowd control effect. Lost Evocation: 1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 140p Lost Spirit Ship: 1. Torpedo Changes: A. Splash Radius: 15m ➜ 10m B. Knockback: Remove S & M-knockback 2. Life points: 3930 ➜ 3630 3. Power cost: 240p ➜ 230p 4. Recycling: A. Target: Own buildings ➜ Own buildings and Revenants B. Cooldown: 10 seconds ➜ 5 seconds C. Ability description simplified 5. Crystal Rework: A. Gifted Crystal (g): Damage effect removed, it now only heals B. Infused Crystal (r): Grants a +40% movement speed increase to friendly Lost Souls units C. Ability description simplified Lost Spirit Ship (LSS) is the major damage dealer for Lost Souls, which relies on units to deal damage. Therefore, we would be unable to remove its high damage without providing heavy compensation in other places. Instead of doing a full stat realignment of Lost Souls units, we are focusing on LSS. While the changes might look like LSS was significantly nerfed, this is less true than it first appears. First off, the card has the same stat efficiency as previously due to the cost decrease. The splash reduction is a direct nerf, but the removal of S & M-knockback is actually a buff. LSS would frequently knock back units, particularly S-squads, so far that it and other splash cards could no longer damage them. Additionally, there is a hitbox bug with flying S-units which makes it so that when they are knocked back their "click-box" extends over a massive radius. This issue was a major problem for LSS which is supposed to move around the camp to stay safe and to damage enough targets, as the player could no longer click a location to move, but now only press "attack" on the displaced S-unit." The crystal is being changed to either heal or increase movement speed, with the pointless spawn zone effect being removed. By allowing it to vacuum up Revenants, we add strong synergy with both Lost Warlord's new ability and Lost Evocation. This means that LSS will scale in strength the more a player invests into Lost Souls. Lost Warlord: 1. New passive, "Undying": A. Blessed Undying (b): The unit's revenant form spawns with an Ice Shield that absorbs up to 3000 damage. The Ice Shield refreshes every 25 seconds. B. Infused Undying (r): The unit's revenant form deals 50% more damage. 2. Onslaught rework: A. Remove affinity B. Provides ground presence. C. New effect - "Activate for Lost Warlord to project a revenant of himself to a destination within a 40m range. This revenant provides ground presence, has no abilities, and lasts for 25 seconds. Reusable every 30/25/25/25 40/35/35/35 seconds." With these changes, we hope to make Lost Warlord into the ultimate Lost Souls card, with a heavy focus on Revenants that synergizes with Nether Warp for quick movement of armies. We view this violation of fundamental game principles to be justified by the card's high orb restrictions and the recognition that by T4, the exploits enabled by teleporting ground presence are largely moot. The blue affinity is being buffed to have a refreshing Ice Shield for when players use cards like Lost Banestone and Revenant's Blessing to extend Revenant life times. This should help to equalize the two affinities. Overlord: 1. Blood Share: A. Life point cost: 1000 life points ➜ 1500 life points B. Healing: 1500 life points ➜ 1500 life points, up to 7500 in total C. Cooldown: 5 seconds ➜ 30 seconds D. Ability cost: 0p ➜ 20p This change makes Overlord's "Blood Share" work similar to Forest Elder's "Forest Charm" in that it heals the group and the individual in different amounts. The goal here is to allow Overlord to function more fully as a sustain tank for the units it is protecting, as it already does for itself. This will help it to support army-based Shadow compositions, such as Shadow Worms, which is important because Overlord is the only melee Shadow unit in T4. Twilight Pestilence: 1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 120p Miscellaneous Changes Added Nature faction classes to generic NPC Nature buildings: Mark of the Keeper, Primal Defender, Stranglehold, Healing Well, Living Tower, Root Nexus, Healing Gardens, Howling Shrine, Mindweaver, Gateway of Nature, Temple of Nature, Wheel of Resilience, Wheel of Juvenescence, Wheel of Strength, Earth Crystal, and Fortress of Nature. Added Fire faction classes to generic NPC Fire buildings: Makeshift Tower, Rocket Tower, Blaster Cannon, Pyromaniac, Volcano, Tower of Flames, Gateway of Fire, Temple of Fire, Flame Crystal Added over 20 new Shadow NPC enemies for use in community maps. Includes units, towers, and spawn buildings. Units - Dreadcharger, Forsaken, Skeleton Warriors, Wrath Blades, Nox Trooper, Harvester, Shadow Mage, Mutating Frenzy, Cultist Master, Rifle Cultists, Necrofury, Unstable Demon, Ashbone Pyro, and Grim Bahir. Buildings - Stone of Torment, Lifestealer, Soul Splicer, Time Vortex, Necroblaster, Church of Negation, Embalmer's Shrine, Incubator (small spawner), and Shrine of Greed (large spawner) Worldbreaker Gun: Fixed animations not playing on U3. Fixed the normal maps of several map objects to correct their interaction with light. Nomad: Improved upgrade description to be more consistent.
  10. Mapmaking Fundamentals - Spawn Design (Cont.) Practical Considerations In the course of testing and balancing new maps, a number of important questions have arisen regarding practical considerations which must be taken into account. Here we will examine the various practical concerns which have appeared during the development process regarding both spawn and camp design. Small vs. Large Spawn Buildings Each faction should have a small and a large spawn building. As a standard practice, the small spawner should have 1200 life points and the large spawner 3200 life points. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as the Fire and Nature gateways in Titans, which have 2000 life points, and Lost Temple, which only has 1000 life points. In the case of Lost Souls, a large spawn building is currently in the process of being developed, after which the small spawner Lost Temple will likely see its health pool standardized. There are a few ways to utilize the different spawn buildings. The most straightforward method is to use small spawners for T1 and T2 camps, and large spawners for T3 and T4 camps. This creates a sense of progression and ensures that later camps are not easily cheesed through Eruption spam. On this topic, it is important to position primary spawn buildings within camps such that the player cannot easily destroy them without interacting with the camp itself. Spawn buildings, particularly the primary ones, should be the most protected things within standard camp arrangements. Another way to use the spawners is to differentiate them by purpose, such as objective spawners being of one type while standard camp spawners are of another type, though it is also common to use a spawner as a camp and an objective spawner simultaneously. Some maps alternative between small and large spawners as a way to differentiate between the type of units being spawned. A good example of this would be Encounters with Twilight. The various lodgement areas of Encounters are punctuated by small spawners which only spawn weaker units, while the main spawner is a large spawner which generates the main threat in each respective area. Beyond lodgement areas where the aforementioned type of design is common, some individual camps include both types of spawners with a similar goal, small spawners for weaker units and large spawners for stronger units. Higher tier camps with increased levels of complexity can create a sense of strategic depth and player progression by having a large spawner nestled in the back, with various minor objectives, such as small spawners and artillery buildings, placed in easier to access locations for the player to focus on and destroy. This allows the player to move forward and destroy an objective, thereby permanently weakening the camp's defenses, without requiring that he destroy the camp outright all at once. An example of this might be that in a Twilight map, the primary large spawner generates Abominations and Evil Eyes, while a small spawner closer to the player's expected point of entry generates Whisperers and Mindbenders. While the majority of damage comes from the large spawn units, the destruction of the small spawn would be a major win for the player because it would substantially reduce the camp's CC capacities. Time to Respawn & Player Downtime Imagine playing a Twilight map and moving forward into a well fortified camp. You destroy the frontline of Vilebloods, move forward to wipe out the archer line, and then just as you are about to kill the spawner a second wave of Vilebloods spawn and destroy your army. By the time you return, the entire camp has respawned and because none of it was towers or support structures, you essentially achieved nothing. What I just described is how a normal player experiences trying to destroy the Shadow camp on Nightmare Shard. In the face of this frustration, the player often chooses to learn how to cheese the map, or they decide to suicide their army for the spawn building from the beginning so they can feel like they actually achieved something. What this example illustrates is the problem of camp respawns and how they relate to camp design. A typical spawner in BattleForge has a time to respawn of 15 seconds. This is universal and encompasses nearly all maps and spawners in the game. It should be fairly obvious that the lack of granularity in what is an essential component of map design is a fundamental issue for the balance of both individual camps and maps as a whole. Time to Respawn Considerations: 1. Individual unit strength - If the individual units are weaker, the camp might be balanced around more frequent respawns. This can create a pleasure experience of fighting through waves of the enemy. If the camp's units are relatively strong compared to the player, such as our example of the player fighting Vileblood's with T1, the respawn timer should be longer because each unit that respawns is a substantially bigger threat. 2. Unit to building ratio - If the camp is entirely made up of units, thereby providing no ability for the player to permanently degrade its strength except through killing the spawner, it might be appropriate to exclude some key units from respawning at all or to increase the overall time to respawn. If a camp's strength is mostly concentrated in buildings, a faster respawn timer for units can be used because only a small percentage of the camp's total strength will be reviving. 3. Player Tier - In lower tiers, it is harder for players to reach and destroy spawn buildings due to a lack of available tools. In higher tiers, players have numerous options for disabling units and destroying key buildings, including spawners. This suggests that longer respawn timers are better for lower tier camps, because in these camps players usually have to fight through a significant portion of the camp to be able to begin damaging the spawn building. The same is not true for higher tier camps and therefore the respawn timers can be shorter. In general, the higher the tier, the more complex a camp can be in its design, and faster respawn timers are a component of camp complexity. 4. Distance to Spawner - In a simplified form: time to respawn + travel distance from spawn = player downtime. The farther the distance to the spawner, the longer the player has to recuperate. This is particularly important for defensive scenarios to allow time for healing, respawning, and repairing player defenses. Closer spawn locations will often correlate to longer respawn timers, and vice versa, but the map designer should really balance downtimes based on wall and building repairs and adjust according to the intended feeling of pressure. Group vs. Individual Spawning The general rule is that attack waves should be spawned as a group while units within a camp should spawn individually. By placing attack waves into groups, it means that the player does not have to deal with a constant trickle of units which either preclude any repairs because of a lack of downtime or fail to cause sufficient pressure due to lacking the critical mass needed to challenge player defenses. On the other hand, group spawning often leads to clever players trapping a few units to prevent the group as a whole from respawning. This will be discussed more below. Individual spawns in camps are necessary to allow the camp the dynamism to respond to player attacks. Group respawning, the timer for which only begins after the death of the last member of the group, would mean that the camp will likely never respawn any units before the player can destroy the spawner, but if the group can respawn, the entire camp, or at least a major sub-group, would respawn all at once. Neither of these options are desirable, so camps should use individual spawning. Preventing Spawn Trapping The majority of respawns in the game are based on timers that only begin after the unit which will be replaced has died. The standard timer throughout the game is 15 seconds. As mentioned above, some spawns are group and others are individual, with in-camp respawning typically being individual-based and attack wave respawning typically being group-based. Given that group-based spawns will not respawn until the entire group (or a particular percentage of the group) is dead, this leads to a situation where the player can "trap" units within the attack wave and prevent further respawns from occurring, functionally turning off the defensive aspect of the map. While this mechanic has been normalized on most existing maps and therefore will likely remain unchanged, the same need not be true for future maps. The best way to get around spawn trapping is to make the respawning of attack waves multi-conditioned. For example, if an attack wave takes 30 seconds to reach its destination and lives on average 30 seconds once it has reached its intended location, the average respawn time for that given wave would be once every 75 seconds (15 second respawn + 30 sec travel time + 30 sec fighting to death time). This means, when accounting for slow decks and the player being overrun, it might be appropriate to make the attack respawn on death of the group OR if 120 seconds have passed, whichever is shorter. That way if the wave gets trapped, a second attack wave still spawns after 120 seconds regardless. Another key point to consider with spawn trapping is abuse of waypoint markers. When attack waves progress towards their target location, they act by moving from one waypoint to another, wait for the entire group to arrive, and then proceed to a third waypoint. If a player is able to block one member of the group from successfully progressing to the next waypoint, the entire group will fail to progress. This is what allows the MotK spawn trap trick on Nightmare's End. When a ranged unit enters the spellbane aura, it immediately retreats in an attempt to move far enough away to attack. If the unit's attack range is less than or equal to the spellbane aura radius, it ends up in a loop where it continually moves in and out of the aura. If the waypoint location is within the spellbane aura, such that the other units can progress to it, but not so close that they will aggro on the source of the aura, the looping ranged units will fail to reach the waypoint marker and therefore lead to the entire group remaining permanently stuck (it should be noted that not all ranged units act like this. The flying units on Mo continue to patrol back and forth despite any spellbane aura, so their scripting ought to be studied to learn how to achieve a similar result). There are a few ways to avoid this. One is to include at least one long range unit within the attack wave, which can then destroy the source of the spellbane. A second, if the spawn trap is discovered pre-release, is to add a patrol along the path where the spellbane will be placed to destroy it and free the normal attack wave. A third is to look at maps like Mo and figure out how to circumvent the issue and allow the units to patrol regardless. Tier Emphasis & Camp Design by Tier Nearly all campaign maps will take place over all four tiers, but the emphasis of each map is different. Some maps will have long T1 sections, while others, such as Bad Harvest, will skip T1 entirely. While it might initially seem best to spread the map out equally between all tiers, this is often less ideal than it might initially seem. One of the largest limitations in BattleForge is the 20 card deck limit. By requiring the player to be able to respond to threats equally at all tiers, the designer encourages the player to opt for more generalist deck options. For example, if the map required the player to be able to respond to ranged, melee, and flying units at T3, the player would forced into using cards which can respond to all three threats. If that player were playing Fire, they will likely default to using Magma Hurler with Unity. If he wanted void return and had to defend a wall, he is also going to include Shrine of War and Tower of Flames. At that point, since the player needs to be flexible on all four tiers, he will only have 1 slot left for T3, which he might want to flex into other tiers given Magma Hurler can take care of most threats. If, instead of designing the map to have equal threats at all tiers. the designer instead decided to shorten the T2 and focus on a larger T3, the player will now have more deck slots to specialize versus any challenges the map might include. If there were large amounts of buildings in T3, the player might be able to include Virtuoso or Juggernaut as a response. If there were no flying units, the player could opt for Vulcan or Giant Slayer. If the camps had weak AA or if there were a lot of hard to reach flying units, the player could choose Spitfire. On their own, each of these options is unlikely to be the sole choice of unit for a Fire player, but each can easily become supplemental options when the camps a player faces in a particular tier allow for such specialization and the other tiers do not use up all available deck slots. The key takeaways here are that it is often better to focus on 1 or 2 tiers in a given map, so as to allow for more interesting deck building options within those tiers, and that unifying camp and spawn design across a tier can allow for and push players towards less typical options, for example, not including flying units but giving camps strong AA, can open up space for melee units to succeed. Defender's Advantage When fighting against camps, the general principle is to balance the camp's composition as equivalent to being 1 tier higher than the player (on expert, advanced can be equal strength). The reason for this is that players have an adaptability that NPCs do not. This is seen both in the fact that players can cast spells while NPCs must rely on unit abilities or inflexible events via map scripts, and that NPCs cannot rebuild their own camps. If the artillery piece keeping the camp together dies, it cannot come back. In contrast, if a player loses a unit or misplaces a tower, they can just summon a new one. So if the entities in an NPC camp are typically one tier stronger than those currently available to the player, what about when it is the player defending and the NPCs attacking? It would be nice if we could provide a simple rule here stating that attacking units are always one or two tiers stronger than the defending player, but it is not that easy. Defending scenarios are simply too varied for a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, let us consider some factors that might change the player's strength while defending. Defense Considerations: 1. Location Fortification Potential - Whether or not a player can easily fortify their location substantially changes the relative strength of incoming attack waves. Fortification potential is related to two key factors, (1) Are they buildable walls, and (2) how wide is the enemy's angle of attack? Buildable walls increase the relative defensibility of a location more than any other single factor. Walls add effective life points to the defending towers and units, while also impeding enemy progress, therefore providing the player with more strength depth. Attack waves which might overrun a player in an open field can become a joke to him when he is sitting behind a set of Amii walls. The width of an enemy's attack angle attacks in a similar way. If, similar to Guns of Lyr, enemies attack into a narrow chokepoint, even giant waves become trivial to defend against. At the same time, if the enemies can spread out such that area of effect spells and abilities cannot hit large portions of the attackers at once, the wave's overall threat increases. Therefore area with narrower angles of attack and buildable walls need stronger attack waves, while areas with wider angles of attack and no buildable walls need weaker attack waves. 2. Length of Defense - The longer a player is allowed to sit in a single location, the larger the attack waves will need to be to dislodge him. While small, low tier waves might threaten a player initially, even waves one or two tiers higher than him will seem insignificant if he has been given a large enough time to prepare. In general, if a player has only been given a short time to begin preparing his defenses, attack waves could be sufficiently strong even at tier and unit count parity. But once he has been allowed to settle in and build a layered defense, attack waves will likely need to be both stronger and more complex to overrun him. 3. Player Tier - Lower tier players have less defensive options than higher tier players. The higher the player's tier, the stronger the attack waves will need to be in comparison to the players on paper strength. 4. Total Areas to Defend - A key point discussed at length in this guide has been that the fewer areas a player needs to defend simultaneously, the easier it will be for him to succeed. While even the equivalent of a Tier 6 attack wave from a single direction might fail to overwhelm a player with T4 protected by a wall, even T3 units from enough different directions could overrun the same player. Creating multiple areas where a player must defend taxes not only his power pool, his charges, and his cooldowns, it taxes his mind. It becomes exponentially more difficult to respond to major threats that could undermine your defenses, when these threats are coming from different directions, and particularly if they are far enough apart to not be visible on the same screen. Particularly at higher tiers, where the tools available to players are so strong, it is essential to create multiple avenues of attack. At the same time, a map designer must be careful not to overwhelm the player's mental capacity with an excess of attack directions simultaneously.
  11. I am fine if the player keeps their original portrait. Not sure we have any record of what that portrait was though to restore it to those who changed away from it already.
  12. I think the idea of a spawn building definitely connects well with Twilight as a faction. I think both Twilight and Bandits could eventually see their spawn buildings become player cards. I think the idea of a stampede effect that primarily interacts with units instead of buildings would be a cool twist on the ability. I am not sure if that would be infection or knockback or some other concept, but it is worth thinking more about. We also want to add a lot of Twilight transformation effects like you suggest to make the mechanic more worthwhile to play around.
  13. I would recommend reading this if you are interested in our approach to rarities: SkylordsRebornDesign_Rarities.pdf As regards the ratio, the original ratio between the various rarities is 3-3-3-1, and based on that ratio, the number of rare cards in the game is substantially less than it is supposed to be. While it is unlikely we can ever properly fix the ratio due to the overabundance of ultra-rares, many of which do not justify their own rarity, we do intend to equalize the disparity between common/uncommon/rare. It is also important to differentiate between the amount of a certain rarity in the entire game and the amount of a certain rarity within a faction. In terms of Lost Souls, if we do not account for affinities: there are 7 common cards, 6 uncommon cards, 4 rares, and 2 ultra-rares. So even within Lost Souls itself, there are a lack of rare cards.
  14. I could have said the population pattern, i.e. the manner by which each camp is populated on game start, but I thought it was clear we are not talking about the attack waves. The point is, that if the game actually spawned the amount of units specified in the code on startup, we would be talking about random maps so populated it might crash people's games. Regardless, we have no idea what caused the change. The present LS population patterns are well within the acceptable limits of their given difficulties, so we as a team have not given looking into the error a particularly high priority after we initially failed to diagnosis what went wrong back in May. We intend to look into it more at some point, but other projects have higher priorities.
  15. The spawn pattern in messed up in the original code and the amount of units that spawn is wildly different than you would expect. We basically have to estimate based on how things typically work. It is likely something bizarre happened when we swapped in Lost Crawler because that was the only change we tried to make.
  16. The Amii NPC does not have elusive. The faction abilities (Revenant 's Doom, Elusive, Lifestealer, etc.) are exclusive to the player versions of those units or buildings. Additionally, many NPCs are equivalent to U2 player cards in terms of stats, though this is not a hard and fast rule as some are different tiers entirely (i.e. Bandit Sniper or Stone Tempest vs. Stonekin Rockstorm). We have been trying to fill in the various missing NPCs from each faction, both for ourselves but also to give our community mapmakers more options.
  17. The question of nerfing Shadow Phoenix is a tricky one. The card is a definite outlier in my view but that does not mean we can simply nerf it. One reason we delayed touching Batariel for so long was because nerfing it would not have helped at the beginning. When we first started balancing, there were only a few high performing archetypes, some viable ones, and many many unviable ones. So while Batariel was a definite overperformer, there simply was not a wide enough roster of viable alternative strategies for the game's hardest content to fill the gap if we had nerfed it from the get-go. Instead of widening the meta, we would have narrowed it, forcing players engaging with the hardest of content, like rPvE 10, to use one of the few other available meta strategies. We decided to nerf Batariel only once we were confident that there was a sufficiently high amount of alternative deck archetypes available towards which players could turn, but which were being suppressed because Batariel was overshadowing them. This last part is key, we generally avoid nerfing cards simply because they are strong, perhaps even too strong. We prefer to only reduce their strength when said strategy is so strong that it is forcing other provably viable options out of the meta and warping the playerbase's conception of what is balanced. In Shadow Phoenix's case, it is my opinion that the card is too strong, but that there are an insufficient amount of alternative strategies that less skilled players can use to tackle rPvE 10. One of the important aspects of Shadow Phoenix is that it is both easy to understand and to perform. It helps to act as a gateway for players who want to start approaching rPvE 10 but who might be afraid their own skill levels are insufficient, and it does this precisely because it is too strong while being easy to use. We therefore have a pragmatic reason for leaving Shadow Phoenix untouched, as removing it would likely gatekeep a portion of the playerbase out of rPvE 10. Once we had expanded the early tier options in each faction, a hot topic on our balancing discord over the last year, I would be open to the idea of nerfing Shadow Phoenix. But even then, how ought it be nerfed? While Shadow Phoenix is an easy enough card to use, its design is rather complex. One of the reasons it is so strong is because it is a spell disguised as a unit. While spells normally have cooldowns to prevent them being cast repeatedly in short succession, Shadow Phoenix has charges. Summoning 4 Shadow Phoenixes and dropping them on a camp is analogous to being able to cast 4 Lava Fields on a camp simultaneously. An important distinction is that Shadow Phoenix is technically killable, but also capable of reviving. So what part do we nerf? If we touch the single-target damage (550), we make the card only usable in large groups and mostly just make the player wait for more power. We could increase the corpse requirement to make it more dependent on Embalmer's, and even potentially increase Embalmer's costs as well, but this does not touch the upfront damage at all, and the change mostly hurts less coordinated teams and players who might forget to activate Embalmer's. Another option would be to touch the revived Phoenix, maybe the revived version only does 50% damage, though too much and it disincentives revival at all in favor of more initial Phoenixes. Overall, adjusting the card will prove difficult, if we do ever decide the time is right to rebalance it.
  18. While perhaps too late for yourself, Parasite Swarm's U2 and U3 upgrades will be swapped in the upcoming update, making access to Parasite Swarm's stronger swap substantially more accessible.
  19. We want to create a deckbuilder mode where you progress through increasingly hard challenges while using a limited pool of card which slowly increased sei-randomly over time. We just have not had the development capacity to implement it yet.
  20. This is an idea we in the dev team are supportive of, but which we have not yet been able to implement.
  21. I think it is worth mentioning here that after community feedback and playtesting, that we have decided to change the Stonekin card which we announced last month, Tectonic Shift, to also affect Frost and Nature buildings. In terms of Bedrock itself, this will open up access to Worldbreaker Gun and Stronghold, in addition to Deepgorge and Stone Launcher, as good companion towers for Bedrock's "Living Rampart" ability.
  22. You can read more about the changes to NG and their reasoning here:
  23. The issue we face with Deepfang is that we cannot make the critters respawn without allowing the player to spawn infinite amounts of them. This would make Deepfang into a Stonekin Satanael, which we are not interesting in doing. But if we cannot allow the critters respawn, then there will always arise a moment where Deepfang is permanently weaker because of the lose of the critters.
  24. The days of wandering in the desert will soon reach their completion. Changes are coming to the achievement alongside the upcoming release of rPvE 9.5.
  25. Mapmaking Fundamentals - Spawn Design This was originally written as an internal design document meant to guide our current development of new campaign maps. It has been shared here for interested players and as an aid for aspiring community mapmakers. Introduction 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 spawns 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. Legend Given the nature of map design, this guide uses a high density of visual examples to illustrate map design principles and standard practices. Across all examples, a standard legend is used. Purple – is used to highlight NPC camp formations. Purple text is used to describe the various dynamics occurring in the enemy camp. Light Blue – is used to highlight spawn locations and any special interactions which these spawn locations enable. Orange – is used to highlight non-standard flanking routes available to players. In the majority of cases, orange designates available paths for flying units, but it can also represent potential cliffing opportunities, particularly for artillery units such as Firedancer and Firestalker. Red – is primarily used to highlight player attack routes. It is secondarily used to highlight key features of camps which affect said attack routes. Black – is used to highlight terrain features. Green – is used to highlight map objectives and any locations that might be directly connected to those objectives. Table of Contents 1. Spawn Types 2. Defensive Maps (Defending Hope) 3. Hybrid (Attack/Defense) Maps A. Nightmare's End Analysis B. The Guns of Lyr Analysis 4. Escort Maps A. The Treasure Fleet Analysis 5. Conquest Maps A. Ocean B. Mo Spawn Types Enemy spawns come in four primary types: one-time, timed, conditional, and permanent. These spawn types are not exclusive, in fact it is normal for maps to have multiple or even all four types at once, and often specific spawn interactions constitute multiple types simultaneously. 1. One-time Spawns: These spawns are typically scripted based on the fulfillment of a map objective, such as the Raven fleet’s approach in Ocean when the player clears enough of the center island, or are based on proximity events, such as the many “ambush” events in maps like Encounters with Twilight. Regardless of how they trigger, these spawns only happen once. 2. Timed Spawns: What is meant by timed spawns are those spawns which are primarily triggered based on the passage of time in-game and not player actions or map conditions. These types of spawns are quite rare on their own but are frequently combined with other types of spawns. For example, the permanent spawns on Convoy and Nightmare Shard steadily scale in strength based on the amount of time which has passed. A time component is almost always included in the case of permanent spawns to pressure the player or to keep pace with the player’s growing strength. The attack waves on Siege of Hope and Blight are both conditional timed spawns. If the player fails to kill the spawn buildings in time, a large one-time attack wave is released after a specific period of time. Conditional spawns often contain an alternative time provision. The spawn actives after X objective is fulfilled, or if Y time has passed. 3. Conditional Spawns: Conditional spawns are tied to map triggers which change on their own or due to required player actions. They can be temporary or permanent. Spawn buildings are the primary example of conditional spawners. The spawns are directly tied to the building’s continued existence; destroy the building, and the spawns stop. Many spawners also have additional conditions which must be fulfilled before they begin to spawn units at all. Some spawners only replenish units tied to specific camps, while others only launch attack waves once the player has reached a certain location or has activated a specific trigger condition. In random PvE, only the spawners directly adjacent to the player’s location initially launch attack waves, but if the player attacks a camp and kills an entity within that camp, all adjacent camps also begin spawning attack waves from that point forward. Sunbridge and Slavemaster are examples of conditional spawns tied to player action. In both cases, while the spawns are permanent, the player has the agency to direct the spawn paths via a switch and a fire emitter respectively. In the case of Sunbridge, once the Amii Power Shrines cease to exist, the gate-based spawn waves also cease. 4. Permanent Spawns: Once begun, permanent spawns never stop. This type of spawn is a common feature in defensive maps such as Defending Hope and Guns of Lyr. Non-defensive maps do not typically have unconditional permanent spawns, and if they do, they are typically limited in either strength or location. Mo is an example of a non-defensive map with permanent spawns. Defensive Maps Defensive maps are those maps where the player’s sole primary goal is the defense of an objective or a set of objectives. Any expansion made by the player is meant to better facilitate his defense of the existing objective and not because he needs to conquer additional areas of the map to complete other required objectives. Defense of Hope is the only current official campaign map which is a pure defensive map (Ascension map 1 is the next closest example). Despite only having one such map as an example, we need not fear because Defending Hope is a superbly designed defensive map that contains all the necessary components to teach us how a map designer should design a defensive map’s spawn mechanics. Defending Hope - Spawn Wave Interactions 1. Well Defined Defensive Perimeter – The area which the player must defend is visually distinct from the surrounding area, being protected by naturally existing terrain and buildable walls. This defensive area has overhang spots, occupied initially by Defense Towers, which can attack in a wider arc, as well as plenty of space to build defenses behind the walls. Areas from which enemies normally do not approach are blocked by Lyrish houses, adding an aesthetic flair while also preventing players from building otherwise inefficient defenses. 2. Alternating Attack Waves – Spawn waves on Defending Hope alternative between approaching from the north and from the south side of the city. This allows the player to opt for micro-managing archer units on both the east and west sides, rotating archers between the northern or southern wall depending on which direction is currently under attack. A skilled player can then save up power more quickly to make the transition to T2 or T3. 3. Spread Out, Multi-directional Attacks – While the walls on the east and west sides are close enough that archers can be rotated between them in the early game, they are far enough apart that the player is required to invest in defenses for both the north and south walls on each side, or to invest in a permanently mobile ranged component which can be rotated as needed. This multi-dimensional nature of the defense is important because it keeps the player engaged while also reducing the power of spells. If the units all approached from one-direction, the player would only need to invest in one set of defenses while also being able to destroy most incoming waves with spells, quickly leading to a feeling of stagnation (An example of this stagnation would be position 4 on Bad Harvest, which is initially very challenging, but once defenses are established, becomes dry and boring). With four directions to defend, permanent defenses are encouraged at each location while spells function as a means to plug gaps that form in the player’s perimeter, as their charge limit and cooldown prevent continual usage. 4. Optional Non-fortifiable Expansion Zones – Outside of the singular exception of aiding Rogan Kayle to enter the city, the player need never wander outside of the city’s defined defensive perimeter. Yet, if he choices to, he is rewarded with the possibility of many Power Wells and access to T4. Notably, these areas of expansion are shorn of any means of fortification while also being under constant attack. These means that the player must calculate the potential risk of both venturing forth from the city and investing in additional hard-to-defend assets, but if he proves capable of doing so, he earns himself a permanent benefit in terms of additional power and access to higher tier cards. 5. Permanent & Conditional Spawners – Instead of only spawning enemies from caves, the original designer chose to introduce 4 spawn buildings which the player can destroy. This gives the player more to do, while also forcing him to balance the risk/reward between investing into an expeditionary force that takes power away from the defenses and the benefit of permanently reducing the enemy’s offensive pressure. The buildings themselves have significant defending forces and are XL-spawners with 3200 life points, meaning that the player must do more than just run around erupting them to death. Hybrid (Attack/Defense) Maps Hybrid maps are those maps which mix player responsibilities between attacking and defending. These maps require the player, and any potential teammates, to move forward and conquer new areas of the map while defending map objectives (not Power Wells & Orbs) in other areas. Hybrid Maps: Nightmare's End Nightmare’s End - Player Defense Points & Enemy Spawn Locations The issue with the spawn waves on Nightmare’s End is not so much that spawns can attack every player location on the map, though this is indeed an issue, but that none of the places the player is required to defend are capable of being fortified outside of the initial starting location (which eventually is no longer attacked as the player’s T3 and T4 orbs redirect enemy waves to themselves). Players are required to try and cram defensive structures and units into small areas where buildings often block each other from attacking. These same buildings cannot be built into a coherent frontline due to a lack of space, meaning that even if the buildings placed in the back can attack, they are blocked from reaching the ranged units targeting the building in the front. Additionally, there are no walls or other mechanisms by which the player can slow the enemy’s advance, meaning the frontline units or buildings must also tank the incoming wave. Combined with being the largest map in the entire game by far, making reinforcing areas with existing units nearly impossible, and the fact that enemy waves respawn nearly instantly in close proximity to their intended targets, the spawns on Nightmare’s End are truly a nightmare. Consider then, that after establishing all these defensive networks, the player is suddenly told to abandon them and defend yet another non-fortifiable location from a 5-minute-long onslaught. The fact that this last defense is in no way foreshadowed except for a small wall south of the Forge Shard, is a fitting illustration to how poorly thought through and poorly implemented the spawn mechanics are on this map. A final point worth mentioning about this map is that the trigger conditions for spawning new attack waves and increasing the strength of existing attack waves are poorly defined. For example, one side of the map allows the player to build their T3 without destroying the concomitant Amii Power Shrine within the same camp. This in turn prevents the map from spawning the intended attack waves to attack the player's T3 location, because the trigger for spawning these waves is not the player building their T3, but the Power Shrine being destroyed. Setting aside whether or not the T3 should even be attacked in this manner, the key point here is that the trigger conditions for spawn waves and map events need to be carefully defined to avoid player exploitation. This same issue occurs on Behind Enemy Lines, where the trigger for increasing attack wave difficulty is tied to destroying the Twilight spawn buildings in the T2 and T3 camps. Said buildings are placed in such a way that players can build their T2 and T3 without ever destroying them, thereby trivializing the map in the process. In both cases, simply tying the wave increases to the player achieving a higher tier would have fixed the problem. Nightmare’s End - Southwest Quadrant Hybrid Maps: The Guns of Lyr The Guns of Lyr - Defending Player Progress & Attacking Player Spawn Waves In my opinion, Guns of Lyr is an overly complex, badly designed, and badly balanced map that players have figured out how to exploit in a way that actually makes it enjoyable to play. An entire document could be written solely on how poorly thought through and executed the map's mechanics are in the final product we see in-game. While such a document could perhaps prove useful to the team, we will satisfy ourselves here in pointing out three issues with the map related to how its spawns function. The first is related to what triggers the infected Twilight camps to start sending out attack waves against the player in the "attack" position on each side. These spawns are actually triggered not by the actions of the attacking player, but the defending player. The map suggests to the player, with its set of retreating walls, that the initially defending player is supposed to forfeit their starting base and replace it with the wells and monuments found on the route of the Kobold Engineer which they are told to clear. Simultaneously, the respective side's attacking player is supposed to clear the 3 Twilight camps before transitioning into helping the defender. The issue is that the 3 Twilight camps do not actually trigger attack waves based on interactions with themselves or how much time has elapsed in the map, the camps only replenish defending units lost in attacks on the camp. Instead, the attack waves of these camps are triggered by the defending player attacking the units in camp 1 marked on the minimap above. This in turn leads to a situation where knowledgeable defending players simply do not expand past T2, but wait for the attacking player to reach T4 and trigger the final spawn wave early to end the map. Regardless of intention, it simply does not make sense that the trigger condition for spawning attack waves from these infected camps is tied to attacking that specific location on the map. A valuable lesson can be gleaned from this mistake, which is that spawn triggers for spawn waves need to be carefully defined so as not reward players who exploit the map while punishing those players who engage with the map in the intended manner. The second issue we will discuss in regards to Guns of Lyr is the ability for the player to avoid the map's mechanics and trigger the final spawn wave before actually achieving the necessary map objectives. Map designers need to be cognizant of the ability of players to damage locations behind "impassable" terrain features and take the necessary steps to safeguard these locations or punish the player (in a logical way) for doing so. In the case of Guns of Lyr, the original devs could have responded to the issue in several different ways. An easy method would have been to simply not spawn the final Twilight Manifestation building until the gate was opened, or to shield the building until said condition was met. A more creative approach would have been to immediately trigger other final spawn waves from any remaining Twilight Infestations on the map, making the condition of having to destroy these infestations meaningful, lest these other spawns bypass player defenses and kill Rogan. The Guns of Lyr - Northern Defenses The third and final issue to discuss is how the map's terrain stifles the ability of the primary Twilight attack waves to be meaningful threats by forcing them through single path chokepoints. The map is clearly designed in such a way that the original devs assumed player defenses would steadily move backwards in the face of increasingly difficult attack waves. The map even destroys the original walls in an attempt to force the player to abandon their already constructed fortifications. If players acted in this way, it would cause early waves to attack a single wall, while later waves would eventually attack two and then three walls, spreading out enemies and player defenses over a wider area. The issue is that players do not act in the intended way and are not incentivized by the map to do so. It is always better to defend a single location versus multiple, and it is a hard pill to swallow to voluntarily sacrifice both existing defenses and your starting location, thereby accepting a permanent weakening via lost power and charges. Besides these reasons, allowing enemies to spread out, when you can instead force them through a narrow chokepoint would just be silly. The funnel at the top and bottom of Guns of Lyr clumps together enemies for players to then smash with powerful area-of-effect abilities and spells such as Worldbreaker Gun, Cluster Explosion, and Frenetic Assault. At the same time, the closeness of player defenses means that a single Protector's Seal or Revenge can cover the entire defense, which would not be possible if players voluntarily spread themselves between 3 separate lanes. For the map's defensive gameplay to succeed, it would have to be either more forceful in removing players from the initial chokepoint via harsh penalties or more rewarding in terms of benefits accrued. Another better option would be for the map to spread enemies out initially instead of shepherding them through a perfect kill box. If the devs wanted players to have a last stand location, it would have been better to allow them to set one up directly surrounding Rogan's Stronghold in the center of the map. This would make the map reminiscent of a medieval fortress, with large hard to defend edges that eventually coalesce into a single fortified keep at the city's center. Long story short, do not funnel enemy attack waves through a single narrow chokepoint, spread them out of a wider area or create multiple points of attack to force players to do something more than spam spells and launch Heavy Snowballs. Escort Maps Escort maps are those maps whose primary objective revolves around protecting a non-player-controlled unit as it moves from one location to another. Escort Maps: The Treasure Fleet The Treasure Fleet is the purest form of escort map in the sense that the player has both a direct control of the area around the target being protected, unlike Convoy, and that the target moves forward before the player could have reasonably cleared the route of enemies in any permanent sense. King of the Giants is technically an escort map as well, but it does not feel like one for the vast majority of the map. This is because Rogan arrives far after the player begins conquering the map, so it is less escorting and more clearing a path, and because enemies do not threaten Rogan on the way if the player clears out the pre-existing enemies. These same conditions are not met on Treasure Fleet, and the player is consequently tasked with defending a wagon from the Treasure Fleet as it travels through enemy territory under constant assault. While The Treasure Fleet has a number of issues (which will be discussed later), such as monotonous gameplay, low replayability, and a fixed timer, these issues are largely unrelated to the spawn mechanics of the map. Both the spawn and camp designs of Treasure Fleet are well-done. As the Treasure Wagons move forward, the path itself is relatively unimpeded by walls or permanent enemy encampments, the exception being the Twilight encampment just before the target location which the player can then conquer for himself. Instead, incoming attack waves come from a mix of permanent caves and destroyable spawn buildings built adjacent to the wagon's pathway. The player can choose to only act as an escort for the wagon, or to invest resources into destroying the spawn buildings on the side, making future wagons safer but reducing the resources which can be used to defend the wagon currently en route. At the same time, there are 3 permanent spawn caves, ensuring that players cannot completely eradicate the enemy's capacity to attack. The area around these caves is open, allowing the player space to build defensives without impeding the forward progress of the wagons. There are also a number of optional areas into which the player can expand for additional resources. These side objectives are largely safe from attack, keeping the player's focus on the wagon travel route. The continual focus of the enemy attack waves on the wagon path, along with existence of some of the player's resources on the path itself, is an example of how map and spawn design go hand in glove. The player's own resources are only attacked where it makes sense for an enemy obsessed only with the Treasure Wagons to be attacking. Despite a well designed layout and well scripted spawns, The Treasure Fleet suffers from several balance problems and core design issues. I think these are worth pointing out because it is important to understand how multiple small issues can drag down an otherwise well designed map. The first major issue is that the map has a fixed time limit which cannot be meaningfully changed outside of early game exploits via killing one of the wagons. While this is fine for a few playthroughs, it severely damages the map's replayability, which is the second major issue. A good player quickly learns how to exploit a map's weaknesses to achieve objectives in creative manners and this accumulated map knowledge is typically rewarded with an easier playthrough, or better, a faster completion time. What happens with veterans in The Treasure Fleet, assuming it is played normally without the early wagon kill, is that veterans quickly and efficiently destroy enemy spawn buildings, grab early wells for fast power generation, and neutralize the spawn caves whose attack waves are easily destroyed due to not being guarded by map terrain or reinforcements. By the time the last 1-2 wagons spawn, the player has already beaten the map and merely needs to repair the odd tower while they scroll social media waiting for the wagon to meander its way to the finish line. In other maps, the player's high level of proficiency would lead to a faster conclusion to the map itself, providing a meaningful way for a player to measure their own improvement and to show off. While you could post a replay showing you cleared the map of enemies faster than other people, the fact is that this is not an easily quantifiable measure of skill because it does not show mastery of the map as such, in the same way that faster map completion times do inherently. Also, no one is going to watch the replay. This issue would have been fixable through mechanics such as the ability to reroute a wagon via a faster but more difficult route, or the ability to release multiple wagons at once but by doing so, the player triggers much harder attack waves as a result. Such mechanics would have required much more complex map scripts to achieve and given the time necessary to achieve this, and the fact that the original devs, based on the abilities of the Twilight Edition cards, seemed to believe PvP would be the more popular mode, it is not that surprising The Treasure Fleet was not given the love necessary to generate long-term replayability. Conquest Maps Conquest maps are those maps whose primary objective is to clear the map of enemies, potentially culminating in a boss fight which triggers the map's end. Lodgement maps, as discussed in the companion camp design guide, are a type of conquest map. Conquest Maps: Ocean The majority of gameplay in Ocean is fighting on different islands made up of different combinations of center and line-based camps. These sections of the map are largely uninteresting for our purposes here. Besides island hopping, Ocean has an additional mechanic, which is that Raven Battleships spawn in from 8 different locations around the edge of the map, and if these Battleships succeed in assembling a fleet of 5 ships, the player loses. This mechanic is a good example of creative spawn scripting, which is well integrated into the map and its lore, and which adds a dynamism to the map that helps make each playthrough a bit different. I would also note that I personally think semi-randomized spawn events of this kind make for a better map experience because they make the map feel more alive. In general, I think Ocean does a very good job of making the map feel like a real location and not just a videogame map to play in. While some islands feel silly, such as the tiny ones populated by ground troops, others like the Skyrake island do a good job of both sticking to the standard enemy faction of Bandits, while also feeling like a place where Skyrakes might actually populate and breed. This feeling of life is helped by a large number of one-time map events, such as the bird attack at the beginning, the mines which spawn on the western isle, and the ability to earn Skyrakes for yourself when you conquer their island. This is a good reminder that one-time spawn events play an essential part in making the level feel alive and lived-in. The existence of the Deathray summoner, which seems a bit random when reflected upon, but which is an iconic part of the map, is another reminder that sometimes it is okay to add a twist to the map. After the player reaches the main island, a second Raven ship mechanic activates which spawns Raven ships along the entire edge of the map hellbent on killing the trapped white juggernaut. This is an example of a bad spawn mechanic. The massive invasion comes out of nowhere, is never foreshadowed, and it is poorly executed. Most of the islands and base locations which get attacked by the incoming ships lack the ability to respond to attacks due to the twin factors of little space to build and the fact that Raven Battleships have a 50m range and can fire from fog of war. While this is functionally the boss battle of the map and therefore it is not necessarily wrong that the player's bases are put under real pressure, the issue is that the map itself is not built to facilitate such a fight. In the first part of the map the arrival of each ship is foreshadowed and the player can prepare by building towers and moving units, but the same is in no way true here. The confusing part is that this omnidirectional attack is then followed up by a single direction attack from Blight which seems much less scary in comparison. The final Raven fleet fight would likely be much better if the fleet came from 1-2 directions, instead of all directions, but that the chosen locations were still semi-randomized so that the player could not preemptively defend against it. I personally would have made the existence of the incoming fleet be foreshadowed similar to the singular Raven ships, while giving the player a 1 minute timer to rapidly prepare some defenses in the direction which got chosen. I then would have made Blight appear with ships from all directions to provide a better sense of hopelessness and impending doom, thereby making sense of Mo giving into QueekQueek's blackmail due to a real worry for his life. Conquest Maps: Mo Mo is simultaneously a well designed and a poorly designed map, which is why it alone has been referenced in both the spawn and camp design guides. The general idea of the map, the player getting to control a boss-like NPC unit which he needs to safely guide to the end, is simply a great map concept. The power fantasy of playing as Mo and singlehandedly smashing through Bandit defenses, helps to give the player a real sense of why Mo is treated as such a threat in universe. In terms of sections, Mo is split into three distinct parts. Each of these three parts have substantially different spawn patterns and each have a lot to teach us about good versus bad spawn design. In the first section, Mo smashes through half-camp after half-camp until reaching the player's T3. While passing through this section, Mo activates 3 permanent spawn caves which continue to vomit flying units for the entire rest of the map. These hostile fliers can kill every well and orb from the player's starter base to his T3. After reaching the player's T3, Mo turns north to fight a mini-boss in the form of Banzai Lord. Banzai Lord spawns Banzai Birds, which Mo can either kill or play hide-and-seek with on his journey northward. The layout of this section facilitates both playstyles, giving the player several safe zones where they can stop and heal their ailing juggernaut. Once the Banzai Lord is dead, the Banzai Birds stop spawning and this section remains permanently safe. The third section, which was discussed in detail in the camp design guide, is then mostly self-contained and functions as a lodgement map. The lodgement section makes use of conditionally permanent spawn waves. Enemies spawn from caves, the spawners are therefore indestructible, but once the condition is met (death of Raven Command Walker or Bandit morale reaching 0) the spawns permanently cease. If the spawn locations themselves were moved and the waves spawned less frequently, to allow players to avoid and hide from patrols while otherwise slowly gaining ground, the third section would be very well designed overall. While the third section's spawns feel less organic than the second section's, the concept of Bandit morale is very sound and lacking only in the fact it is hampered by the issues mentioned above. Speaking of the second section, little needs to be said. The whole area is done so well it is a clear example for how Skylords Reborn map designers should design such areas in their own maps. The real issue with Mo's spawn design is the first section. The spawns are clearly intended to place continued pressure on the player as a kind of failure condition. This was likely done because Mo can simply be held back and he is therefore never in real danger of death. If the player were to do that, the player would never be able to fail the map. In light of this, the original devs added the need for the player to continually defend his T1-T3. The issue is just how ham-fisted the whole thing feels in terms of implementation. Does it really make sense that there would be an infinite spawn of only Skyrakes and Windhunters? In terms of map art, it looks like the player disturbed some bird nests and it therefore makes sense that some flying units would spawn in response, but why do they eventually turn into Tortuguns? Overall, the whole bird spawn mechanic just feels like a band-aid to a mistake made in map design which likely could have been fixed in another way. If you look at the picture included above, you will notice that the first and second sections of the map have the same mountain + green field look. Given their connection in aesthetics, it would have been better to connect them in terms of spawn mechanics as well. If I were to remake the map, I would have tied the spawns in the first section to killing the Banzai Lord in the second section. This gives a reason for why the birds were attacking to begin with, because they belonged to the Banzai Lord. The fact that the player would no longer be able to lose permanently after that point is fine, there are plenty of other maps where this is true, and technically they can still lose by letting Mo die which is likely the more common failure condition anyway. The key lesson to takeaway here is that true permanent unconditional spawns should be very rare in maps; it is almost always better to implement conditional permanent spawns when you feel like you need to pressure the player in this way.
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