WindHunter
-
Posts
382 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by WindHunter
-
-
35 minutes ago, Ggoblin said:
I just noticed power shrine is ultra-rare.
I know you guys want more ultra rares to balance the rarities, but all other shrines are rare so it's pretty weird for this one to be different.
While yes the other void shrines all have a Rare rarity, Power Shrine is a lower tier and uses a more complex mechanic than simply returning void power that we think justifies it being an Ultra-rare.
Per your other post, units affected by Altar of Nihil cannot be resurrected. That is what the "irrevocably die" portion of the description is meant to convey.
-
Patch #400051 - Spring Cleaning
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our seventeenth balance patch for the game, 4 brand-new cards, quality of life changes, and much more!
Patch Preview
- Four new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Gate of Akylos, Power Shrine, Spirit Gate, and Bandit Hut!
- Many long awaited quality of life changes have been added to the game.
- Major reworks to several underperforming cards such as Ice Shield Tower, Mountaineer, Strikers, and Altar of Nihil.
- Reworked Empire and fixed two other campaign maps to streamline the player experience.
General Changes & Fixes
- When using Twilight Transformation, transformed units now inherit the original unit's group, selection, and commands.
- Increased the maximum number of visible buff icons on units and buildings to 8.
- Fixed global effects not applying to units spawned by abilities. For example, this fixes Ravenheart's Ravenships not being affected by Wheel of Gifts or The Incredible Mo.
- Fixed an issue with Bedrock's Sculptor ability that caused its ability tooltip to disappear when multiple Bedrocks were selected at the same time.
- Affinity differences are now highlighted in each card's description. Each affinity has colored text corresponding to the color of the affinity element which highlights only those words and abilities which are different than its alterative affinity. Players who hover over cards with affinities in-game will immediately notice the changes. This featue can be disabled by setting "enable_affinities_highlighting" to "false" on the section "gui" of the file "Documents\BattleForge\config.json".
- New maps script: - "MapAudio": Audio files (flac, mp3, wav, ogg) can now be played directly from the community map folder. Reference can be viewed on https://skylords-reborn.fandom.com/wiki/Script_Information_-_Full_Reference.
New Updater - Version v0.15
- Added support for game channels, you can select the channel on the top left, it will only check updates for the selected channel (main server, test server, etc.).
- Improved performance and added caching to update checking.
- Added config settings to `Documents\BattleForge\updater-config.json`.
- Added logging to `Documents\BattleForge\Diag\log_updater.log`.
- Updated Skylords Reborn logo on the top left.
- Improved error handling and messages.
- Small UI improvements.
Modifiable parameter on`updater-config.json`:
- `fileIntegrityCheckMaxDegreeOfParallelism`: Users can set it to 1 on HDD or slower PCs, default is Processor Count / 2.
If you are using Wine on Linux or MacOS, additional dependencies are required:
- `sudo apt-get install winbind`
- `WINEPREFIX=~/.wine32/ winetricks dotnet48 d3dcompiler_47 vkd3d`
New Cards
Bandit Hut - 120p T3 Bandit Building
You will find the upgrades for this card on the maps Blight (U1) and Into the Jungle (U2/U3).
The enemies of the Skylords have long made use of spawn buildings to reinforce their armies, and this power is now also available to Bandit loving Skylords. Bandit Hut can spawn the previously unavailable units Bandit Vanguards (Bandit Strikers) and Alpha Skyrakes (Bandit Mana Wings), up to a population cap of 150. This will allow the player to quickly spawn in an army of weaker Bandit units to supplement their main army. Now Skylords can give their enemies a taste of their own medicine with their own attack waves!
Gate of Akylos - 200p T3 Lost Souls Building
You will find the upgrades for this card on the maps Empire (U1) and Unexpected Visitors (U2/U3).
Similar to Soulstone, Gate of Akylos was a card that got stuck in development hell as we faced substantially more implementation issues than initially expected. We are excited to finally share it with our players. Gate of Akylos is a global revenant support building. Its abilities focus around lengthening revenant duration and extracting revenants from existing Lost Souls units. We hope that Gate of Akylos, as well as the changes to other revenant support cards in this patch, help to make the revenant playstyle more accessible to the general playerbase.
Power Shrine - 140p T2 Amii Building
You will find the upgrades for this card on the maps Convoy (U1) and Into the Jungle (U2/U3).
Ever since we nerfed Shrine of War to require 2 Fire orbs, similar to all other void shrines, rainbow decks have been without a source of consistent void return. Power Shrine fixes this issue. Power Shrine is a T2 global Amii void shrine that allows players to play cards directly out of their void power. With each activation, each member of the Amii player's team will be able to use void power to play their next 3 cards. This card-based approach means Power Shrine will scale well into the later game as player card costs increase in higher tiers.
Spirit Gate - 70p T2 Amii Spell
You will find the upgrades for this card on the maps Sunbridge (U1) and Unexpected Visitors (U2/U3).
Nether Warp has long been the only source of teleportation that is both reliable and flexible. Spirit Gate adds a second strong teleportation option but with its own twist. Unlike Nether Warp, Spirit Gate is a unit-ability granting spell, similar to Tectonic Shift and Infernal Chain, which gives individual friendly units the ability to teleport to sources of own ground presence in a 75m range. Given the fact that it can be applied to friendly units and not just own units, a friendly Amii player can now grant every player on their team the ability to teleport their armies around the battlefield. Happy warping Skylords!
Game Balance Changes
[ Tier 1 Card Changes ]
Ice Shield Tower:
1. Power cost: 50p ➜ 80p
2. Ice Bolt damage: 66, up to 100 in total ➜ 72, up to 108 in total
3. Ice Shield:
A. Change from active to auto-cast (30m range).
B. Ice Shield strength: 880 → 660
C. New Description: "Every 20 seconds, tower applies an Ice Shield to a friendly unit that absorbs up to 660 damage for 30 seconds. Has a range of 30m."
4. Ice Field (new passive ability): Ice Shields within a 25m radius of the tower do not run out. Cannot be disabled by spellblocking abilities.Frost T1 has a lot of building options and Ice Shield Tower has long struggled to find its place. We are reworking the card to make its Ice Shield ability into an auto-cast as well as adding a new passive ability that prevents Ice Shields from expiring in the area around the building. This should hopefully make it a compelling choice in defense situations where you have lots of time to build up shields for defending units.
Soul Splicer (r):
1. Infused Necromancy (r) damage boost: 50% ➜ 70%
Snapjaws:
1. Power cost: 75p ➜ 65p
Strikers:
1. Power cost: 90p ➜ 75p
2. Damage: 780 dp20 ➜ 600 dp20
3. Life points: 600 ➜ 420
4. Unit counter: M-counter ➜ S-counter
5. Charge damage: 30 ➜ 20 damage per squad member
6. New passive ability “Bloodthirsty”: Unit regenerates 15 life points per second over the next 4 seconds per every 150 damage it deals.Ever since their looter nerf, Strikers have been languishing without much use in either PvP or PvE. We are therefore completely reworking them. On maps where hit-and-run tactics are favorable and where there is a lack of early flying enemies, our testing has shown the new Strikers to have a comparable or even superior performance compared to Nomads. The new Strikers will give Fire T1 players yet another starting unit option.
[ Tier 2 Card Changes ]
Altar of Nihil:
1. Orb cost: Shadow, Neutral, Neutral (T3) ➜ Shadow, Shadow (T2)
2. Power cost: 110p ➜ 50p
3. Life points: 990 ➜ 670
4. Complete Rework, Nihilation:
A. Description: Activate to create a corrupted zone of 25m around the building where summoning friendly units requires 85% less of the usual power costs but causes all summoned units to irrevocably die after 20 seconds. Does not affect flying units. Lasts for 30 seconds. Reusable every 60 seconds.Altar of Nihil was originally designed to support cards like Wrathgazer or Cultist Master in PvP. It was a niche strategy in the past until Voidstorm got moved to T3. A global map reset paired with void removal created arguably the the most uncounterable and overpowered late game PvP combination the game has ever seen. As a result, we had to remove the strategy entirely by nerfing Altar of Nihil into the ground. Since then, the card has maintained a 0% play rate in every game mode.
As the previous ability was not salvageable due to the interaction mentioned above, we redesigned Altar of Nihil entirely. The new ability is supposed to bring more strategic depth to Shadow's card arsenal by synergizing with its sacrificial elements. We also moved away from a purely harmful effect to open up PvE usage. We will keep a close eye on the card's balancing and adjust numbers in the future if necessary.
Global Warming:
1. Both affinities now speed up own Fire units by 25% for 20 seconds.This change will give Global Warming more flexibility, making it better able to justify itself in taking up a deck slot.
Mountaineer:
1. Life points: 1350 ➜ 1140
2. Bombard damage: 220, up to 330 in total ➜ 80, up to 120 in total
3. Glacier Shield now refreshes unconditionally every 12 seconds.
4. Icing Up Rework:
A. Charges: 100, up to 800 in total ➜ 80, up to 400 in total
B. Charge tick speed: 1000 ms (1 sec) ➜ 3500 ms (3.5 sec) - Aligns with the attack speed, so the unit gains 80 charges every 3.5 seconds.
C. Charges are now converted into 200% damage.Mountaineer now generates charges overtime which are then converted into damage, similar to the way Death Ray's corpse mechanic works. This gives Mountaineer more damage at the beginning of combat, but his damage over time drops sharply if he remains in combat for a long period of time. The idea is that the unit should maintain its hit-and-run playstyle but without the buggy shield interaction which would stop the unit from attacking whenever the shield recharged. As regards the Ice Shield, it now recharges unconditionally similar to Avatar of Frost's shield which should help with Mountaineers overall survivability.
Portal Nexus:
1. Explosive Death: Friendly entities ➜ Friendly unitsThis change should make it easier to place and use Portal Nexus without negatively affected the strategies that use the card to kill own and friendly units.
Shadow Mage:
1. Foul Play health damage percentage: 400% ➜ 500%
Shrine of Greed:
1. Enemy void return percentage: 50% ➜ 25%
Revenant's Blessing:
1. Charges: 12 ➜ 20
2. Cooldown: Reusable every 20 seconds ➜ Instantly reusable.As part of the release of Gate of Akylos, we are touching up a few revenant-based cards to help buff up the playstyle. This change is intended to make it easier to keep unbound revenants alive without bringing both affinities of Revenant's Blessing, saving the player an important deck slot.
Tranquility:
1. Soothing Whispers:
A. Damage buff: 30% more damage ➜ 35% more damage
B. Healing: 50 life points every 2 seconds ➜ 7% max life points every 2 seconds
2. Foreboding Whispers:
A. Damage debuff: 30% more damage received ➜ 35% more damage receivedWith these changes, Tranquility should scale well as a single-target buff even into T3 and T4, giving the player a better reason to include it in Amii decks.
Twilight Curse:
1. No longer blocked by mind control effects.Players can now mind control enemies, such as with Amazon, and use Twilight Curse to transform them.
Twilight Minions:
1. Gifted Incentive (g) damage boost: 30% ➜ 50% more damage by friendly Fire, Nature, and Twilight units
2. Infused Incentive (r) damage boost: 65% ➜ 75% more damage by friendly small unitsEncourage use of Twilight Minion's transformation effect, especially alongside the new Twilight Archers card.
[ Tier 3 Card Changes ]
Healing Gardens:
1. Ritual of Recovery duration: 45 seconds ➜ 60 secondsPlayers can now keep Ritual of Recovery active 100% of the time with only one Healing Gardens.
Lost Grigori:
1. Disintegrating Shock:
A. Ability power cost: 100p ➜ 70p
B. Cooldown: 30 seconds ➜ 20 seconds
C. Can no longer disintegrate XL units
D. Lost Grigori now regenerates 180 life points per sec while channeling disintegration.Lost Grigori presently struggles in both PvP and PvE. We are tweaking its disintegration ability in an attempt to breathe some life into the card, especially in PvE. We are removing the ability to target XL-units to prevent PvP abuses, while at the same time giving it a cost reduction and cooldown reduction. Most importantly, Lost Grigori now heals itself while disintegrating enemies, meaning it can self-sustain without a need for other support cards.
Razorleaf:
1. Damage per leaf: 34, up to 51 in total ➜ 30, up to 45 in totalDespite being a T3 unit, Razorleaf is stronger than most T4 defenses. The card has always been strong and it has received numerous indirect buffs as we have buffed other Nature cards around it. While we want the card to remain a strong endgame defensive option, even into T4, it currently stands too far above its competitors so we are chopping off 10% of its total damage.
Twilight Bombard:
1. Damage: 420, up to 630 total (2100 dp20) ➜ 460, up to 690 in total (2300 dp20)
2. Life points: 2660 ➜ 2920Despite previous buffs, Twilight Bombard is still struggling to find its place among Twilight's T3 defense options. We are giving it a 10% buff to both its damage and life points to make it more efficient for the power cost.
[ Map Changes ]
Ascension Map 3:
1. Map 3 of Ascension is now playable even when one side of the map has no players. This will allow players to play this map solo.
2. Map 3: Allow players from the respective other side to also take control of the portal devices with nearby ground entities.
The Insane God:
1. Fixed a bug where a Seeker would instantly turn into a Guardian if it was killed while transforming.
2. Urzach's Seeker: Added an indicator to the visual effect of the transformation ritual and hide both if the ritual is interrupted.
Empire:
1. Reworked Magic-Devices:
One of the more annoying things in Empire was the clunky Device-logic. Before this patch, only one player (per side) could teleport the Red-King to his timeline. Now every player is able to teleport the Red King back and forth.2. Reworked Ritual:
We added a few visual indicators to hopefully make the ritual more understandable.3. Removed Player-Limit:
As soon as one side of the map had no more players, the game ended. This restriction caused games to end, which could have been successful even without the other side of the map present.4. Minor changes:
We also made a lot of miscellaneous changes. These range from small things such as incorrect map outcries to larger, more game-breaking issues like Jorne's allies blocking his path and thus blocking the game from advancing.
n3tax, DasCharakter, WatcherOfSky and 13 others like this -
This would require a retouching of all Twilight units with a substantially different gameplay philosophy. While we do think Twilight Transformation is too weak in many cases right now, we do not intend to scrap the mechanic but to fix it up and make it more worthwhile to use, similar to what we have been doing with the Lost Souls Revenant's Doom faction ability.
-
You earn BFP at the same rate regardless of if you win or lose. Additionally, campaign map gold rewards have the failure rate factored in. So as long as you do not fail significantly more than the average player, you will receive the same effective gold per minute as if you played rPvE 6 and won every round.
vargata and Metagross31 like this -
There is a known issue with the Save Christmas achievement event. Map progress is currently not being tracked or awarded. We are looking into the issue and will fix it as soon as possible.
-
Patch #400050 - Save Christmas
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our sixteenth balance patch for the game, 1 new promo card, one new achievement, and much more!
Patch Preview
- Added three new featured community maps! Shadowy forces have mind controlled Santa and stolen his presents in these demonic re-imaginings of Bad Harvest, Treasure Fleet, and Slave Master!
- One new Christmas achievement; beat the new Christmas maps before February 2nd to receive the new promo Frost Mage!
- Reworked some T3 and T4 cards.
General Changes & Fixes
- Fixed a large number of incorrect descriptions in all languages.
- Fixed storybook page order for Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle.
- Updated scratch code description on marketplace.
New Christmas Event Maps
While everyone was brewing hot cocoa and preparing cookies below the chimney, the forces of darkness have kidnapped the elves and mind controlled Santa! The Skylords must act quickly to recover the stolen presents, free the captured elves, and return Santa to sanity to save Christmas. Re-experience three classic campaign maps and earn yourself a new promo Frost Mage in the process! The event lasts until February 2nd and will reoccur yearly. You can find the maps in the Community Maps section of the World Map.Christmas Fleet, 1-player map
Dark forces have stolen Santa's presents. The presents have been found, but you need to defend the sleighs full of presents until they can reach the North Pole.
Elf Master, 2-player map
Santa's elves have been kidnapped! Free the elves so they can make it home in time to spread Christmas cheer.
Naughty Harvest, 4-player map
Shadow units have invaded the north pole and mind controlled Santa! Defend Santa's sleigh while you help Santa return to normal.
New Christmas Achievement
Save Christmas [Card: Frost Mage (promo)]
Win the featured community maps Naughty Harvest, Christmas Fleet, and Elf Master on Expert difficulty during Christmas.
Game Balance Changes
[ Card Changes ]
Deepfang:
1. Icefire new effect: “If a building directly attacked by Deepfang is destroyed, a Stonekin Critter will spawn out of its ruins.”
2. Union general changes (both affinities):
A. Radius: 20m ➜ 30m
B. No longer requires a Stonekin Critter nearby to activate
3. Infused Union (r) buff:
A. 50% ➜ 80% more damage
B. Now buffs all friendly Stonekin, not just Deepfang and its Critters.
4. Gifted Union (g) poison: 50 ➜ 70 damage per second
5. Stonekin Critter’s Joyful Death: Now affects all Stonekin, not just Deepfang.Deepfang is one of the worst designed cards in T3. It is full of little annoyances. The Union ability can only be triggered if a Critter is nearby, but Critters are low health and non-respawning, with a suicide ability to top it off. The fire affinity gives a +50% damage buff, but it has a small radius, only affects Deepfang and its Critters, has a long animation leading to a 660 damage loss, and is outcompeted by a 40p T1 Frost spell. The nature affinity actually deals damage, but it is a self-cast ability with a 20m radius on a ranged unit. Deepfang also comes with 2 Stonekin Critters, but they cannot respawn and their healing only works on Deepfang.
We are trying to fix everything in one fell swoop. Both Union affinities are being buffed by increased radius, increased effects, ability to work on friendly Stonekin units, and no longer requiring a Critter nearby. We are also adding a way to generate Critters by adding an Infect-esque effect to Deepfang's attack which only works against buildings. This should limit the number of Critters possible overall while making them feel like a real part of Deepfang's kit and identity. It also fits with our goal to add more building interactions to the Stonekin faction. Finally, we are expanding the Critter healing to all Stonekin.
Deepgorge:
1. Orb cost: Frost, Frost, Nature, Nature (T4) ➜ Frost, Nature, Hybrid, Hybrid (T4)
2. Infused Cold Clutch (r):
A. Aura now freezes instantly, not after 7 seconds.
B. Fire affinity, remove current effect and replace with: “Additionally, the usual damage reduction of frozen targets will be removed from all frozen enemies within the aura.”
3. Blessed Cold Clutch ➜ Cold Clutch
A. Add Frost affinity to auto-attack: Ether Eruption ➜ Blessed Ether Eruption
B. New effect: "Additionally, the building deals 100% more damage against frozen enemies and is able to ignore the usual damage reduction of frozen targets."Improve splash-ability but still require all Nature or Frost orbs to keep it within Stonekin. Double hybrid will allow the card to be usable alongside Shatter Ice, so that players can do Shatter Ice + Deepgorge + Tectonic Shift combos. The goal is to make one affinity better on its own (Frost affinity) and the other affinity better as a support card (Fire affinity). While +100% damage increase against frozen targets might seem like a lot, please note that the last time we buffed Deepgorge we gave this card the largest stat increase in balancing history, and it is still barely viable. The frost affinity will have a 6k single-target dp20, which while decent, is still worse than both WBG and Volcano.
Stone Warrior:
1. Blessed Shatter Lance (b) damage: 2600, up to 3900 in total ➜ 2600, up to 5200 in total
2. Gifted Shatter Lance (g):
A. Now only works on paralyzed enemies
B. Damage: 1040, up to 1560 in total ➜ 2600, up to 5200 in total (same as frost affinity)
3. Shatter Lance: Apply damage overflow fixWe want to give Stone Warrior (b) a slight buff to continue improving on its synergy with Rageflame. At the same time, we are taking this opportunity to change how the nature affinity works. Right now, it is an unconditional damage ability and this fact prevents us from buffing its numbers. It is also odd because the nature affinity has a paralyze extension effect akin to the frost affinity's freeze extension effect, but the Shatter Lance has no paralyze synergy. We are therefore changing it to work on paralyze targets like the other affinity works on frozen targets and buffing its damage numbers to be equivalent.
Lost Horror:
1. Life points: 3730 ➜ 3230
2. Multishot - Both affinities may shoot at 3 targets at once.
3. Move affinity effects into the attack itself.
A. Infused Lost Goo (r) - Knocks back small and medium units.
B. Gifted Lost Goo (g) - Additionally, the goo is extremely toxic, poisoning every enemy it touches for 20 damage every second for 10 seconds.Lost Horror(g) is one of the best beginner cards in the game. The same is not true for the fire affinity, which like many affinities is significantly worse. The damage difference between the cards is so high that it is difficult to ever imagine the player choosing the fire affinity. Therefore, we are buffing the fire affinity to also be able to target 3 enemies simultaneously and adding a minor poison effect to the green affinity. At the same time, we are chopping off 12% of the card's health as its life points are closer to a T3 melee XL-unit than a ranged unit.
Ravenheart / Ravenheart Promo:
1. Passive ability Fleet Support: now works on any allied Raven unit, including the Raven Archwalker.
2. Updated status bar icon to be more consistent.[ NPC & Map Changes ]
New NPC Entities: Added several new Shadow entities available for use by official and community mapmakers.
Counter type fix: Fixed multiple NPC's to use the correct working armor type, so that they properly receive 50% more damage from attackers that have the matching counter type instead of 0% more damage regardless which counter attacked.
Teststrike: Added two additional abilities to Teststrike for maptesting purposes; one to drain own wells to get more power, and one to kill friendly units.
Majora, WatcherOfSky, Hrdina_Imperia and 1 other like this -
I definitely think there is a real question to ask about what to do regarding the new maps and the old achievements. For now we just incorporated the new maps into them, but as we add more maps the question really needs to be asked if that is a good idea. I don't particularly like newer players, or just less active ones, needing to do more work for the same rewards, and in that sense it seems smart to limit the existing achievements to the original maps.
Metagross31 likes this -
On 10/28/2024 at 5:09 AM, This Is Halloween_2 said:
Good Patch.
I agree with fire force (B) change, but I would have liked in exchange to allow the champion to benefit from the effect. Could help the F affinity one.
While the initial buff does not affect the champion, I am fairly certain the leveled up buff does.
-
On 11/2/2024 at 9:11 AM, Tigershark said:
I have no clue what triggers the reveal of the Amii city. Time?
Sometimes it triggers on the second monument, sometimes when reaching the area with the first waypoint, and sometimes even at the well on the path.
So far I only played solo.It is based either on time, or passing the gate next to the player's T2, whichever comes first. The time limit before the reveal triggers is stricter on expert than on advanced.
Metagross31 likes this -
Patch #400049 - Spooky Giants
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our fifteenth balance patch for the game, 2 brand-new cards, 1 new promo card, one new achievement, and much more!
Patch Preview
- Two new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Simulacrum and Twilight Archers!
- Added one new featured community map! The Lost Souls have reincarnated the fallen Jorne and he is after Rogan in this ghostly redo of King of the Giants!
- One new Halloween achievement; beat the new Spooky Giants map before November 10th to receive the new promo Jorne!
- Some minor buffs to underperforming cards.
General Changes & Fixes
- Fixed locked maps showing no required maps.
- Added a "Pause Game" button to the ESC menu. The game will no longer be paused when simply pressing ESC. The setting "allow_pausing_solo_games" in the config file is now deprecated.
- Add ranking data from before patch #400035, when ranks were reset due Decomposer and Batariel changes. There is a now a new filter option "Since #400035".
- Add leaderboard refresh rate information when hovering on range filter question mark.
- Add voicelines to Jorne (and Promo) [English only].
New Halloween Event Map
It is that time of year again, when ghastly ghouls and spooky skeletons arise from their ancient graves to once again haunt the living. As has now become a Skylords Reborn tradition, we are bringing you a major Halloween event with the addition of a reimagining of King of the Giants. Similar to our previous Halloween event map, Spooky Encounters, we have swapped all the existing enemies on the campaign map King of the Giants with Lost Souls equivalents. Re-experience this classic campaign map and earn yourself a new promo Jorne in the process! The event lasts until November 11th and will reoccur yearly.Spooky Giants, 4-player map
Happy Halloween! Rogan Kayle is luring the giant king to the human realm, but something is wrong. The giant king has fallen and risen anew - more bloodthirsty than ever before!
New Halloween Achievement
Frankenstein's Monster [Card: Jorne (promo)]
Win the 4-player featured community map Spooky Giants on Expert difficulty during Halloween.
New Cards
Simulacrum - 100p T3 Amii Unit
You will find the upgrades for this card on the maps "Nightmare's End" (U1) and "Unexpected Visitors" (U2 and U3).
Simulacrum, the missing unit from the Amii wallpaper, and our first T3 Amii unit, has finally arrived. The idea behind Simulacrum is to create a tempest-style unit, but with real mobility. Therefore, we added a teleport ability to the unit while rooted, so that it can be moved around similar to a unit-version of Phase Tower in T3. In addition to the teleportation ability, it has an on-hit slow, allowing it to engage in hit-and-run tactics, slowing an enemy's approach and dodging away when they finally get into range.
Twilight Archers - 60p T2 Twilight Unit
You will find the upgrades for this card on the maps "Nightmare Shard" (U1) and "Into the Jungle" (U2 and U3).
We wanted to add a ground-based T2 archer to Twilight, but we ran into the issue that Fire/Nature in PvP would become oppressive with a cheap T2 archer unit due to being able to mass the unit into an archer army. To combat this issue, Twilight Archers deal more damage at the beginning, and less damage once they run out of ammo, similar to an unchargable Deathray would work. As part of our goal of adding more transformation effects, Twilight Archers create a small healing aura when transformed.
Jorne (Promo) - 300p T4 Legendary Unit
Obtainable via the new achievement Frankenstein's Monster. Can only be completed during Halloween!
Game Balance Changes
[ Global Balance Changes ]
Twilight Transformation speed: All transformation are now as fast as Twilight Crawlers (0.6 seconds).
[ Card Changes ]
Amii Monument:
1. Removed Slow Construction.
Eliminator:
1. Damage: 780 dp20 ➜ 840 dp20
Envenom (p):
1. Tainted Intoxication (p) duration: 15 seconds ➜ 25 seconds
Fire Force(b):
1. Blessed Morale damage reduction: 25% initial, 50% at full strength ➜ 20% initial, 40% at full strengthSlight nerf to the frost affinity of Fire Force which provided too much durability with Unity in the higher tiers.
Frost Sorceress:
1. Ice Shield cost: 20p ➜ 10p
Makeshift Tower:
1. Power cost: 60p ➜ 50p
Twilight Crawlers:
1. Add "Adept Mutation" passive ability: Cost to transform unit is reduced by 13p.
2. Remove "Rapid Transformation" which is now standard across as Twilight units.
Twilight Hag:
1. Gifted Enrapture (g) regeneration: 30 life points per second ➜ 60 life points per second
2. Infused Enrapture (r) buff: 20% more damage ➜ 60% more damageTwilight's Hag's crowd control effect has become an important part of Twilight's T3 since the changes to Amii Monument. While Enrapture's crowd control effect is powerful, especially in combination with Nature's other crowd control effects, the allied buff effects are relatively weak. We are buffing both allied effects to give Hag more slot efficiency as a support unit.
[ NPC & Map Changes ]
Bandit Skyrake Alpha Male:
1. Damage: 58, up to 86 in total (470 dp20) ➜ 84, up to 126 (700 dp20)
2. Life points: 1430 ➜ 1200
3. Size: M-size ➜ L-size
4. Texture has been slightly changed to make the difference between normal Skyrakes and Alpha Skyrakes more obvious.
5. Added new ability descriptions and noted that the unit deals 100% more damage to flying units.New NPC Entities: Available for use by official and community mapmakers.
Lost Watchtower:
1. Added a new building (NPC entity): Lost Watchtower is a powerful T3 Lost Souls tower.
Into the Jungle:
- Terra now spawns after either all three objective spawners have been destroyed, or if the final objective wave has been spawned.
Unexpected Visitors:
- Destroying the Banestone objectives before the end of the second night now reduces the remaining portal charge time by 1% for each Banestone. This is in addition to the existing fall reduction in portal charge time.
- Several Lost Launchers near the Lost Souls portal have been swapped with Lost Watchtowers.
[ Bugfixes & Miscellaneous Changes ]
- Fixed Into the Jungle teleported buildings not taking damage.
- Reduced the noise volume of portals in campaign maps, mostly notable on Ascension and Empire.
- Fixed some English descriptive issues on Forest Elder, such as the claim at Magic Link worked on itself.
WatcherOfSky, Markus34222, Emmaerzeh and 3 others like this -
It is not supposed to work on itself, it is a descriptive error and will be removed.
-
We will think about how Mindweaver interacts with the new units and if any changes are needed.
Per Mountaineer, the card is supposed to be a kind of mini-boss for the areas where it is found. Its shield is 660 strength and it can affect up to 4 friendly targets, both units and buildings, nearby. Perhaps it is a bit much, but again, we had a very constrained unit pool and we wanted something which could provide shields to multiple units in an area and it felt like the best option. Per the section to the left of the T2 before the city, that has proven to be very difficult to balance. When it was weaker, it was too easy to get 2 wells early and the player's power generation discouraged leaving the base to find more wells. For now, the area is mostly useful for advanced difficulty where the player has more time to clear it before the first Lost Souls waves hit the Amii city.
-
Two things:
- NPC and player units are not identical and never have been. They have not only different stats, but also different tiers and different abilities. When we were designing the Frost section of Unexpected Visitors we were extremely limited in what we could use, because we could not use Lyrish-Frost units as it made no sense lore-wise. If Mountaineer did not deal air-damage it would have been added to the map, its anti-air capacities are largely why we added it in the first place. And, if we are to complain about Mountaineer, why not about Icespike, Mountain Rowdy, or Ice Guardian? All 3 of these are major departures from their player versions.
- All NPC power costs were aligned when we did the other ones. NPC Vileblood is a T3 unit, Windhunter is a T4 unit, and Twilight Dragon is a mini-boss (immunity, not mind control). Their strength fits its internal orb/power costs. Stopping Vileblood swaps by Nightguard was a major the reason behind NPC orb/power fixes, and it would make no sense to keep Vileblood at T2 when it has the stats and ability effect of a T3 unit. As per the Lost Souls and Frost units, some of them might still have their player power costs. This is also true of the Fire rPvE enemies in cases where the stats and abilities were nearly identical.
-
cards ideas
in Cards
If you want to share and see more card suggestions, you can join our balance discord, which as a dedicated section for this. As for this idea, we currently have no plans to add other XL-units to T2 beyond Harvester. Similar to how Sunderer is the only L-unit in T1, we think it is better in this case to preserve faction uniqueness but not overusing large and extra-large units in the lower tiers.
Riviute and Metagross31 like this -
We could easily redo the map, but I do not think it has much upside. Like I said, the mission location ultimately does not matter except in so far as it is connected to the other maps within the same storyline. Moving all the missions around would only confuse people, and I doubt it would make most people happy.
DefAnske and Metagross31 like this -
Hello, we did not make any changes to how frequently each faction appears since we added Nature rPvE to the pool of available factions. This is likely therefore a streak of bad luck.
-
Almost none of the maps are located in accurate locations. Titans, Guns of Lyr, and Empire all take place in the city of Lyr, and not one of them are actually placed in Lyr. So the areas really become storyline dependent, not geographically based.
Also, we cannot put them after Insane God because that is where the next set of maps are going.
DefAnske likes this -
1 minute ago, UltDragon said:
Apparently you can stack them on legacy
Stacking and their effects stacking are very different things. We changed them to no longer stack like this because it does nothing, but the effects do not stack and it was Phenomic who changed that, not us.
Immortal Skylord and Metagross31 like this -
Patch #400048 - Echoes of the Amii
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our fourteenth balance patch for the game, 4 brand-new cards, 2 new campaign maps, a new PvP mode, four new achievements, and much more!
Patch Preview
- Four new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Amii Sentinel, Skydancer, Energy Core, and Umbabwe!
- Added two new campaign maps! Continue the story of Skylords Reborn in the first two maps of our new campaign.
- BattleArena has arrived! Play against your friends in 2v2 or 3v3 battles in this casual PvP mode.
- Four new achievements and cosmetics to go along with the new maps and game mode.
- A few balance changes and major card reworks mostly to previously unviable cards.
General Changes
- The Shadow enemies found on the summoning menu in the Forge have been swapped with their NPC versions. Amii enemies have also been added to the Forge's summoning menu.
- A new section has been added to PvE leaderboard to account for potential speedrun changes arising from changes to Amii Monument without wiping the rankings.
- Upgrades have been redistributed, you can find more information in-game by using the "Show Upgrades" option on each map. All Rebirth edition cards have had their U2 and U3 upgrades moved to the new maps.
- The Lost Souls Forge skin is now available. Complete the new achievement "After All These Years" on expert difficulty to unlock it.
- Deleted players are now displayed as <deleted> rather than empty.
- New setting "Force create unit group when holding SHIFT key" added to options.
- Reverted previously undocumented changes to attack-move command (shortcut Q), that were causing issues with unit responsiveness.
- Added Map of the Day info to the "Daily Rewards" section.
- When a player completes the Map of the Day in a given day, the flame on the world map will be grayed out. This change is to help players remember if they have already completed a particular Map of the Day for achievement progress. Players can continue to play the Map of the Day for extra upgrade rewards as normal.
- Re-enabled the chat command export collection.
- Re-enabled the explore replay button.
New Campaign Maps
At long last the Skylords Reborn story continues with the addition of two brand-new fully-voiced (in English) campaign maps. These maps continue the story after Dwarven Riddle and are the product of hundreds of hours of our team's artists, designers, community map testers, translators, and voice actors. Both come with new achievements and rewards to encourage you to dive-in and explore.Unexpected Visitors, 2-player campaign map
Journey into the northern wastes to find the secrets hidden within the Riddle of Gnaur. Discover the last enclave of the elusive Amii and save them from certain destruction.
Into the Jungle, 2-player campaign map
Brave the jungles of Viridya's island to find a new home for your Amii allies.
New Cards
Amii Sentinel - 260p T4 Amii Unit
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Into the Jungle."
Our goal for Amii's T4 is to create a micro-intensive deck where most of the damage is unit-based. With Amii Sentinel in particular, our goal is to create a frontline tank that functions as a perfect conduit for Shadow's single-target buff cards. Volatile Body's 120% reflect turns Sentinel's health into a damage resource, which synergizes perfectly with cards like Regrowth, Transcendence, and Skydancer.
Energy Core - 140p T4 Amii Unit
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Unexpected Visitors."
Energy Core's original design came from the Community Card Contest we held over a year ago. The idea behind Energy Core is to create a unit which is more of a mobile spell than it is a traditional unit. It has no auto-attack, but it has two active abilities. Both abilities damage Energy Core, one more significantly than the other, requiring the player to pay close attention to unit health and weigh their options over what is possible for them and whether or not risking losing the unit is worthwhile.
Skydancer - 120p T4 Amii Unit
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Unexpected Visitors."
While Sentinel and Energy Core fit the roles of tank and damage dealer respectively, Skydancer functions as the supporter. Skydancer has two different mode-changes, one debuffing enemies and one buffing allies. The debuff functions as a kind of anti-rage effect, while the buff increases allied life points by a set amount. The health buff effect directly synergizes with Sentinel and Energy Core who both has health-based damage mechanics.
Umbabwe - 200p T4 Legendary Unit
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Into the Jungle."
Blight's infamous witch doctor is finally making his player card appearance. As a standalone legendary unit, he is intended to function as a spellcaster type unit. To accomplish this, the card has a lot of built-in flexibility via its spells. Umbabwe has an auto-attack which is a meteor from Inferno, the ability to cast his signature spell Oink, and an active ability to summon a fiery tornado which applies a painful burn effect.
BattleArena - New PvP Mode
For a long time, we have been developing an alternative PvP mode called BattleArena which we feel is finally ready to release. In this game mode, players do not use cards from their deck. Instead, they are given spell devices and progressively stronger creatures which they must use to overcome their enemies. The mode can be played 2v2 or 3v3 and comes with a new achievement to reward players for trying it out. Go to Sparring Grounds in-game to play BattleArena.
Voice Actors
Many of the above new features would not be nearly as enjoyable without the help of our volunteer voice actors. In this patch, the following players have lent their voices to liven up the Skylords Reborn universe. We thank them greatly for their help!- Vox - Gaeron (new Frost Skylord)
- Ultralord - Burning Spears
- Edgelord - Skydancer
- Edgelord - Amii Phantom (includes the card's voice lines and the unit's appearance in the new maps)
- Elijah - Amii Sentinel
- Dreamlord - New map loading screen narration
Achievements
As part of the release of the two new campaign maps and BattleArena, we have released four accompanying achievements. There is a normal achievement just for beating the new maps, which rewards the player with the new Amii Sentinel on advanced and the Lost Souls forge on expert, as well as two achievements for mastering the maps. BattleArena has a new progressive achievement for playing the mode. We are also adding new Amii borders to the existing endless achievements for playing Amii decks in PvE and PvP.[ New Achievements ]
After All These Years [Card: Amii Sentinel; Forge: Lost Souls]
Win the 2-player scenarios Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle on Advanced / Expert difficulty or higher.Evacuation Expert [Progressive Banner: Bronze rank ➜ Ember rank]
Win the 2-player scenario Unexpected Visitors on Expert difficulty in under 35 / 33 / 31 / 29 / 27 minutes.Earth, Wind, Fire [Avatar: Tribal]
Win the 2-player scenario Into the Jungle on Expert difficulty after defeating all 3 bosses in a single match.Honor Bound [Booster: 1 General; Avatar: Mo Ocean]
Play BattleArena [3 matches & 10 matches][ Existing Achievement Changes ]
Giver and Taker of Life (PvE) & Path of Insight (PvP)
Both achievements now grant progressive Amii borders in line with the requirements of other faction borders. Borders will be added to the player's account retroactively based on achievement progress.
Legacy Server
While we are happy with the game's development since its revival, we understand that there are some parts of old BattleForge that players might miss. In response to this feeling, we have created a legacy server. This legacy server is equivalent to BattleForge the day it was shut down, with none of the balance changes, new cards, or new maps that have occurred as part of Skylords Reborn's continued development being included. The legacy server functions similarly to the public test server in that the player already has all cards and upgrades. To access the legacy server navigate to the game folder, in standard installations the game folder is be found at C:\Games\Skylords Reborn, and start StartBattleForgeLegacy.bat. From there, you login with your normal account information.
Game Balance Changes
[ Global Balance Changes ]
Amii faction passive scaling: Amii's faction passive Elusive now scales based on the unit's tier.
- Tier 2: 10% less Freeze and Paralyze duration.
- Tier 3: 20% less Freeze and Paralyze duration.
- Tier 4: 30% less Freeze and Paralyze duration.
Legendary building restrictions: Legendary buildings are now one-per-player, not one-per-team.
Random PvE 1p starting void power: Starting void power has been changed to account for the Amii Monument changes.
- Standard / Standard+ (Difficulties 1-2): 600 starting void power
- Standard++ to Expert+ (Difficulties 3-8): 700 starting void power
[ Card Changes ]
Amii Monument:
1. Power Cost: 250p ➜ 125p
2. Ability Cost: 140p ➜ 100p
3. Orbs granted by Amii Monument no longer increase a player’s tier. Players still gain access to cards within their current tier that require the orb granted by Amii Monument. For example, if a player has 3 Fire orbs via normal Monuments, and builds a Nature orb via Amii Monument, they will still be T3, but will be able to summon Juggernauts and heal them via Equilbrium.
A. Description - “Switch into this mode to gain one tierless Shadow Orb. This orb will not increase a player's tier, but will allow the player to play cards within their current tier that would require this Orb. The Orb will be ready and functional after 10 seconds. It cannot be switched back for 30 seconds.”Amii Monument in its existing state is a cheat card. It breaks a map's design, allowing players unfettered access to T4 cards when the map is balanced around the player only having access to T3 cards and creating a persistent toxic effect on the normal game experience.
Amii Monument removes an entire tier from the game. This has a disruption impact on the game experience by changing deckbuilding at its core. In decks without Amii Monument, the player needs to consider how many cards they can budget for each tier and choose accordingly. With Amii Monument in a deck, the player can simply remove all T3 cards from their deck besides Amii Monument itself (spells like Infect which scale well into T4 are the exception), opening up more deck slots for T1, T2, and T4 cards. Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4. Combined with the fact that T4 cards are significantly stronger than T3 cards (the power difference between T4 and T3 cards is the single largest increase in card strength between tiers) means that the player requires fewer T3 and T4 cards in their deck, allowing the use of more card slots for T1 and T2. This heavily warps the game experience by making the player stronger than the map is designed to account for at all tiers, not just once the player reaches T3.
There is also the psychological effect Amii Monument has upon players. Since we first started balancing cards in Skylords Reborn, players have asked us to nerf Amii Monument, not just because of the balance issues, but because they felt compelled to always include it in their deck regardless of the situation. This is unsurprising as many game studios have recognized that players in general will choose the most efficient option, even to the detriment of their own enjoyment. And who of us have not experienced this? How many of us have not used mind-numbingly boring methods to grind in games just because it is the fastest way to procure loot, even if it ends up making us hate the game? Who has not included Amii Monument as a default deck option at some point in their time playing Skylords Reborn?
To briefly summarize, Amii Monument undermines map design, deckbuilding, and possesses a factor that makes players feel compelled to include it in their decks, even when they know it undermines their own enjoyment. While designing our new maps, including not just the two maps releasing with this patch but the multiple additional maps currently in development, we found ourselves face to face with these issues in a way that made the card's problems no longer ignorable. For all these reasons and more, we felt that the time had finally come to nerf Amii Monument. Yet we do not want to destroy the card. The new design is tailored towards enabling unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities, in direct opposition to its previous design. We also realized that many T3 cards were not generally strong enough to be satisfying to use, so we dedicated almost the entire last patch to adding new T3 options through buffs, reworks, and new cards, and we are dedicated to continuing this project next patch.
Lastly, we understand that this change will upset many people, but we hope you will see that we did not make this choice lightly. We do not enjoy nerfing cards players like, but we do it because we think it is the best choice for the game. At the same time, we think that the time of major nerfs is now at an end with these changes to Amii Monument, and we as a team commit to no further nerfs on the scale of Amii Monument or the previous Batariel nerf from 2 years ago to existing cards going forward.
Dying Breed:
1. Power cost: 100p ➜ 90p
2. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 2 Neutral (T3) ➜ 2 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3)
2. Tainted Plunder (p):
A. Description - Target enemy unit is filled with plunder. If the target enemy dies within the next 30 seconds, all friendly fire units in a 25m radius gain Looter for 25 seconds. Units with Looter harvest the bound power of enemies. Up to 10% of an enemy's original power costs can be harvested relative to the amount of its maximum life points received as damage. Reusable every 30 seconds.
3. Gifted Plunder (g):
A. Description - Target enemy unit is filled with plunder and takes 30 damage per second. If the target enemy dies within the next 30 seconds, all friendly fire units in a 25m radius gain Looter for 25 seconds. Units with Looter harvest the bound power of enemies. Up to 7% of an enemy's original power costs can be harvested relative to the amount of its maximum life points received as damage. Reusable every 30 seconds.
4. New FX to go with the new card effect.One of our long-term design projects is trying to give other factions besides Pure Shadow, with its Resource Booster, the ability to accelerate their power in higher tiers. We started this with changes to Nature's power flow via Forest Elder and Promise of Life, and now we are turning our eyes to Fire. Most Fire players are responsible for building 2 Shrines of War as soon as they get T3, immediately putting them behind by 300 power. Combined with high power cost units in T4, this gives Fire a painfully slow start with a frequent reliance on hoping your allies brought a Breeding Grounds for you to use. After carefully considering our options to accelerate Fire's power gain, we decided to bring back the Looter mechanic, but have it applied only temporarily with moderate percentages. We choose Dying Breed as the rework target because its previous effect was unsalvageable. The changes should allow Fire to use Dying Breed in early T3 to accelerate the transition into T4, or to payoff the bound power invested into Shrine of War, without being so strong as to cause Fire's power gain to grow out of control.
Fire Force (Formerly Girl Power):
1. Change name: Girl Power ➜ Fire Force
2. Power cost: 50p ➜ 80p
3. Blessed Morale (b):
A. Description - Target own melee unit will be designated the champion of Fire. All friendly melee units in a 30m radius will take 20% less damage. If at least 2 enemies die within a 30m radius of the champion within a 10 second period, the damage reduction increases to 50% for 15 seconds. Lasts until the champion dies, or until a different champion is chosen. There may only be one champion of Fire per player at a time. Reusable every 60 seconds.
4. Infused Morale (r):
A. Description - Target own melee unit will be designated the champion of Fire. All friendly melee units in a 30m radius will deal 25% more damage. If at least 2 enemies die within a 30m radius of the champion within a 10 second period, the damage buff increases to 50% for 15 seconds. Lasts until the champion dies, or until a different champion is chosen. There may only be one champion of Fire per player at a time. Reusable every 60 seconds.
5. New FX to go with the new card effect.Girl Power was an odd card that did not fit within the game. It was never clear to the player what cards were men, which were women, and which were neither. We did not see a way to salvage the card as it was, so we reworked it into a tool to enable new melee based strategies in Fire decks. The newly minted Fire Force is a permanent spell effect that you apply to a single unit which transforms that unit into a leader type unit. Allies around the leader are buffed, either with increasing damage reduction or increasing damage dealt, when enemies around the leader unit die. Our hope is that this card enables previously niche T2 and T3 melee units to become viable options in PvE.
Grove Spirit:
1. Movement speed: 4.8 m/s ➜ 6.4 m/s (normal L/XL-speed)
2. Life points: 1100 ➜ 1600
3. Healing Song cost: 90p ➜ 60pGrove Spirit has found itself a niche in a deck which uses it alongside Offering to cycle Mind Control. The idea of this deck is to use Grove Spirit as ground presence while you build yourself an army out of your enemy's units. The issue is that Grove Spirit itself is slow and dies in one-shot to artillery buildings. We have given the unit a booster shot of life points and made her undulate her tentacles faster, alongside a discount to the Healing Song ability. Pending any further rework to the unit, we hope in the meantime that this helps the unit in the one niche it has found for itself.
Lost Dancer:
1. Tainted Blast affinity effect: 50% more damage against humans ➜ 30% more damage against humansLost Dancer has proven too strong in PvP and we are toning down the extra damage against humans to bring her back in-line.
Lost Manabeast:
1. Immortalize requirement: 7 enemy life essences ➜ 3 enemy life essencesImmortalize's enemy requirement is too strict, making it overly difficult to make good use of the ability. We are substantially reducing the requirements to hopefully give Lost Manabeast a better synergy with Revenant strategies.
[ NPC & Map Changes ]
Spearmen (NPC):
1. Toggle ability Defensive Formation: 25% damage reduction now applies properly
Fire Emitter (Slavemaster version):
1. Power cost: 2000p ➜ 200pNew NPC Entities: Available for use by official and community mapmakers.
-
Added Frost NPC entities:
- Units: War Eagle, Tremor, Mountain Rowdy, Northland Drake, Icespike, Avatar of Frost, Construct, Dreadnought, Core Dredge, Dredgling, Mountaineer, Tempest, Winter Witch
- Buildings: Ice Launcher, Frost Crystal, Frontier Keep (large spawner), Kobold Inc. (small spawner)
-
Added Amii NPC entities:
- Amii Crossbowmen, Amii Paladins, Amii Phantom, Amii Sentinel, Amii Keep
Bad Harvest: Both orbs near the Treasure Wagon now spawn when a player in position 3 is playing solo.
The Soultree: The map now requires all 5 normal orbs to be built or under construction to fulfill the map's victory requirement. Amii Monument no longer counts towards this goal.
[ Bugfixes & Miscellaneous Changes ]
- Fixed card descriptions in various languages.
- The longstanding issue which caused players' games to slowdown substantially when they destroyed multiple frozen air units at once, has now been fixed. The most well known occurrence of this bug was connected to Shatter Ice.
- Dropdowns for rankings are no longer scrollable.
-
I would agree with SunWu that even if we did add a new Stonekin flying unit, it would not use the Magma Spore model, as this model already as too much overlap with Stonekin units. Whether we do add another one eventually is up in the air. There are no plans for one right now, but things can always change.
I do think it fits Stonekin to be a primarily ground-based faction. They are living rocks after all. Keeping factions from becoming too heterogeneous, and overlapping too much with each other, is something we want to avoid. The goal is for each faction to play differently, to give a player a unique experience in comparison to other factions, and the lack of flying units is part of that experience in Stonekin.
Metagross31 and Llewellyn like this -
No estimate on either. The AV issues really slowed down our development track but now with that mostly under control we can hopefully get back to them both soon.
Metagross31 and Jodekoek like this -
There will be more challenges for specific factions in the future as part of the elemental masteries content we have planned. Players will be encouraged to master each faction through various challenges and be rewarded for it.
Jodekoek and Metagross31 like this -
People have offered a few different suggestions for how to achieve this over the years, as it really is a very commonly reoccurring suggestion, and while it could probably be done in a way that bypasses the game's technical limits, I do not see what it adds to the game in a real sense. Yes, now you can play a specific hybrid faction from T1-T4, but the units we would introduce as part of this would need to be purposefully underpowered, and therefore no one would actually want to start with them. I think players significantly underestimate how fine-tuned of a machine T1 is in both PvP and PvE. This is the part of the game where we take the most care in making any changes, because nearly every card is theoretically usable in all game modes.
Consider then what adding a T1 Bandit unit to the game would actually mean. It would need to be balanced in both T1 Fire and T1 Shadow, simultaneously, in every game mode. This is just not realistic. It is more likely it would be balanced in one but not the other, overpowered in one but not the other, overpowered in both, or most likely, underpowered in both because we do not want to destroy what we have spent 4 painstaking years fixing. There is also the fact of how many dev resources this would require. To make this something worthwhile, we are talking 2-3 new units for each hybrid faction, because we would not be moving almost any T2 units down to T1, which means 8-12 new artworks, FXs, and card designs. Is this really what the community wants us to focus our energy on?
So I get the reason why people want this to happen and why it would be cool, but for pragmatic reasons it just never will. We are not going to upend our carefully constructed T1 balance or shift our focus to introducing T1 cards which ultimately the game does not need. We would rather continue to flesh out existing factions with new tools, continue building the Amii faction to the point where it is actually on-par with Lost Souls or Stonekin, and hopefully in the farther future introduce a new Fire/Frost faction.
-
If the reasoning we provided is itself somehow not sufficient, we have years worth of feedback to support every conclusion we presented. We have testimonies from players who said they quit because of Amii Monument and many others who asked us to nerf it specifically because they cannot stop themselves from using it despite not wanting to. We have the data to show it has an absurdly high playrate for a T3 card and that most other T3 cards have correspondingly low playrates. And it is not like any of this came out of nowhere, the problems with Amii Monument have been discussed for years. When the balance discord opened back in 2019, some players were begging the devs to remove Amii Monument from the game before the rerelease, or at least to lock it behind so massive a wall that the vast majority of the playerbase could not touch it. Clearly, for these players, "just don't play it" was not a sufficient response to what they knew the card did to their own ability to play and enjoy the game as they liked (it ought to be obvious that compulsion is not just the providence of drugs, but that many things in life have this almost involuntary-pull upon a person). After all, their calls for the card's removal were hardly related to its competitive nature.
As mentioned by Cocofang, when we presented these changes several months ago to players on our balance discord, we also wanted to change Enlightenment. The goal was to remove Tier skipping from the game entirely. But we did not just force it through. We presented the team's reasoning and the community responded. There was a solid majority of people who supported the Amii Monument change, with some mild trepidation that the new iteration might not be strong enough (and if it is not, we will buff it, but playtesting data looks good). On the other hand, while a majority of players were willing to trust us about Enlightenment, most did not actually want to see it changed. They could understand and support the Amii Monument changes, it was obviously a cheat card, but Enlightenment had many more restrictions on it and had been part of the game since its inception, to lose it now would seem to be losing something essential to Skylords Reborn. We listened to the players and have since promised not to change Enlightenment. This was the compromise. If that is not enough, we also pulled back on proposed changes to Architect's Call originally intended for this patch after we received mixed community feedback. These instances show that the feedback system is working.
Also, frankly, it is unreasonable, uncharitable, and insulting to think that we did not bother to talk to players, look at data, and carefully weigh all available options before making a change of this magnitude. You can disagree with our conclusion, but only a person who wants a reason to complain would ever read such malicious incompetence into our choice, and it says much more about them than it does about us or the changes presented.
Vrizz, Metagross31, Dutchy and 1 other like this
Official PvE Event #15: Thirsty Journey Home - Until 16.03.2025 23:59 CET
in Events and Tournaments
Posted
I had a lot of fun testing this map out before release, I think people will really enjoy what Rabit was able to do here. Also be smarter than me and make sure you walk the Knight directly into the water barrels.