[Building Changes Round 2]

9 hours ago, Metagross31 said:

What will the Soul Suction animations for Lost Converter and Waystation look like? The current one from Soulsplicer looks a bit "shadowy", which fits Lost Converter quite well, but might look a bit off on Waystation.

While not perfect, the plan is to use the existing animation for both Lost Converter and Waystation. Given they both have a Shadow orb it should be close enough. But it is interesting how Bandit's aesthetic is much more Fire than Shadow. If we were to do the same thing by adding a Fire animation to a Bandit card, I do not think anyone would question it. 

[Armored Tower - Upcoming Changes]

Yes, its current damage reduction ability is not changing.

[Building Changes Round 2]

As we announced in our Towers Deep Dive, our faction design team has been working on performing a balance pass across all attack buildings in the game. Some of these changes are relatively minor, while other changes are more substantial. This thread will function as the main thread for our second round of building changes. The original master thread can be found here. Minor changes are included here, while major changes have their own threads linked to below. Please note that all changes proposed here are provisional and as such as subject to change. 

Substantial Reworks and Balance Changes

The following buildings have significant enough changes to warrant their own threads.

Previously Announced:

• Rocket Tower
• Stronghold

Newly Announced or Updated:

• Armored Tower
• Ice Shield Tower

Fortress Changes 

One category of towers we spoke of in our Deep Dive were Fortresses. Fortresses are expensive towers from T3+ that have large models. Due to the way space works in BattleForge, larger towers should have higher stats in comparison to other towers as you can build less of them in a given area. We have decided, outside of the unique case of Church of Negation, to make 200p the base cost of Fortresses. This allows us room to pack more stats into a single building. Our goal is to move Fortresses in the direction of self-sufficient defenses that can hold positions even in those locations where you might only be able to build one or two.

 Deepgorge
1. Cold Clutch radius: 25m ➜ 30m.

While Deepgorge has substantially increased in strength since the most recent changes, particularly in connection with North Star(b) with which it naturally synergizes. Unfortunately, due to the tower's large size, its ability radius is still too small when the tower is placed behind a wall making it difficult even for a well-placed Deepgorge to hit all melee attackers on long walls. 

 Howling Shrine
1. Essence Bolts damage: 600, up to 900 in total ➜ 750, up to 1125 in total (3750 dp20)
2. Crowd control duration (both affinities): 10 sec ➜ 15 seconds

Howling Shrine is feeling better after the buffs both to itself and to the root network in general. When the initial changes were proposed, some people suggested larger buffs to the card but we urged caution due to the difficulty in account for how things would change once the full set of root network changes came through. Now that we can evaluate the changes more fully, it appears that Howling Shrine is still a tad on the weak side. To remedy this, we are giving it a +25% damage increase and increasing the duration of both its root and paralyze to help it keep dangerous melee units at a safe distance. 

 Volcano
1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 200p
2. Damage: 581, up to 872 (3990 dp20) ➜ 766, up to 1149 (5270 dp20)
3. Life points: 4390 ➜ 5690
4. Infused Eruption's (red affinity) Rage:
   A. Rage scaling: 100%/200% ➜ 75%/150% 
   B. Rage timer: 7 sec ➜ 10 seconds
   C. Attacks per stack: 4 attacks ➜ 3 attacks
5. Lava Sea
   A. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
   B. Bugfix the ability so that it works

Making Volcano more "dense" by increasing its power cost and then adjusting its stats accordingly. Total damage when enraged is slightly increased despite the nerf to Rage's percentile damage increase (12,000 --> 13175 dp20). Additionally, the rage should activate substantially sooner. Previously it took 29 seconds in combat to full scale, now it should only take 22 seconds. One thing we learned in the wake of Volcano's previous changes is that its Lava Sea ability is bugged and does not work. Fixing the ability to function as advertised should do much to make Volcano a larger threat. 

 Worldbreaker Gun
1. Life points: 4500 ➜ 5400
2. Descriptive: Add "Has a long range of 50m" to its Ground Attack description.

WBG is the best defense in the entire game, but that is achieved primarily through its Heavy Snowball ability augmented by Skyelf Sage. In terms of functions as a tower, it is still good but has uncharacteristically low life points for its cost and tier. We are giving it a slight bump in total health, which should help it when functioning as a tower while leaving it unchanged as a long range artillery piece. 

Minor Changes

It is the general principle of the faction design team not to change abilities or introduce complex mechanics needlessly. Cards should generally perform a single function and perform that function well. A lot of the buildings in the game are already well-designed but lack sufficient stats or possess too strict of requirements. As such, we have opted wherever possible to introduce simple changes to bring the tower to the appropriate power level. All values below are U3. 

 Artillery
1. Range: 50m ➜ 60m
2. Increase turret turn speed. 

Allow Artillery to damage siege units even when placed behind a wall.

 Fire Bomb
1. Damage: 715 up to 1650 in total ➜ 720, up to 1800 in total
2. Add "Fast Construction" - Construction time is reduced by 50%.
3. Allow to hit air units & enable splash overflow fix.

 Hammerfall
1. Increase turret turn speed.
2. Breeze of Life (g) / Breeze of Strength (b):
   A. Maximum capacity: 1500 ➜ 3000
   B. Recharge rate: 15 per second ➜ 40 per second
   C. Radius: 20m ➜ 25m
3. Breeze of Strength, Ice Shield cost: 495 capacity ➜ 600 capacity

Increased turret turn speed should increase damage output due to faster target tracking. Change to affinity effects: Higher maximum capacity should make both affinity effects better, but especially the healing one which is only drained as required. Higher recharge rate means that a new Ice Shield can be bestowed every 15 seconds instead of every 33 seconds, even with the higher cost. Range increase to make it easier to place units around it. Total charge time is now 90 seconds. Additionally, Hammerfall's shields do not decay while within the aura. This makes them a stable source of extra health for allied units. Hammerfall's recharge and healing is still less than Healing Well's, a T2 60p card, with the same maximum capacity.

 Infected Tower
1. Damage: 114, up to 172 in total (1215 dp20) ➜ 138, up to 207 in total. (1466 dp20)
2. Splash Radius: 5m ➜ 8m

+20% damage increase and small splash radius increase. Changes to Infected Tower's ability have been postponed until we can properly rework it.

 Kobold Laboratory
1. Mason Mastery radius: 25m ➜ 30m
2. Material Research: 
   A. Changed buildings ➜ buildings and walls
   B. Allow repairing while in combat
   C. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
   D. New description: "Friendly buildings and walls in a 30m radius have 50 / 50 / 50 / 70% lower repair costs and are repairable in combat."

Allow Kobold Laboratory to have a niche use in defense and to provide something beyond what Glaciation is capable of providing. Change is meant in preparation for DRPvE and will also be useful in maps with prolonged defenses, especially near walls.

 Lost Converter
1. Add Soul Splicer's "Soul Suction" ability to the card, allowing it to gather corpses outside its passive range.
2. Corpse cost to freeze: 200 ➜ 250 stored life points

 Morklay Trap
1. Enable splash overflow fix
2. Explosion Blast total damage: 2640 in total ➜ 4400 in total

Increase total targets from 3 to 5 and enable splash damage properly transferred even when units die.

 Stone Hurler
1. Damage: 100 damage, up to 150 in total (834 dp20) ➜ 120 up to 180 in total (1000 dp20)

Align actual damage with stated damage on the card.

 Twilight Bombard
1. Remove "Siege" from Infused affinity
2. Add "Rage" to Infused affinity. 
   A. Stage 1: +25%; Stage 2: +50% damage
   B. Attacks per stage: 3
   C. Reset timer: 10 seconds
3. Increase turret turn speed. 

Twilight Bombard (r) has Siege as its affinity effect, which is largely useless. By changing it to Rage instead, we make the choice between the two affinities one of increased damage versus crowd control.

 Waystation
1. Add Soul Splicer's "Soul Suction" ability to the card, allowing it to gather corpses outside its passive range.
2. New passive, Fast Construction: Construction time is reduced by 50%.
3. Infused damage buff: 30% ➜ 40%
4. Tainted poison damage: 30 life points every second ➜ 40 life points every second
5. Corpse storage: 2500 total ➜ 4500 total
6. Corpse cost per potion/poison (both affinities): 180 ➜ 400 stored life points will be used up.
7. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m

The first step in what will eventually be a full rework of Waystation. For now, the addition of fast construction means it can be set up offensively as its name suggests and the addition of Soul Suction means it should be able to easily gather corpses to fuel itself. Gave a small boost to both affinity effects and increased the radius to require ranged units to enter its effective radius to damage it.

[Ice Shield Tower - Upcoming Changes]

As part of our second round of building changes, Ice Shield Tower will be receiving the following proposed changes. Please note that all changes proposed here are provisional and as such as subject to change:

Iteration 1
1. Orb cost: 1 Frost (T1) ➜ 1 Frost, 1 Neutral (T2)
2. Power cost: 50p ➜ 90p
3. Life points: 1100 ➜ 1440 
4. Ice Bolt:
   A. Damage: 66 damage, up to 100 in total (581 dp20) ➜ 96 damage, up to 144 in total (840 dp20)
   B. Radius: 5m ➜ 8m 
5. Ice Shield:
   A. Change from active to auto-cast (30m range, add radius on hover).
   B. No longer affects flying units.
   C. *New Description:* "Every 6 seconds, tower applies an Ice Shield to a friendly ground unit that absorbs up to 690 / 730 / 800 / 880 damage for 30 seconds. Has a range of 30m. Affects ground targets only."

Iteration 1 Goals
Ice Shield Tower has long struggled to find a place alongside its T1 counterparts. Defense Tower is much more stat efficient and Northern Keep is a better support tower. In terms of Ice Shields, it competes with the more mobile Frost Sorceress which is favored over Ice Shield Tower in PvP. In light of this situation, we have decided to move the tower to T2 and make its Ice Shield ability auto-cast. This allows us to increase its strength and opens up the possibility of creating Ice Shield synergies in T2 and beyond, such as has already been done with Icefang Raptor, by creating a more readily available source of Ice Shields. One issue we ran into with this change was how strong it would be alongside War Eagles and Skyfire Drakes in PvP, leading us to removing its ability to work alongside air units. 

[Armored Tower - Upcoming Changes]

Our plans for Armored Tower have undergone substantial revisions in light of other changes we are making, including Ice Shield Tower. Below you can find the new proposal

Iteration 1 Revised
1. Ice Bolt splash radius: 5m --> 8m
2. Gift of Ice
   A. Radius: 25m --> 30m
   B. Duration: 30 sec --> Until absorb limit has been hit
   C. Cooldown: None --> Reusable every 30 seconds.
3. New passive, "Permafrost"
   A. Friendly wall segments within a 30m radius will regenerate 3% of their maximum life points every 2 seconds. Cannot be disabled by spellblocking abilities.

Iteration 1 Goals
Similar to what we did with Lifestream, we want to allow Armored Tower to remain in its defensive state for as long as its absorb limit has not been hit. This should reduce the amount of micromanagement required by the player to get the most out of the card. As it stands, the Gift of Ice ability has no cooldown, meaning the player can swap back and forth endlessly without consequence. We want to change that, so we are adding a 30 second cooldown for when manually swapping between each mode. Finally, we are giving Armored Tower a new passive called Permafrost which heals nearby wall segments. This should make wall segments more useful, which otherwise start to fall off heavily by T3, and in less need of babysitting. 

[Forest Elder - Upcoming Changes]

We have been working on Forest Elder and have an update for its Forest Charm ability.

Forest Charm Rework:
   A. No longer applies a healing buff to up to 10 units over a 30 second period. 
   B. NEW - "Every 2 seconds, restores 250 / 275 / 300 / 300 life points to allied units in a 30m radius, up to 2500 / 2750 / 3000 / 3000 in total. Lasts for 30 seconds."
   C. Cooldown: 60 seconds --> 50 seconds. 

Forest Charm was previously implemented in an odd way whereby it applied a healing buff to individual units in range. This seems to have been a workaround to make Forest Elder's healing function similar to the way damage spells work where there is both a single-target and a splash damage component (ie. 300, up to 900 in total). Right now, healing is undifferentiated, meaning that a spell like Surge of Light which can heal up to 1320 life points will always divide that health equally among affected members. If there is only a single target, it will heal for all 1320 life points, if 3, each will heal for 440 life points each. Unfortunately, Forest Elder's workaround has its own issues. Namely, the healing buff cancels as soon as its target reaches maximum life points. If said target is then damaged, it will be buffed again, potentially taking two or more different heal buffs without actually needing them and significantly reducing the efficiency of Forest Charm in the process. Additionally, Lost Spellbreaker prevents the application of the healing buff, creating situations where it will never reach its intended target.

We have worked to implement alternative healing methods and we can now make healing spells function like damage spells. This means we can have a healing spell affect a single-target for one amount, while healing for a different total amount. As such, we can and are changing Forest Elder's ability to this new healing format. This should lead to greater consistency and higher on average healing. 

[Pure Amii RPVE fun deck]

Looks like a fun creative deck. I always appreciate seeing our redesigned cards finding their place in people's decks.

[Grove Spirit - Upcoming Changes]

The paralyze beam will remain, similar to how Shaman has both a heal and an attack. Woodland Blessing will be given higher priority, which should mean Grove Spirit prioritizes buffing unless specifically commanded to paralyze an enemy. 

About Healing Song: By T4 Nature has a lot of healing and nearly all of it is more convenient than adding in a T4 M-unit and keeping it safe. Equilibrium, Healing Gardens, Forest Elder, and Regrowth are all better and you likely have at least 2 of these in your deck. So while this is a nerf to Grove Spirit's healing, it does allow the unit to provide something which Nature is lacking, namely, CC immunity. Nature has zero offensive spells which can damage buildings meaning the heavy lifting needs to happen via units. We could have "fixed" this by giving Nature an offensive anti-building spell or unit ability but instead decided to accept it as a design restriction and attempt to design around Nature's building weakness for the sake of more unique gameplay. Grove Spirit will provide a 25m radius area of CC immunity and 10 seconds of safety outside of that zone. This should allow Nature's powerful backline in Primeval Watcher to do its job without interruption. 

I will also note that this card, while in active development right now, is not yet complete. It will undergo a testing phase during which we will adjust its values based on Nature's needs as a faction. 

[Grove Spirit - Upcoming Changes]

Grove Spirit was already given steadfast as part of the original community changes to the game. Additionally, immunity does not cleanse existing effects, it merely prevents new effects from being applied. 

[Twilight Slayers]

The worry about faction identity is duly noted, but in this particular case I think things might not be what they seem. There is, for example, at least one T4 melee XL unit in every primary and hybrid faction in the game with the exception of Amii which has no T4 units. At the same time, this fact is not one which gives rise to complaints about muddling faction diversity as each of these units are sufficiently different so as to mask the faction that they exist within the same class. Batariel is hardly anything like Forest Elder, which is hardly anything like Dreadnought. Even Overlord and Grinder, which both have a self-healing mechanic, feel substantially different. A lot of this has to do with the fact that archetypes which use these units have highly diversified support spells leading to widely varying playstyles. The reason seemingly different factions like Frost and Shadow have T1s that feel similar is because they have overlapping playstyles even as the cards themselves are different. S-archer unit, damage buff spell, and support building are the general building blocks of both T1s. There just are not that many viable options in terms of T1s and generally speaking I notice that players are more interested in deck diversity at the higher tiers where cards tend to be more complex. 

Now I do think just adding archers to add archers would be a mistake. That is not what is happening here, there is a method to our madness. DRPvE has made great strides in recent months and is steadily moving towards release. At the higher tiers of this mode, there is just nothing worth putting on the walls as lower tiered archers wall off too heavily in effectiveness to justify either their population contribution or their bound power cost. What we are attempting to do is rebalance and redesign the various defensive tools of each faction and to create archers with strengths and abilities that fill the gaps left over after our balance pass. I am confident we can do this without compromising the unique identity of each faction, just as we have been doing in our rebalance of the more offensive tools each faction brings to the table.  

[Twilight Slayers]

There are plans to eventually release T3/T4 archers for each faction. Issues with Twilight Slayer's orb restriction should be taken in light of this consideration. 

[Skylords speedrunning bounty - September 2022]

Somebody nerf this Wanky + Lebovim combination. 

[September Patch Feedback Thread]

One important thing for us to consider when discussing Batariel's strength is that despite all the changes there are still only a few decks which can reliably clear RPvE 10, at least outside of a subset of highly skilled players. Potentially losing Batariel(r) from this group is an issue because it reduces deck diversity and pushes players to default to well-established Bandit decks.

[Some suggest ideas]

On 10/2/2022 at 3:30 PM, Spizzy said:

4. I know, i read the patch note and I love it, however i mean that some achievements they need to be improved for the players. For example: for each 20 forge we rewarded with one mini-booster, and that it's ok, 20 forge isn't so much, but when we reach 80? 100? 300? The mini-booster it's not worth anymore the time you spend for forge so much cards, the same argument can also be applied for the other achievements in particular for the "increase your pve rank" that requires so much much time for only one rank once you reach superior's ranks.

even for "upagrade cards to third upgrade" "open X boosters" "complete X quests" etc. For every two-three time the achievements it's complete, increase the reward: 1 mini to 1 booster to 2 boosters to 3 to 6 or 8/10 and so on obviously always depending on the time it's required. And if you are willing to accept this suggestion, I think it's good to think about the old players that they have already complete much and much time these achievements, and rewards them with something good stuff

In addition, I wanted to add another proposal, even if will rejected i think. For players like me, that are "not good" like the others speedrunner, put the replays of the match that are in the ranking menu, for understand some stuff and improve some mechanic that alone we can't understand or even for just for curiosity.

In conclusion, im so happy for the work you guys did for the game, i like so much and I have listed some things for you that will increase even more the desire to play.

Thanks for all guys.

Hey Spizzy, 

Achievements are generally split between two categories, skill-based challenges and progression trackers. Some achievements, such as "Among the Old Gods," are both simultaneously. Skill-based achievements are meant to encourage a person to play the game in a specific manner, often with restrictions or odd challenges attached, and to then reward the player for succeeding. The goal is to make the reward match the difficulty of the achievement and to expand the game's content through opt-in challenges.

Progression tracking achievements are meant to give players the ability to look back and see "woah, I opened 740 boosters since I started" while also being slowly rewarded for just playing the game however they want. These achievements are not intended to encourage you to open a bunch of boosters or Reforge a bunch of cards in an attempt to get the rewards. The rewards are minor and of ancillary importance on purpose. 

As I mentioned in the most recent patch thread, we do want to add more challenge achievements to the game and are currently working on doing so.

[issue resolved]

Hey Zomby,

The change was made because many people were joining RPvE 10 to get the achievement who were unable to actually contribute to the group. This caused many people who regularly play the game mode to stop due to having to face the consistent issue of unprepared players who expected to be carried.

This is a non-ideal situation where you have been caught inadvertently in our attempt to fix a different problem largely due to your own elevated level of play in relation to your rank. I'm sorry about this and I understand it is very frustrating. 

While the achievement is locked, your progress is not reset, it is still keeping track underneath. As soon as you reach level 10 your rewards will instantly be given to you. 

1 hour ago, Zompy said:

I'm completely confused as why the change was made, I personally have been running D10 maps for a good while now.

IGN: Zompy 

 

[Patch #400036 - 3 October 2022]

In terms of the reserve achievements: these have caused substantial problems and I would argue were a mistake from the very beginning. We should not be encouraging players to burn themselves out from the game. Achievements should generally challenge a player's skill or track their progress, neither of which is true for the reserve achievements. 

In terms of the others: I think we need to draw a distinct between achievements which reward gameplay related items, such as boosters and gold, and those which do not. I agree it would be nice to have a set of much harder achievements as well as more achievements in general. But I do not think very difficult achievements should be connected to gameplay related rewards as these type of rewards, if combined with either too difficult a challenge compared to the reward (Never Thought of Him) or a frustrating hidden mechanic (A City Strongly Compact), lead to a bad gameplay experience because the player is "missing out" by not having the achievement complete. On the other hand, non-gameplay rewards do not have this same issue because missing out on a character avatar, to give an example, is not hurting your game progression. It is just vanity. 

[Twilight Slayers]

One of the issues we face as a balance team is that we are often unable to release changes as completed wholes, instead things are released as they are completed. Twilight Slayers falls into this category as there are other changes to Twilight we plan to make which we aid it in its job as a defensive wall-based unit. It is hard then to determine if the current situation is due to a particular weakness in Twilight Slayer or due to an unfavorable environment around it until we actually fix said environment. Of course we very possibly could have gotten the numbers wrong with Slayers, it is our first ever attempt at a T3 S-archer and walls do not scale over time, so we appreciate the feedback and will continue to monitor its performance going forward.

[All new cards in Reborn]

Hey Role,

If you head to the wiki: https://skylords-reborn.fandom.com/wiki/Skylords_Reborn  and scroll down a bit you can use the filter option (PC only, it isn't supported for mobile) on the front page. There is an option to filter for Edition, where you can chose "Reborn" and see all new cards that have been added. The wiki also has all balance changes a card has undergone at the bottom of a card's page in case you run into something that seems different than before.

[Ravenheart]

There are plans for eventually expanding on the Ravenheart deck through introduction of other notable Raven squadron cards as legendaries. I think this is the correct path forward, not making an arbitrary exception to the faction-legendary divide. Additionally, allowing Corsair to affect Ravenheart would require a full rebalance of Ravenheart's stats to compensate and essentially make it useless outside of Bandit decks. 

[September Patch Feedback Thread]

Hello everyone,

It has been a week now since the patch has released, and while this is not exactly a long time, I wanted to open a discussion and encourage everyone to provide feedback on the changes we have made to the game. Below are some of the topics of which we are most interested in soliciting feedback, though feel free to offer any suggestions regarding the patch and the current direction of the game. 

What do you think of our first PvE nerfs? Do the various decks still feel usable? Have they changed much at all, etc.?

Do you like the changes to card and factions (PvE and PvP)? Why or why not? Where did we hit the mark, and implement something exciting you'd like to see more of? Where did you miss the mark and what should we avoid in the future? Do you enjoy the new cards, are they balanced, etc.?

What do you think of the map changes?

You can also join us at our balance discord to further discuss changes to cards: https://discord.gg/jrGEBG9NT5

[Patch #400035 - 14 September 2022]

I would like to clarify that root network units drain support not if they are attacking that exact moment, but if they are considering "in-combat." A root network unit is considered in-combat if it has been issued a valid attack command against an enemy, regardless of whether or not they are attacking in that moment or even capable of attacking. Note, that an attack command can be given automatically when an enemy enters sight range. What this means is that even if, say, a Razorleaf is currently paralyzed by an attacking Windhunter, that Razorleaf will still drain up to 6 support as long as enemies remain in range which it can attack. If a Razorleaf were instead affected by something like Lost Banestone it would not be draining support, because in that kind of state it cannot receive attack commands. 

[Patch #400035 - 14 September 2022]

1 hour ago, JiiPee said:

Does this mean that before there was hard cap of 10 supporters for root network and if you had lets say 5 using support same time, they each got 2 support? I know that root network got very weak when you did expand it so that multiple attacks happened same time and I really hated that. Some cases it was better to make separate root networks and not mess them up with sylvain gate.

And now you can put 30 supporters, example 30 living towers or 10 thornbarks and all 5 attackers even when they attack same time gets full 6 support?

Yes this is correct. 

[Community Update #27 - September]

1 hour ago, Hrdina_Imperia said:

Good news all around. The new card looks great! I know this is far down in line, but LS and Twilight could desperately use some spells as well. All in all, all aboard the Magma Hurler Hype train.

We have some exciting plans for Twilight and Lost Souls coming up in the not too distant future. The upcoming patch includes a major rework of nearly all T2 and T3 Twilight units. While we don't have anything for this patch yet, we are working on making each of the hybrid faction spells help enable a unique play style for their respective factions.

[Patch #400036 - 3 October 2022]

Patch #400036

Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains a follow-up to our larger patch earlier in the month with new achievements and changes to existing achievements. 

General Changes

• Added notificaton when all gold chests have been opened.
• Fixed bug where you could start campaign PvE matches with free PvP decks.
• Solved numerous smaller textual inconsistencies in the UI.
• Renamed "Delete all" to "Collect all" in the mail window. Added dialog box that mentions the mails will also be deleted, instead.
• Removed map seeds from the random PvE map pool known to crash the game. This should solve the issue where a random PvE map crashes on start-up.
• Faction ability icons are no longer displayed as status effects on a unit to conserve space for non-permanent effects. This includes: Life Stealer (Bandits), Elusive (Amii), Adamant Skin (Stonekin units), and Adamant Alloy (Stonekin buildings).

New & Existing Achievements
Skylords Reborn released with a base set of achievements, including 3 achievements which reward players for draining their BFP reserves. Unfortunately, since release we have seen that contrary to encouraging more play, these reserve achievements are actually driving players away from the game. Players will grind many hours in a row to finish all three achievements and in the process completely burn themselves out. Given this situation, we have decided to remove all 3 reserve achievements and replace them with general in-game playtime achievements that the player can complete at their own pace. These new achievements will be available to everyone, even those who previously completed the reserve achievements.

Sadly, our newest achievements were also not free from issues. "A Wrinkle in Time" caused a lot of confusion with its description and has been updated accordingly. Our new RPvE 10 achievement "Abandon Hope..." has proved to be quite popular, even with brand-new players who attempt it without being properly prepared. This has led to frustration among our more veteran players, who the achievement was meant to help by increasing the RPvE 10 player pool. As such, we have locked the achievement beyond PvE Rank 10, to prevent unprepared players from joining lobbies in hopes of easy boosters. Our Pure Fire achievement "Never Thought of Him" has had a very low completion rate and after talking to players we decided to reduce the restrictions. Now, only the player pursuing the achievement is required to use a Pure Fire deck, instead of the entire team. While not mentioned here, see PvE map changes below, we have made changes to Defending Hope to allow the player to activate Rogan with a building and not just a unit. While the fact Rogan required a unit to be activated was intended to be a fun puzzle-like challenge for the "A City Strongly Compact" achievement, we noticed this caused substantial frustration among players, especially those who were also trying to complete "The Long Journey Home" simultaneously.

[ New Achievements ]

Thirsty for More  [1/2/3 General Boosters ]
Spend time in matches. (5/15/30 hours)

Up and Coming  [1 Mini-booster]
Complete the 1-player scenario Introduction.

Gym Rat  [3 General Boosters]
Win 20 sparring PvP matches.

Moon's Disciple  [6 General Boosters]
Win 20 ranked PvP matches. (Locked until Gym Rat has been completed)

[ Changes to Existing Achievements ]

All 3 Reserve Achievements (Drink Up, Me Hearties!; Thirsty for More; To the Last Drop)
- Permanently removed from the game

A Wrinkle in Time
- Description changed to clarify it requires Lost Souls cards.

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
- Achievement is now locked until a player reaches PvE rank 10 (Gold 2)

Never Thought of Him
- Only requires the player to use a Pure Fire deck instead of the entire team.

A Force of Nature
- Reward description changed to "1x Promo Mana Wing" to clarify it is not a normal Mana Wing being rewarded.

[Patch #400035 - 14 September 2022]

Map Balance Changes

PvE Map Changes

Bad Harvest, Defending Hope, & The Soultree: Replaced player variant of Defense Tower with NPC variant.

• All player variants of cards on campaign maps are being swapped out for NPC variants to prevent balance changes to player cards affecting the cards used by NPCs in campaign and random PVE maps.

Crusade: Players should be able to fulfil the victory condition immediately now when both paths are cleared early.

• Speedrunners can now compete for top times without having to wait a fixed period of time, therefore removing the existing set minimum time on Crusade.

Defending Hope: Rogan will now also move if a player's building is in the vicinity.

• This will allow the achievement "A City Strongly Compact" to be completed entirely with building cards. 

Mo: Change blocking at the cliff next to the Command Walker to no longer allow units to walk through the cliff.

Raven's End: 2 Stonekin units; 1 in the center and 1 in the camp in the right side, are no longer assigned to the Bandits.

The Dwarven Riddle: The 2 inner monuments that were added in Patch 400033 will now be observable in the fog of war like the other inner monuments.

The Insane God: Replaced a Twilight Horror with a Twilight Devastator on expert difficulty at Position 1's Tier 3 location and added an additional Slaver to the camp on all difficulties. Replaced all 4 player variant Living Towers with a custom NPC variant. Increased script trigger range around temples to prevent the player from entering the center undetected. Player controlled Urzach's Seeker (transformed Priest) now have the Burrower Acid Spit active ability.

• Slight change to The Insane God to continue to allow use of Nightguard on the map. The addition of a new Slaver to the camp ensures that Position 1's T3 remains similar in difficulty to capture as before for non-Nightguard or Parasite Swarm users. Fixed a bug that allowed a player to sneak into the center without triggering the defense conditions, as well as gave the transformed Priest of Urzach an active ability to make it more worthwhile to engage in the Priest mini-game for the player. The NPC version will not use the Acid Spit ability. 

Titans: Replaced 3 Fathom Lords in the Northern camps of Position 4 with Custom Deep Ones (1650 damage, 1650 life points). Expert difficulty only.

• Position 4 is one of the hardest positions on a multiplayer expert map and most players get through it by using Nightguards. This change allows the player to continue using Nightguards, but since Deep Ones are weaker than Fathom Lords, it will increase the difficulty of the map when using this strategy. At the same time, it will minorly decrease the difficulty of Position 4 for non-Nightguard strategies. 

Bugfixes

• Emberstrike, Tempest, and Fire Worm now properly ignore the 50% damage reduction of dazed units, as their passives suggest.
• Amii Paladins and Amii Phantom no longer have the "human" class. They now properly only have the "Amii" class.
• The Tunneling ability of Burrower and Drones no longer grants paralyze immunity during the cast time of the ability.
• The overkill splash damage bug has been fixed on the following cards: Banzai Lord (p)'s Banzai Birds, Comet Catcher, Death Ray, Fire Dragon, Gemeye, Giant Wyrm, Skycatcher, Rifle Cultist's Dark Grenade, and Worldbreaker Gun. This should constitute a minor buff for each of these cards.
• Fixed several instances of Revenants' displayed damage being misaligned with the regular unit.
• Mountain Rowdy's Tainted Ice Block no longer affects flying units on U0-U2.
• Missing Twilight class was added to the Twilight bug summoned by Twilight Curse.
• Vulcan now specifies it can only target ground units.
• Fixed a bug, that caused newly uploaded maps to show an error message as their map name.
• Fixed a bug that allowed units to clip through terrain with buildings. 
• Fixed a bug that prevented the use of Twilight Transformation when switching to the other side in the Forge.
• Community maps should no longer claim to be 2-player maps when they are actually 1-player maps.