LagOps

wait, hold up! hybrid orbs are possible??? that would solve SO many problems! how often did an argument end with "yeah card x is too good to be splashable, but it would kill splash faction y if it was pure"? Now this is some really exciting news!

wait, hold up! hybrid orbs are possible??? that would solve SO many problems! how often did an argument end with "yeah card x is too good to be splashable, but it would kill splash faction y if it was pure"? Now this is some really exciting news!

wait, hold up! hybrid orbs are possible??? that would solve SO many problems! how often did an argument end with "yeah card x is too good to be splashable, but it would kill splash faction y if it was pure"? Now this is some really exciting news!

wait, hold up! hybrid orbs are possible??? that would solve SO many problems! how often did an argument end with "yeah card x is too good to be splashable, but it would kill splash faction y if it was pure"? Now this is some really exciting news!

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Recent (and upcoming) Patch 

On the 16h of July we released a small Quality of Life patch, containing some bugfixes, and updating the Free PvP decks to adjust to the new meta. You can check out the patch-notes here. 
We are also working on a new content patch, which will bring more balance changes and two new cards into the game. We will share more information on this patch in the next community update, but we will reveal one of the new cards today! 
 
• Survey

First things first: a massive thank you to everyone who filled in our Feedback Survey for 2022! You completely shattered our expectations with over 2000 responses! 
Especially since this project is run completely on a voluntary basis with no profits (which 12% of you were not aware of by the way!) we couldn't be more proud of your praise for the state the game is currently in:

We will need some time to go over all the comments, but the data and individual responses are very helpful to us, and your kind words are a motivation to continue trying to make this project the best it can be! 
We will share more insight in community feedback on a later date. Thank you for being part of this great community!
 
• Introducing: Hybrid Orbs

Before we reveal our new card, we have to talk about a new orb requirement coming to Skylords Reborn: Hybrid orbs. 
A Hybrid orb allows you to meet its requirements with one of its two colors. For example, a  card can be played with  or .
Hybrid orbs are a nice in-between of heavy and loose orb restrictions. Restricting a Twilight card to require double Fire or double Nature, would cause it to be unplayable for half of the Twilight decks. Opening up the card by having the 3rd orb be a neutral orb, would however cause unintended synergies with other factions. For example; access to Nature's heal for a Bandit card, or Shadow's Motivate for a Twilight card. By going for a Hybrid orb, we reward playing a faction deck in tier 3, without locking the other color combination of that faction out. 
 

 
We will use this new flexibility to make adjustments to some older cards. We are planning to make use of Hybrid orbs for Treefiend, Twilight Hag, Deepfang and our upcoming new Nightshade Plant design. While we could also make use of this for tier 2 and tier 4 cards in the future, we currently only have plans for using it on tier 3 cards. We won't use Hybrid orbs for Tier 1 cards either, one of the reasons being the first card played decides what orb you get, running into all kind of weird issues with hybrid T1 cards and orbs. 
Hybrid orbs have been the topic of many conversations in the past, and we are very happy to finally introduce them into the game! 
 
 
 
 
 



• New Card: Twilight Slayers

Our first new card to make use of Hybrid orbs is a card that has been requested quite a bit over the years: a new tier 3 archer unit: the Twilight Slayers! The card will be a common and come in two affinities, impacting the damage output towards certain factions. Let's break down the card. 
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, numbers and effects might still change before release.

 
Bow Attack
Every 2 seconds, unit fires arrows at enemies that deal 19 / 20 / 22 / 25 damage. Deals 50% reduced damage if a hostile unit is within an 8m radius, unless Twilight Slayers are mounted on a wall segment. Has a range of 30m.

Infused Fury
Deals 50% more damage against elemental units

Tainted Fury
Deals 50% more damage against Human and Ogre units. 

Like all Twilight units, Twilight Slayers will come with the faction's ability "Transformation". While transforming Twilight Slayers does not trigger any additional effects, we are working on a shift towards more impactful transformation effects for other Twilight units, making transforming your units more worthwhile.

In our Force of Nature patch, we already changed the power cost reduction for Transform effects, and we will also make adjustments to the transformation speed in our next patch. On our balance discord, you can find out more about our future Twilight plans, such as our intention to change the card Nightshade Plant to be an exciting tier 3 Twilight pay-off card.
We hope you are looking forward to this new card and the changes coming to the Twilight faction.
 
• Artwork Spotlight

The artwork for Twilight Slayers has been created by SpiritedAlpha. As always, there were multiple iterations and feedback sessions to reach the final artwork. Here are some earlier versions, where you can notice a slightly different color scheme and background, alongside other ideas that were improved upon, adjusted, or removed to better fit the piece (sorry Twilight Negator!). A big thanks to SpiritAlpha and everyone who gave feedback during the process. 
    
Twilight Slayers are a recreation of the original NPC enemy, but we found the artwork (especially for a playable card) below the standard we have set for our Skylords Reborn additions. Looking at the artwork side by side shows the drastic difference in quality between them. 
     
2009 / 2022
• Adjustments to Reforging

It has now been 8 months since the advent of the Reforging system. Back in January, we gave the community an update on the health of the economy, and we would like to do the same again today. 
Some important information on the data: When it says "Fire Pool" it includes every card in the game which includes a Fire Orb. The data was collected and presented in this manner because this is how Reforging works when it tells you that the output card has an X% chance of containing a Fire Orb. Additionally, all price information presented is an average of actual sales in the auction house over a given period. While some extreme outliers were removed from the data set, such as 5 bfp Harvesters and 400 bfp Northguards, in 99% of instances the data was accepted as-is without tampering from our side.
Data Set: (Click to pop-out and expand)

Updated Analysis of Data Set:
At first glance, you can quickly see that after the update the following changes occurred (Neutral Cards are excluded from the analysis as they are the control set):
The average, median, minimum, and maximum prices of Common cards increased across the board.  With two exceptions, the average, minimum, and median prices of Uncommon cards increased across the board, while the maximum decreased. The decrease in average Frost prices can be attributed to 3 outlier cards in the Frost Pool, (Coldsnap, Frost Mage, and Lost Spirit Ship) which pre-reforging were very expensive for Uncommon cards. The increase in maximum Uncommon prices in the Fire Pool is caused by Wasteland Terror, which as a new card is still quite expensive for its rarity. Wasteland Terror is in general causing an inflation of the maximum Uncommon card costs in the Fire, Shadow, and All Card Pools.  The same thing happened to Rare cards as happened to Uncommon cards. Average, median, and max price of Ultra-rare cards decreased across the board while minimum price increased. The one exception is the Nature Pool, where the median price of Ultra-rare cards actually decreased. If you look closely, you can see that the median prices for cards in the Fire Pool and among All Cards are almost identical before and after Reforging. The average prices of All Cards is also only slightly negative and has been steadily trending upwards in recent months.  General booster worth increased from 378 bfp to 420 bfp. This means Reforging has made it more worthwhile to open boosters after the update than it was before. Promos have been excluded from the data set, making this even more true. On average, the daily discounted booster will profit a player 70 bfp post-update versus 28 bfp pre-update. The data is at this point fairly stable. Reforging established a minimum base worth for all cards dependent on rarity that did not exist prior. This seems to have stabilized around: Common: 5-6 bfp Uncommon: 22-23 bfp Rare: 100-102 bfp Ultra-rare: 200-220 bfp 
Fun Facts about Reforging:
- To date, 2.35 million cards have been Reforged. 64.4% of the cards were Common, 27.2% were Uncommon, 8.1% were Rare, and 1.3% were Ultra-rare.
- Only 0.87% of all Reforges produce Forge Shards (FYI, it usually is not worth it to produce Forge Shards)

Changes to Reforging:
The introduction of Reforging has accomplished many of our goals for the economy. At the same time, we have noticed the total amount of Reforges has steadily decreased as time has progressed, which is expected, but it has also come coupled with a slow increase in the prices of Ultra-rare cards. While prices for the most expensive Ultra-rare cards are down substantially, the average and median prices of Ultra-rare cards are steadily moving towards parity with the old prices. This is an issue, because the average price of all cards has risen due to Reforging, making it harder for new players to collect and charge cards. The introduction of many new beginner achievements last patch has helped to slightly alleviate this issue, but it still exists, even in reduced form. As such, we have made the following changes to incentivize Reforging and to make it easier for all players, not only those with large gold and card stockpiles, to interact with the system. We intend for these to be the last changes we make to Reforging.
 
Gold Cost to Reforge into the Following Rarities:
Common = 125 gold --> 50 gold
Uncommon = 300 gold --> 150 gold
Rare = 750 gold --> 400 gold
Ultra-rare = 1500 gold --> 800 gold
 
Reforging Rates:
We have made it easier to produce an Ultra-rare card when Reforging. For example, 4 identical Rare cards will now guarantee an Ultra-rare card. 
 
The changes to Reforging have been implemented today, and are now live on the server. 

• Tournaments / Events

Now that the Community Updates moved to a monthly schedule, events might come and go in between Community Updates. Be sure to keep a close eye on the ingame event-tab and the forum calendar to not miss any events! 

There are currently two gameplay events planned by Dutchy and Ultralord, which can be found on the calendar already. More info about them soon!

• NEW - CCC #7 - Contest-ception
A new CCC is now live: a contest to come up with... a contest! Share your wildest ideas and get rewarded for it! We hope to see many cool ideas that we might use in future contest, so be sure to brainstorm cool stuff and join the contest! More information.
 
• FINISHED - CCC #6 - Back to the Roots
Kapo hosted another successful Crappy Community Contest, this time on a very special map. This custom map is a copy of the Introduction map with a few new jumps and turns, where you play with a Shadow/Nature deck instead. As with all CCC, the more players attended, the better the prizes became, resulting in a free booster for the whole community! View the event and the code.
 
• FINISHED - Skylords Bounty Spring Forge
It has been a while since we have closed this bounty and players have been wondering what happened to the Spring Forge. While we had a clear winner (congratulations Wanky!), the entry was not fully ready for release yet, and working on it took more time from the team than we had anticipated for a community bounty. Since spring is long gone, we will move this Forge over to next year. 

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 

• Contribute to the Project

In our last Community Update, we went over various features that could be added to the game if we get the right people to work on them, please take a look if you haven't done so already.

We have also added a new contributor (non-staff) role: Internal Tester. 
As an Internal Tester, you will be testing and exploring in-game mechanics with additional information that is normally hidden from players. Your contribution will allow us to fix bugs and create new designs. 
 
As always, we hope you will consider helping out the project. Please take a look at all our open positions on how you can do so. 

• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a Twilight-booster: MORE-PLAY-WITH-ORBS

The code is valid until September 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments! 
 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #25

Greetings Skylords!

We are very excited to tell you about our newest patch. Welcome to this special Community Update! 

• Patch Release

We are currently hard at work finalizing the upcoming patch, which is planned for release later this weekend. We do not have a specific time yet, but we expect the patch to hit the live servers this Sunday. We have also created a special video for this patch, be sure to check it out! 
In this community update, we will show some of the changes that will be included in this patch. For a full list of changes, please check out the patch notes, as there are many changes not mentioned here. 
If you start the game after the patch has released, you will be greeted by a new loading screen. This is a combination of the wallpapers drawn by our former artist Nano, and additions and alterations by Tweeto. We hope you notice all the attention to detail and love they poured into it!

• New Cards

We are excited that you will finally get your hands on the cards we have been working on for the past months. With this patch, three new cards will be added to the game:

Wasteland Terror
Wasteland Terror is finally here! This awesome Bandit-take on the dragon model fires streams of sand that will lay waste to your enemies.
This card has been long in the making, check out the original announcement for an overview of its abilities. 


Transcendence
Transcendence is our first Amii spell, and provides a powerful buff or debuff as long as you keep its target alive, rewarding careful management of the fight. Check out the original announcement for more information.


Burning Spears
Burning Spears joins the Fire faction to battle an age-old weakness of its pure deck: L and XL units in the early game. 
Check out the original announcement, for more information and an artwork spotlight.



• New Promo Card: Mana Wing

Alongside our new cards, we have also added a new promo card to the game. Every player will be able to get a promo Mana Wing by completing the new achievement "A Force of Nature". The promo will not be available in boosters, but it will be trade-able. 


• New Achievements

This patch will add 18 new achievements into the game. Those are aimed at improving the new player experience, while also giving our more veteran players something to work towards. Please note that if you have beaten specific maps previously, they do not count towards these new achievements.  
 
[ Infinitely Scaling Achievement ]

Reborn in Fire  [1 Mini-booster]
Reforge Cards (Unlocks every 20 reforges, scales infinitely)

[ Beginner Achievements ]

Just a Story  [1 Twilight booster]
Complete Viridya and Brannoc's story on standard difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Soultree, Crusade, Sunbridge, King of the Giants, Titans, Ascension)
The Most Dangerous Game [1 Bandits booster]
Complete Mo's story on standard difficulty or higher {Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, Blight, Raven's End, Empire)
A Debt Unpaid  [20,000 gold]
Complete the story related to the Treasure Fleet on advanced difficulty or higher. (Bad Harvest, Treasure Fleet, Mo, Blight, Slave Master, Convoy) 
A Mile in His Shoes  [2 Stonekin boosters]
Complete Rogan's story on advanced difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Crusade, King of the Giants, Titans, Dwarven Riddle, Guns of Lyr, Empire)
A Wrinkle in Time  [250 bfp]
Win the 4-player map Empire spawning at least 5 different Lost Souls cards from a deck containing only frost, shadow, and Lost Souls cards.
Godslayer  [250 bfp]
Win the 2-player maps Sunbridge and Insane God on any difficulty. 
Apprentice  [1 booster]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 5 or higher. 
 
[ Veteran PvE Achievements ]

The Road Not Taken  [3 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 9 or higher.
Turn Back All Ye Who Enter Here  [6 boosters]
Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 10.
Nevermore  [2 Bandit boosters]
Complete Blight's story on expert difficulty (Blight, Raven's End, Slave Master, Ocean, and Oracle)
Make it Double  [2 Amii boosters]
Complete all 2-player maps on expert difficulty. (Crusade, Sunbridge, Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, The Insane God, Slave Master and Convoy)
Never Thought of Him  [100,000 gold]
Complete the story of Mo becoming the new king of the fire tribes on expert difficulty with all players in the map using decks containing only Fire cards.  (Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, and Raven's End)
The Long Journey Home  [2 Frost boosters]
Complete the story re-establishing the Kingdom of Lyr on expert difficulty using decks containing only frost cards. (Encounters with Twilight, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Bad Harvest, Dwarven Riddle, and Guns of Lyr)
Not Even My Final Form  [Rogan Kayle Card]
Win the 1-player map Encounters with Twilight on expert difficulty without using T3 or T4 cards.
Forest for the Tree  [Viridya Card]
Complete the 1-player map The Soultree on expert difficulty using only Nature cards from T1 and T2.
A City Strongly Compact  [Stronghold Card]
Win the 1-player map Defending Hope on expert difficulty with a deck containing only spell and building cards.
A Force of Nature   [Promo Mana Wing]
Complete all 1-player and 2-player scenarios on expert difficulty with all players in your team using decks containing only Nature cards.

• Map Changes

Campaign Maps
We have made adjustments to a couple of campaign maps. These changes include standardizing gold chests (adding or removing them on maps that break the standard) and adding extra power wells or additional capacity of current wells to improve the early game of maps like Nightmare Shard and The Dwarven Riddle. For a full list of changes, please reference the patch notes.


Rebalanced 2vs2 Maps
The rebalanced 2vs2 maps can now be played on the live server. Changes include removal (or adjustments) of walls, wells, slight changes to the layout, and making certain areas immovable for flying units. This should result in a better play experience and more balanced maps. These maps also have observer versions, and we have updated the minimaps to be accurate. 


• PvP changes

We have implemented multiple changes that should make playing PvP easier and more rewarding. If you need any help to get started, remember that you have access to free and fully upgraded PvP decks, and we have a great guide available, written by top players. The following changes have been made:
New Player Protection
To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started in ranked play, it is no longer possible to get matched with players with a base ELO above 135.000, if your own base ELO is below 102.000.

Made Player Names Anonymous
To prevent players from dodging bad match-ups, player names have been anonymized in the ranked lobby. This does not affect the sparring lobbies. 

Losses Are Now Hidden
It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses on the ranked ladder results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We have therefore removed losses from the ladder. The information is still accessible on your profile if you so desire. 

Updates To The Free PvP Decks
We have made some changes to the cards contained in the free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. If we made updates to the free PvP decks you have currently selected, you will now have the option to either swap to the new cards, or keep your current set up. Changes have been made to Pure Nature (Parasite over Shrine of Memory), Twilight (Twilight Minions over Ghost Spears), Pure Shadow (Executor over Nightguard) and Pure Fire (Burning Spears over Scorched Earth). 

Improved Rewards
We have removed the gold penalty that was currently active for playing sparring games. Quests that require you to play 2vs2 games, now also count 3vs3 games for completion. 

We have also allowed you to drain the reserve while looking for a match. If you queue for at least 5 minutes, even if you don't find an opponent, you will earn BFP as if you were ingame, meaning you get BFP not just for playing, but also while searching for matches. 

Happy Hours
Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. During Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

Happy Hours will take place during the following times:
- 1vs1 happy hours: 7pm-9pm CET
- 2vs2 happy hours: 9pm-10pm CET
- 1vs1 happy hours: 4am-5am CET
By clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 

• rPvE Fire Balance Changes

We have rolled out some balance adjustments to the fire faction for rPvE. The Fire faction in rPvE can be extremely strong, but due to its high attack and low defense, it is extra vulnerable to Crowd Control spells. We tried to counter this weakness with a brand-new building that removes Crowd Control effects from nearby units.
Some major enemy damage dealers have been rebalanced, which should result in an improved experience for all skill levels. For more information on exactly what was changed, please reference the patch notes. 
We have also expanded the wiki to contain information regarding the various bosses you might encounter.

 
• Balance Changes

This patch also contains rebalancing of over 40 cards, with a large focus on Nature cards. These changes follow the mindset written out in our Nature Deep Dive. While already a great step forward, our work on (Pure) Nature is not yet finished, with some of the more complicated changes (f.e. Abyssal Warder and Grove Spirit) still being worked on. Regardless, these changes should have a positive impact on the faction. 
Players will enjoy seeing a Forest Elder on the battlefield, since the card now has a mobile Breeding Grounds effect, reducing the cost of friendly units spawned by its side. Promise of Life has gone down a tier, now requiring only 3 Nature orbs, while Shrine of Memory has gone up a tier, now costing 2 Nature + 1 Neutral orb but increasing its effect greatly.
These are just a couple of examples from the many changes that will be included. You will be able to check out all the details in the patch notes soon. 

• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Official PvE Contest #6: The Soultree Faction Battle - Until 19.06.2022
In this event, you can show off how much you like your favorite faction. Beat the single player map 'The Soultree' on advanced difficulty using only mixed-colored units and buildings! The event will start after the new patch is live. More information.

• NEW - Skylords Battleship Kahoot Quiz - June 12th 2022 16:00 CEST
Dallarian and Volin are hosting a Skylords Reborn knowledge quiz! The quiz will be streamed on Twitch and use Kahoot, which is easy to access by phone or PC. There are a ton of prizes up for grabs, so the majority of players should win something. More information.
 
• NEW - The Skylords Open #15 - June 19th 2022 - 14:00 CEST
The new balance changes and addition of Burning Spears should shake up the PvP meta, so what better time to host another Skylords Open? This 1vs1 tournament is open for all players, and will be streamed live on Twitch. If possible, please sign-up in advance. More Information.
 
• FINISHED - CCC #5 - Prophecy, Prophecy, PROPHECYYY!
Kapo hosted another successful Crappy Community Contest© on an altered Oracle map. Players had access to 16 orbs and 10.000 power to beat the map as fast as possible. As with all CCC, the more players attend, the better the prizes are, resulting in a free booster for the whole community. View the event and the code.

• FINISHED - Skylords Bounty: Spring Forge
A Skylords Bounty is an open-source task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn. For this Bounty, we asked the community to help us create a spring-themed Forge. We got multiple submissions, and will now work together with the most promising candidate. Every serious attempt will also be rewarded with a Nature booster. If you participated, you will hear from us in the coming week. 

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 

• Team Changes

Hirooo has joined our team as Faction Designer / Balance Developer. He has already been helping us a lot with testing and balancing PvP, so we are happy to welcome him to our team!

Sadly, MarcoMaar (UI Developer) and RookieN (Map Designer) will leave the team due to long inactivity. We do want to thank them for their contribution to the project!
 
• Contribute To Skylords Reborn

We are currently looking for more people to help us create new content. Many upcoming features are on hold or take a long time due to a lack of volunteers, so we encourage you to take a look at our open positions. 
For example, we are looking for a Map Artist to help us with Defense rPvE, and a Map Designer to work on creating new Campaign Maps. And we could always use more developers to improve the game in general. 
If you want to help with creating new cards, we encourage you to consider our Artist and Balance Developer roles. We can always use more people in those departments to speed up progress. Adding voice lines to our new cards is currently on hold due to us missing an Audio Editor. 
We would also like to improve our marketing; you can help out as a Marketeer, but also a Video Editor, creating short card reveal videos and exciting trailers would be greatly appreciated. 

If you don't want to join the staff, you can still help with proofreading, testing our maps or creating a community event. 

• In Conclusion

We really hope you will enjoy our latest patch "Force of Nature"! 

To celebrate the release, and to help you out with your Nature decks, we have a special scratch code for you. 
This code will reward you with two Nature boosters! SOIL-ROOT-TREE-LEAF
Feel free to share this code, but please do so by pointing players towards the Community Update instead of sharing the code itself. 
The code is valid until July 1st, when we will bring you our next Community Update.
Going forward, we will bring you these Community Updates monthly, on the first day of every month.

What changes are you most excited for? What decks will you build around the new cards? We would love to hear in the comments!  

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #23

Okay Skyladies and Skylords, it is time to advance to Phase II of the PvP league and that includes more info on the whole thing and opening of the signup page!

Format
The league will consist of small groups (divisions) of about 8 players who will fight each other, one opponent per week. A season ends when everyone played everyone in the group. Players should be roughly equal in skill level but be aware that the first seasons(s) might be a little of a wildcard to get that sorted.
To give you an example of how the structure of the league may look:
• 1a: the target audience are the top players, platinum rank
• 2a, 2b: the second tier of players, probably higher gold ranks
• 3a, 3b, 3c, ...: lower gold players to high silver
• 4a, 4b, 4c, ...: new players and silver players
Divisions with the same number are supposed to be roughly equal in skillevel.
At the end of a season the top players will have the chance to promote in division while the bottom players will have the chance to be demoted to lower divisions.
 
Rules
General Rules:
-To participate you need a Skylords Reborn account and be present in the official PvP discord server
-You play versus one opponent each week, as shown by the playchart of your division
-Display sportsmanship, listen to admins
-Not showing up to a match or disconnecting results in a default loss, though rematches are recommended
-Contact your opponent to schedule a matchday and time during your playweek, you can do this via the PvP Discord
-If you cannot agree on a day and time, default day/time is Sunday at 7pm CET
Matchrules:
-Each player picks either 1 or 0. Use /roll 1 to determine who wins the coinflip. The winner can decide if he wants to ban a map first or if he wants to be able to lock in the deck last.
-Mapdraft: There are 6 maps in the pool: Haladur, Simai, Elyon, Lajesh, Uro and Yrmia. Everyone bans 2 of those maps (1-2-1, /roll 1 to determine who goes first). The remaining two maps will be played with the map of the cointoss loser first
-Play two matches versus your opponent, one on each map left after the drafting
-You can change decks between matches, free PvP Decks are allowed (and even recommended), the one with the higher base elo would have to lock in first if you cannot decide
-Save the replays, they act as proof. Admins are allowed to ask for replays anytime
-Report the score to your league admin
-Gain 1 point for a 1-1 (draw) and 2 points for a 2-0 (win), losing 0-2 or losing via default lose does not result in any points
Signup
You can sign up for the league using this link or the button below
You will be asked for you Forum name, ingame name, prefered league to start in and Discord account.


The official PvP discord will be mainly used for communication and updates. 
Please join it using this link.
 
 
As always, if you have any questions reply in this thread. Keep in mind that neither the format nor the rules are set in stone yet, and while the signup lasts (about ~4 weeks) there might still be changes.
See you in the forge,
Toggy
 

First of all thanks for your feedback, agreeing on many of your thoughts here. 
 
To give you some input on the current process as the major aspects you point out are being worked on:
- We expect meta shifts with the bigger balancing patches, that will come soon: Pure Frost and Fire Frost design upgrades will go live next patch, Bandits might get an even bigger overhaul afterwards considering the process of devoloping new cards started recently
- We will move towards to a seasonal system soon - cosmetic rewards are being worked on, we didn't fully decide on when and how to distribute them yet
- We also currently are building a new set of free PvP decks, that will be adjusted due the amount of balancing changes we made up to this point (expect them to be ready with the next patch)
- And on a sidenote: We nerfed Treespirits together with Phasetower & Mortar to prevent the exact type of oppressive gameplay you seem to be worried about 😄 
 
Some other points like expanding the pool of free PvP decks didn't get discussed yet. I think it should be possible to adjust decks to personal needs within a rather short timeframe - still something I will keep in mind. Making entire color trees accessible won't happen in the near future though. Ladder updates and rank/acitivity distributions might be an important topic to discuss before the seasonal system starts, we might consider making some improvements here.
Generally speaking we want to attract more players towards PvP again with fresh content and an optimized system so any feedback in that regard is always going to be appreciated! 
 

Greetings Skylords!

It's been two weeks already since our last community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

Test Server Patch
A new patch has hit the test server, including another batch of balance changes and adjustments. This patch contains many balancing changes and experimental changes for both PvE and PvP, with Frost specifically getting some love this time. We have also sent the first reworked versions of the 2vs2 maps to the test server!
Please take a look at the patch notes, test them out on the test server and take part in the discussion.
A detailed list of changes with images will become available in the wiki in the upcoming days.
There have now been a couple of patches to the test server, resulting in a big difference between the current state of the game on the live server and the card adjustments on the test server. Which brings us to:

Upcoming Patch
We are now preparing the next patch for the live servers. It has been a while since our last patch, so expect this to be a big one with tons of balance changes for both PvP and PvE. Because of this, we have quite a bit of work ahead of us and we expect this patch to release in the beginning of August. We hope you are looking forward to a new meta with new strategies to play with. 
We will share more information about the specific changes in our next community update on the 31st of July. 

New Cards development update
To manage expectations: we will not release new cards in this upcoming patch. As mentioned in a previous community update, we are currently creating new cards for Bandits (Fire/Shadow), Amii (Nature/Shadow) and Pure Frost.
New card development is going well, but we are treading new territory here and want to take our time to make sure our first new cards are the best they could be. This still could take quite a while, but please rest assured we are working hard to give you some cool new cards to play with!
Meanwhile we are continuing rolling out balance patches to give underplayed cards some love, and offer you new strategies and options for all the factions in the game. New cards can be tools to help fill these specific roles, but we are also looking at adjusting existing cards to reach the desired result. 
We are also taking a deep dive into each faction separately, spending a lot of time figuring out what makes the faction tick, its strengths and weaknesses and where it could need some help to allow for a more diverse play style. 
 

Deep Dive: Pure Frost
Frost has been our primary focus for the past several months and our team is excited to finally get to share our work with the community. Attached you will find a document exploring the Frost faction in detail, including upcoming changes and a tease of our first new card!
While Frost has been the first faction on our list, in the future other factions will also be receiving major changes. As our focus shifts from one faction to another we will continue to provide insights into our thinking through future documents like this one.
We hope this look into Frost has helped you to understand both the faction better and our reasoning behind the upcoming changes.
Pure Frost Deep Dive.pdf
Upcoming Tournaments
• NEW: Official PvE Contest#2 Slave Master
Our second official PvE contest is running! Play Slave Master on Advanced but with a twist! Go back to the roots and put in your best time using only cards from the first edition (Twilight Edition). The contest is running until the 28th of July and you can win multiple prizes. Check out the full rules here. 

• NEW: Skylords Open #10
Next week (25th of July) the 10th edition of the Skylords Open will take place! Battle it out in a 1vs1 community tournament hosted by Toggy, open for everyone, and with prizes! If you want to participate, it helps a lot if you sign-up in advance.
Last tournament had some great matches on all skill levels, so whether you are a new player or looking to break the win streak of RadicalX; join us for a day of PvP-fun!
 
New Team Members / Team Changes
Another new member has joined the Skylords Reborn team. We are happy to welcome ddrazard as a Discord Moderator.
As always; if you want to see Skylords Reborn succeed, please take a look at how you can help. There are still some open positions in our team.

In conclusion
Thanks for reading! 
Is there anything you wish us to cover in upcoming community updates? As always, we are open to feedback so please let us know!
Here is a scratch code you can redeem in-game for 100bfp. COMM-UNIT-YUPD-ATE7
The code is valid till July 31th. 
Archive
Community Update #4
Community Update #5
Community Update #6

Greetings Skylords!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"(This is gonna be destroyed and probably removed, heck I might be banned.)" this ain't Facebook or China, bad opinions like yours are not banned or removed, just laughed at.
Yes, economy, the doom of all, where people who start equal and work their way up with hard work, time dedication and a tad of luck are the scum of the game. Please, do us a favor and stop posting these, you clearly just want a whole new game, so go find it (or make it, see how many people enjoy that soulless piece of garbage) and leave us alone.

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

The card functionality has not been changed. As the building has been build very often by players without achieving a benefit (especially in RPVE), the tooltip has been updated to make it clearer that the potential gains of this building only kick in after the power well would normally have been depleted. 
Old text:
Own power wells in a 20m radius consume 40% / 45% / 50% / 55% less power, thus producing more.
New text:
Within a 20m radius the remaining capacity of own power wells takes 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% longer to deplete. Production per time increment remains the same.

Welcome!
In terms of guides, feel free to use the guide navigation thread to find relevant guides for you.
For tutoring and finding sparring partners, check out the tutors and apprentices discord - we have lots of experienced players there (close to 500 members) who can give you advice on your decks, tutor you ingame and analyze replays.

Welcome!
In terms of guides, feel free to use the guide navigation thread to find relevant guides for you.
For tutoring and finding sparring partners, check out the tutors and apprentices discord - we have lots of experienced players there (close to 500 members) who can give you advice on your decks, tutor you ingame and analyze replays.

THIS IS A COMMUNITY-DRIVEN TOURNAMENT. WE ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE SR-TEAM.
 
Hello fellow Skyladies and Skylords!
 
We had one Skylords Open yes, but what about the second Skylords Open? Now you know about second Skylords Open!
 
Format?
The tournament will be played as a best of 3 double elimination tournament, grand finals will be best of 5, no reset.
 
Prize Pool!
1st place  - 20€ + promo Juggernaut
2nd place - 15€
3rd place - 10€
4th place - 5€
Special prize: Beat RadicalX in a best of 3 and you get 8 booster.
 
Big thanks to Nachtwolf for the € sponsoring!
Big thanks to NewGuy for the promo Juggernaut and the 8 boosters!
Prizes will be distributed via PayPal.
 
When?
On 30.01.21  starting on 3pm CET (Berlin time), the stream will start about 30 minutes in advance.
 
Organisation?
The tournament brackets will be on Challonge, so register and join the tournament there. Please use your in game account name to make communication and finding your enemy easier.
The streaming channel that will be covering the tournament is DasToggy on twitch.tv.
In case of problems contact me or one of my mods via Discord, Battleforge or in the stream.
 
Twitch mods: LynnTaki, TheFatherJack
 
 
 
Rules!
-No bugabuse, cheating or insulting the other players. Penalties may vary from a warning to default loss.
-Disconnection during a game results in a default loss. If both sides agree it is possible to have a remake.
-Not showing up to your match after 15 minutes results in a default loss. The plan is to play a round of matches every ~30 mins.
-After your match, go to Challonge and insert the result. That is done by clicking on your match and selecting the winner/stats . The brackets will be updated automatically.
-The Map Pool is:
1st round: Haladur, 2nd round: Simai, 3rd round: Wazhai, 4th: Elyon, 5th: Lajesh, 6th: Uro and 7th: Yrmia (same pool as in ranked duel). The first match of the round will be played on the fixed map, then it is losers choice.  The winning player (who won the last match in this bo3) also has to lock in his deck first.
-The brackets for the tournament will be shuffled before the tournament starts.
-Use your Battleforge name for the tournament. If your Challonge account differs from your Battleforge account name use the "Sign up with an alternate name" feature or change your name for the tournament in the settings. Finding your opponent will be a LOT easier this way.
 
 
 
Reply in this thread if you have questions, I will check it out later.
 
 
Best regards,
Toggy

Oh boy this thread is a goldmine. XD

I am a bit on the fence on this one - on one hand i really like to see the barrier of entry into pvp being lowered and the playingfiled being evened out. Without free decks we are talking about 2kbfp+ even for the cheapest viable decks and that's an investment new players likely just don't want to make. First they need to inform themselves about what they actually need for a pvp deck and then they might end up not liking their faction and switching to another faction or maybe they don't enjoy pvp at all. With the free decks you get a viable high elo deck build to just try out factions with and get into pvp. That's a great change in my book!
At the same time tho, there is only little to change in those decks and i want to swap out maybe just 4-5 cards to customize the deck in the long run. Most of these are not costly either and if i rly wanted to i could get the cards instantly right now and would just need to grind me some gold for upgrades (takes maybe half a day for what i need). For any other cards in the free decks there is 0 incentives to actually get the card and upgrade it anymore. This IS an issue if you enjoy collecting the cards and wanna feel good having made your way to a 120 deck.
I am not sure what can be done (if anything) to satisfy both camps here. perhaps the best tradeoff would be to have the cards rented for a small fee, such that it does not "feel" like you own them and gives you some motivation to get them. Maybe have some visual indication next to the deck name to show that it contains free cards to create more of a way to show other players you actually own the entire deck. Not sure how well that would work in practice tho, just throwing this out there.
It might also be possible to have players only pay a rent/fee if they whish to combine the premade decks with their own cards for customization.

Having seperate pools in sparring i'm not the biggest fan of. This would create a new barrier of entry again as new players just won't join matches where only cards from the collection are allowed. Might also make more experienced players avoid lobbies with free cards as this is likely indicative of a lower skill level lobby (even if it might contain experienced players).

Yes, because "true PvP" requires a proper deck. So if a player wants to only experience true PvP--without grinding PvE or playing weird pvp games where you don't have half the cards--that player must use the premade decks until they get their own.
Isn't that the whole debate? There are PvP cards I would like to have (substitutions I wanted today: green disenchant, sunderer, vileblood, mo, shadow insect) which I need to grind for, but the PvP decks are still playable right now.
But other players feel that since upgrading PvP cards isn't necessary, they lose something.

When the open beta stress test launched, it was probably at least a week before I played my first PvP game. First, I needed some basic cards (so someone can't just spam frost mages and win), and also because no one else wanted to play with weird cards. I uploaded my first real PvP game in the open stress test almost 2 months after the initial release (not sure when I played it), and its still obvious that we are both missing cards, making a weird game: 
 
The earliest replay I still have is from the OST is September 30, 2018--again, almost a month after OST's initial release. That game is a 2v2 with a still strange deck.
My point is that true PvP is locked behind a "grindwall" without level 120 decks. I am trying to make an analogy of how players would feel if PvE was locked behind some sort of grindwall.
Yes, speedrunners are affected, but they can always go to the test server if they really want to speedrun right now: all they need are their mates, who they communicate with anyway (besides this, there is no possible solution for speedrunners that doesn't affect PvE). And there is no way to play PvP on the testserver without sending a PM to a friend, because everyone else queues in the regular server. For my own PvP enjoyment, I'd rather if all the PvP players just moved to the test server and then PvP effectively died in the real server. But such a split would be very bad for our small community.
 

Yes, because this thread is titled "Remove lending LVL120 PVP decks"
I am fine with alternations such as requiring you to pay a fee to rent them (when I first suggested this, I wanted them to be random each week but you can also rent a chosen one by paying BFP), but I need to defend their existence.
From a statistics standpoint, there were over 600 PvP games played today iirc, so this system definitely encouraged new players to try PvP. The advantage of this system will become especially apparent in the future, once new players come and they want to compete with people who can have level 120 decks naturally, while in a month this topic will be irrelevant to the people who want to build a deck from scratch.
But why do you care if the higher deck score is PvP vs PvE? If you want to grind just to see upgrades go up, wouldn't a better metric be to find all cards U3? It just seems like grinding PvE for a PvP deck is so arbitrary--meanwhile, level 120 PvP decks are a prerequisite to play PvP.
Yes, I can mentally understand wanting to grind for a certain reward, but why does it have to be PvP decks--since as you've already said, you are exclusively a PvE player?
What if I liked grinding PvP matches, and I wanted the reward of being in the top 20 ranked ladder to be the ability to play rPvE? You would probably tell me to leave your PvE game mode alone, rather than prevent you from playing rPvE just because you have no interest in trying to rank in the top 20?
 

Im against the whole idea of PVP decks, Ruins the whole collection aspect and ruins the economy for PvP cards....They wont sell for much since players can simply use them FREE.

And how much worse is it when you don't have a choice about being behind? If there were no free PvP decks, I bet NONE of the top PvP players would have played PvP today. They would have got started on PvE grinding or possibly just completely quit, like so many did in the beta testing phase.
Why are you working for a PvP deck? Do you play exclusively play PvP, and if you do, what is your tag? I have never seen a Cocofang in any of my PvP games.
If you are not exclusively a PvP player, then work for a PvE deck. PvP is meant to be played with a full level 120 deck. Playing without the proper cards is like playing chess without all the pieces. Yes a better player will still win against a worse player if the skill gap is wide enough, but it's just more interesting to play against an even opponent with the proper pieces. Opening strategies and endgame considerations are completely overturned without the right balance of chess pieces, and it is the same in battleforge.
Work for a full 120 PvE deck, and accept that PvP is a different game mode
Yes. I was one of the most vocal adversaries of upgraded PvP cards in the beginning, before the game was released. In the alpha and beta testing stages, I have been convinced that I looked at Battleforge through rose-tinted glass. Even U2 to U3 is a big difference, especially on all 20 cards. 
A good player can beat a newer player using just the tutorial deck . But a good player will NOT beat a similarly-skilled player if one has U1/U2 and the other has all U3.
I might go so far as to say that at the top level, the player with U3 forsaken will beat the player with U2 forsaken at least 80% of the time? @RadicalX perhaps you can provide a better estimate on that?
The dedicated PvP playerbase is quite small, so it's not like a good player will beat a ton of beginners with his weak deck, and have everything upgraded by the time he faces someone of a similar skill level. Maybe that worked in the old days, but not anymore....
Additionally, anyone who wants to climb the ranked ladder without premade decks is forced to play lost souls, because souls is cheap enough to build quickly, beats the other cheap deck (fire nature), and doesn't have any losing matchups because no one will have the super rare pure fire cards yet.
If you don't want to grind PvE, then don't haha. That's the point. Why be forced to do something you don't want to do? If you like grinding, grind for a perfect speedrunner deck. But if you are only playing PvE to get to PvP...why not just skip directly to the mode you like

It depends on what you consider the bigger issue. PvP being virtually locked for you until you have upgraded cards (especially true if you join later down the line) and can even begin to compete on a raw power level? Or the economical impact of providing a set of cards for free and undermining of the collection aspect?
You also have to consider that originally all these things were baked into the monetization model. Want more charges? Easiest way was to pay up. That means that wanting to be more competitive in PvP was an incentive to spend money. That's not the case anymore, you can't just buy progress. So they have to somehow try to dissect these methods out of the game design.  
This is the official statement regarding these decks. In short, they think long-term the free decks will keep the PvP community healthier.
The opportunity cost is effectively eliminating the need to chase after a lot of cards for PvP players and making the use of 120 decks mandatory if you want to be competitive power-wise.
Maybe they could've waited a month to release the 120 decks to give everyone the chaotic start-up times, while still offering latecomers a faster start. Making the cards U2 would've been an option as well. Or having a fee to rent the decks.
Personally, I think the collectible part is essential to the game, it's what it was entirely built around. So that's a pretty big intrusion.
 
Also very unfortunate that not all opinions could be considered because a lot of people didn't involve themselves in conversations like this before release as they waited. Maybe if enough people speak up against the 120 decks they change something? The original thread was mostly positive about it. I have my doubts that they would remove it entirely though.

I'm excited in working together with the great team behind Skylords. I'm astonished at how far the game has made it so far and I hope it will get even better from now going forward. I welcome the challenges that await us and want to forge the game into the best shape it can be. Balancing is delicate and there are many conflicting visions about the game, but I want to have an ear for every voice among us Skylords.
- Imaginary