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Duza

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  1. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - October 2023   
    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!

    • General Update

    It's been a while since our last content patch, and we'd like to provide a brief update on the project. Skylords Reborn relies entirely on the free time of our dedicated volunteers. While we strive to address sudden spikes in inactivity as effectively as possible, there are occasions when unexpected delays are inevitable. Our aim is to strike a balance between revealing upcoming new content and features and getting them into your hands. Currently, this balance is a bit off, resulting in the announcement of some upcoming features a while ago, while they have not yet been implemented. We hope for your understanding in these matters and that you still appreciate us showing what we are working on.
    We'd also like to inform you that progress on our upcoming campaign maps is proceeding smoothly. Although we haven't disclosed specific details yet, this decision was made deliberately. The process of map creation can be complex, and even in the late stages of development, maps can undergo significant changes. We want to ensure that our new maps earn their place alongside the existing campaign, so we've invested substantial time in establishing the foundational elements to build upon. Our dedicated testers are currently working to ensure these maps provide an enjoyable playing experience, and we're confident that the end result will be something you'll greatly appreciate. Please stay tuned for more updates!
     
    • New Card Reveal - Bedrock

    In June, we unveiled the artwork for our highly anticipated tier 4 Stonekin turtle. Since then, people have been curious about the card and its associated effects. Today we are excited to show you the design for the upcoming Stonekin unit: Bedrock.
    Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers, effects, and its rarity might still change before release. 
     

     
    Delving further into the building-focused Stonekin archetype, Bedrock offers Stonekin players an exciting and versatile tool for the endgame. If you want to learn more about this archetype, please check out the Stonekin Deep Dive!
    Bedrock stands as a formidable elemental destroyer, capable of both laying siege to enemy buildings and constructing new ones. Additionally, it possesses the ability to fortify friendly structures with an Ice Shield. This card has a ranged auto-attack, siege, two active abilities, and, naturally, the Stonekin passive ability.
    Bedrock will be available in two different affinities, each influencing its unique Sculptor ability. Once released, the card will drop from boosters and can be reforgable. 
    Bedrock will be the first Ultra Rare card from the Rebirth Edition. To make sure enough players will be able to enjoy the card, we are considering hosting an event around the release where you can earn the card. Stay tuned for more information.  
     
     
     
    Let's break down the card: 
     
     Rock Throw (auto attack)
    Range: 30m
    Every 3 seconds, unit fires a molten stone dealing 633 damage, up to 950 in total. Knocks back small and medium units.
     

    Blessed/Tainted Sculptor
    Range: 30m
    Place a Stone Launcher with an affinity towards Frost/Shadow that deconstructs after 30 seconds at a target location within a 30m radius. Only one tower may be placed at a time. Can be placed nearby enemy units and structures. Reusable every 30 seconds.
     
    Living Rampart
    Cost: 50p - Range: 30m
    All friendly buildings in a 30m radius will be fortified, gaining an Ice Shield that absorbs 1800 damage for 15 seconds. The Ice Shield renews itself once after 15 seconds to absorb an additional 1800 damage. Reusable every 30 seconds.
     
     Siege
    Deals 100% more damage against structures.
     Adamant Skin (Stonekin faction passive ability)
    The unit takes 15% less damage
     
    Bedrock has been in the making for quite some time now, and we still need a little more time to work on some technical implications. Alongside the new Tectonic Shift card and some upcoming balance changes, we hope to improve and explore the playstyles of the Stonekin faction. We are currently not able to communicate a release date yet.
     
    • Look reveal - Bedrock

    And finally, here's a sneak peek at how Bedrock will appear in the game!  We hope you are looking forward to our new favourite stone turtle!
       • Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge

    Skylord of Honour and CCC-host Kapo started a new project this month: Masters of the Forge.
    In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. In his own words:
    Masters of the Forge will shine a light on all those people working so tirelessly on Skylords Reborn - for the average Skylord, [Game Masters] are elite, mythical creatures too many know nothing about, and we will hopefully change that. So, in this dev-talk-like podcast series we will meet several Masters of the Forge in person, and hopefully I will be able to ask them questions that are interesting to you. And, you will also get the chance to ask them some questions! The series will be streamed on Twitch and afterwards uploaded on YouTube.
    Please note that while the content created is supported by the SR Team and will be all about Skylords Reborn, this is no official event or dev-talk. The focus will be around the guest, what their duties are, how they feel about the game and its development - we will not elaborate future changes in depth or announce anything fancy. But hopefully we will know more about the guest and how It's like to be part of the SR Team.

    There are currently 3 episodes to watch:
    • Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator
    In this episode, Kapo and Dutchy discuss various moderator-related topics. Find out about how our moderators keep Skylords Reborn a fair community. Watch now.

    • Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator
    In this episode, Kapo and yours truly talk about the Community Updates and Project Coordination. We also go over what goes into creating a new card for Skylords Reborn, and which departments are needed to make it happen. Watch now.

    • Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator
    In this episode, Kapo and Volin dive into the topic of testing, a crucial part of the game. As a special treat, Volin showcases the new rPvE difficulty 9.5, as previously announced in our community update. Watch now.
    Episode 4 will be hosted live on the 7th of October and feature RadicalX, Game Designer and PvP expert. Tune in live on Twitch, or watch back on YouTube the day after.  
     
    • Events

    In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
     
     • NEW - PvP AI programming contest
    We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
     
    • Host your own tournament / event
    Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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 - Spotlight

    If you are interested in helping out with our upcoming new campaign maps, Map Tester might be of interest to you!
     
    • Open Position - Map Tester
    As a map tester, you get early access to new maps and game modes and are responsible to playtest them and provide feedback to the other map developers about possible issues or improvements. This includes checking how balanced the map is, how fun it is to play, if there are any exploits, if areas on the map need to be prettified etc. Map developers/designers/artists should be able to rely on you to make sure maps that are released or changed are done so properly.
    More information.
     
    But there are more roles available. Below, you can take a look at all our open positions. 
    Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 45 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
     

     
    • In Conclusion

    That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
    As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
    The code will reward you with a Stonekin booster: DOYO-ULIK-ETUR-TLES
    The code is valid until November 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
    We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

    Archive
    • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
    • Overview Community Updates
    • Community Update September 2023
  2. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - August 2023   
    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!

    • QoL Patch

    Last week, we released the long-awaited quality of life patch, resolving various minor bugs and improving the Forge's performance to ensure smoother gameplay. Additionally, this update now allows you to watch outdated replays, although replays impacted by patches will still experience desync issues. Check out the full patch notes here.
    We are also still hard at work on our next content patch. We apologize for announcing the Lost Souls changes too early. Our bottleneck in card descriptions has been underestimated, as all cards in Skylords Reborn require translation into English, German, French, and Russian. This translation process, especially for the changes made to cards, can significantly impact our progress when translators are occupied or inactive. If you would like to assist with this effort, please check the contributor roles available for translators.
     
    • Cinematic Trailer

    A few months ago, we released a video showcasing the significant changes and improvements made to Skylords Reborn compared to the original BattleForge over the past 2 years. As part of our ongoing effort to attract more new Skylords, we have now created a cinematic trailer designed for RTS players unfamiliar with the original game.
    Please support the game by sharing it with your friends who might be interested in the game!
     
    • Card Rework Spotlight - Stronghold

    While new cards usually get the spotlight, reworking existing cards can be just as exciting and impactful. Skylords Reborn has a lot of unused and underpowered cards, which, if reworked, would functionally constitute an entirely new tool for players to use. Stronghold is one such card. The T3 Frost tower is beautiful and imposing, promising an unconquerable fortress, a powerful and immovable bastion able to hold off hordes of enemies by itself. Unfortunately, anyone who has used the card knows this description is fantasy. We have been working on Stronghold for a while now, and are happy to showcase our new design, which we think will make the card worthy of its name and image.
    To help Stronghold become a fearsome fortress, we intend three major changes to its existing design. First, we are increasing Stronghold's single-target damage from 2420 dp20 to 4000 dp20. Second, we are giving Stronghold two new abilities. The active ability will allow the player to defend against 50m siege units like Lost Dancers without needing an additional unit or building, and “To the Last!” will make Stronghold more deadly as it loses life points. This will synergize well with Frost building supports like Glacier Shell and Shield Building, allowing the player to keep Stronghold at a lower health threshold without endangering their defenses. The idea of "To the Last!" is to tap into the image of Frost as a faction which does not easily give up. Instead of losing hope in difficult situations, the Lyrish defenders manning the Stronghold dig in their heels and fight even more tenaciously in the face of danger. 
     
    Cannon Turrets
    Every 3 seconds, turrets deal 164 damage each to enemies in 10m radius, up to 246 in total.
     
     
    Bombardment - Active Ability 
    Cost: 40p
    Activate to shoot a mortar shell that deals 800 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around its target, up to 3200 in total. Knocks back small, medium, and large units.
     
    To the Last! - Passive ability
    If the fortress has equal to or less than 3000 life points left it will deal 25% more damage and take 25% less damage. 
     
     
    To the Last! - Passive ability
    If the fortress has equal to or less than 1500 life points left it will deal 50% more damage and take 50% less damage.
     
     
    Slowed Construction - Passive ability
    Construction time is increased by 50%.
     
     

    We also added a new visual indicator to show the various states of "To the Last". Below, you can see the Bombardment ability in action:
     
     
    We hope you are looking forward to these changes coming to Stronghold! They are planned for release alongside our new content patch. We are not able to share a release date yet, so stay tuned!

    • Survey - Update

    A big thank you to the 1500 Skylords who have already submitted their feedback in our yearly survey! The survey will close at the end of the week, so if you haven't shared your thoughts yet, please take a moment to do so. Your feedback will be anonymous.
    As Skylords Reborn is a community project, we value knowing what our players like and what could be improved. Your feedback is crucial for our continuous game improvement and player base growth! As a token of appreciation, everyone who fills in the survey will receive two boosters.

    • Voice Acting – Update

    A quick update on our search for new voice actors: We're thrilled to announce that we've received 24 trial takes, offering a diverse selection of voices to choose from.
    Now, our Audio Editor will carefully assess the sound quality of each file, followed by selecting the voices that best match the characters. We're excited to bring these unannounced characters to life and can't wait to share what we have in store for you!
     
    • Fire-themed Forge

    As we progress with the development of upcoming campaign maps, we have also been working on a new Fire-themed Forge skin as a side project. Although it is not officially a Summer Forge, players will soon have the option to select from the default Forge, the Winter Forge, the Spring Forge, and the upcoming Fire-themed Forge. Check out the teaser below:

    Players automatically have access to the Winter and default Forge, while the Spring Forge is initially locked behind the "Outsourced Content" achievement, which requires completing 8 different community maps on Expert.
    The Fire-themed Forge will also be associated with an achievement called "Never Thought of Him," which tasks the player with completing the Mo campaign using only Fire cards on the maps Convoy, Mo, Oracle, Ocean, Raven's End, and Slave Master. We have received feedback that the current reward for this achievement feels insufficient, and we plan to enhance it to provide a more appealing incentive for completion.
    Players who have already completed this achievement will receive the additional reward once the Forge is released. Please note that the Forge is not yet available, but you are able to start working on the achievement in advance.

    • Mapmaking fundamentals

    We always strive to keep the playerbase informed about upcoming changes and the rationale behind them, whether it's through Community Updates, balance discord discussions, or Deep Dive documents detailing our design decisions. Originally intended as an internal guide for our current developers of new campaign maps, we decided to share the following guide with interested players, hoping it will also serve as a useful tool for aspiring community mapmakers. Don't forget, every Skylords Reborn download includes the Map Editor!
    BattleForge campaign maps have a particular feel to them, and this feel is a fundamental component of the unique experience which is playing BattleForge. The goal of this design guide is to use existing campaign maps, particularly the best campaign maps, to understand and to categorize the distinct features of the camps in BattleForge’s campaign, such that we can better design future campaign maps. This guide is therefore intended to categorize the design choices of the original devs and to act as a reference for future development for both community and official map development.
    Click here to check out the mapmaking fundamentals guide.
     
    • Team Changes

    Nukie has decided to step down from his role as Event Manager to allocate more time to his new job and personal life. Despite this change, he will continue to support the project with Moderation duties. We are grateful for his dedicated work during his time as Event Manager! 
    Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31 or @Minashigo Hiko. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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

    Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 40 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
     

     
    • In Conclusion

    That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
    As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
    The code will reward you with a General booster: THAN-KYOU-SKYL-ORDS

    The code is valid until September 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
    We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

    Archive
    • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
    • Overview Community Updates
    • Community Update July 2023
  3. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - July 2023   
    Can't talk for the whole team but:

    Love for the game. Me and most of us were there when the original servers were down, and I was pretty devastated about it, having wonderful memories of playing it with my brother, ex girlfriend and friends. Its quite rare (especially for an online-only game) to be revived, so I personally count my blessing to be able to enjoy it once more. 

    Potential. This game is super unique. I have not encountered anything like it. While it has some issues because of this (how on earth do you market this?) I still fully believe in what this game has to offer, and still hold on to hope that sometimes it will be discovered by the right group of people. 

    New players. We still have an influx of new players coming in, either returning from the EA days, or finding the game as its own thing. This is not a case of a group of people slowly dwindling, there are people coming in and going out. 

    Non-active players. While active players go up and down, there is still a large number of players with warm feelings towards Skylords Reborn, as we tend to see with, f.e. the Yearly Feedback Survey. As was mentioned in this topic already, we also see numbers go down a bit during summer time in general. I also don't expect people to continue playing daily for 2+ years straight. There is only so much content to experience and replay. But most of them keep a close eye on the project and return for big patches or other exciting changes. Leading to:

    Upcoming new Campaign Maps. When I joined the team, one of my first pushes was for new cards to enter development. The team achieved bringing back BattleForge into a playable state, but if we wanted it to not face the same fate, we had to keep improving on it, and the easiest way to communicate new stuff is new cards. But new cards only do so much for time spend playing the game; we need people to actually have new content to play. Achievements, rPvE Nature and Fire and the upcoming 9.5 difficulty are good examples of this (and previously mentioned Map Modifiers will also do a ton for replayability) . But the biggest ask from the Community has been New Campaign Maps. We still have this up our sleeve, and I fully expect a lot of those non-active players will return to take a look once we start releasing them. Non-active players need a hook to come back, and I expect this will do the trick.

    The Community. Skylords Reborn has an amazing community. Its a bit of a cliché for a Community Manager to say this is the best community to be in, but honestly, the absolute majority of our players are amazing! When things get rough, I sometimes take a look at the kind words our players mention in f.e. the Survey. At the end of the day, everyone is grateful for all the hours we pour into this, and its important to remember this.
    Though I will admit, sometimes I wish some players remember a bit more that we do this in our free time as well 😅 There have been a couple of moments where some of our teammembers, myself included, got very demotivated by the way certain players expressed their disagreement. So to everyone reading, if I could ask for a single favor to keep the motivation up for both me and the team; please keep in mind we are all volunteers. We do not get paid, yet we show up day after day, working on the game while we have a lot of things to deal with, both in Skylords Reborn and outside of it. Most of us combine the hours we pour into this game with a job, study, kids, marriage, etc, to the point where we don't even have time to play the game we put so much hours in as much as we would like. We love the game, and want to see it succeed, and for that we absolutely want to hear your feedback, we create this game for our players after all. But be constructive, and be kind. It really goes a long way for our motivation and the health of the project. 
    Thank you for being a part of this game. ❤️
     
  4. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - July 2023   
    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!

    • Share your feedback, get two boosters!
    Our yearly feedback survey has become a tradition by now. Because Skylords Reborn is a community project, we want to know what our players like about Skylords Reborn, and what could be better. We want to keep improving the game and growing our player base, and your feedback is crucial for us! 
    As a thank you, there will be two boosters for everyone who fills in the survey. Your feedback will be anonymous.

    • Announcing a new rPvE difficulty
    As mentioned in previous Community Updates, we are currently hard at work creating more map-based content, like the much anticipated new campaign maps. But we are also aware that one of the most played game-modes in Skylords Reborn is rPvE, specifically difficulty level 9. Today we are excited to announce we are close to complete a new difficulty for rPvE, sitting between difficulty 9 and 10!
    We sat down with one of our designers to share some more information about this upcoming new difficulty. Take it away, RadicalX! 
     
    What was the motivation to create rPvE 9.5?
    Based on game data, we noticed the difficulty spikes from rPvE difficulty 9 to 10 are too big. The change in win rate is even greater than the difference between difficulty 5 and 9, and the majority of games at the highest difficulty just result in a loss.

    What makes rPvE 10 so difficult?
    Outside significantly strengthened camps and waves throughout the entire game, early layout changes from single to double camp at the T2 row greatly increases difficulty. These camps also include spawn buildings, resummoning dead units and sending out very early waves towards the players. This requires a different strategy compared to lower difficulties. Getting used to these new threats takes some time, but since none of the other difficulties work in the same way, it’s hard to prepare and practice strategies.
     
    What are the goals of rPvE 9.5?
    The new difficulty is supposed to achieve two things. First, we want to provide players a more enjoyable experience by adding a more linear difficulty scaling in rPvE. Whereas single player rPvE already functions like that to some extent, 4-player rPvE lacks a proper difficulty scaling, currently generating the same amount of games as all other difficulties combined. Second, we want to provide players an environment that allows them to learn and understand how rPvE 10 works on a structural level.
     
    What can players expect from rPvE 9.5?
    In order to achieve the two previously mentioned goals, rPvE 9.5 is using the same layout as difficulty 10. To smoothen out the early game experience, all fliers are removed from camps in the T2 row. Starting void was increased towards the level of rPvE 9. The T3 area will not feature spawners, reducing the total wave income in the early game. This makes more methodical approaches viable and removes some of the toughest mechanics rPvE 10 has to offer. Camp density in post T4 camps is reduced a little bit, waves will generally be comparable with difficulty 10.
    From that point we did further tweaks based on map tester feedback, to address more specific preset dependent issues. Because rPvE 9.5 is a systematic change, certain rPvE layout issues are inherited. That said, the adjusted unit compositions and wave spawn structures should still help with making these very unforgiving maps appear less frequently. Ultimately, this should give players a new challenge beyond difficulty 9 and also give a better indication on what difficulty 10 will look like.
     
    Alongside this new difficulty, we will also be changing the naming of the rPvE difficulty scale. 

    New Name      Difficulty according to current scale
    Standard           (4)
    Standard +        (5)
    Standard ++     (6)
    Advanced          (7)
    Advanced +      (8)
    Advanced ++    (9)
    Expert               (9.5) New!
    Expert +            (10)

    As you can see, we will be removing rPvE levels 1, 2 and 3. Data shows us these levels don't see play, and their difficulty and rewards are very lackluster. By using this new logic, the difficulty should also be more in line to the campaign difficulty scaling, giving new players more clarity of what they can expect. 
    Difficulty rPvE 9.5 will be available for 1, 2 and 4-player scenario's, and contain all factions, meaning our newly added Nature and Fire factions will also appear in the pool of enemies. This new difficulty will go live alongside our next patch, currently planned for a Summer 2023 release. 
    We hope players are looking forward to face these new challenges!

     

    • Voice Acting – Update
    Last month, we started looking for voice actors who could help us to bring upcoming characters to life. We are about to close the application window for the second wave of voice-acting, so be sure to apply this weekend if you are still interested!  
    We are looking for a variety of voices (both male and female), and encourage everyone who is interested (and has a decent microphone!) to apply. You are also welcome to apply if you did so in the original application round in 2021! 
    To apply, fill in a brief survey to provide us with some information about yourself and select which characters you are interested in. We will be in touch with you for a trial script, and select our favourites from the provided recordings.  
     

     
    • Tournaments and Events
    In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
     
     • FINISHED - Official Event #9: Who Dares Wins! 
    Ultralord will be hosting a stream to showcase the winners of the last official event. Join us on June 3rd at 19:00 CET on his Twitch channel, which you can find here. 
     

    • NEW - Crappy Community Contest #11: Meme-fy BattleForge - Until July 3rd
    A non-gameplay event where you create GIF-content for our Discord. Meme content, emotions, ingame scenes – everything is welcome. Help unlock a booster code by participating! More information.



    • Host your own tournament / event
    Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, @Metagross31, @Minashigo Hiko or @nukie! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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
    Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 40 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!
     

     
    • In Conclusion
    That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
    As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
    The code will reward you with a General booster: SOON-RPVE-NINE-FIVE
    The code is valid until August 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
    We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

    Archive
    • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
    • Overview Community Updates
    • Community Update June 2023
  5. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - June 2023   
    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!

    • Patch Overview Video
    Our latest patch, Nature's Awakening, has released! We have made a short overview video to celebrate the occasion, highlighting some of the changes we have made to the game. We hope you enjoy it, and be sure to share it with your friends!

    If you want to read the full patch notes, you can find them here. 
     
    • Patch Feedback Thread
    As always, we highly value your feedback on the changes implemented in our latest patch. To facilitate this, we have once again created a dedicated feedback thread where you can express your thoughts about what you liked, disliked, and any other suggestions you may have.
    We kindly request that you provide constructive feedback regarding aspects you would like to see improved, while also sharing the elements you enjoyed. Your input is invaluable to us!
     
    • Voice Acting – Apply Now! 
    Back in October 2021 we initiated the search for voice actors to enhance the game with new voice lines. The new cards Amii Paladin and Banzai Lord were voiced by community members, bringing these characters to life. At that time, we had plans to expand the range of voice lines in the game further. Unfortunately, due to the absence of an audio editor, we faced limitations in what we could achieve, resulting in the regrettable need to even reject fully recorded lines. Consequently, voice-acting was temporarily put on hold.
    However, we are delighted to announce that we now have an Audio Editor on our team, and with our current focus on creating new campaign maps, we are once again actively seeking individuals who are interested in contributing their voices to Skylords Reborn!
    We are looking for a variety of voices (both male and female), and encourage everyone who is interested (and has a decent microphone!) to apply. You are also welcome to apply if you did so in the original application round in 2021! 
    To apply, fill in a brief survey to provide us with some information about yourself and select which characters you are interested in. We will be in touch with you for a trial script, and select our favourites from the provided recordings.  
     

     
    Don't miss your chance to make a lasting impact on Skylords Reborn! Apply today and maybe your voice will be heard in the game!
     

     
    • Art Spotlight – Bedrock
    In our Stonekin Deep Dive, we previously mentioned our plans for a new tier 4 Stonekin unit based on the Moloch model. Today, we are excited to offer you a sneak peek of this unit by unveiling the artwork we have created for it. Additionally, we would like to share some insights into the process our artist, Spirit Alpha, went through to achieve the final result.
     
    Sketch and Early Draft
    Spirit Alpha initiates his artwork by creating a sketch or draft, outlining the general ideas to establish the artwork's direction. For this particular piece, we aimed to capture the essence of a formidable Stonekin creature emerging from the water.

    It is important to consider the card frame when creating artwork. As you can see, while the left piece looks impressive on its own, the head partially falls off when placed within the card frame. This issue becomes even more apparent when displaying the creature type and charges in the game. This is why working with sketches and exploring various compositions is crucial before settling on a final design in Skylords Reborn.

    Settling on a Design
    Spirit Alpha explored several other options, some of which are highlighted below, while receiving feedback and suggestions from our art critiques along the way.

    The design on the right showcased the most potential, and work continued with that version. 

    Finalizing the Design
    Although we were fond of the design, feedback indicated that the head of the creature should be tilted to the right instead of the left.

    Throughout the process, Spirit Alpha also experimented with various designs for the creature's belly, ranging from a nearly fully closed appearance to a more open one.

    Colour Scheme
    Ultimately, we opted to retain a more closed design, and significant effort was invested in ensuring that the card followed the Stonekin colour scheme, preventing it from potentially resembling a Frost unit.


    Final Adjustments
    Spirit Alpha submitted his final design, and our lead artist, Tweeto, made some last minor adjustments to produce the final artwork. One of the modifications involved tilting the "volcano" slightly to ensure it remained within the card frame. Can you identify the other changes? 


    Here are Tweeto's final adjustments: 
    We are extremely pleased with the final outcome of Bedrock and sincerely hope that you can appreciate the dedication and effort that went into its creation. A heartfelt appreciation goes out to Spirit Alpha for his hard work!
     
    • Tournaments and Events
    In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!
     
    • NEW - Community Run Event: Old School Efficiency
    Fancy a challenge? Complete Encounters with Twilight on standard using as little power as you can! Please check in tomorrow for more information.
     
     • COMING UP - Official Event #9: Who Dares Wins! - June 17th until June 25th
    Look out for our next official event later this month. Do you have what it takes to aid Rogan?
     

    • COMING UP - Crappy Community Contest #11 - June 26th until July 3rd
    The next CCC will be a creative contest held on the forum. Look out for the forum post on June 26th!



    • Host your own tournament / event
    Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, @Metagross31, @Minashigo Hiko or @nukie! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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
    We are thrilled to announce that the creators behind the maps used in the previous community event Through Ice and Flames have officially joined our team as Map Designers! With the addition of both Damo and Hrdina Impéria, our team's focus on creating new campaign maps has been further strengthened, and we can't wait to release some exciting content in the future. Welcome both, and thank you for your contribution! 
    More than a year after the position was first listed, we have found an Audio Editor in Discoheart! He will be able to help us out with the needed editing for adding new voice lines into the game, both for cards and upcoming campaign maps. We are glad to have him, and excited to continue adding new voice lines into the game. 
     
    • Contribute
    Interested in joining the team yourself? Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 30 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!
     

     
    • In Conclusion
    That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
    As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
    The code will reward you with a General booster: APPL-YFOR-VOIC-ENOW
    The code is valid until July 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
    We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign up to our e-mail newsletter here. 

    Archive
    • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
    • Overview Community Updates
    • Community Update May 2023
  6. Duza liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400042 - 19 May 2023   
    Card Balance Changes

    Global Balance Changes
    Random PvE Boss Leader Immunity:
       - Added Steadfast to all rPvE bosses.
    Ranged attack delays re-randomized:
       - Towers and ranged units are now assigned a randomized 0.3-0.7 second delay on a per-attack basis instead of a standardized 0.5 second delay on spawn. This only modifies cards affected by the bug, many ranged units and towers will be unaffected by the change. 
    Last patch, we changed the randomized attack delay assigned on spawn from ranging between 0.1-1.1 seconds to a standardized delay of 0.5 seconds. While this successfully achieved our goal of making each unit and tower a player spawns equal, it introduced other problems. The chief concern reported by the playerbase was an aesthetic one. While previously battles in BattleForge felt very alive, with units and towers on each side attacking continuously, with the standardized delay combat started to feel more turn-based. Your units would attack, their units would attack, then your units would attack again. This also led to easy kiting of enemies, particularly NPC enemies, because you could play around the standard delay to unleash volleys of attacks then retreat until the next volley was ready. Given the widespread and consistent feedback we received that something unique to the BattleForge experience had been lost by this change, we decided to pursue a few alternative solutions that would fix both the old and the new problems. The solution we settled on was to re-add the attack delay with a smaller range and to make it apply on a per-attack instead of a per-spawn basis. This means each affected unit or tower will have a slightly different attack speed for each attack, but will on average have the same attack speed over a long enough period. The chaotic nature of combat should also return, with both sides continuously attacking instead of engaging in a semi turn-based encounter.
    Revenant's Doom Costs Standardization:
       - Standardize Revenant's Doom costs by tier, with an increasing discount as the tiers progress: T2: 75%, T3: 65%, T4: 50% of unit's normal power cost
    NPC Building Power and Orb Cost Fix:
       - All NPC buildings now have an assigned power and orb cost. 
    Similar to how we fixed the missing power and orb costs for NPC units several patches ago, we have now given each NPC building its own power and orb cost. One motivation for this change is to allow us to add new cards and card abilities that can be limited in terms of which buildings they can and cannot be taken over, which would otherwise not be possible. A second motivation is to create consistency between NPC buildings. Prior to this change, buildings added with Fire rPvE had properly assigned costs, which is also true of the new Nature rPvE buildings, while the original buildings did not. This created a major inconsistency between and within game modes in regard to Matter Mastery, making it difficult or impossible to know when to bring one or the other affinity. A third motivation was to create a real distinction between the two existing affinities of Matter Mastery. Previously, before this change, the nature affinity could overtake every building in the game, meaning there was no real reason to use the tainted affinity or for it to exist. At the same time, we do not want to strongly nerf the nature affinity, which we do not view as inherently problematic. As such, as part of this change, we are also changing the nature affinity of Matter Mastery to work on T3 buildings, up to a power cost of 140p. Below, we have listed each building affected by this change and what will be its new tier and power cost.
    Tier 2 - 100p
    Bandit Launcher, Stonekin Hurler, Twilight Infected Tower, Lost Launcher
    Tier 3 - 140p
    Bandit Sky Defender, Bandit Waystation, Bandit Wizard Tower, Stonekin Deepgorge, Stonekin Launcher, Stonekin Shatterer, Twilight Fleshbender, Twilight Hatecaster, Twilight Skyscorcher, Lost Banestone, Lost Converter, Lost Disruptor
    Tier 4 - 200p
    Bandit Artillery, Stonekin Hammerfall, Stonekin Shredder, Twilight Bombard, Twilight Willsapper
    XL-unit Turn Speed Increase:
       - Increased the turn speed of all player XL-units based on category.
    Ground XL: 25% faster turn speed
    Flying XL: 40% faster turn speed
    Worm XL: 200% faster turn speed
    Global Disenchant Hostile versus Friendly Root Distinction:
       - Disenchant's immunity no longer prevents the application of the Immobile, Immobileroot is still prevented.
    BattleForge has two types of root effects, one called Immobile and the other Immobileroot. The distinction between them is that Immobile is only applied by friendly effects, while Immobileroot is applied by hostile effects. This change makes it so that a friendly effect which causes a unit to be rooted in place is no longer prevented by Disenchant's immunity effect. The primary reason behind this change is that effects which self-root a unit or its allies are baked into the balancing considerations of a card and its effects. The ability to bypass this downside, which has become easier as we have added, and likely will continue to add, more ways to apply Disenchant, has therefore become a constant balance consideration for both upcoming and existing cards. We are forced to ask ourselves if we can really buff Forest's Vim if we have to account for a Razorleaf that can walk around at normal speed, attacking the entire time. As we work on campaign maps with longer T4 sequences, we have to consider that a player can summon a Dreadnought and have it permanently stay in its Pledge of the Giants mode while walking around, trivializing vast portions of the map with ease. In such cases, do we nerf the Dreadnought and the Razorleaf, or do we nerf the mechanic which is causing the issue? Our decision was to nerf the Disenchant interaction.
    Squad Position Fix:
       - Game now checks and updates the Squad position to the unit position if they are too far away from each other.
    Any unit has two positions. A squad position and a unit position, which is equal to what we see on screen. This position tends to be close or equal to the units position itself but seems to behave slightly different for some actions. For example,. a Magma Hurler will shift his squad position slightly behind himself when attacking. This is not problematic. But some actions lead to only the unit position being updated while the squad position remained stationary. Prime candidates for this are hold position orders or rooting effects. The squad position can remain at the initial spot while the unit including its unit position can move to attack. Squad position is used by many abilities and spells to check if they should apply to the corresponding unit. Meaning, a unit with a squad position far away from its unit position would no longer be hit by things like CC or AoE attacks targeting the unit position. The fix going live now checks and updates the Squad position to the unit position if they are too far away from each other. Worms are not included here due to issues with worm movement.

    PvE Balance Changes
    While changes are split here between PvE and PvP sections, many of the changes have important consequences for both game modes. Our PvE and PvP balance teams work closely together to ensure that the impact of all changes are evaluated for both game modes. Below, we have listed both the changes and our reasoning behind them. 
    [ Tier 1 ]
     Banner of Glory:
    1. Life points: 500 ➜ 300
    2. Void return percentage: 33% ➜ 40%
    Higher percentage void return will allow more efficient cycling of lower tier units into real power. The life points were lowered to avoid situations in PvP where it becomes too strong, such as offensively inside an Aura of Corruption.
     Decomposer:
    1. Void return percentage: 50% ➜ 60%
     Frost Mage:
    1. Remove knock back from damage cone
    2. Add non-damaging cone with reduced range, that applies knock back. A 33m knock back cone should result in Frost Mage consistently applying damage to squads she attacks, fixing the issue where units are knocked outside of her damage range, but she continues to attack them anyway.
     Imperials:
    1. Add passive, "Protected Rush:" While under the effect of an Ice Shield, the unit gains significantly increased movement speed.
       A. Only works while Defensive Stance is active
       B. Movement speed while shielded = 4.8 m/s
    Improve Frost Sorceress and Ice Shield Tower synergy with Imperials. 
     Scorched Earth (p):
    1. Tainted Deconstruction (p):
       A. Damage debuff: 50% ➜ 75%
       B. Remove “The erection of buildings that are presently under construction will be interrupted and it will not be possible to repair anything.” from functionally and description.
    The increase of Scorched Earth(p)'s debuff allows it to become a semi-suppression of buildings in a large area (20m) and to protect your fragile Fire units in PvE. We removed the construction-suppression effect to reduce double-scorched usage in PvP, which also gives each affinity a role in either PvE or PvP. 
     Snapjaws:
    1. Remove Splash Damage: 5 damage, up to 9 in total ➜ 7 damage
    Snapjaws have an abysmal splash radius of only 3m. This is so small it effectively does not exist and only serves to reduce the unit's damage against squad units. We are removing the splash and changing the unit's damage to single-target. This increases the unit's single-target damage from 138 to 193 dp20, a +40% increase in total effective damage. This will change the damage of Satanael's Snapjaws from 414 dp20 to 579 dp20.
     Tunnel:
    1. Power cost: 40p ➜ 35p
    2. Life points: 880 ➜ 600
    Encourage Tunnel play by slightly lowering cost. HP reduction to prevent issues with an overly health efficient Tunnel.
     Witchclaws:
    1. Power cost: 65 ➜ 70
    2. Damage: 630 ➜ 680
    3. Add passive, "Corpse Gathering:" Harvests energy from nearby corpses equal to their former maximum life points to enable more powerful explosions. A maximum of 3000 life points can be stored at once.
    4. Infiltration Rework:
       A. Damage (both affinities): 330, up to 1650 in total damage + up to 600 damage per target, up to 5 targets in total based on the number of corpses gathered
       B. Enable splash overflow fix for ability.
       C. Both affinities now damage units and buildings.
       D. Explosion radius: 20m ➜ 15m
       E. Fire affinity: Additionally, when 3000 corpses have been gathered, Witchclaws deal 50% more damage after teleporting.
       F. Shadow affinity ➜ Frost Affinity: Additionally, when 3000 corpses have been gathered, Witchclaws take 50% less damage after teleporting.
    [ Tier 2 ]
     Breeding Grounds:
    1. Power cost: 70p ➜ 90p
    Breeding Grounds is one of the stronger cards in the game and has some of the best scaling of any T2 card or building. At only 1 Nature orb and available as easy as T2, it grants a permanent -25% discount to all own and allied units. While the card is something of a third rail due to its popularity, now that we have significantly buffed nearly all parts of Nature, we believe it is time to give the card a minor nerf. When considering what to do with the card, we considered several options, such as making the discount scale upwards or downwards with tier (i.e. 15% discount if player is T2, 20% if T3, etc.) or just nerfing the -25% discount outright. In the end, we settled on a slap-on-the-wrist nerf, at least initially. The increased bound power will delay players initially in T2, but only cost them 2 extra permanent power if they destroy the building. At the same time, the increased bound power cost should encourage players to actually destroy Breeding Grounds made obsolete by map progression, and it will provide a much needed nerf in the PvP game mode as well. 
     Burrow Ritual:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Nature (T1)
    Reducing the card's tier should allow more synergy with Tunnel, allowing for more strategies to emerge and helping to better justify Burrow Ritual's inclusion in a deck.
     Defenders:
    1. Crossbow Attack damage: 9 per shot (540 dp20) → 10 per shot (600 dp20)
    2. Life points: 810 → 750
    Stat realignment to make Defenders more viable offensively and a more attractive option. Life points are worth less than damage when considering stat efficiency, particularly amongst ranged units in PvE.
     Earthkeeper:
    1. Fixed a bug which allowed Earthkeeper to make connected units immune to all damage while also not affecting Earthkeeper. 
     Lost Priest:
    1. Exhaustion:
       A. Cast range: 30➜ 40m
       B. Total targets: 5 ➜ 10
       C. Debuff Timer: 20 sec ➜ 30s
       D. Jump speed increase
       E. Debuff strength: 30% ➜ 40%
    Improvements to Lost Priest's support capacity will help its viability in PvE, particularly in combination with other units such as Lost Shade and Lost Dancer. 
     Matter Mastery (g):
    1. Gifted Takeover (g): maximum of 2 orbs and 100 power costs ➜ maximum of 3 orbs and 140 power costs
    See Global Balance Changes above for more details. We are also considering more substantial changes to the tainted affinity in a future update. 
     Revenant's Blessing:
    1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
    2. Radius: 20m ➜ 25m
    3. Gifted Immortal healing: 15 ➜ 30 life points per second
    4. Infused Immortal damage: 25% ➜ 30% more damage
    5. Bugfix: Allow overlapping Revenant's Blessings to reapply the effect without requiring the unit to exit and re-enter the area.
    We are working towards improving the current use case of Revenant's Doom through direct buffs to it and through improving its support tools. With this change, Lost Shades are usable without needing Viridya and the spell scales better into the higher tiers for those you want to use revenants. More support to the faction and to revenants in particular will come in the next patch when we finish the rest of the upcoming Lost Souls rework. 
     Root Nexus:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Nature, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Nature (T1)
    2. Life points: 850 ➜ 650
    Moving Root Nexus to T1 gives Treespirit a much-needed support card. Life points reduced to prevent too health efficient blocking options in T1. 
     Spikeroot:
    1. Waves per root attack: 2.5 spike waves ➜ 2 spike waves
    2. Damage per wave: 100, up to 150 in total ➜ 125, up to 190 in total (+25% increase)
    Overall damage remains identical. Spikeroot now always deals the same damage at each point in its attack, instead of having high and low points. 
     Sunken Temple:
    1. Added Mode-change, "Hibernate:" Pest Creepers enter a state of dormancy and are no longer summoned.
    2. Pest Creepers now aggro against enemies in an area around the Temple.
    The new mode change will allow the player to temporarily turn off Pest Creepers. This will be especially helpful when using a large number of Sunken Temples, which quickly fill up the unit population limit, and you want to summon new non-Creeper units. The other change will make it so that Pest Creepers no longer stand around waiting for enemies to either attack them or move within a short distance. They will now actively aggro on enemies that come within a moderate radius around the Temple which spawned them. Overall, these changes should make the card function much more fluidly. 
     Unholy Power:
    1. Stored Strength (ammo): 2000 ➜ 3000
    2. Ammo is refreshed whenever Unholy Power is recast on a unit already affected by another instance of Unholy Power.
    3. Bugfix: Unholy Power no longer decays all remaining ammo when a previous instance of the spell expires. 
    Unholy Power is a highly inconsistent spell, and a lot of that regards bugs in its original implementation. By fixing the decay issue, new applications of Unholy Power existing concurrently with previous applications should no longer be removed by older instances expiring. Additionally, new applications, in addition to continuing to stack additively, now refresh the card's ammo pool back to full. On top of these important changes to the card's functioning, we also increased its total strength pool by 50% from 2000 to 3000 which should help it to scale better into T3. With all these changes, Unholy Power should become a significantly stronger and more consistent buff spell.  
     Viridya (normal and promo versions):
    1. Viridya’s Blessing is now able to restore lost squad members
     Wallbreaker:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 1 Neutral (T2) ➜ 1 Fire (T1)
    Opens up several early use cases for the card on Titans, Dwarven Riddle, and Sunbridge. 
    [ Tier 3 ]
     Abyssal Warder:
    1. New Active ability for large and medium-sized golems, "Reassemble:" Bond with two other Abyssal Warders of the same size in a 20m radius to reform into an Abyssal Warder of a larger size.
    2. Frost affinity effect, Ice Shield duration: 15s ➜ 30 seconds
    There is a large disparity between the usefulness of the two Abyssal Warder affinities in terms of effects. The fire affinity (r) provides a permanent buff, while the blessed affinity (b) only grants an Ice Shield for 15 seconds. In an attempt to partially remedy this issue, we have doubled the length of the smaller Warders' Ice Shields to 30 seconds. Additionally, we have finally been able to add a new effect to the small and medium sized Warders which will allow them to rebuild themselves into a larger Warder. Reassemble requires 3 Warders to work, meaning that it is not inherently efficient, though it provides another strong synergy with Promise of Life and builds on the buffs to Abyssal Warder last patch. 
     Blood Healing:
    1. Charges 12 ➜ 16
     Thornbark:
    1. Melee damage: 1400 dp20 ➜ 1550 dp20
     Mutating Frenzy:
    1. Sacrifice cooldown: 15 sec ➜ 5 sec
     Santa Claus:
    1. Blue Gift, Red Gift, Christmas Peace cooldown: 60 seconds ➜ 40 seconds
     Satanael:
    1. Fealty (both affinities):
       A. Cannot be activated if the player is at or above 125 population. 
       B. Summoned Snapjaws damage: 200% ➜ 120%
    Removing all instances of infinite spawning in the game due to the attendant performance issues they cause. Buffing Snapjaws individually as compensation. Overall, the damage of each summoned Snapjaws squad is increased slightly. 
     Shrine of Martyrs:
    1. Void return per frozen unit: 12% ➜ 18% of current void pool
    2. Bugfix: Void return effect is no longer triggered multiple times per entity.
    Regular users of Shrine of Martyrs know that the void return effect is often inconsistent. The same group of enemies could provide wildly different void return rates when frozen due to the fact that the effect would switch between applying once or multiple times per enemy. We fixed this inconsistency, but it left the shrine, which is likely already the weakest of the four standard options, even weaker. As such, we have given it a large +50% buff to its void return percentage in compensation for removing the existing bug. This change will allow players to develop an intuitive understanding of how much void is actually returned per frozen enemies. The percentage we chose is a bit of a guess and is subject to change based on the feedback we receive from player testing.  
     Shrine of War:
    1. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 2 Neutral (T3) ➜ 2 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3)
    When we first began nerfing cards, many people asked us when we were planning on touching Shrine of War. We previously delayed any changes to the card due to its importance to the rPvE game mode at all levels and because other factions, such as Frost and Nature, lacked sufficient methods of void return, an aspect we think is integral to the balance of all factions. Now that all factions have a viable method of void return, we have decided to give Shrine of War a nerf. We were between the two ideas of nerfing its void return percentage or increasing its orb restrictions. While Shrine of War has by far the most efficient void return when accounting for multiple players out of all the available options, we decided that we did not think its efficiency was outside the line of acceptability, but that the Shrine was too splashable compared to the other options. As such, we choose to leave Shrine of War as the best void return shrine in the game, but to require the player to invest into 2 Fire orbs to access it. 
    [ Tier 4 ]
     Altar of Chaos:
    1. Change Nether Bomb cast range to work like spells instead of like units & buildings. Still limited to own ground presence only.
    This seemingly small change substantially increases the positioning capacities of the Nether Bomb and allows own units to be much farther away when placing bombs. 
     Battleship:
    1. Barrage damage per shot: 550, up to 3300 in total ➜ 800, up to 2400 in total
    Battleship's ability has a long range of 50m and can be used to snipe out enemies far into the enemy's backline while remaining safe itself. The ability has a very large amount of splash damage, able to fully damage up to 6 enemies in its target radius. At the same time, the target radius is only 12m making it very unlikely there are 6 enemies to damage. Additionally, despite its long animation and unleashing 5 shots, the single-target damage is not even able to destroy a large spawn building. We are reducing the total splash damage in favor of higher single-target damage, increasing the damage dealt to one target from 2750 to 4000 in total. 
     Cluster Explosion (p):
    1. Tainted Burst radii per successive explosion: 25m / 20m / 15m / 10m / 5m ➜ 25m / 20m / 15m / 12m / 10m
    Increased the radius of the explosion for the 3rd and 4th waves of Cluster Explosion (p). These radii were so small, they often failed to hit any enemies. By increasing them, we hope to give a slight buff to this affinity in ideal situations with a lot of closely clustered enemies. 
     Earthen Gift:
    Earthen Gift Redesign
    1. Charges: 4 ➜ 8
    2. Infused Earth (r) ➜ Blessed Earth (b):
       A. Damage buff: 30% ➜ 50%
    3. Tainted Earth (p) ➜ Gifted Earth (g):
       A. Affects Elemental units, not structures
       B. Remove "Every hostile building in the current game will deal 50% less damage."
       C. Damage buff: +50% more damage
       D. Healing per second: 10% ➜ 5%
    Earthen Gift is one of the worst cards in the entire game. Before Reforging, its normal price was 3 BFP despite being a Rare spell. As Stonekin's Pure T4 spell, it ought to be one of the reasons why a player goes 2 Nature and 2 Frost orbs, but right now it is a waste of a card slot. The card's existing identity is as a combined buff and healing card, but it is restricted to only work on structures. Even on structures it is not useful.
    Instead of completely rejecting the card's initial design, we are attempting to improve on it for the one affinity by increasing the damage buff where it may prove useful upon the release of defensive rPvE. For the other affinity, we are swapping its effect from structures to elemental units, which includes all Stonekin units, and modifying its heal and damage buff accordingly. The idea is to potentially allow the spell to replace Regrowth while also giving Stonekin access to a minor damage buff for itself and any other friendly elemental units. Between this and the Grinder buff, Stonekin's T4 should feel significantly stronger.
     Evil Eye:
    1. Damage now ticks every 0.5 seconds instead of every 1 second. Rage still takes the same amount of time to activate.
    2. Initial damage delay for Evil Eye's Searing Sight has been removed. Damage will now starts as soon as Evil Eye targets an enemy.
     Grinder:
    1. Harmony: Added a yellow bar akin to Mountaineer showing when the healing effect will next occur.
    2. Provoke (both affinities): Single target ➜ All enemies in a 15m radius
       A. Infused Provoke Buff: 50% more damage ➜ 75% more damage
    Quality of life change to Grinder's harmony ability. Added some increased strength and flexibility to Grinder's taunt by allowing it to affect multiple targets in a small area. This will also allow Grinder (r) to taunt the empty air versus bosses, allowing it to still generate the personal damage buff, which has been increased to +75%, regards of whether or not any enemy units are actually taunted. Stonekin struggles against strong single target enemies such as bosses and this is one step in an attempt to remedy that without damaging the faction's existing identity.
     Lost Evocation:
    1. Charges: 4 ➜ 8
    2. Cast time reduction: 2 seconds ➜ 0.8 seconds
    3. Infused Revenant damage buff: 50% ➜ 100%
    The charge increase allows Lost Souls to get access to its primary support spell without having to use two deck slots on Rifle Cultists + Offering. The cast time reduction prevents the use of both Evocations simultaneously, while the buff to the fire affinity (r)'s damage buff makes it a more compelling option for a faction whose main damage dealing occurs through units.
     Shadow Worm:
    1. Increase turn rate of disintegration turrets: 200 ➜ 260
     Tempest:
    1. Whirlwind splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Twilight Pestilence:
    1. Damage: 44 ➜ 64 life points per second
    2. Healing (both affinities): Both affinities now heal friendly Twilight units by equivalent damage as they deal to enemies.
    3. Change Gifted Affinity (g) ➜ Infused Affinity (r)
       A. Add +30% damage buff for friendly Twilight units
    Improvements in nearly all aspects of Twilight's marquee spell. Previously, the blessed affinity (b) was the only one worth using due to the damage reduction it provides. We decided to roll the healing effect of the gifted affinity (g) into the base spell and create an alternative damage buff variant instead. The goal with this change is to allow Twilight Pestilence to be a more flexible spell, one able to provide a supportive effect while also clearing minor enemies and recovering chip damage to player units that might otherwise prompt the player to cast an additional healing spell. 
     Void Maw:
    1. Void Shear ability cost: 75p ➜ 60p
    [ Tower 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 towers up to the appropriate power level. If you would like to learn more about our thought process behind the tower changes, please head to Skylords Reborn Documents to read our design Deep Dive on Towers, as well as other design documents. 
    Tower Targeting Fixes:
    1. Changed the damage delay of the auto-attacks for a large range of towers to the standard delay of 0.1 sec. These towers should now have an easier time hitting moving targets, including swift units. 
       A. Affects the following towers, including both affinities when applicable: Artillery, Hammerfall, Defense Tower, Lifestealer, Northern Keep, Primal Defender, Twilight Bombard, Tower of Flames
     Blaster Cannon:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    2. Tainted Magma: 15m ➜ 20m
     Defense Tower:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Howling Shrine:
    1. Essence Bolts firing arc: 90 degrees ➜ 135 degrees
    2. New passive, “Restoration:” Regenerate 30 life points every second.
    To truly fulfill its role as a fortress and to provide a meaningful choice between itself and Razorleaf, Howling Shrine must be a self-sufficient defender able to justify the massive amount of space it occupies. The restoration effect will allow the tower to persist even absent player attention or when facing continuous attack waves that prevent repair. The increase to the firing arc of its main weapon is a much needed change. Prior to this, Howling Shrine could only target most enemies with one turret at a time and XL units with two turrets only if the tower was positioned perfectly with respect to the XL unit's path. The tower should now be able to target units of all sizes with two turrets in most cases. 
     Lifestealer:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    2. Still alive regeneration: 5 life points per second ➜ 8 life points per second
    3. Sacrifice cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 3 seconds
     Lost Disruptor:
    1. Damage: 300, up to 330 in total ➜ 300, up to 450 in total (3000 dp20)
    2. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 10m
    3. Disruption cost: 50p ➜ 20p
    Increase Lost Disruptor's effectiveness against multiple enemies. Also, Lost Disruptor's ability is one of the better counters to Shrine of Memory in 2v2 PvP. By decreasing the cost, we better enable players to make use of the card simply for its ability effect.
     Northern Keep:
    1. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Primal Defender:
    1. Earthstrike splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    2. Cloudstrike:
       A. Damage (add splash): 225 ➜ 250, up to 375 in total (2030 dp20)
       B. Splash radius: 0m ➜ 8m
    Buff to Primal Defender's anti-air capacity. This leaves it as a middle ground between a non-raged and a fully raged Blaster Cannon, and should hopefully allow the tower to better aid Nature T1 in dealing with anti-air threats, particularly those which can counter small and medium units.
     Rocket Tower
    1. Orb cost: 2 Fire ➜ 1 Fire, 1 Neutral
    2. Power cost: 80p ➜ 70p
    3. Life points: 2000 ➜ 1480
    4. Rocket Barrage:
       A. Total rockets: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 ➜ 4 on all upgrade levels
       B. Attack speed: Every 5 seconds ➜ every 4 seconds
       C. Damage per rocket: 85 ➜ 90 (900 dp20)
    Fire T2 currently lacks a splash tower, while Pure Fire T2 has 2 towers. We think Pyromaniac sufficiently fills the slot of T2 tower for Pure Fire, so we are transitioning Rocket Tower into a splash card. As part of this change, we will be cutting down on its large pool of life points while otherwise increasing the consistency of Rocket Tower, both in terms of knockback and damage dealing. Even with the cost decrease, this change will make Rocket Tower mildly less stat efficient against large groups in exchange for a lower start up cost and the ability to consistently knockback multiple enemies due to the fixed targeting and increased rate of fire. These changes should allow Rocket Tower to fulfill its role as a knockback-centric tower while its high damage allies provide the necessary fire power. 
     Skydefender:
    1. Damage: 128 up to 192 in total ➜ 153 up to 230 (2300 dp20)
    2. Life points: 1400 ➜ 1600
    3. Range: 40m ➜ 50m
    4. Splash Radius: 5m ➜ 8m
    Substantial buff to Skydefender to give it more teeth against the T3 and T4 air threats it is designed to counter. The range increase will make it able to fight back against Raven Battleships, which are one of the most common flying enemies in the campaign. 
     Time Vortex (p):
    1. Tainted Void Shock (p), attack speed increase void levels: Above 150, 300, 600, 1200 void ➜ Above 100, 200, 400, 800 void
    Improve the efficiency of the tainted affinity (p) by decreasing the amount of void which is required to trigger each attack speed increase.  
     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 (r) Rage:
       A. Rage scaling: 100% 1st stage, 200% 2nd stage ➜ 75% 1st stage, 150% 2nd stage
       B. Rage reset timer: 7 sec ➜ 10 seconds
    5. Lava Sea:
       A. Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
       B. Bugfix - Lava Sea now works as described
       C. Added a new visual effect
    The goal is to make Volcano more "dense" by increasing its power cost and then adjusting its stats accordingly. Making each Volcano more powerful helps to mitigate the tower's large size and also makes it a better target for building buff effects such as those provided by Frost's Skyelves. Total damage when enraged is slightly increased despite the Rage nerf (12,000 dp20 ➜ 13175 dp20). Overall, Volcano loses a very small amount of total stat efficiency, but gains in total strength by having an ability that actually works. The old Lava Sea provided zero value to the tower because it did not work. The new Lava Sea, which functions as described on the card, turns this Fire fortress into a terrifying strongpoint capable of wiping out hordes of enemy units.  

    PvP Balance Changes
    [ Tier 1 ]
     Life Weaving:
    1. No longer affects buildings.
    Life Weaving changes are made to weaken its scaling potential into higher tiers considering most shadow splashes tend to be fairly strong at later game stages anyway. Buffed single unit attacks with straight well focus are very easy to execute and fairly annoying to play against when any damage on the target also increases the damage against your Power Well.
     Sunstriders:
    1. Suppression Fire ability cost: 25p ➜ 10p
    In PvP, Suppression Fire's most relevant applications arise on higher tech levels, where a 50 energy investment for a fragile T1 unit is already enough of a restriction. As a result, there is room to buff the ability power cost for those niche cases.
    [ Tier 2 ]
     Bandit Launcher:
    1. Power cost: 60p ➜ 50p
    2. Firebug ability cost: 40/35/30/25p ➜ 40p on all upgrade levels
    The addition of a weaker building with reduced construction time led to some rather unique T2 strategies, but the high bound power requirements restrict its relevance. This change should open up some more room for creative usage of Bandit Launcher and the Fire Bug ability.
     Bandit Minefield:
    1. Mine spawn speed reduced by 0.25 seconds per mine. 
    Bandit Minefield has been a fairly controversial topic. The spell was very powerful and played an important role in every game mode. Based on play rates and general feedback, our PvP faction overhaul succeeded in making Bandits more viable and fun to play, but there was a lot of frustration when playing against the faction due to an overly dominant Minefield. After recent tweaks, play rates have dropped by about 20% and Bandits seems to be in a very healthy position based on global faction popularity and high ELO presence ever since. However, the experience of playing against Minefield continued to be perceived as frustrating by many of our players. The intended goal of this set of changes is to keep the faction at a similar level of strength, but distribute its power more evenly across Bandit T2 cards and strategies.
    Mine spawn speed will be reduced to enable counter play without removing its zoning power and damage potential upon being ignored. The design direction of allowing placement under units is absolutely intended, crucial for the faction viability, and differentiates the card from basic trap card design. Due to a lack of crowd control and building protection, Bandits needs a tool to defend vs melee unit well focus consistently. A major issue in PvP is that outside of its intended design direction (melee unit zoning and S unit denial), Minefield generates too much trading value as its damage is almost guaranteed. The spell tends to trade up against anything except for swift unit micro. This should be addressed.
    In return, we will buff Commandos, Sniper, and Bandit Launcher in compensation. As Warriors Death came up to the discussion for compensations: The card design is not healthy for PvP due to a lack of counterplay, as such we will just leave the card as is since its mechanic is also powerful in end game PvE content.
     Bandit Sniper:
    1. Damage: 75 dmg per hit (750 dp20) ➜ 78 dmg per hit (780 dp20)
    Slight damage increase to compensate for Bandit Minefield nerfs.
     Commandos:
    1. Power cost: 75p ➜ 65p
    2. Concentrate ability cost: 10p ➜ 20p
    After some testing, we think it is safe to make Commandos a little stronger, as long as the upfront cost of mode-switching remains the same. This should be beneficial for the card in all game modes.
     Gravity Surge:
    1. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
    Allow Gravity Surge to be more functional as a niche counter for air unit heavy strategies.
     Lyrish Knight:
    1. Damage: 400 dp20 ➜ 800 dp20
    2. Life points: 980 ➜ 900
    3. Surge of Strength:
       A. No longer increases damage by 100%
       B. Now increases damage dealt to frozen targets by 50%
    While we had the intentions to give Lyrish Knight a more meaningful role in the game, finding a healthy buff for the card just by tweaking the stats has not proven easy. The extraordinarily high health ratio makes the unit very powerful when combined with health scaling mechanics like Nasty Surprise. Furthermore, the card is easily spammable and can take over games. As a result, we will allow the card to interact more with Frost's spell arsenal rather than just adding value through raw stats.
     Mauler:
    1. Power cost: 75p ➜ 70p
    After Mountaineer fell out of the meta, Mauler lost its main purpose in PvP. A slight cost reduction should help him shine more in niche situations.
     Mountain Rowdy:
    1. Tainted Ice Block damage (p): 25 dmg/sec ➜ 20 dmg/sec
    2. Blessed Ice Block (b):
       A. Damage reduction: 25% ➜ 30%
       B. Now affects friendly air units.
    With the previous changes, Mountain Rowdy (p) played a strong role in pure Frost due to its high damage potential, which made it a little too effortless to shut down T2 aggression. While Frost should be strong at deflecting attacks around own structures, we want to give players a fair chance to punish the faction when a player acquires a strong tempo lead. Mountain Rowdy (b), on the other hand, has been rather underwhelming, so we will buff the damage reduction percentage a bit.
     Shadow Mage:
    1. Sacrifice range: 30m ➜ 40m
    2. Foul Play:
       A. Damage percentage: 300% ➜ 400%
       B. Duration until explosion: 20 seconds ➜ 12 seconds
       C. Cast range: 30m ➜ 40m
       D. Now deals half damage to buildings
    Despite her great stat efficiency, Shadow Mage's abilities have been rather underwhelming in relation to what the card is supposed to do with them. By adding a burst limit against structures, we open up a lot of room for Foul Play buffs in order to make this ability more rewarding in unit combat.
     Spirit Hunter (p):
    1. Tainted Bow Attack poison damage: 20 dmg per second ➜ 25 dmg per second
    The current damage loss compared to the green affinity does not get compensated by the additional piercing damage. This change should grant Spirit Hunters purple some better niche uses.
     Stone Shards (b):
    1. Blessed Fury ➜ Shatter Ice
       A. No longer deals increased damage to demons and undead
       B. Now deals full damage to frozen targets
    Stone Shards (b) are currently unused across all game modes. The affinity effect being effectively useless plays a big role here. This change is supposed to enable alternative strategies in Stonekin (Shards (b) + Spirit Hunters (p) + Coldsnap) without overbuffing the already powerful T2.
     Stone Tempest:
    1. Stone Rest healing: 20 life points per second ➜ 40 life points per second
    This change is supposed to give the self-heal ability a more meaningful role given that the self-cc almost always outweighs the benefits of using this mechanic. As many of the factions received more tools to counter the unit (i.e. Burning Spears release), we think it is safe to enable more ways to use the card without directly strengthening patterns that have been perceived as oppressive in the past.
     Twilight Curse:
    1. Cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 2 seconds
    Allow Twilight Curse to scale into high energy T2s without increasing card efficiency.
     Warlock (r):
    1. Infused Witchcraft damage buff: 15% ➜ 25%
    We agree that the previous buff reduction was unnecessary when we reduced unit power cost. This has now been reverted.
    [ Tier 3 ]
     Drones:
    1. Life points: 1760 ➜ 1840
    The recent changes for Drones did not help the card as much as we had hoped. Stat efficiency will be increased a bit further.
     Nox Carrier:
    1. New passive, "Push the Cart:" Increase movement speed to 6.4 m/s when at least 3 friendly units are within a 25m radius
    Based on some previous suggestions by the community in the balancing discord, we will add a conditional movement speed increase to Nox Carrier in order to make sure it actually reaches its destination.
     Sandstorm:
    1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
     Shield Building:
    1. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
    Shield building has been very powerful for a long time, and a card nerf has been requested by the community rather frequently. We agree. 100% uptime on a shield, strong enough to outlast XL unit focus, is too much value even if you invest a full deck slot for a purely defensive spell.
     Timeshifter Spirit
    1. Healing per jump: 275 / 220 / 165 / 110 / 55 life points ➜ 300 / 240 / 180 / 120 / 60
     Tremor:
    1. Ground Slam:
       A. Ability cost: 30p ➜ 40p
       B. Cooldown: 15 seconds ➜ 20 seconds
    2. Tremor's walk speed (2.4 m/s) is now half of its normal speed (4.8m/s), instead of being identical. 
    Tremor is one of the most popular and most powerful siege units in T3. We will be making some minor changes to the ability in order to bring it more in line with other T3 options.
     Unstable Demon
    1. Demonic Rage:
       A. Bonus movement speed: 25% ➜ 60%
       B. Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
    After the initial round of changes, Unstable Demon is not being used as much as we had hoped. As the card is very difficult to use, we will strengthen it to reward good unit management a little bit more.
  7. Duza liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400042 - 19 May 2023   
    Map & NPC Changes

    [ NPC Balance Changes ]
     Lost Reaver:
    1. Reclassify Lost Reaver as a melee-unit instead of a ranged-unit.
    Players are likely familiar with the fact that a Lost Reaver will spawn its Lost Crawlers and then stand off to the side while it and its allies are slaughtered. This has now been fixed. Lost Reaver will use its ability and move towards and engage enemies in melee combat. This should constitute a slight buff to the unit's strength as an enemy.
     Lost Wanderer (shield variant):
    1. Ice Shield duration: Infinite ➜ 20 seconds
    2. Targets: All available targets in a 20m radius ➜ 5 closest units in a 20m radius
    3. New passive effect: The duration of friendly Ice Shields is extended indefinitely within a 20m radius around Lost Wanderer.
    These changes aim to make the unit more fair through changing Lost Wanderer's Ice Shields to only be conditionally permanent and to have an upper limit on the number of allies that can be shielded at a time. This should enable more counter play on the player's end, as a player can now focus on Lost Wanderers to give the Ice Shields the possibility of wearing off.
     Twilight Evil Eye:
    1. Remove passive Pain Link damage reflection ability
    Twilight Evil Eye possessed the same Pain Link ability as the player version of Wrathgazer. Pain Link is only supposed to work on Evil Eye's allies, but there is a common bug with the ability which causes it to frequently enemies as well. This would lead to situations where a player would kill their own units by killing an Evil Eye, an issue which disproportionally affected melee unit compositions due to Pain Link's small radius. While this therefore constitutes a buff to players in niche situations, the removal of Pain Link will also make late game Twilight camps more durable by no longer distributing additional damage to Evil Eye's allies.
     Twilight Leech (Siege of Hope Mini-boss):
    1. Enemies affected by the unit's teleport ability now have a 10-second immunity to further teleports to prevent infinite teleport ping-ponging of units around camps.
     Twilight Minions:
    1. New passive ability: Increase damage of Twilight Minions by +20% for each friendly Twilight Minion nearby.
    While Twilight Minions currently claim they deal more damage based on nearby allies, this is not actually true. We are therefore adding such an ability which scales based only on other nearby friendly Twilight Minions. The current numbers and effect are relatively small as we want to ensure we do not potentially over buff the unit in early campaign scenarios.
     Twilight Willsapper:
    1. Rework Willsapper's auto-cast paralyze substantially.
       A. Every 4 seconds, up to 2 hostile units within a 40m radius will be paralyzed for 11 seconds upon inhaling it. After the effect wears off, targets are immune against Paralyze for a short time.
       B. Recast timer: 4 seconds
       C. Targets: Closest 2 hostile units not currently paralyzed or immune.
       D. Duration: 11 seconds
       E. Range: 40m
       F. Immunity: 5 seconds
    Up to 6 units can now be paralyzed by Willzapper at once, each for 11 seconds. They then have a very short (5 second) immunity period. The effect targets the closest non-paralyzed hostile units because otherwise it would permanently target the 2 closest units and be ineffective. Willsapper should no longer paralyze enemies after its death, and enemies will now have a short window to respond before being re-paralyzed. This is in contrast to the previous implementation, which allowed Willsapper to permanently paralyze up to 5 enemy units at once. We hope these changes will make this iconic enemy building more fair while still providing a substantial challenge when facing the Twilight faction.
     The Red King (Empire Boss):
    1. Now casts an Amok ability periodically, causing enemies to attack each other in a large radius around him.
     Bandit Lord (rPvE Boss):
    1. Change Name: Bandit Lord ➜ Banzai Lord
    2. Add boss immunity
    3. Life points: 7000 ➜ 20000
    4. New ability, "Bird Calling":
       A. Spawns Banzai Birds, identical to U3 player tainted affinity.
       B. Casts every 10 seconds
    5. Add “Flesh Feast” ability from Overlord to description
    It is well known that Bandits are the easiest enemies in rPvE by a good margin. One contributing factor to this is that the Bandit Lord enemy is counted as a boss when generating rPvE matches, despite being no more than a slightly beefier and reskinned Overlord. We have decided to change this mini-boss into a real boss, akin to the player and campaign versions of Banzai Lord. This boss will both regenerate life points based on nearby corpses and spawn powerful Banzai Birds to destroy the armies of players. We hope players enjoy this first step towards making Bandits a more fearsome and interesting faction to fight in rPvE. 
     Lost Crawler (Lost Souls rPvE)
    1. The non-shielding variants of Lost Wanderer have been replaced by Lost Crawlers in the Lost Souls preset in random PvE.
    These are M-sized units that explode on death, which many players have seen before in our Halloween event map Spooky Encounters. This should present a slight increase in the difficulty of early game Lost Souls compared to similar situations prior to the patch. 

    [ Systematic Changes ]
    Spring Forge has been added to the game. Available via an achievement to win several featured community maps. Random PvE factions have had their probabilities redistributed to account for the addition of Nature rPvE [ General Fixes]
    Removed a broken variant of Portal Nexus from the map editor. Battlegrounds: Fixed a typo in the lobby setup screen in English. The Treasure Fleet: Improved localization of the goals to be more consistent: Properly translate "first" to "erste" rather than "nächste" in German. Always lowercase "chariot" in French. Always end goals with a period in Russian. The Guns of Lyr: Fixed a typo in the goal (F) description to find and slay all remaining enemies in English. Slave Master / Mo: Capitalized the gameplay term "Health" for usage in the goal "Mo's Health" for consistency.
    [ Campaign Map Changes ]
     Behind Enemy Lines:
    1. Auto-destroy top left wall if 50% of barrier modules are already destroyed.
    2. Added a Flightblocking / Vision Block to the top left base to prevent the Twilight Dragon from aggroing onto units at the player's T2/T3 location.
    3. Line of Sight improvements along the bottom middle Twilight Disciple path.
    Blight:
    1. Fixed a line of sight issue at the top right starting position, which prevented ranged units from attacking enemies without closing to almost melee range.
    2. Added two new bridges connecting the left and right sections of the map on both the top and the bottom.
    3. Updated minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

     
     Convoy:
    1. Command Walker spawn frequency (delay between the spawns of two Walkers) on expert difficulty: 120 seconds ➜ 180 seconds
    2. Amii Spell Device effects:
       A. "Area Freeze" (Coldsnap):
          - Maximum number of targets: 7 ➜ 12
          - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
       B. "Healing Radiance" (Ray of Light) maximum healing: 3600 ➜ 4400 life points
       C. "Meteor Shower" (Inferno)
          - Scatter radius of meteor impact area: 20 ➜ 15m radius
          - Fixed description to display correct info, improved the spell preview, and displayed maximum spell range while selecting target area.
    Convoy on expert difficulty has an 18% successful completion rate, the lowest of any campaign map in the game by far. Part of this is the map's seemingly infinite scaling potential, where attack waves progressively get harder and harder, even very late into the game. Part of this is the unique mechanics of the map, which often confuse players. And part of this is that success or failure on this map, when not cheesing it with Rifle Cultists, Voodoo Shack, or Enlightenment, is RNG. A player can do identical actions from one game to the next, with one playthrough succeeding and the next failing. It all depends on how many units the Command Walker gets attacked by on its way north and how many of these units it fails to kill due to poor target selection. In several test runs, we found that the number of units which congregate to attack the Command Walker, while it itself is attacking the Power Shrine, can range from 7 to 13 without any player intervention. Enemy groups at the lower end of the range are beatable using only the map's mechanics, while enemy groups at the upper end of the range more can kill the Walker, which often led to failure even when the players executed perfectly.
    Winning or losing a map due to the target selection of an AI controlled unit is not acceptable. If two players execute well, they should not lose because the map's core mechanic is poorly designed and poorly balanced. To fix this issue, we are increasing the time between Command Walker spawns by 30 seconds. This will increase the total available time for players to prepare by approximately a minute without effecting other portions of the map. We are also strongly buffing the spell effects available to the player when they capture nodes and gather Stonekin spell charges. The Coldsnap effect has had its target count increased to 12, allowing it to freeze all enemies around the Walker in the vast majority of cases, even if the Command Walker has the worst possible target selection. The Ray of Light effect has been buffed by 22%, while the Inferno effect's tightened scatter radius will allow the player to pick off priority targets with increased reliability. Overall, the goal is that a team which has captured and successfully defended 2 nodes, while also having gathered 20 Stonekin charges by the time the 3rd Walker reaches the Power Shrine, should be able to win the Command Walker mini-game with 100% reliability as long as they use the Amii Spell Device somewhat competently. 
     Nightmare Shard:
    1. Replace the Twilight Deathglider spawned at the "Shadow Camp" on expert difficulty with Twilight Mindbenders.
    Most veteran players approach this map by immediately rushing the spawn buildings of the Shadow Camps on both sides with either Nomad + Eruption or Mana Wings. They do this because it prevents the spawn of several camp defenders, the most notable of which is the Twilight Deathglider. Twilight Deathgliders have an AoE knockback of S and M-units. Additionally, the pathway into the Shadow Camp is incredibly narrow, meaning that a single Twilight Deathglider can, and often does, permanently CC an infinite amount of player units on this map. By changing this singular unit, we allow players to play the map in the normal way without facing an enemy that single-handedly counters every non-Fire faction at T1. At the same time, we do nothing to change the map for veterans and speedrunners.
    Nightmare's End:
    1. Decreased the pond size at the starting location on the left side of the map (see minimap image), allowing for enough space to build a second tower defending the southern wall.
    2. Decreased blocking on the right side of the map (see minimap image).
    3. Updated Minimap to reflect changes and to be more accurate in general.

     Sunbridge:
    1. Fixed several terrain and water visual issues.
    2. Moved the single Power Well on the right side down a bit.
    3. Moved the 3 Power Wells and Monument on the right side down a bit.
    4. Slightly improved blocking to allow better spawning of units at wells near terrain.
    Minor quality of life improvements. The changes to the Wells and Monument on the right side of the map should hopefully prevent the player from aggroing the next camp simply by claiming the Wells and Monument. 
  8. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - March 2023   
    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!

     
    • Forge Lag and Leaderboard Achievements

    We want to take a moment to address the Forge lag issue that many of our players have been experiencing. We understand that it has been causing frustration, and we're sorry for any inconvenience it has caused. Luckily, we're happy to report that we've made significant progress in resolving the issue. Because we introduced major features such as cosmetics with our latest patch, it took us some time to pinpoint the cause of the lag, but we have now identified and fixed the issue through a patch. You should now experience a smoother and more enjoyable experience in the Forge.
    In addition to addressing the lag issue, we have also fixed the problems with leaderboard achievements and retroactively distributed rewards for the past month. Furthermore, we've fixed a bug that affected the display of achieved rankings for this month's leaderboard achievements. The displayed rankings now accurately reflect your current rank, so you can see how you're doing and earn rewards accordingly.
    Click here to read the full patch notes. 
     
    • Upcoming Feature: Drop Locations

    Upgrading cards is a fundamental aspect of Skylords Reborn, and finding the locations of these upgrades can be challenging, especially for new players. We understand that browsing external sources like the Wiki can be a significant barrier for players to gather information. That's why we're happy to announce the upcoming feature of in-game drop locations!

    With the new "View Upgrades" button added to the create-a-lobby screen, finding upgrade locations is just one click away. You can easily access the upgrade locations you need without ever leaving the game, making the process of finding the upgrades you need more straightforward and easier.


    Clicking on the "View Upgrades" button will reveal a list of upgrades that can be found on the map. You can filter the list by colour, difficulty, and whether you already own the upgrades. This will help you to quickly and easily find the upgrades you need. 

     
    Moreover, we've added an upgrade location feature to the "Claim Upgrade" section of your cards. Right-click a card from your inventory, click "Upgrade", and you will now be able to see the drop location of the upgrade. This is in addition to the existing feature of purchasing the upgrade with gold. This makes it easier for you to decide whether to spend gold on an upgrade, or complete the map to try to gather it. 
     


    We are happy to introduce this feature into the game, and believe it will help our players to more easily complete their collection. We hope to include this feature in our next patch and are excited to see how it will improve the player experience in Skylords Reborn.
     
    • Upcoming Feature: Comparing Profiles

    In our latest patch, we introduced new cosmetics and achievements, which brought a fresh set of challenges for players. We are excited to announce that we are working on a new feature – Comparing Profiles – that will allow players to compare their progress with others.

    With this feature, you'll be able to right-click on another player and compare your profile with theirs. This comparison will show your achievements and progress in the game, helping you to see how you stack up against other players. We believe that this feature will encourage more players to collaborate and tackle the most challenging achievements together.
    To ensure that everyone feels comfortable sharing their progress, profiles will be publicly visible by default, but players will have the option to set their profiles to private, friends-only, or group-only. This will give you control over who can see your progress, and ensure that you are only sharing your achievements with the audience you choose.

    We are currently finalizing this feature and are already able to share a sneak peek of how it will look in the game:

    We believe that this feature will be a great addition to the game, and we plan to include it in our next patch. We hope players are looking forward to it!
     
    • Behind the Scenes: Fire Wormlings

    As Skylords Reborn continues to evolve, we're constantly hard at work creating new content and cards to keep the game fresh and exciting. However, as with any development process, we sometimes encounter unexpected challenges along the way.
    Today, we want to take you behind the scenes of one of our recent projects that didn't go according to plan – the implementation of a new card called "Fire Wormlings", and share some of the challenges we faced.

    Fire Wormlings, Artwork by Tweeto
    Designed as a squad of six small worms based on the card "Fire Worm", the Wormlings were intended to be a strong S-squad archer-unit, perfect for our upcoming defensive rPvE mode. Unfortunately, we ran into several unexpected issues during development.
    For example, we encountered problems when attempting to mount the squad on walls. This was problematic, since the goal of the card in the first place was to provide additional archers to be used in late game defensive scenario's. Placing the squad on a wall would result in a buggy model with the worms' tails sticking out of the wall segment, looking quite silly in the progress:
     
    Additionally, the death animation of the worms didn't quite look right, as it was designed for a single XL unit, rather than a squad of small S units. Facing them in combat sure looked... dramatic:
    Despite these challenges, we're still committed to finding a solution that meets our standards and gives our players new enjoyable cards to play with. We're currently exploring other ways to incorporate the "Fire Wormlings" into the game, though it might be a while before you see them again.  
    We appreciate your patience as we work through these challenges. We know that players are eager to hear about actual upcoming content, so we would like to know: do you enjoy these behind-the-scenes at our development process, or would you prefer us sticking to announcing more concrete upcoming content? Please let us know in the comments below! 
     
    • PvP Guide Update

    Our latest balance patch resulted in significant changes to both the PvP meta and the free PvP decks. To ensure that you're up-to-date with the latest strategies, the PvP Guide has been updated accordingly.
    Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned player, this comprehensive guide has got you covered. It includes deck descriptions, tips and tricks for each match-up, and an overview of the pros and cons of your deck. We also indicate how beginner-friendly each deck is to play.
    The guide is written by RadicalX and Hirooo, two of the top players in the game. You can trust their expertise and insights to help you level up your PvP skills. So make sure you read up on the latest updates and get ready for the upcoming PvP tournament on Sunday!

     
    • Tournaments / Events

    In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!

    FINISHED  – Official PvE Contest #8: Insane God
    "One of Urzachs Minions is heading for an altar. sToP tHeM!" The results are in: check out the winner reveal stream, hosted by Ultralord, of our Insane God event this Friday the 3rd. More information.
     
    NEW - Skylords Reborn Championship #2 – Sunday 5th of March
    Get ready for our PvP tournament, the Skylords Reborn Championship! This event is open to players of all skill levels, and will be live-streamed by RadicalX. There are many prizes to be won, including for the audience! Don't forget to sign up in advance if you want to participate. More information.
     
    NEW - CCC #10 Ashbone Pyro vs. Magma Hurler - UNTIL 12.03.2022
    In the next installment of CCC, players will answer the ultimate question: Ashbone Pyro or Magma Hurler? Show your allegiance and fight for supremacy in the latest Crappy Community Contest! More information.
     
    • Host your own tournament / event
    Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, Metagross, Minashigo Hiko, or Nukie! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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.
     
     
    • Join the Team

    Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 30 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to take a look at our open positions!
     


    • Newsletter


    While we aim to keep our community in the loop with monthly news through our Community Updates, we understand that sometimes these updates might not reach you. That's why we offer a newsletter that will notify you when a new patch or update is released. Don't worry, we respect your privacy and promise not to send spam or use your data in any other way. Click here to sign up.

    If you provided your email address during our summer survey to stay up to date, then you are automatically subscribed to our newsletter. We recently sent out our first newsletter, which announced the release of our latest patch.
    • In Conclusion

    That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
    As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
    The code will reward you with a General booster: DROP-LOCA-TION-MAPS

    The code is valid until April 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
    We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features.

    Archive
    • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
    • Overview Community Updates
    • Community Update February 2023
  9. Duza liked a post in a topic by Hrdina_Imperia in New card ideas and suggestions - Megathread   
    With the recent Deep Dive into Stonekin (my favorite faction since the old BF times) I got some ideas for more Stonekin buildings. With the intention of being more structure-focused, I think the faction deserves more cards in this regard. As such, I tried to come up with first support building for the faction, which could at the same time synergize with the new idea of offensive towering.  Numbers are just rudimentary. 
    Mountain Spring (MS) - shrine card with supporting capabilities, that can be deployed on the frontlines. 
    Freezing Stream - Every 4 seconds, the structure emits a cone shaped wave of blood-freezing water, aiming for the closest enemy unit. In the angle of 65°, up to 3 units will be frozen for 10 seconds. Affects both air and ground units. After the freeze wears off, units will be immune to Freeze for a short while. 
    Underground River - 40p - Activate to connect Mountain Spring to ally structures within 40 metre diameter. If the target is damaged or under construction, mineral rich water will flow to it, restoring their health by 3% every second and providing 40% damage reduction. If the target is at full HP, Mountain Spring will instead provide a damage buff of 30%. Lasts for 20 seconds, reusable every 30 seconds. 
    Fast Construction - Builds near instantly (1-2 seconds, out in the field 2-3 seconds). 
    Adamant Alloy - Building takes 15% less damage.
    It is good? It is stupid? Is it OP? Cannot tell. But my idea is, that MS could synergize with the intended offensive building push in mind for the faction. You can place it down quite fast into battle thanks to the fast construction, it can defend itself with the CC stream (and help setup for other units), while healing/buffing other structures, helping them to survive the onslaught, or boosting their attack capabilities. It can also be used on defensive scenarios, obviously. 

    To add on my last post, I also envisioned a spell that can synergize with the whole buildings stuff. Currently, devs plan for the Shift spell, that will be able to transport buildings. To complement it (kinda ?) I had an idea for sort of 'clean up' card, that can help you transition to different part of map relatively fast. This would make the whole tower-push more viable, especially in rPVE. Numbers are again, just straight up thought on the spot. 
    Return to the Earth 
    Blessed Return - All own Stonekin buildings within area of 35 meters will be instantly destroyed. Player will immediately receive 50% of the original power cost from these buildings in his power pool, the other 50% will go to the void pool as usual. Reusable every 50 seconds. 
    Infused Return - All own Stonekin buildings within area of 35 meters will be instantly destroyed. Each destroyed building will refund its own card charge, or refresh the cooldown if charges are full. Reusable every 50 seconds. 

  10. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update - February 2023   
    Greetings Skylords!
    A lot has happened in the past month! In this Community Update, we catch up with the recent developments, while also looking towards the future and upcoming Skylords Reborn changes.

    • Anniversary Patch Release

    We hope it was hard to miss, but our latest patch is out! On the 14th of January, we released our 2nd Anniversary patch. The patch contains new cards (Raven Archwalker, Sanctuary), a new promo (Worldbreaker Gun), many balance changes, and new achievements that reward cosmetics! You can find the full patch notes here.

    The introduction of cosmetics and their matching new achievements has also resulted in some issues, most of which have already been resolved with hotfix updates. We are aware of remaining issues with the leaderboard achievements and are working on a fix which includes retroactive reward distribution. We are also aware of major stuttering issues some player experience in the forge and are investigating the problem.

    As is tradition, we have also opened up our patch feedback thread. Please provide feedback to us on the changes we have made to the game. Below are some of the topics 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. 
    Do you like the changes to cards 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 new achievements? Which ones are fun and exciting? Which ones are frustrating and boring? Do you like the shift to cosmetic rewards instead of gameplay rewards like boosters and gold?
    You can also join us at our balance discord to further discuss changes to cards. 

     
    • Stonekin Deep Dive

    In our Deep Dive documents, we share our thoughts and plans for a faction as well as give you some insight into our balancing process. Previously we explored the state of Pure Frost, Bandits and Pure Nature.
    Today, we are excited to share our plans for the Stonekin faction. After exploring what the faction is all about, we took a look at its strengths, weaknesses, and play patterns. To expand on the Stonekin faction, we are working on a new spell called Tectonic Shift. Be sure to check out the Deep Dive if you want to know more!
        


    Stonekin_Deep_Dive.pdf
    • Recap Video

    We have created a special recap video showcasing everything that was added to Skylords Reborn since the release. Catching up on Skylords Reborn should be easier than ever!
    The video is voiced by Dreamlord, and we would also like to give a big thank you to Dutchy, Kapo, and Ultralord for helping create it. 
     

    Being a volunteer project greatly limits our marketing options, so we hope we can count on you to spread the word about this great game.
    Please share the video with your old BattleForge friends, show it to people who might be interested, or simply give it a like on YouTube. As a thank you for your support, we have also added a scratch code in the comment section of the video. 
     
    • Card Creation Contest Results

    Our official card creation contest has concluded. A big thank you to everyone who sent in their design. For this contest, we asked you to create your own Skylords Reborn card, which would be judged by our jurors. Entries were made anonymous, so the designs had to speak for themselves. 
    We received 140 designs, ranging from hilarious meme cards to interesting designs and abilities.


    The winners were revealed during a stream that you can rewatch here. You can also browse through all the results on the forum post here. 
    A big thank you to Kapo for gathering all the entries, Ultralord and Volin for hosting the stream, and RadicalX, Windhunter, and Hirooo for judging the entries and providing feedback.
    And most importantly, thank you to every one of you who send in a design! We hope you liked the contest, and we are already exploring our options to add some of the ideas into the game, so look forward to that!  
     
    • Upcoming Community Map Rework

    Last Community Update, we mentioned we are going to focus more on map content this year. Alongside official map content, we have been hard at work to improve the Community Map section in the game.
    In an earlier patch we already implemented a search function, and currently the Community Map section looks like this: 
     


    While the search function certainly helped players to find specific maps (like our Spooky Encounters Halloween Map), the rest of this section of the game is currently severely lacking in user experience. We are going to make a couple of changes to greatly improve the experience for both community maps creators and players trying to play the maps they create. 
     
    • Featured
    A star icon to the left of the map overview will indicate whether this map is featured, which can be done by the Skylords Reborn Staff to highlight certain maps, for example because of their high quality, or for certain events. Our plan is to also give rewards for playing featured maps, like gold and progress towards daily quests and community-map achievements. 
     
    • Voting
    Everyone will be able to upvote or downvote a map. An upvoted map counts towards the upvotes for that map, but the downvote is purely for personal tracking. Downvotes will not be shown publicly, but they can be used to keep track of maps you personally dislike, so you can filter them out by using the new vote-filter. 
    A player can only vote on a map after they have played (not necessarily won) the map once.
     
    • Filtering
    Players will be able to filter the maps based on a search term (map name, uploader name, and creator name), the number of players, the rating, and the map type. Map types are Community, Official (for PvP maps) and Featured.
     
    • Sorting
    There will be four sorting options: map name, amount of players in the map, upvotes, and last edited. For each sorting option, you will be able to choose ascending or descending sort order. 


    • Description and Minimap
    Currently, unknown maps will show a [ ? ] on the minimap. With the rework, clicking on the map name will allow players to view the minimap, without downloading it first. Hovering over the map name will also show a tooltip with the description of the map.
    Because there are a lot of maps available, it is a lot of work to find an interesting map in the current system. You will need to download the map first to view the minimap, and then create a match to view the description. Those two additions (minimap and description preview) will make that process easier and faster.
     
    Below is our work in progress of the rework of the Community Maps section.

    We hope these changes will encourage players to interact with more community maps, while also rewarding creating new maps by making them easier to find. We are currently finalizing our changes, and hope to patch them in the future. 
     
    • Team changes

    Nukie, one of our Global Moderators, has joined the Event Manager team. Besides continuing his moderator tasks, he will help out with organizing both community and official events.
    If you are interested in helping out the project yourself, please take a look at our open positions. There is a range of areas you can help!  

     
    • Tournaments / Events

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

    • FINISHED  – Battle of Tactics 3: Energy Investment 
    For this contest, players had to build all power wells and monuments on the map "The Treasure Fleet" on standard difficulty as fast as possible, without losing any gold wagons. More information.
     
    • STARTING SOON - Community PvE League - 06-02-2023 until 03-04-2023 
    PvE League Season 2 is starting soon! The PvE League has challenges for all skill levels and ranks, and you don't need to be a speedrunner to be able complete the challenges. You can earn boosters/cards by completing the challenges with enough points, and there are also bonus challenge. Please sign up now if you still want to join. More information.

    • Host your own tournament / event
    Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizers, Metagross, Minashigo Hiko, or Nukie! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. 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. 
    Going forward, sponsored prizes for community events will be increased, while the prize pool of official events will be slightly reduced. We want to bridge the gap between official and community events to support them better. 

    • Newsletter

    While we do our best to make it easy to follow Skylords Reborn by providing monthly news through these Community Updates, we are limited to the Forum and our Social Media channels to reach you. You can now sign up for our newsletter, which we will use to give you a heads-up about a new update. Don't worry, we hate spam as much as you do and won't use your data in any other way. 

    If you provided your e-mail during our summer survey to stay up to date, you are automatically subscribed. Our first newsletter was sent out last month, announcing our patch release. 
     
    • 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 Stonekin booster: STON-EKIN-DEEP-DIVE

    The code is valid until March 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 January 2023
  11. Hrdina_Imperia liked a post in a topic by Duza in New card ideas and suggestions - Megathread   
    I was late for the party with the Contest but it made me think about the variety of the Stonekin.
    Other factions have humans, dragons, ancients, beasts and many more, but Stonekins are all elementals with metal body and blue flames.
    So I thought it would be cool and thematic to add Giants, Skanes and also mortals, who stayed loyal to Giants. 
     
    And I present the Giant's Supporter

    Abilities:
    Giant's Supporter - If this unit is within 8m from an XL unit, its attack can knockback small units.
     
  12. Duza liked a post in a topic by Kapo in CCC #7 - Contest-ception   
    Hello again Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; the jury had its say, and it's time to announce the winners!
    First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for making the Crappy Community Contest #7 happen – no matter in what way: developing the idea, making and helping with the map, participation, sponsoring prizes, spreading the word or helping me to organize it. Of course, a special thanks goes to the two other Jurors who carried together with me the burden of deciding the winners, namely @Dutchy and @Prajoss.
    In total, I have received 61 entries from 38 different Skylords that were presented in anonymous form to the judges. Thanks to the Skylords Team for sponsoring the code: CCC7-IDEA-SWEL-COME
    Before revealing the winners, please remember that judging is always in part a subjective process - on some entries the Jurors themselves had vastly different opinions, so you might find some entries outside the winning tiers are still very interesting. So if you are interested to judge for yourself, here is the content of all entries:
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mg0yjanpOF_fDM90u82WUD6sqRAfSvQigssQBpwkNHY/edit?usp=sharing
    Jury duty is quite the unrewarding job, it is quite normal to disagree on criteria and thresholds, so please don't send Rifle Cultists towards their orbs.
     

     
    Here are the Winners of the CCC #7:
    The idea of the following Skylords made it into the Gold Tier, winning them two Boosters: (sorted alphabetically)
    @Donaar
    @erkserkserks
    @itap
    @Sucks
    @Ultralord
    The idea(s) of the following Skylords made it into the Silver Tier, winning them one Booster: (sorted alphabetically)
    @CrazyCockerell
    @DuzaBF
    @FrozenSins
    @itap (2 times)
    @Kociula
    @Majora
    @Metagross31
    @Metanolo
    @Oumuamua
    @Trando
    @wanky (2 times)
    @Zizizi

    Furthermore, the Winner of the Secret Special Prize will be the entry that has been chosen to become Crappy Community Contest #8, so the Promo Mana Wing will be handed out in confidentiality and revealed at the start of CCC#8. The winner of the Weird Special Price (Juice Tanks) is the entry with the longest word count that has not been selected for Gold or Silver Tier.
     
    Winners of the Random Draws
    The dice gods have determined the fate of the following cards:
    Draw 1                       Lyrish Knight Promo      Caeser2000
    Draw 2                       Rogan Kayle Promo       Majora
    Draw 3                       Avatar of Frost               FrozenSins
    Draw 4                       Abyssal Warder (R)         Arenguros
    Draw 5                       Gravity Surge (B)            Rapzak
    Draw 6                       Santa Claus                    Fortte
    Draw 7                       Santa Claus                    Zizizi
    Draw 8                       Easter Egg                     Sirydawill91
    Draw 9                       Disenchant (P)               erks
    Draw 10                     Disenchant (P)               Ultralord
    Draw 11                     Inferno (x2)                   Bozzah
    Draw 12                     Wildfire (x3)                   Kociula
    Draw 13                     Frenetic (G) (x4)             Dallarian
    Draw 14                     Hurricane (x3)               Katchau
    Draw 15                     Parasite (x3)                  Lebovin
    Draw 16                     Revenge (x3)                 WaterMelonLord
    Draw 17                     Motivate (x5)                Fernfalej

    Some prizes have already been sent out, the rest will follow as soon as possible. Additionally, the Newcomers have received an assortment of eight cards each from the Newcomer Card Pool.
     
    In conclusion
    Again, I'd like to thank again all those who helped with this event, especially the jurors for spending time to vote and discuss the entries.

    As already experienced on CCC#3, non-gameplay events see less activity - but I'm happy that this CCC with 38 participants did quite nicely in comparison. CCC#8 has already been selected from the Gold/Silver tier and should provide a fun experience for a broader audience again.

    Of course, I'd like to thank the generous sponsors for all the prizes they gave: @Lightbarrier, @Donaar, @gam3over, @Sucks, @DantheManager and the Skylords Reborn Team.

    If you have a crappy idea for future CCC's you may share and discuss that with me, maybe I host your idea, or you can host your own Crappy Contest! Feel free to contact me anytime. If you want to discuss or host a non-crappy contest, contact our Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31. They are super supportive and will help you to organize your event!
  13. Duza liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update #26 - August 2022   
    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
  14. Duza liked a post in a topic by Kapo in CCC #6 - Back to the Roots UNTIL 24.07.2022   
    Hello again Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; it's time to announce the winners!  
    First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for making the Crappy Community Contest #6 happen – no matter in what way: developing the idea, making and helping with the map, participation, sponsoring prizes, spreading the word or helping me to organize it. 
    In total, we reached a total number of 120 participants – thanks to the Skylords Team for sponsoring the code: CCC6-TUTO-RIAL-DECK
     
    Here are the Tutorial Speedrunners of the CCC #6
    1st place      07:51       RadicalX
    2th place       08:24       Wanky         
    3nd place      08:33       Trando        
    4rd place       08:34       Hiroo  
    5th place       08:46       Donaar        
    6th place       09:11       Dutchy
    7th place       09:19       -Xar-
    8th place       09:31       MephistoRoss
    9th place       09:46       Yuah
    10th place     09:47       Brand         
    Runner-ups: 11. Prajoss, 12. SylarXXI, 13. Zizizi, 14. Carofex, 15. Metagross31, 16. Vornskr

    Congratulations to the winners! If you are interested, see below for the top 3 replays and some information about how the fastest times were achieved.
    Winners of the Random Draws
    The dice gods have determined the fate of the following cards:
    Draw 1                       Ironclad (R)                    Infinity
    Draw 2                       Dreadnought                 Saranche
    Draw 3                       Wheel of Gifts                Mormegil
    Draw 4                       Core Dredge (R)             Gandalf444
    Draw 5                       Church of Negation       SiryDawill91
    Draw 6                       Moloch                          xsissel
    Draw 7                       Timeshifter Spirit            2022
    Draw 8                       QueekQueek                 Ghostrider
    Draw 9                       Disenchant (P)               hauclir
    Draw 10                      Backlash                       itap
    Draw 11                      Disenchant (P)              Dave666
    Draw 12                      Gravity Surge (P)           oOBEANOo
    Draw 13                      Oracle Mask (G)            SoulLord
    Draw 14                      Shrine of War                Hirooo
    Draw 15                      Infect                            Sucks
    Draw 16                      Enlightenment              Ankastra
    Draw 17                      Abyssal Warder(R)         Donaar

    Draws 18-22, one General Booster each: Metauriel, xxBerzerk, Lokiman, Jest, shiniryu.

    I will send you all prizes as soon as possible through in-game mail. 

    Newbie Card Pool
    Of the 120 participants, 39 were of Silver or Bronze rank, so I added 24 rare cards to the card pool. Who gets which card has been determined by the roll of the dice. The following cards have already been sent out:

    Total list of achieved times

    In case you want to know how you stacked up, here is the total list of submitted times:
     
    Replays and how it was won

    Here are the Replays of the Top 3 Runs: CCC6_07.51.4_RadicalX.pmv CCC6_8.24.4_Wanky.pmv CCC6_08.33.4_Trando.pmv

    Behind the spoiler, you find a written description of how the top time was achieved:

    In conclusion
    First and foremost, I'd like to thank again all those who helped with this event, especially @LEBOVIN for putting so many hours into the map. It has been the biggest CCC so far, and spiraled out of control in terms of size more and more and more. Hopefully I made no mistake in taking entries in, entering times, checking and sorting, sending out prizes... CCC#7 is scheduled in a few days and will be much smaller.

    Of course, I'd like to thank the generous sponsors for all the prizes they gave: @TheBigWet, @Metagross31, @Donaar, @Trando, @Sylar, @Kemek, @Prajoss, @Vysnia and the Skylords Reborn Team. This is also the last contest that the immense collection of @Simplifying has sponsored, and I hope he fares well in his life outside the game.

    If you have a crappy idea for future CCC's you may share and discuss that with me, maybe I host your idea, or you can host your own Crappy Contest! Feel free to contact me anytime. If you want to discuss or host a non-crappy contest, contact our Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31. They are super supportive and will help you to organize your event!
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