Dutchy

Hey RookieN, I just did the map on expert a few times with Arabika, and the map felt different than the last time I played it, which is good, as it was more of a challenge. However, we collected a few points that stood out to us when we theory crafted on how to beat the map and when we actually played it. 
- The walls. Because you can fly over some walls, the units will rocket into space, which makes them difficult to control. this is especially notifiable at the bottom entrance of the top left A.  I do not mean you can cross a wall, but more on the sides. 
- Because the camps are filled with high difficult enemies, the easiest strategy is to wait for a huge army. Because there is no real timer to make you rush the camps. The only real limit are the charges. (FYI, The topside was done with pure fire)
- We felt like there needs to be more pressure on the player on the top side, as he can basically wait for power for 20 minutes without getting punished. Maybe some patrolling waves could spawn every few minutes that gets stronger each time. 
- The Bottom is super easy to defend until minute 24, when the abomination spawns. Before that you can easily wait for power and defend with a rioters retreat and commandos. and later on with 1 or 2 necroblasters. 
- The final wave at the top right seems not complete. There were 2 waves and then the attacks stopped, which felt very underwhelming as you have to wait 3 minutes for nothing. Either make 1 big wave and no timer, or have constant waves for 5 minutes. 
- Which the top defense for 5 minutes, the bottom is doing basically nothing. After the top timer has run out, the top is doing nothing anymore. Of course, you could bring your units down to the bottom after, but that would make, even on expert, the ending way too easy. We thought that maybe the top timer and the last bottom wave could happen simultaneously. 
- This map feels like a t4 less map. Without Amii monument, you will need to do 95% of the map pre t4. Of course, this is not a bad thing, but it seems weird you get t4 so late when you barely use it for anything. 
- A small bug we found, after we killed an A camp, it was still shown on the mini map until all of the camps are killed, which could lead to some confusion. 
- Obvious map abuses and "dirty" tactics: The cliffs are all really thin. With a combination of undead army and Scyth Fiends, you an get to the last 2 orbs without any problems. Maybe you could make that wall more thicker so this would not be possible. 
Another cheap trick would be to use white rangers and go underneath the camps and kill them with their ability. Because the first two A-camps are in the form of a C, they will not walk towards you and attack,  but stay stuck inside the camp. 
 

If you want to test some cards, you can play them from the auction house into the forge. There is also the option to play on the test server. Here you have access to every card and every upgrade. 
If you want to play on the test server, please start the SkylordsRebornUpdater.exe, to ensure you have the most recent version, and then close the updater. Then navigate to your BattleForge installation folder, and start the "LauncherTest.exe".
Hopefully this helps you. 

Yes, but I played both expert and advanced before the last update haha (last wednesday). I will try again somewhere upcoming week.

The way it felt with the 2 games I played, it was about advanced difficulty. On expert I wouldn't say we need more difficult waves, but more waving overall with less downtime between them. for example, not waiting till the previous wave is ll dealt with, but non stop waves ( or almost). 

I noticed the expert was the same as advanced when I tried it 😛 . What difficulty do you target with the current balancing?

HYPE HYPE HYPE

HYPE HYPE HYPE

HYPE HYPE HYPE

Hello fellow Skyladies and Skylords!
Another 1on1 tournament, who will take the title this time?

When?
On Sunday 26.09.21 starting on 2pm CET (Berlin time), the stream will start about 30 minutes in advance.
 
Format
The tournament will be played as a 1on1 best of 3 double elimination tournament, grand finals will be best of 5, no reset.
The grand finalist coming from the winnerbracket will start with a win (1-0) already.

Prize Pool! (subject to change)
1st place  - 4 Booster packs + Promo Lyrish Knight + 1000 BFP extra
2nd place - 3 Booster packs
3rd place - 2 Booster pack
4th-8th place  - 1 Booster pack
200 BFP for every participant.
Bounty: Beat radicalX in a set to gain 3 extra boosters.

Big thanks to the devs who sponsor the booster packs!
Big thanks to The_big_wet for the promo lyrish knight.

Organisation and sign-up
The tournament brackets will be on Challonge, so register and join the tournament there.
Please use your in game account name to make communication and finding your enemy easier.

The streaming channel that will be covering the tournament is DasToggy on twitch.tv.
In case of problems contact me or one of my mods via Discord, Battleforge or on twitch.
Twitch mods: LynnTaki

Rules (read this!)
• The Map Pool is: 1st round: Haladur, 2nd round: Simai, 3rd: Elyon, 4th: Lajesh, 5th: Uro and 6th: Yrmia (same pool as in ranked duel).
The first match of the round will be played on the fixed map, then it is losers choice. The winning player (who won the previous match in the bo3) also has to lock in his deck first.
• Disconnection during a game results in a default loss. If both sides agree it is possible to have a remake.
• Not showing up to your match after 15 minutes results in a default loss. The plan is to play a round of matches every ~30 mins.
• After your match, go to Challonge and insert the result. That is done by clicking on your match and selecting the winner/stats . The brackets will be updated automatically.
• The brackets for the tournament will be shuffled before the tournament starts.
• Use your Battleforge name for the tournament. If your Challonge account differs from your Battleforge account name use the "Sign up with an alternate name" feature or change your name for the tournament in the settings. Finding your opponent will be a LOT easier this way.

Questions
Reply in this thread if you have questions, I will check it out later.
Best regards,
Toggy

I just played the map on advanced. The map was really fun to play. We tried it with buffed WBG's. 
However, there is 1 point that was strange to me. In the top right, there was a timer. When it hit 1.40 minutes left, nothing spawned anymore. which made our newly constructed defense useless. 
Besides that, great map and will definitely try it on expert as well

After reading through some posts about this card and seeing the discussion about it, I'd like to bring in a new approach for balancing/reworking it. (5310-nerf-amii-monument, 6319-balance-proposal-amii-monument)
 
My idea would be to go away from "make its costs higher" and "make it t4", but rather does a little rework to open up new play styles with it.
 
on T3:
- when activated, it will just stay active for a short period of time (like 10, 20 or 30 seconds)
- after that time it most likely needs a very high cooldown to reactivate (like 120 seconds or something)
- Example: this gives you the ability to spawn some T4 cards, but that's it. You can't go fully into T4 "all time" and won't have T4 speels to support you.
 
This was the card when you have 3 "real" monuments active. Now, as you progress, you will get your "real" T4 and now the card changes its behaviour.
 
on T4:
- when activated, it stays active
- this enables the creation of T5 deck strategies without totally skipping the T3 part
- when one of the "real" monuments gets destroyed, the above said timer starts ticking and after X seconds the monument gets deactivated again -> because you are in T3 again now
 
On T3 the card now works like a little Enlightenment, but restricted to your "normal" orbs in the deck you use (e.g. no Batariel or Dreadnought spawning from within a nature deck).
With the short activation period on T3 it disables the full "I skip T3, T4 is better" behaviour as it doesn't stay active unlimited.
 
Maybe on the power cost side as some points that came into my mind:
- activation costs X power when activated on T3
- activation costs nothing when activated on T4😄
 
EDIT: damn, wanted to post it in "Cards" rather than "Suggestions"... can it be moved?
EDIT EDIT: thx @DutchyDutchy for moving 😄

Greetings Skylords!

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

A big thank you
We want to start this update with a big thank you to the community. When we posted our feedback survey two weeks ago, we expected maybe 100 of you would take time out of your day to give us some feedback. But you completely blew us away, with over 1150 responses so far!  We will close the survey this weekend, so if you still want to provide us with some feedback (and get a booster) make sure to do so before Monday. 
So far the survey has already provided helpful insights and feedback, and many kind comments. We are glad that overall you seem to be happy with the state of the game and the changes we are making. Everyone is working very hard on this game we all love, so we are glad you are here for the ride.
On a personal note, I am very grateful to be the community manager of such an awesome community. Every single one of you makes this game tick. Whether you are a casual PvE player, climbing the ranks of PvP, helping newer players out with some cards, finding new speedrun tactics, discussing balancing changes with us, or just enjoying the game; thank you for being part of our awesome community!
I would also like to thank everyone from the team who put hours upon hours into the project. It's an honor to work alongside you on making Skylords Reborn the best it could be. 
So thank you, all of you!
 
New Patch + Reveal Stream
Our newest patch has released! After months of balancing, testing, fixing bugs (some even from the days of EA that only now come to light) we have released our biggest balancing patch yet. To celebrate the occasion, we teamed up with Toggy for a reveal stream, where he went over the patch notes, played PvP games and gave away some boosters. You can rewatch the stream here.
This patch has a lot to love, including suggestions from the community that we got as feedback on our community updates or through our social media channels. Suggestions like adding a power well and monument to the forge for testing, or being able to look at lobbies while players are in a ranked queue; we are happy to work alongside you and make this game better. 
This patch also contains many requested balancing changes to cards. Ravenheart finally has its new design, and combining it with the changes to Jorne now allows players to play a viable legendary-themed deck. A lot of effort was put into making Pure Frost more rewarding to play, with many new tools focused on shields and freeze. Speaking of Freeze, the new Warlock allows interesting new fire/frost builds as well. We hope you will enjoy playing with these cards and experiment with new deckbuilds. 
You can read the full patch notes here. Alongside a 15 page document for the balancing changes, there have been so many changes that we decided to post the rest of the minor changes to the Wiki. Among those are description and class fixes, animation changes (for example Brannoc and Backlash) and all kinds of Quality of Life changes. A special thank you to our Skylord of Honour LEBOVIN for helping us with this patch and updating the wiki!
Two things that are notably missing from this patch are the upgrades to our free PvP decks (as mentioned here), and the changes to Avatar of Frost (as mentioned in our Deep Dive for Pure Frost). We expect the changes to the free PvP decks to be implemented in the coming weeks. Because of some unforeseen bugs, the Avatar of Frost changes did not make it into this patch, but we still intend to bring some changes to him. We will continue to work on this card and share our status on the balancing discord. 

Survey data
Here are a few fun insights and pie-charts (who doesn't like pie charts?) from the survey. We will spend the coming weeks going through all the data once we close the survey. 
• Did you play the original BattleForge from EA (2009 - 2013)?
• How long have you been playing Skylords Reborn?
• How do you feel about the economy of Skylords Reborn? 
• How do you feel about the odds of getting promo cards in Skylords Reborn?
• Are you aware that you can adjust the contents of the free PvP decks? For example, swapping a free card for a card in your own collection?
The following questions were regarding your opinion on new content
• Lore / Backstories
• New voice-lines / Sounds
• Adding voice lines to current units that lack them (for example, Amii Phantom, Dryad, Brannoc, etc.)
• New campaign maps 
• Adding pure factions for rPvE (for example, mono Fire as enemies)
• Defence rpve (defend against waves of enemies)
 
Community Updates will move to a 3-week schedule
For the past ~3 months we have been giving you an biweekly insight of the things going on behind the scenes with Skylords Reborn through these community updates. While the feedback has been very positive (thank you!) we feel it would be better for both our workflow and the quality of the community updates to move them to once every three weeks. Time zone differences between team members, fulltime jobs and us wanting to provide good quality content and updates, has resulted in some last minute stress spikes to get the updates done in time and have something worthwhile to share. We feel that by moving to a 3-week schedule, we can keep up the quality and content of these updates. In between updates you can of course always find us on our social media and in the game. Rest assured that our team will keep working just as hard on getting you new features, better balance, and the long awaited new cards!

Open Sourcing of New Sounds Converter
We are excited to announce that we have made great progress in decoding BattleForge's format for sound files. BattleForge uses a special format called "snr" to encode any sounds, and so far we were only been able to convert these sounds from snr to conventional formats like mp3 and wav. Our developers have built a converter from wav to snr, which will allow us to add new sounds or voice lines to the game!
Unfortunately, our converter is not yet perfect, and during conversion a lot of quality is lost, making them currently unfit to be used in the game.
We are open-sourcing this application in the hope that the community can help us solve this problem. We would appreciate contributions to help improve the conversion! Some additional info can be found in the application link above, and this old forum topic. 
 
New Team Members / Open Positions
Some team changes since the last community update. DutchyDutchy has been promoted to Global Moderator, and Madgadget has joined the team as a discord moderator. Their help is much appreciated, as Ultrakool and Bradley left the team as Global Moderators. We want to thank everyone for their contributions! 
We could definitely need some more help with the Skylords Reborn project however.
Below are two roles highlighted, but you can find more information, desired traits and all our open positions here. If you are unsure if you qualify, please reach out and have a talk!
 
Open Position - 3D tool developer
As a 3D tool developer you are responsible to solve one of our biggest technical challenges that will boost the project to the next level: the ability to modify existing 3D models. We already have an internal tool capable of adding new cards using existing re-textured models, but we have no way to meaningfully modify the geometry, animations and special effects. You will be responsible for researching the way BattleForge represents their 3D models and develop tools and a workflow capable of modifying different aspects of those models. The ultimate goal is to be able to add new models with animations and effects never seen before. There have already been very good community efforts and already a lot is known.

Open Position - Backend web developer
As a backend web developer you are responsible to maintain and extend the backend of our current and future web applications. The primary project you will contribute to is a feature rich platform which aims to provide various extensions and integrations for Skylords Reborn. As of now, this platform is for internal use only as the focus currently lies on creating internal moderation tools. However, after the moderation tools reach a satisfactory state, we plan to make this platform public and expand it with features like a new and improved cardbase, leaderboards, a system to download, manage and share your replays, and various other useful extensions. There is a lot of room to contribute in, as this platform is still in its early stages of development! 

We are also in need of French and Russian translators. If you speak this language in combination with good English language skills, please help us out!

In Conclusion
Thanks for reading! 
We will update you again on the 2nd of October! In the meantime, we would love to hear your opinion on the latest patch.
s always, we are open to feedback so please let us know!
Here is a scratch code you can redeem in-game for 100bfp: COMM-UNIT-YNEW-S011
The code is valid till October 2nd. Please note you can also get a booster by filling in our survey. 
Archive
Community Update #8
Community Update #9
Community Update #10

When going over the patch notes, we found a couple of outstanding bugs/errors, so here are the hotfixes! The same changes were also pushed to the test server.

Hotfixes - 10 September 2021
Aura of Corruption
    Adjusted status bar icon to use the same wording as the description ("orb count" instead of "era") for EN/DE/FR.

Bloodhorn (Both affinities)
    Adjusted ability name in description to use correct stars.

Death Ray
    Added missing text for Upgrades in DE/FR/RU.

Easter Egg
    Add missing Neutral class.

Fallen Skyelf
    Visions of Despair
        Adjusted description to use the same wording as the Promo.
        Adjusted status bar icon description to standard text for increased damage taken.

Fallen Skyelf (Promo)
    Adjusted French ability name to be the same as the normal version (Visions de désarroi => Visions de désespoir)
    Visions of Despair
        Adjusted description to standard text for increased damage taken.

Glaciation (Red)
    Fixed wrong spacing in French Upgrade III.

Hurricane
    Added missing punctuation for DE/RU.

Lost Horror (Both affinities)
    Reordered description so the Revenant ability is last.

Lost Shade (Purple)
    Adjusted class names to be the same as the blue affinity for French and Russian.

Magma Fiend
    Fixed wrong spacing in Upgrades.
    Added missing text for Upgrades in DE/FR/RU.

Mutating Maniac (Both affinities)
    Corrected Transformation power costs in description for DE/FR/RU.

Pyromaniac (Both affinities)
    Adjusted class from Device to Tower.

Sandstorm (Purple)
    Adjusted description to use the same wording as the description of Aura of Corruption ("orb count" instead of "era") for German.

Tempest
    Added missing ability, which allows the unit to spawn undazed.

Treefiend (Both affinities)
    Added missing Transformation power costs to description.

Twilight Bombard (Both affinities)
    Added missing Tower and Building classes.

Worldbreaker Gun
    Adjusted U0-U2 to also allow switching back into the normal attack mode.

It's always nice to see updates from the team.
We get changes to maps, card balancing and now we're even getting new cards!!
It feels like getting what we wanted during all those years where the game was still online but basically abandoned by EA, putting all the staff in other projects.
Thanks for all the hard work, it's obviously not easy to do all that you did with a code that is incomplete and that someone else made and you don't even have the rights to. We greatly appreciate your efforts!
I hope the community continues growing and that you have great success in you personal lives as well, you guys certainly deserve it!! 

cool, buffing magma hurler, nice 

Wow that's a lot of changes! I love it, keep up the good work. It's so enjoyable to see the game being actually updated and tweaked again. Even the last 4 years on EA's servers they did practically nothing to the game before killing it. Patiently waiting for new games modes and cards one day :)

Weird to see so much shift on frost units from health to damage, but seems like fun changes over all. Since I was currently thinking if I'd use voidmaw, grim bahir or giant wyrm in my rPvE deck as general damage the buffs to void maw are especially intersting and I think convinced me to use them.

Awesome work.   Keep it up.   Please don't stop working on new cards factions and Pve Maps!  Cheers! 😄

As an active fan and player of pure color decks and full bandit decks etc, these changes for Comet Catcher, Sh. of Martyrs, Satanael and Al. of Chaos are good, not game changing so thats good, but also unnecessary. I Used every one of these cards until now and the problem is not the card, but the players seeking an easier way to play without trying to use it efficiently.
Anyway the Ravenheart is an excellent change! 

Patch #400030
Greetings Skylords, Skyladies and Skyfolk!
This update contains our third balance patch for the game alonside some other changes, enjoy! In this patch we put our main focus on making Pure Frost a more competitive deck in PvE and on improving the balance of PvP. All of these changes were implemented and tested in the last four months, so it's built up to be quite a big patch. Feedback to these changes can be given on the balancing discord. When you give feedback make sure to properly support your reasoning by including replays or video footage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where are balance changes discussed? 
For now we have a Discord server dedicated for this. An invite link to the server: https://discord.gg/NvSUwpf
How can I join the test server?
To join the test server you simply need to launch LauncherTest.exe located in your BattleForge installation folder. It is important you run the updater first, so you download the latest test server files. In the future we plan to make it easier to join the test server. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes
A detailed list of all changes can be found on our wiki. However, since the patch notes are quite long, we prepared a summary document for you! You can find it attached to this post. Patch #400030 - September 2021.pdf

Hi all! Im working on a map called Restoring Lyr and its my first map ever so im still learning it all, but now im kind of done with the "core" work of the map, still alot to be done but for me to continue im gonna need some testing and help from other players. So if you want feel free to download it in community maps and try it and report the bugs/errors or suggestions to improve it!
Its a 2P map with defend/attack elements
 
Whats being worked on:
Cyan = Worked on continuously
Done = Added to the map
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Difficulties - Currently only one diff but will add /standard/Advanced/Expert (This will be the highest priority after the "core" of the map works fine)
Map design - terrain/cliffs/textures/props/audio etc
Balancing - exploits/missed blocking/more or less enemies?/to hard or easy?/waves/quests/monuments and power wells.
Add more objectives at the north to put some pressure to get there in time, maybe some defence.
Reworking the North with new quests and more content
Add translation for german/russian/french
Add more Outcries
 
 
 
 Updates - Just updated! 21-09-27
 
 
 
So please if you try it send me a message on the forum or ingame mail and give some feedback whats good or bad. I wanna be able to polish it as best as i can so the next map will be even better. I want to continue the PvE Campaign story and maps 🙂
 
Thanks for all the feedback!
 
/RookieN
 
 
 

I really like the thought process behind the proposed pve map changes. However, it is of course, still subjective depending on our views on which areas should be kept the same or not. I have my own views on it but would rather create a video to verbalize it instead of writing an entire chunk of words haha


Anyway keep up the good work and am honored to be featured in part of the feedback form 🙂

I can understand both sides very well here at Ascension Map 2.
On the one hand, of course, it feels completely wrong that a taunt stops Viridya endlessly, and on the other hand, the map already fails sooooo often that I'm skeptical to change this.
For a long time I have often gladly supported Ascension groups, also out of the thought that new players do not have the feeling to play a dead game. On the other hand, I find myself doing this less and less, because I notice in the lobbies that I annoy people with the desire to coordinate us on Map2 - but am annoyed myself that it just constantly fails because then someone is there who does not know the task. Just 1-2 weeks ago again I have not managed 3 attempts in a row because Map2 failed - that makes me then little fun.
In conclusion, I would almost say that I think that a further increase in the level of difficulty here is not purposeful.
 
 
PS: And please, please, don't misunderstand, I know some here think I'm an elitist. Far be it from me to say: "You don't know Map 2, then please leave" - of course you have to take the time to explain the mechanics. Unfortunately, I find that many players simply do not want to develop here
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