Dutchy

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 Date Announcement - 19th of May
Exciting news! Our next content patch is almost ready for release. We are currently hard at work to finalize its content, and are ready to announce a patch date. Our spring patch is planned for a release on the 19th of May. 
We have a lot of exciting things in the works in various stages of development, some of which you will see in later patches. While we highlighted some upcoming Lost Souls changes in last month's community update, we are still working to resolve some issues before we can confirm their inclusion in this patch. We appreciate your patience and want to assure you that if these changes are not ready for the spring patch, they will be included in a later one.
As we get closer to the patch's release, we will provide more details about the content in the patch notes. In the meantime, we are pleased to share that the Nature faction will be introduced to the game as a new enemy for rPvE.
 
• A look at Nature rPvE
On December 18th, 2021, we introduced the Fire faction as a formidable new enemy to be faced in rPvE. We're thrilled to announce that the Nature faction is now ready to be added to the ranks, In celebration of this occasion, we sat down with Hodron to give us some insights into its development.

 
Let's start with introductions, for those who do not know you, what is your role on the Skylords Reborn team?
Hey, I am Hodron, I am part of the map department of the Skylords Reborn Team. I have mostly worked on the Fire rPvE set before Nature, which has been a quite monumental task in both cases.
 
How long have you been working on Nature rPvE?
In early 2022, after the release of the Fire rPvE faction, we had a poll to decide what the next faction would be; Nature or Frost. The overwhelming majority voted for Nature, and we started working on it around February 2022. If I had to estimate the time I was actively working on the faction, I would say about a year due to some pauses during development.
 
How do you start designing a new rRvE faction?
First of all, I think of all the Nature cards in the game and then imagine the AI using their abilities like the Fire units are already. Terrifying thought, am I right? Our very brave map testers can probably still remember the horrors of some early testing versions of Nature rPvE. The camps were stacked with healing and damage reduction while constantly paralyzing the player, almost like a horde of Twilight Willzappers. For the first few rounds of testing, we never actually won a match on difficulty 9, not even close. From there the process turns to cutting and / or improving the units, buildings, and camps until a good mix across all difficulties is found.
What about units?
Nature units were proving to be problematic in their original state because they are supposed to give the player a varied box of tools, but they cost energy to balance this. For example, Deep One: The ability to move player units into a camp and root them in place was immensely frustrating to play against, especially when multiple of these fellas were in one camp or attack wave. Swamp Drake also went through multiple iterations; first having the Sleep ability, then being like a Bandit Windhunter and lastly now only being a stat unit. 
 
Are there more units that act completely different compared to their card counterparts?
Of course, there are some units that differ quite a bit from their card version, either because of balance or because of how some card abilities would be wasted on the AI. Some examples include the Timeshifter Spirit which does not have his anti-magic field but can instead
 
While adding the Fire faction, we had the challenge of a faction that does not really have access to CC, resulting in a more glass cannon approach for the faction. Did you have a specific theme in mind for the Nature faction?
So I knew that the core of the nature faction would be healing and crowd control. But I also wanted to let the Root Network shine a bit. Then there were the more problematic things like Parasite Swarm, Mind Weaver and Mind Control, which we played around with for a while. However, it was simply not fun to play against enemies that took away too many of your units, even though it made for some hilarious scenarios, in which first timers got half of their army stolen, the other half eliminated and then after regaining control, also losing the other half.
 
So a focus on mindcontrol did not work out, were you able to find alternatives?
I think the mix of paralyze and root the faction now has, while also using the root network to some extent, will provide a unique experience.
 
What about buildings, can you tell us something about those?
Nature buildings were in a weird spot, some were completely overpowered against some frequent player strategies like early Strangleholds, while others were quite underwhelming like the Primal Defender. Because AI units only root while in combat, they are unable to provide support, and buildings that depend on the root network may fluctuate greatly in difficulty based on the amount of support a camp can generate. In the end, buildings are one thing that I did not want the focus to be on, so they are maybe even a little boring compared to the units.
 
What would you say is unique about facing the Nature faction, compared to the other factions?
Nature introduces a completly new mechanic which amps up their late game and can thus break the mold of later camps feeling all the same.
 
You mentioned our brave map testers, can you tell us something about balancing?
I think we almost exclusively had to nerf units after their initial inception, which were mostly just a carbon copy of the player card with their abilities set to automatically be used. Which really goes to show how strong crowd control and healing in a faction can be, even if they have only slightly above average damage. As mentioned before, we had to nerf quite a bit before we could actually win a match on difficulty 9 with quite experienced players and exclusive S-tier decks. Through playing a lot we found the parts that were annoying or outright destroying the flow, which we then tried to smooth out.
 
How difficult do you think rPvE is compared to the other factions?
I was aiming for this faction to be around the difficulty level of Twilight due to the depths of the mechanics that Nature uses. You will have to focus targets or their healing will overwhelm you while you are paralyzed, but there is room for outplaying that.
 
What was the thing you enjoyed most about designing the faction?
Designing the boss units was very enjoyable, as it had been the case for Fire. I also had a lot of fun just looking at camps and watching their mechanics interact with each other.
 
What was the biggest challenge while developing the faction?
A big challenge was to make units distinct, by which I mean to give each unit traits by which each player could gauge their threat level to their deck and playstyle. In the beginning, almost all units were tanky and had a lot of damage or had damage and some form of crowd control. We had to shift stats to make damage dealers less tanky, make crowd control units deal less damage and tanks have shorter range on their crowd control abilities.
 
Fire rPvE introduced some fun and fan favourite bosses. Will we see new boss units for Nature as well?
Yes, absolutely! The nature faction will ship with a set of nine new boss units. I really like how the low tier boss units based on the Burrower which is spitting acid all over the place and the Timeshifter Spirit which summons hordes of poisoned creepers turned out. But there are of course some threatening late game bosses.
 
Will we see rPvE Frost or Shadow next?
After working on rPvE for quite some time now, I really want to shift focus to campaign maps for a while, as that is also a huge part of the game that I and many others enjoy.
 
Is there anything else you'd like to share with our players?
Thank you for being so loyal to such an old game. I hope you enjoy this new faction once it is released and see you in the forge.
 


A big thanks to Hodron and our map testers for pouring so much love and time into the development of this new rPvE faction. We hope you look forward to facing them! 
 
• Easter Event Recap
We are glad to share our Easter Event was a huge success, with nearly 700 of you unlocking the new special Easter banner. Although the banner is no longer obtainable, you can still find the map in the Community Map section by searching for "The Easter Tree" if you wish to play it.
We hope you enjoyed all the effort that was put into the special map. While we always try to carefully balance our time investment into special events like this. We would love to hear some feedback. Would you like to see more events like the Easter and Halloween ones, where we modify a familiar map to suit the holiday theme?
We noticed that not many of you participated in the speedrun competition for the map, and we would like to know why. Your feedback is very valuable to us, so please leave us a message below.
 
• Event: Through Ice and Flames
While you are waiting for our new patch, be sure to check out the community event Through Ice and Flames. This event takes place on two great community maps, created by @Damo and @Hrdina_Imperia. Check out the trailer below, and go here for more information.
The event lasts till the 14th of May, though the maps will still be playable after. 

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!

• 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
Katchau has recently departed from the team. We greatly appreciate his contributions, especially his development of the search card in market feature. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

That being said, we are happy to announce three new community members formally joined our team last month!
We have a new developer in Piskr, who will start out with a focus on Client Development. He is currently working on improving the player right click menu, including a way to improve importing decks. 

Known in the community for his streams and beautiful artwork, Ultralord has joined the team as our first Video Editor.
Another well known community member with terrible luck in opening promo's from boosters, Volin, has joined the team to help us out with coordinating Map Testing. 
Volin and Ultralord also worked together to give us the Lost Souls overview video from last month.

Welcome everyone, and we are looking forward to your contributions! 
 
• 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 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: 19TH-MAYN-EXTP-ATCH
The code is valid until June 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 April 2023

We tried something new this month with the interview, let me know if you like to see more of this in the future! 

Since so many asked me, I might as well share the replay ^^ 
It was a fastest run, but by no means my cleanest as I lost way too many Shadow Phoenix and the egg pushing could be a bit smoother. 

A small explanation on how I did it:
 
 
Enjoy 🙂 
2023-04-15_11-19-31_CommunityMap1P_pve_the_easter_tree_diff3_s65287_GMDutchy_time_0_10_25.6_v260.pmv

How to watch the replay?
 

Message from nukie:
"Apologies for the delay in getting rewards out, I currently have no internet since Sunday evening. I should have it back over the weekend and will get all rewards sent out as soon as possible"

Since so many asked me, I might as well share the replay ^^ 
It was a fastest run, but by no means my cleanest as I lost way too many Shadow Phoenix and the egg pushing could be a bit smoother. 

A small explanation on how I did it:
 
 
Enjoy 🙂 
2023-04-15_11-19-31_CommunityMap1P_pve_the_easter_tree_diff3_s65287_GMDutchy_time_0_10_25.6_v260.pmv

How to watch the replay?
 

This event looks sooo cool, or hot, I cant decide 😞

Since so many asked me, I might as well share the replay ^^ 
It was a fastest run, but by no means my cleanest as I lost way too many Shadow Phoenix and the egg pushing could be a bit smoother. 

A small explanation on how I did it:
 
 
Enjoy 🙂 
2023-04-15_11-19-31_CommunityMap1P_pve_the_easter_tree_diff3_s65287_GMDutchy_time_0_10_25.6_v260.pmv

How to watch the replay?
 

Since so many asked me, I might as well share the replay ^^ 
It was a fastest run, but by no means my cleanest as I lost way too many Shadow Phoenix and the egg pushing could be a bit smoother. 

A small explanation on how I did it:
 
 
Enjoy 🙂 
2023-04-15_11-19-31_CommunityMap1P_pve_the_easter_tree_diff3_s65287_GMDutchy_time_0_10_25.6_v260.pmv

How to watch the replay?
 

Since so many asked me, I might as well share the replay ^^ 
It was a fastest run, but by no means my cleanest as I lost way too many Shadow Phoenix and the egg pushing could be a bit smoother. 

A small explanation on how I did it:
 
 
Enjoy 🙂 
2023-04-15_11-19-31_CommunityMap1P_pve_the_easter_tree_diff3_s65287_GMDutchy_time_0_10_25.6_v260.pmv

How to watch the replay?
 

Since so many asked me, I might as well share the replay ^^ 
It was a fastest run, but by no means my cleanest as I lost way too many Shadow Phoenix and the egg pushing could be a bit smoother. 

A small explanation on how I did it:
 
 
Enjoy 🙂 
2023-04-15_11-19-31_CommunityMap1P_pve_the_easter_tree_diff3_s65287_GMDutchy_time_0_10_25.6_v260.pmv

How to watch the replay?
 

Since so many asked me, I might as well share the replay ^^ 
It was a fastest run, but by no means my cleanest as I lost way too many Shadow Phoenix and the egg pushing could be a bit smoother. 

A small explanation on how I did it:
 
 
Enjoy 🙂 
2023-04-15_11-19-31_CommunityMap1P_pve_the_easter_tree_diff3_s65287_GMDutchy_time_0_10_25.6_v260.pmv

How to watch the replay?
 

This event looks sooo cool, or hot, I cant decide 😞

This event looks sooo cool, or hot, I cant decide 😞

congratulations, worth the effort! 😃

This event looks sooo cool, or hot, I cant decide 😞

I totally didn't grind that map for 70+ games 👀 

I totally didn't grind that map for 70+ games 👀 

Hello Skybunnies,
Welcome to the official Easter event!
Quick Overview:
Community Map:       - The Easter Tree Difficulty:                    - Any Date:                          - 08.04.2023 until 16.04.2023 23:59 UTC Rewards:                    - Boosters, a new banner, promo Easter Egg card* Winner reveal:           - Via the forum *By playing a match during Easter, you automaticly get the card "Easter Egg (Promo)"!
 
Rules and Goals:
Complete the map on any difficulty to complete the achievement "Bunny Brawler" which will automatically reward you with a new Easter themed banner.
Want a bigger challenge? Complete The Easter Tree on expert difficulty and submit your fastest time for a chance to win booster packs!

 
 
 
 
 
How Can I Participate?

Everyone with an ingame account can participate in the event, there is no need to sign up separately.
For the speedrun challenge you just have to send in your best replay, including the player name and the time, to Nukie on Discord (nukie#9354) or the forum (@nukie).
Replay name format - "nukie_Time_00h20m30s_.pmv"

You can send in your replays until 23:59 CET 16.04.2023.
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays
 
What's the Speedrun Prize Pool?
The prizes are per person, only your highest place will be rewarded:
1st Place: 8 General Boosters
2nd Place: 6 General Boosters
3rd Place: 5 General Boosters
4th-5th Place: 4 General Boosters
6th-10th Place: 3 General Boosters 
All players in place 11th or below will be entered into a random draw where there will be General Boosters up for grabs.
 
When will the winners be announced?

The winners will be announced via the forum on 21.04.2023.
 
How Do I Access The Map?
 
Gameplay Tips (Spoiler!):
 

Future Events
If you are interested in helping with these kinds of events for the community or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out!
Send @nukie, @Metagross31, or @Minashigo Hiko a PM on the forum, or direct message via Discord (nukie#9354, Metagross31#1103, Minashigo Hiko#1126).
We are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring towards your prize pool!
 
We hope you have a lot of fun with this event and are looking forward to seeing all your replays!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

 

Why does X suck... I guess it can be called a series now. To read "Why does Wheel of Gift suck", please click here:   https://forum.skylords.eu/index.php?/topic/9219-why-does-wheel-of-gifts-suck/

Juice Tank is a Tier 2 building (device). It costs 50 power and passive ability that does the following:
"Within a 25m radius the remaining capacity of own and friendly Power Wells takes 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% longer to deplete. Production per time increment remains the same."
To explain in simple terms, if you build a Juice Tank near a Power Well, it will take longer for that Power Well to run out, resulting on more total power gained from that Power Well. Maps that take a long time to clear, or where your Power Wells have low capacity, Juice Tank is a card to consider. The only reason you want to put this card in your deck is if you run the risk of running out of power.
Running out of power on a map is extremely rare. There are only a handful of maps where this is realistically possible, Nightmare's End comes to mind. Because Juice Tank takes a while to get usage out of it, it is not recommended to use in maps where there is a strict time limit. Prime example of this is Random PvE maps. In none of the difficulties will the Power Wells run out before the timer does. This makes Juice Tanks completely useless in Random PvE. To make matter worse, if you build a Juice Tank on all your Power Well clusters, you bind 200 power. This is the equivalent of (almost) a Tier 4 unit. 
Considering all of the aforementioned, I earnestly ask everyone to review their Random PvE decks and remove the Juice Tanks.
Thank you 🙂  



--------------------
Juice Tank can be played in Lost Spirit decks to fuel their ability, destorying the Juice Tank in the process. 

The event has come to an end - what an overwhelming feedback and participation! Thanks all ❤️
The prizes have been sent out (except 2 Skylords with a full mailbox) - please contact me if you feel something went wrong!

The event stream can be found here:

The complete results are:

 
The random draw was:


 

Hello Skylords,
the rpve event "Stonekin Hunt" has come to an end and I want to thank you for the overwhelming participation 🥳
In total we received 47 submissions, 41 of them  valid. One team played the wrong map and 5 did not open the chests - you really want me to repeat this once again, don't you?

From that 47 replays were
2 played as trio 2 played as duo 4 played solo! Yes, solo! I have a replay for each color - sadly only one of them is valid.
Overall 107 (!) unique people participated in the event - that is amazing!

Thanks to multi-participations of some people a lot of Boosters can not be given out to the top 21 ranks (upper 50%, we rounded up) -> This means we have one guaranteed Booster for all people that sent in a valid replay. 
23 Booster will go into a random draw between all the 107 players and in addition we draw the 5x 500 BFP from Bengel among the lower 50% of ranks.


And now some fun facts:

If we just look at the 4-player runs in the top 10 (yes, there is one non-4-player run up there) we see that
Fire started to 89% in the upper positions Frost started to 78% in the upper positions Shadow started to 78% in position 3 Nature started to 89% in postion 4 Overall Frost and Fire are mostly playing together and are pretty dominant in the upper spots, while Shadow and Nature care for the lower side.
To learn why tune in on our stream on friday Date: 31.03.2023 19:00 CEST Ultralord @Twitch

The stream will include top runs, quiz questions (with prizes!) and some more interesting data from the event!
See you on friday!

Hello there, People of the Sky,
Since the first Battle of Tactics I provide a website, on which you could check your replay if it is valid for the event. But why stop there!
So let me share with you the: Skylords Rebore Replay Checker:
--> https://www.t1421.de <--

On this page you can upload a replay and all information which can be read out of the file will be shown on the page.
At the moment I tested a lot with PvE replays, but PvP should work as well.
There are tree tabs:
1. Head:
Here you can find the main information about the game
Map name, time, game version, etc.
2. Deck:
Here you can see the cards from the decks.
The replay files only contain the full deck of the player who saved the file
For that player, cards which has not been played will be shown in gray.
For the other players only played cards a visible.
3. Acti: (Actions)
Here you can see all actions of all players.
In short, an action is every time you click. Like play a card, switch the gate, move a unit,…
You can filter by player and action type.
 
Please keep in mind, this is not an official website and I’m not part of the SLR-Team.
Some of the date could be wrong because in never encounter that specific scenario.
I will continue working on the website at some point, but I’d like to share this first version with you, since some gave me feedback, that this early version is already very useful.
I what to give a BIG THANK YOU to @Maze
I´m using his API from the SMJ-Website for Card information’s, as well as for the card images.
If you encounter a bug, feel free to contact me.
You also can request features, but implementations may take a long time.
(keep in mind I can only read date from the replay file, so stuff like “How many units died?” is not possible, because it’s calculated while you are watching the replay on your PC)
See you in the Forge 😊

🔔 Hear, hear! 🔔
It's time for a reveal - the following Discord emoticons are the choices for the winner of the contest:
                      
Special thanks to @Titan for creating these, and may the winner chose wisely!

Why does X suck... I guess it can be called a series now. To read "Why does Wheel of Gift suck", please click here:   https://forum.skylords.eu/index.php?/topic/9219-why-does-wheel-of-gifts-suck/

Juice Tank is a Tier 2 building (device). It costs 50 power and passive ability that does the following:
"Within a 25m radius the remaining capacity of own and friendly Power Wells takes 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% longer to deplete. Production per time increment remains the same."
To explain in simple terms, if you build a Juice Tank near a Power Well, it will take longer for that Power Well to run out, resulting on more total power gained from that Power Well. Maps that take a long time to clear, or where your Power Wells have low capacity, Juice Tank is a card to consider. The only reason you want to put this card in your deck is if you run the risk of running out of power.
Running out of power on a map is extremely rare. There are only a handful of maps where this is realistically possible, Nightmare's End comes to mind. Because Juice Tank takes a while to get usage out of it, it is not recommended to use in maps where there is a strict time limit. Prime example of this is Random PvE maps. In none of the difficulties will the Power Wells run out before the timer does. This makes Juice Tanks completely useless in Random PvE. To make matter worse, if you build a Juice Tank on all your Power Well clusters, you bind 200 power. This is the equivalent of (almost) a Tier 4 unit. 
Considering all of the aforementioned, I earnestly ask everyone to review their Random PvE decks and remove the Juice Tanks.
Thank you 🙂  



--------------------
Juice Tank can be played in Lost Spirit decks to fuel their ability, destorying the Juice Tank in the process.