Riviute

Why I think Battleforge/Skylords Reborn has one of the best RTS tutorials. Hey guys, I have been an RTS enthusiast since i was roughly 7 years old, I could barely hold the mouse in my hand back then and of course I was really bad. I played Command and Conquer and Starcraft, and even up to this day I still look around for new RTS to play and enjoy, and especially now is a good time to be a fan of RTS games as we have some very exciting games coming up, like Zerospace, Tempest Rising, Stormgate and D.O.R.F.. And even though I've played so much RTS in my life, which is arguably my most favorite genre, I still always check out the tutorial of new games, and sometimes I even catch myself how I check out the tutorial of a game that I have played a thousand times just to see how they handled the tutorial. Were they doing a good job explaining stuff? Was the pacing good? Did they let you have some freedom in it or was it extremely strict and limited? I still check out these tutorials because at the end of the day, I would still consider myself being a casual RTS player, I don't need difficult challenges to overcome, for me the S in RTS stands for sandbox (took the quote from GiantGrantGames). I just wanna have fun! But in order for that to happen I need a good tutorial. One that teaches me all the unique stuff about this particular RTS. They still can do the little control tutorial part but it shouldn't be overdone. (As you never know if this is a players first RTS or not, so littlebit of control tutorial should be part of it) RTS games that I have played are Starcraft 1/2, Warcraft 3, Age of Empires 2/3, Star Wars Empire at War, Age of Mythology, Command & Conquer (almost all of them except 4), 8-Bit Armies, Battle for Middleearth 1/2, War of the Ring, Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends, Dawn of War 1, SWINE, Arena Wars, Pikmin 2/3/4, A year of rain, Warparty, Stronghold (1, Crusader 1/2 and Warlords) and of course Skylords Reborn. But among all these i actually think Skyloords has the best tutorial out there. Age of empires 2 was fine but also extremely long and slow. Some of the tutorial missions could have been thrown together. Starcraft 2 was also fine but it didn't leave you much freedom to just go and try stuff. It was very limited. Warcraft 3 almost takes the win, but instead of having Thrall explain things to you or a grunt, its just a disembodied voice as a narrator. Dawn of war 1 was basically just a skirmish with an extradumb AI and another disembodied voice. This is where I think Battleforge back then nailed it. 1. First of all, the narrator. Youre being guided through the tutorial by Moon, a character that is relevant for the entire campaign. And shes not talking to you breaking the fourth wall, she talks to you as an equivalent, you are a fellow skylord as well. The way she talks to you is way more immersive than in some other games were they basically remind you that this is a game. 2. The whole control stuff with the camera and unitcontrol is being dealt with quickly. The basecontrols of any RTS games is just never the difficult part, its easy to pick up and doesn't need much explaination. She also doesn't force you to things that you might never end up doing anyway. There were games were you had to spin the camera, or click on the minimap to move the camera but in the actual game you just never did it because its just not necessary. 3. Next is the explaination of the ressource system, its quick and easy to understand, but that is part of the game mechanics itself. 4. The tutorial is actually disguised as an actual mission. You not here in a bootcamp like situation, there are bandits and they need to be dealt with. At one point even Moon was shocked how well equipped the bandits were and she even helped you with an earthquake spell. This was not just a trial or an exam, it was a mission! 5. The pacing in general is very well done, you are not dumped with too many informations at one point without doing too much in the meantime. It was well proportioned overall, a little bit of info, then you got to some stuff again. 6. In the introduction you also had to not only attack, but also defend. Some tutorials always show you just how to A-move and then they are done, but here you also had to defend on that wall. Whats even more interesting is, when she wants you to defend, you are tasked to build a cannon tower, building something takes time. But instead of waiting until its finished the enemy attack wave is already on the way. You are not idly sitting around doing nothing waiting for the tower to be finished you already being attacked, the tower finishes midcombat and then helps you out a lot. There are even more little things that I could point out, like the way abilities were explained, spell showcase, or construction of walls with the right direction. But the final important thing about this tutorial is the ending. 7. Once you have arrived at the third monument, the mission opens up. You can play with more stuff and there is a lot to do. You get access to magma hurler and tremors, which when I played the game for the first time were cool as heck! Moon tasked with the task to take out the remaining enemies and their boss. A BOSS... IN A TUTORIAL! This was awesome, you have access to everything now and can do whatever you want, there is a bunch more enemies to deal with, even with a little camp to the side where you can find more power wells (its not worth it building them up as they wont pay for themselves anymore but its just plain fun, finding stuff and being rewarded for being curious) The choice of your final two units is also well made, you got the magma hurler as pretty good ranged damage dealer without abilities, so you can just A-move them, but the tremor have an aoe that knocks back smaller targets, is it strong? No but it also doesn't need to be, just seeing all the enemies sent flying with the skill is awesome. And then there is the boss, is he difficult? No but he got a very strong healer and if that one isn't dealt with the fight can take way longer. It rewards the player realizing the situation and figuring stuff out. Sure looking back its not that impressive, but newer players will feel good after this. Overall I think of all the tutorials that I have played this is one of the best of all time. I'm curios to see how the upcoming RTS are gonna handle this stuff. If there is one thing that I would add is maybe at least a voice line telling you about the effectiveness of counters and that its a 50% damagebuff. Not everything must be within a tutorial but I think that one would be nice. So this is my opinion on this, again I'm just a casual and probably some people are gonna disagree with some of the things that I said. What did you think of the introduction, or which RTS tutorial did you think did it best?

Ok, i see, it was just a thought that i had^^ thanks for answering

Ok, is there a specific reason for it? I just thought it could be a nice tool for balancing, maybe if infect was 3shadow orbs in its baseform and only becomes 2shadow,1neutral once you have U3 unlocked. Or when it comes to the deepgorge, where on U3 two of its orbs become hybrids, so you could go 3 nature 1 frost and still use it. Or is it because upgrades are too easy to get so its not really making that big of a difference?

Shadow - Amount of Units desintegrated with shadow (Shadow worm, wrathgazer, church of negation) - Amount of frenzied units especially nightcrawlers died (through regular nightcrawlers, infect, cultist master) - Damage dealt with necrofury's special ability - Enemies killed while suffering from fallen skyelfs ability (maybe even just once, but it has to be a boss) - Health restored with Bloodhealing (Spell and Overlords ability) - Exploded own units (nasty or shadow mage) - Amount of Units created from spells, buldings or abilites (shadow) - Killed enemy units with mutating frenzies while deathwish was active with 3 stacks - Health lost due to own units effects (shadow) Fire - Siege damage dealt with units that have the benefit of siege (moloch, firedancer, spitfire, firestalker etc...) - Units healed through ravage and blood healing - Comet catcher damage - Juggernaut stampede used for destroying gates/walls - Damage dealt with emberstrike summons Frost - Damage absorbed from avatar of frost shields - Homesoil damage - Amount of building damage repaired through frost cards (skyelf templar, engineer...) - Amount of "full" damage dealt to frozen units (so stuff like dreadnought, tempest, core dredge) - Total duration of speedy battleships when using shields Nature - Amount of enemies units rooted (nature) - Amount of root networks created (at least with 4 entities, but I'm unsure how you would prevent cheese by just uprooting and rooting again and again, maybe only get 1 progress per mission) - Amount of damage through poison (Nature) - Unit prizes reduced through effects (breeding grounds, forest elder) - Enemies paralyzed Just some ideas that came to my head, not sure how realistic some of these are :S

I might not be playing this game as much right now as I used to, but the dedication and work you guys put into this still amazes me. Looking forward to all the new stuff thats coming, Everything looks super interesting. Big shoutout to the devs, i really appreciate all of this :D

This is just something i always wondered, since i dont know about the technicalities behind the scenes... but would it be possible for card upgrades to alter the orbs required for a card? For example that the vulcan card (2 fire orbs, 1 neutral) gets turned into 1fire orb and 2 neutrals. Or maybe a card like emberstrike thats gets reduced from a t4 to a t3 card through upgrading it... (these were just some random examples) Not just changed from the basecard itself but from the upgrades that you can get for it. (just an idea to open up a bit more balancing through this)

I'd like to say a couple of things. First of all, the animation for that new stoneskin speel is absolutely awesome! Whoever came up with this, great work! Second, when it comes to events, i would simply like events that involve minor changes on the pve missions, for example a temporary new option when you go into a mission like encounters with twilight and you select the event option, something like "all your cards cost 100% more but you will get 100% more gold for completing it. I know some people also already mentioned mutations like in starcraft and i also believe its a cool idea, but probably tough to implement. But maybe something like the treasure goblins from Diablo would work here. That everyday you can find one, lets call it a thief, who randomly spawns on the map (except for boss and starting areas) he will be tough to kill cause he might be very fast in running away, but if you kill him you get a nice pile of gold. Third, i really like the gameplay trailer, super well done. The only thing that i think was missing is that when he mentioned that there are also completely new cards here they should have shown one, like the Wasteland terror for example. Fourth, I wish the new team members all the luck and fun in the world, hope you will have a great time! @Linkz @Vultagx @pierakor @lucas_ansei @Kayrie Fifth, great community update as always, the survey overview was really nice, thanks everyone once again for this incredible accomplishment! Skylords Reborn is a f**king gem!!!

So i did! I have done so many surveys lateley for many different games, i got confused. 😄

No i mean i feel like i have done this like last month or so, i even already had the code redeemed. It was a bit odd

Am I being crazy? Didnt we already had this survey? I think i have now filled it twice 😅

Thanks @Majora for your explanation. I was also there when the servers were shut down, so I know the feeling, i think its also nice for the devs to look back and think about what you've achieved so far. The game is currently imo in the best state it has ever been in. Very inspiring what you guys are doing, looking forward to everything you have planned. Oh and of course, thanks for everything!

I just wanna throw out a huge thanks to all the developers on this project. But I wanna ask the devs something. How do you keep going? I mean I dont wanna be the negative dude here but the playerbase has shrunk down a lot, yet you guys just shrug it off and keep working on this. How do you keep up your motivation? Again this is not meant as something negative... I'm just bamboozled by all this

Is there a recording tool that you would recommend, for the voice acting? Some sort of specific program?

First of all, big thanks to everyone whos still working hard on this project. I actually would be interested in lending my voice but I'm not sure if my mic is gonna be good enough. For how long will this voice actor recruitment be open?

The animations for the worldbreaker gun auto attacks seem to be broken right now. It still damages but no animation. Also when you were in heavy snowball mode and switch back, the gun does not go horizontally again, but still functions just fine.