Riviute

Shadow T2 issues in PvE :
 
As you all know, shadow in PvE is in a really weird place in the T1-T2 phase. Past T3, shadow has access to plenty of tools to equal the playing field with other factions.
At T1, shadow is in a hard place. But PvP balance & shadow identity make it hard to assure a good T1 in PvE. It is however still viable, with access to sustain, good range units, a global damage buff, and a viable tower in def scenario. Considering how careful balancing T1 require, owing to PvP, I'm going to concentrate on T2 viability.
 
T2 shadow is defined by 2 cards : harvester and shadow phoenix. All other options are clearly inferior.

Shadow mage foulplay + chaos knight neither warp TP is too cluncky, and impossible to scale up (you can successfully & with a limited range TP 1chaos knight for a good explosion, but more than one and they kill each other, so you can't scale the combo, & by itself it isn't enough).
Nightcrawler suicide rush and eliminator + rippers simply don't work well enough outside of really specific situations.

Harvester is overall in a good place. It benefit from lifeweaving for increased survivability, and can use stocked corpses from soulsplicer to insure the 1st use of it's ability.

Then we got shadow phoenix + embalmer's shrine combo. A combo that has always been problematic because it allows to basically crush any land armies while unbounding your army.
Now, I don't think having strong card combo is a problem in the game. After all, synergies are good to push payers toward complex deck building, and combo of cards also cost precious deck slots, a resource that was always at a premium, and a downside that is even more costly in the post amii monument era we are in.
Having said that, phoenix + embalmer combo is a clear outsider compared to others (Time vortex + FoF, viridya + lost shade, strikers + Fire Force, commandos + rioter's retreat, ...).

Contrary to all those, the phoenix + embalmer combo allows not only quick nuking of entire group of ennemies, but also the full unbouding of your army. That last part is what really make the combo stands out compared to all others.
It's also the reason why shadow hasn't received any PvE T2 support from the team. It's too strong, hence you can't up the rest of the faction.
For the short term, it's also a combo that is used as a short gap for the almost non-existent T2 amii. On the long term however, it will also keep the rest of the faction from evolving, like T2 shadow.

Now let's talk about the other options, should we ever do something about it.
 
1st the limits :
1) The unbounding part is almost impossible to remove, with phoenix in it's current iteration.
2) We do need to offer compensation, but also an alternative, to shadow T2, and to a lesser extend to amii & maybe even bandit & lost soul.
3) We should avoid destroying the combo, & more importantly the cards themselves.
4) We need to offer alternative to the affected factions.

The last point 3 points is what has motivated me to write this long post 😅.

Many ideas have been thrown around to solve the phoenix issue. There's basically 2 big side : make shadow phoenix spawn smaller phoenix or phoenix with less damage (the reduce damage per iteration solution), or increase corpses requirement after each resurection iteration.

It is the last one that has made me realise 1 of the biggest issues of the combo : embalmers shrine insanely high level of corpes increase +220% or x3,2.
It basically divide by 3,2 the resurrection cost of the phoenix. But outside of phoenix, the card is never seen.
So we got a card that trully enable the combo, but is never used anywhere else.
Right now, a phoenix can do up to 2200 dmg. Add dmg to buildings not generating corpses, ennemies shield, and overkill, and it's hard for a phoenix to pay for it's own corpse cost.
With embalmer, it's 625. 2 unit in the area is already 1100 dmg. even with shields & overkill, it allows easy resurection.

So my idea is this : rework embalmer shrines to reduce its combo potential with phoenix, while opening the card to combo with others shadow corpses based cards, like FoF, necro-blaster, shadow insect & altar of chaos.

To do that, it means reducing the bonus significanty while giving a better reason to play the cards in any other situations, introducing flexibility. We need to"de-couple" a bit the 2.
My idea is then to make the shrine passive, moving it to T2 &increasing itscost in compensation while cutting by more than half the bonus :

Orb cost: Shadow, Neutral (T2)
Power cost: 70-90 range
Charges : 4
Description: Passive : all corpses in the current game will grant (55-65 / 60-70 / 70-80) 80-90% more life points when being gathered

At 80% bonus, phoenix resurrection cost increase to 1111 instead of 625, meaning that at least 3 units per phoenix must be hit to trigger its effect. Additional testing must be done with the numbers of course (& maybe resurected phoenix will need to have an increased cost to 2500-3000 if trully needed), but this change is a step that allows us to both keep the combo with a slap on the wrist, while giving a new tool to shadow to combo with other cards.
FoF basically becomes 9% void return, but at a cost of 1/1.5 less cultist master at T3 bounded power in the shrine). It "gives" back to casual players a solution to automate their necro-blaster defense, so without cultist, but at a cost of an additional card slot (which in this case is alright, again a solo tower is problematic, a combo of card isn't, the player will have to sacrifice something else, like cultist).

Now for the compensation : we need something to help shadow T2 units (mage, knight, rippers, nightcrawlers, eliminator). I already made post on the subject.
What shadow T2 needs is a healing/sustain spell. There's 2 theme for shadow : corpses & lifesteal. Lifesteal is out of the question for T3-T4 scalability reason (thx Cocofang & Hrdina Impéria).
Furthermore, as pointed out by Tristan in previous conversations, we need to be carefull not to allow the new card to enhance harvester (PvP & PvE considerations).

After much iterations, the best idea I have than can work is to introduce a sustain shadow spell using the special effect from rippers; allowing units or the spell to consume corpses. Since many sustain options are 1 orb restrictive (nature heals but also bloodhealing), & in the idea to also help amii, I think it's faire to make the spell 1 orb restrictive :

Soul Feast Orb cost: Shadow, Neutral (T2)
Power cost: 90p (more ?)
Charges : 16
Description 1 : Summon a 25m radius corpse collecting aura in a chosen area. For the next 30 seconds all corpses in that area will be consumed to regenerate 35-45 life points every seconds to every friendly unit in the area. Reusable every 30 seconds.
Description 2 : Summon a 25m radius magical aura. All friendly unit in the aura consume nearby corpses to regenerate 35-45 life points every second. Last 30 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.

I feel the correct regeneration rate is somewhere between 35 & 45hp/s. The new card will combo with our reworked embalmer's shrine, but most of all shadow mage doubled with a frontline of chaos knights or rippers.
This spell will give an alternative to shadow at T2 that doesn't enhance harvester.
I'm still not 100% on how to make the effect work in relation to range units (I prefer description 2, easier to implement, but the question for me is whether ranged units will have enough range to gater the corpses for regeneration).
The spell doesn't combo that much with ashbone, who tends not to kill things 1 by 1 but often all at the same time due to their flamethrower, & then moving away. Viridya already offer a 45hp regen every 2s to them, unconditionnaly.
Big XL units at T3 don't gain much with this. Only magma hurlers could be a bit of a problem (& even there unity G might be better so i'm not too much afraid).

The big upside of this spell is that it allows shadow to use both shadow mage at T2, and cultist master at T3, in an offensive way (blood healing with cultist master is impracticale).

To resume :

1) To nerf phoenix + embalmer combo, & open embalmer to other possibilities, make it passive in exchange for Tier & cost increase, & massive corpses buff decrease.
2) Give shadow/amii/bandit/LS a new sustain tool using rippers effect. To me it is strange that only rippers & overlord use this considering how shadowy the effect feels. This tool open shadow to shadow mage + frontline rippers/chaos knight combo, & use of cultist master offensively (shadow mage needs 35hp/s min to regen between 2 shots).

These changes should open more possibilities for shadow at T2, while starting to put in check the phoenix combo.

Your though ?

https://discord.com/channels/604212371828899851/739437604914855996/1388891178920837333

Hey, these are some tips:
For difficulty 1 single player is faster than multiplayer on average Roll for a Bandits map as it has the least amount of hp per camp out of all factions Strikers + Mine offers a very fast and healthy clear  Adapt to the map layout. You can see camp structure even through fog of war. Plan ahead, avoid triggering early waves and don't waste time with unnecessary pathing. If you have Towers at the second row you can leave one squad of Strikers behind to finish them while the main army moves on Fire Bomb does great damage to structures for the last row. Try to hit the spawner and the Tower. It can also be used if there are any birds.  Sacrificing your army into a Banner of Glory just at the end. It grants you extra power to finish off the last enemies with eruptions. These 3-4 seconds might make the difference in the end.  I hope this is helpful, good luck with the challenge. 

Maybe allow the player to create their own categories, like RPVE or Seasonal, and then you can add a tag to your decks that automatically arranges them in these categories. Then you could toggle your categories and it only shows the ones with these tags.

Maybe allow the player to create their own categories, like RPVE or Seasonal, and then you can add a tag to your decks that automatically arranges them in these categories. Then you could toggle your categories and it only shows the ones with these tags.

Same for the difficulty (though you can also touch the timers too). The mechanics are great, it’s just that players must have a way to easily discover them. After that they’ll plan for their advance run a bit (do I need T2 or T3 defense, should I go 100% on the offensive in my deck,do I need air units or not, …).
Right now I feel that most of the content of the fire season is accessible to most of the player base except for nightmare, which is fine at the end.
I do disagree a bit on reserving promo just for the elite, I am fine the way it is with the need to reach almost the end of  the season. After all we « gifted » promo jorne and promo frost mage to everyone who seriously played an event, creating game time on that content.

Simply removing/replacing some units from ITJ and UV could create a Standard difficulty. Mechanics can stay the same. I'd be in favor of that.
I usually prefer things to be accessible and lenient since, as a non-profit volunteer project, we have the luxury of not having to care about gating content behind a paywall or haggling for every ounce of retention and engagement. I'm against introducing unnecessary grind. Too many games on the market court for endless player attention, it gets grating and exhausting. But opening up season challenges to be done on Standard seems good. Players that can will skip to the hardest set-up anyways, so they are not impacted. Meanwhile, everyone can participate and get some points. Although, while I'd personally like the Promo Sunderer to be accessible with like 60-70% effort, it won't be in reach by only doing easy versions of challenges.

We did in fact remove standard difficulty for the 12p maps. Ascension standard was missing several key mechanics, like Viridya on map 2, so it did nothing to teach players how to beat the map on advanced and expert difficulty. On the other hand, Passage to Darkness on expert is equivalent to standard difficulty. The map has a less than 1% failure rate. In both cases, it was impossible to find standard matches, so we removed standard. We are doing a long term rework of the maps in line with community feedback though so changes will eventually be made again. 
As regards the other feedback:
1. Future campaign maps with both be simpler and come with standard difficulty. 
2. We are examining the seasonal challenges and we will likely add standard versions for many of the one-time versions going forward. I do not know if we will be able to make this change for this season but we will discuss it. Per the Nightmare challenges, just as we need to make sure lower skilled players have content to engage with, we also need to challenge our most skilled players and these challenges exist for their sake. 

Hey guys, I would like to talk About an issue that I feel like gets bigger and bigger, but at the same time its probably something that only affects a small group of players yet I still believe its important to talk about.
Now before I talk about the main topic I just wanna mention how grateful I am to the dev team that brought this game back to life. When it was shut down all those years ago I was constantly looking for private servers or similiar games until I found this project. I watched the progress with great joy and excitement and when I was invited into the closed beta it was one of the best days ever. But its not just that you brought back the game, you added new stuff to it as well! New cards, new maps, events, dailyquests, the reservesystem and even changed a lot of the original stuff. The new Ravenheart for example is still one of my most appreciated buffs in the game so far and its only one of many. Sure there have been things that can be seen as controversial, like the Batariel change or the Amii Monument nerf, and even if I miss the old Amii Monument from time to time, I still think it was a healthy choice. And if I really wanna use the old stuff again, thats were the legacy server comes in. 
So no matter what I'm about to say in this topic, because its gonna sound like I complain a lot and I'm very whiny, just know that this is like the ONLY THING that I could even complain about and I absolutely believe that you guys are doing a phenomenal job here. (Just imagine I'm patting you guys on the back right now, cause you deserve it)
Lets dive in, what is that issue that I have in Skylords Reborn. Simply put... the Difficulty. When it comes to RTS games I'm not very skilled, I love playing them but usually I am just as bad at them like in egoshooters where I constantly blow myself up with my own friggin grenades. I love the freedom these games offer, the army compositions, the creativity in approach and the epic battles. Its my most favorite genre, but I'm just not one of those microgods who has an APM of over 9000 and escpecially in more complicated missions where you have to have your eyes at thre or four different spots at the same time I tend to miss out on one of the most important aspects of RTS, the Spectacle. Hard missions can be very hectic and it at times can feel more like a checklist, like ok now I have to do this, then this guy dies, then I have to be at my base for the attack at 3min 40, you get the idea. Even nowadays I always feel that the graphics and visuals of Skylords Reborn hold up, it still looks nice and it sounds great but when things get stressful you tend loose sight of these things. When I play RTS games I strangly play them just for the sake of relaxation or creativity, I still love the impact the inferno spell has,  I still love to combine soulshatter + frenetic assault + infect + plague even though I know its overkill or just build a massive rootnetwork that goes across the entire map.
I can understand why people enjoy high difficulties in these games, discovering the map, coming up with plan, fail, rework the plan, try again and succeed. There is a feel of accomplishment when you overcome such an obstacle but for these challenges I just have different games like monster hunter or elden ring. So when new maps were added (the two new twoplayer missions) I was overjoyed and a bit disappointed at the same time. Cool new missions, new stuff, new story but then... oh... no standard difficulty. Thats not a new thing right? I mean there were missions already in the game that didnt have a standard difficulty, Behind enemy lines, Dwarven Riddle, Insane God and Guns of Lyr. But just because thats how it used to be doesnt mean it was healthy for the game. 
(sorry now comes the complainy stuff)
Even though the two new maps Unexpected Visitors and Into the jungle have been out for quite a while, I only recently got to play them for the first time with my nephew. I wanted to save this one to explore and experience it together and it was... rough. There is a bunch of mechanics and events shoved into the first one with the lost souls and it was quite overwhelming. Its a lot of stuff after you get your T2, the enemy overall power level was also very high and oppressing. The voice actors (by the way did a great job with their acting) tell you about the mission, but its really hard to keep track if you arent super fluid with english which in this case was my nephew and I had to try to tell him on the fly what was going on but even I couldnt keep track. We reached the amii city but never went T3, we couldnt, we were overwhelmed. Also we ran into the trap with the two power wells on the side that are ridiculously strong defended. So yeah, we didnt make it and lost. Further attempts only lead to frustration until I gave up and looked up a guide online to figure out what we were supposed to do. Appearantly there was even an optional area with frost units that you could go for and get some assistance, I knew that there was more in that area but I just didnt know. Only after looking at that guide we were able to beat it. And quite frankly I dont think thats how it should work, I mean it was an advanced mission so I guess the devs expect you figure it out and there are many people who can do that, but thats just not me. I wished so so so hard for a standard difficulty, just so I can adjust myself to the map.
Campaign missions in other games never had a situation were the game just said "Alright buddy, playtimes over, we are taking this big ol hammer and shatter your beloved buttons for easy and normal difficulty, now there is only the hard difficulty and the pain difficulty level, grow a pair of balls will ya?" That is still just so strange to me, I cant imagine I am the only one who played Dwarven Riddle for the first time and was just completely flabbergasted and what the hell was going on, why is it so hard??? The same goes with insane god, that map broke me and my buddy back then, everything is fine until you get to your T2 and then its just complete madness. Experiencing missions that already have a hard setup without lower difficulty options feel problematic to me, I never liked this designchoice and I never will. Why cant we just get used to the map, the layout, the mechanics first and then tackle the higher difficulties, I know there are some hardcore gamers out there who just jump in and go for highest difficulty right away, but I cant do that. (Just fyi, into the jungle felt easier but also wasnt first try)
The thing is that the new campaign maps isnt the only place where that happens. I dont really know when it happened but I am also not the biggest player of 12 player maps but those dont have standard difficulties anymore as well??? I mean, I get it, its already tough enough to find 12 players to play ascension, but if you need it on advanced but once again you see the map has one lobby open and its standard difficulty again, that can be frustrating. I think I heard something before (not sure if its a rumor or not) but there was an idea of splitting up ascension into 3 four player maps and passage to darkness turned into a single 4player mission, which I think would still be the healthiest thing to do. Removing the standard difficulty however still felt like the wrong thing to do. I just have to wonder at this point, is this the direction going forward? Are all future missions gonna be advanced/expert exclusives? I mean which game has ever removed a difficulty option? There are games that in fact added new ones just for accessibility. In Warcraft 3 Reforged (I know, this is rough one to think about) they not only added a Story difficulty but also gave the Nightelfs in the Sentinels campaign two new units, a short ranged support unit that can use the shaman spell Bloodlust and a massive Wildkin with chaos damage that is meant to be a counter for the very spooky Naga Royal Guards. I also played the turn based strategy game Songs of Conquest and initially the devs were set on the idea "This is a game for experienced Heroes of Might and Magic 3 players and barely have and handholding." So there were no difficulty options, but even experienced Homm3 players like Lexiav were struggling to beat the campaign, now the devs changed things around and now there are 7 difficulty options, which of course is easier to design in these kind of games cause they only needed to give them like handicaps to their economy but still its impressive and much appreaciated by the community.
Now I am aware that difficulty scaling in RTS isnt an easy topic. Sometimes there were just ridiculous jumps in difficulty, like the first mission of the undead in warcraft 3 frozen throne expansion were you have to stop the humans from fleeing in three seperate areas while attacking and destroying the villages. Or the infamous dreaded mission 18 in the original Stronghold 1, where you have to siege the castle of the Pig with almost only melee units and barely any ranged, even on easiest difficulty, many people could only beat that one through save scumming including me and I love Stronghold. Even on standard difficulty in Skylords, Nightmare Shard always felt like a huge step in difficulty same goes for Blight.
But Skylords is very different compared to other RTS games, what makes the difficulty here so unique? 
The biggest difference is the Techtree basically, lets compare Starcraft 2 with Skylords. In the first three missions Liberation Day, Outlaws and Zero Hour you only unlock 3 things, the Marine, the Medic and the Bunker. Thats it. Thats how more classic rts campaigns work. In Encounters with Twilight however (which I will just call the first mission) you technically already have T4, you can summon the Tempests, Emberstrike or even the Giant Wyrm. You can go T4 right from the get go, its like imagine you could go for rip off Battlecruisers without any upgrades in Starcraft on Mission 1. The difficulty has to be scaled around the fact that you always can be at endgame tech and that makes it difficult to balance. On top of that, we also have multiplayer campaign missions for two or four players and that also needs to taken into consideration when it comes to mapdesign and enemy selection. And there is also so many cards that you need to keep in mind that could ruin a map through cheesing or they circumvent important triggers and stuff. But the thing is I dont think it would be that hard to add a standard difficulty, changing enemies to lower tier ones, delay attack waves, weaken preplaced enemies or change map depended timers. (I think I make it sound too easy, but I feel like creating a harder difficulty is rougher than a lower one) 
The thing is the shift of difficulty is also seen in events or in this current season that we have. First off, I LOVE the idea of seasons and I think its very well done, though I do wonder if it means that all new cards in the future will be introduced in seasons or if we will ever have cards outside of a season again. The point system feels good and rewarding but at the same time, I look at the Nightmare challenges and instantly think... Yeah I'm not getting those. So of course I take a look at the regular challenges and there are some that I can do but others already put me in a bad spot, like slavemaster? on advanved? only fire? NO BUILDINGS? I like playing fire every now and then but I'm not confident that I can beat this one with only fire units and spells. I dont wanna be a burden to other players when attempting it with a random player cause I suck. So I a little bit of these challenges and some of the repeatables and thought, okay I guess I have to rely on the repeatables until I realized that their goals become bigger the more often you complete them its bigger jumps now like at first 30000 power in spells for a couple points, now its 40000 for the same amount. So what does that mean? Is is gonna grow infinitly? Is there a limit? Do I at some point have to destroy 8000 buildings for 4 season points? I'm a Monster Hunter player, I dont mind the grind, but even for me this seems kinda rough. But again, maybe I am just one in tenthousand who thinks like that and cannot deal with these challenges that well. 
Well what do I hope for? What would I change? Of course I'm not a game designer, but I think would add standard difficulties to all maps just for accessibility and a learning tool. Regarding the season I think would grant the player the option to just cancel one of the challenges through a buttonpress that give him access to a similiar challenge but on a lower scales with lower rewards. Or add maybe one or two more challenges that also could be done on standard difficulty, make them tedious or grindy, I dont mind like beating Ravens End on standard without T4 or Encounters with Twilight on Standard while only using Medium Units. Or maybe let us just speedrun a mission on Standard and give different rewards on how fast you just like with the rpve map. I think there is still a lot of potential for things like that. I am also aware that the season basically just started and there is still a lot of time left, but I just wanted to share my concerns with you.
Again, its a problem that doesnt affect many players, and I do respect and love everything the devs did for the game, its in the best state it has ever been in imo. A game that still brings me so much fun and joy, and is completely kept alive by the community and some volunteers is something I have only experienced once, and that was the Horn of the Abyss team that did something similiar to heroes of might and magic 3. I just wanna take the time right now to applaud the devs, the designers, community managers and everyone else for this incredible peace of hidden gem in video game history. 
PS: I wrote all of this in one go and hope I kept the grammar mistakes to a minimum, thanks for reading and sorry for it being so much. :)

The 2 new maps were the very 1st released by the dev team, and they did learn from it.
The fact that new maps require learning its mechanics 1st, which is intellectually time consuming in game (where you are often on a timer), means people must have access to an easy discovery phase of the map through a standard level.
This has been acknowledged by the team from what I heard, so you’re likely to have standard level for future maps.
For 12p maps, Path to Darkness is easy enough. edited.
I think most challenges from the new season are alright. Only the nightmare ones are really hard, but those are made for pro.

Greetings Skylords,

Our latest patch released on Sunday, bringing with it our first Season. With so many moving parts, there were bound to be some bugs, and our team has worked hard on fixing as many of them as fast as possible. 
The server-wide freezes that plagued the game during the first few days seem to be resolved. There was also an issue regarding Fire Wormlings causing extreme lag spikes, which has hopefully been fixed as well with our latest hotfix. While there are still reports coming in of crashes, lag spikes, desyncs and other issues, they seem to be mostly individual based at this point. 
We would like to ask for your help in further pinpointing these issues, so we can solve them as fast as possible.
To do so, please report bugs, freezes, crashes and weird interactions you come across. Let us know what you were doing when the issue happened, and please share your crash log data and replays. If you are experiencing a desync, please collect two different replays from players on the map, so we can investigate. The best way to do so, is through our Discord channels "report a bug" and "technical support". 

While we absolutely understand the frustration in regards to these issues, raging at the team is not productive, and highly demotivating during these stressful times. Please try to be a bit more understanding. We are all volunteers here, combining our work on Skylords Reborn with our other life responsibilities. We would love to hear your feedback and reports, but the way you phrase it matters a lot. Please keep that in mind. 
Thank you for your patience and understanding.

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!

• Development Update

Since its release in 2020, Skylords Reborn has added a ton of new content and features to the original BattleForge. We overhauled the old micro-transaction economy, added quests and achievements, and implemented various balance changes and bugfixes. Being able to bring BattleForge back was our primary goal, and it was lovely to see players enjoying reliving nostalgia and being able to play their favorite game once more. 
However, part of BattleForge's DNA was the constant exploration and new experiences that come with a Trading Card Game / Multiplayer RTS. In June 2021, 6 months after the public release, we therefore announced we were starting development on completely new cards through our Rebirth edition, wanting to expand on the content the game was offering. Alongside balance changes and reworks, we started working on making sure each color combination was competitive and fun to play, with various options to choose from. We introduced a new enemy rPvE faction to play against, and the team introduced Reforging, as a way to keep the economy in check in the long run. 
The next step for Skylords Reborn was obvious but would not be easy; adding new campaign maps. The many moving parts proved a challenge, especially with the structure of a volunteer team. While work on the maps happened in the background, we explored other ways to keep players engaged throughout 2022 and 2023. We (and the community!) hosted a variety of events and tournaments for players to compete in. The team added new achievements, (promo) cards, and cosmetic rewards (banners, borders, Forges) to give players something to work towards. We also continued to take on quality-of-life feature requests like in-game drop locations that smoothened the play-experience, always carefully balancing our workload versus the enjoyment of the playerbase. 
2024 finally saw the release of new campaign maps, and to great reception! Players old and new checked them out, and we saw an increase in player activity during the months surrounding their release. While we do our best to release patches on a regular basis, many players had clearly been waiting for concrete new content to explore, and this was definitely a marketable event. Work on more campaign maps is already in development, and while we feel confidant you wont have to wait another 2 years for their release, it will still be a while before we can share more. 

Which brings us to the point of this trip down memory lane. The team behind Skylords Reborn is constantly working on new content, but the player-base consumes it at a rapid pace. Releasing a few new cards that cost months to complete, often results in players spending just a weekend or two to check out a patch, and then either returning to their daily grind, or getting bored and moving on to other games while waiting for the next patch. With some features taking quite some time to get to release, we started looking at ways to keep the player-base engaged while we work on more content like new campaign maps. After a lot of preparation, we think we have come up with a exciting way to experience Skylords Reborn, and make sure the game continues to evolve and feel alive, even in the downtime between patches.
Today we are excited to announce that Seasons are coming to Skylords Reborn!
 
• Announcing Seasons

Seasons combine everything we have learned during the years developing Skylords Reborn. They provide thematic challenges that players can tackle for cool rewards, which include cosmetics, Forges, boosters, and new cards! 
While season rewards will not contain only mono-colored cards, they will be tied to one or more of the various factions, which will also determine the special promo card that can be earned during the season. Our first season will be centered around the element of Fire, and we are excited to reveal its promo card: Sunderer! 


New timed exclusive cards
Players will also be able to earn 3 new cards, including additional charges for those cards spread out over the progression track. For our first season, those cards will be Fire Wormlings, Hellhound and Treasure Wagon. Those cards will be exclusive to the season for its duration, but will be made available in boosters after the season has concluded. However, these cards will be trade-able from the beginning, should players decide to do so. 
 
     

Challenges for all skill-levels
We have prepared a variety of challenges for players to explore, taking into account the differences in skill-level among our player-base. We have made sure players can pick and choose challenges without being locked into ones that aim to provide a challenge for our most experienced players. During the season, players will earn seasonal points by completing these challenges, which will unlock a variety of rewards in return. 
To prevent players from blasting through the season right away, these challenges will gradually be unlocked during the season. More challenges will automatically unlock throughout its four month duration, resulting in a new batch of fresh challenges.
 
New currency: Relics
With seasons, we are also introducing a new currency players can collect in addition to gold and BFP. Relics will be used to purchase certain rewards in a new Relic shop. Here, players can find special rewards, including seasonal content. They also act as a kind of insurance for players, covering past and future seasons. Let's say you don't participate in the first season but come back for Season 2. The relics mean you can purchase at least some of the Fire cosmetics you desire from the first season. Same for if you participate in Season 1 but not Season 2, the relics then allow you to grab some cosmetics you missed by not participating in that season. Relics will also be earnable outside of seasons, but more on that next month!

We feel its very important to find a good balance between giving players something rewarding to play towards, while also respecting their time and not lean into the FOMO-approach many games take these days. We will monitor feedback during the first season, and take this into account for future seasons.

F.A.Q.
How long will seasons last?
- Our current plans are for seasons to last 4 months. Our intention is for the next season to start soon after Season 1 has concluded. 

What is the difference between a Season and a large achievement like Force of Nature?
- Seasons bundle together various thematic challenges that players can choose to pursue. With an achievement like Force of Nature, we are forced to make a choice regarding difficulty; if we make it too easy, our veteran players rush through the challenge, but if its too hard, we lock out a large amount of the player-base. Seasons allow for a lot of flexibility, allowing for different challenges. Additionally, its timed nature pushes the community as a whole to play together and face these challenges together. 

Why are the new cards exclusive to the season?
- We feel its important for players to have exciting rewards to play towards. Many players have already accumulated an abundant amount of BFP, Gold, and boosters, making these lackluster rewards. We feel that by making the cards timed exclusives, that there is a nice balance between worthwhile rewards and general availability once the season is over. Additionally, similar to f.e. Promo Mana Wing, players can still decide to get the cards from other players, since the cards will not be trade-locked, if players decide to sell their rewards. 

Will seasons replace content patches?
- While seasons create a returning patch window every four months or so, they are not intended to replace general patch content. We are still going to add new content, features, and cards to the game, which are not tied to seasons. Our goal for seasons is to always have something to do in Skylords Reborn. 

Why do the challenges unlock in four stages, instead of all at once? 
- We do not want players to blast through four months of content at the very start of the season. Players might have felt they needed to do so to keep up, and get the rewards as soon as possible. By spreading out the challenges, we give players something to return to every month, which is very important to keep the game exciting and fresh, even while we are between patches.   

Do I need to complete every challenge of the season to earn rewards? 
- No. Challenges provide season points which will unlock seasonal rewards. The more points you have, the more rewards you get, but even a few points will already get you some Fire boosters and the new card Fire Wormlings. Promo Sunderer is meant as a special reward, and will be in the high-end of seasonal points required. 

What will the challenges and reward structure look like?
- We will share more about the seasonal rewards and challenges in the next community update. 

When will Season 1 start?
- We expect Season 1 to start in June, exact date to be announced. We will share more information in the next Community Update.

We hope you are as excited as we are about the new challenges Seasons will bring. Do you have any additional questions? Be sure to ask them in the comments below, and we'll make sure to update our F.A.Q. for the next Community Update. 
 
• New Card Reveal - Fire Wormlings

In the Community Update from March 2023, we shared our struggles with adding Fire Wormlings, a potential new archer-type unit for the Fire faction. Turns out that adding worms on walls is not an issue easily fixed, as it has now been over 2 years since we last mentioned the unit. 
People did like the idea of these small worms, so we decided to completely rework the unit, letting go of the restriction of them being units to put on walls. Today, we'd like to share the new card design for Fire Wormlings. Let's break down the card!

 
Worm Fire
Every 2.5 seconds, unit launches spittle at enemies that deal 67 damage to enemies in a 8m radius around its target, up to 100 in total. The affected area around the target will ignite for 10 seconds dealing 10 damage every second to enemy units.
 
Primal Resonance
Within a 30m radius of a Primordial unit, Fire Wormlings will deal 60% more damage. Does not trigger from other Fire Wormlings.
 
Earth Dive
While moving around unit takes 50% less damage and deals 30 damage to enemy units in target area, up to 120 in total. Affects ground targets only.

Design notes:
Two major issues facing Pure Fire's T2 are a lack of scaling and a lack of sustain. Fire Force helps with the sustain option, but it lacks good targets in Pure Fire T2. Scythe Fiends and Enforcer are good PvP cards but struggle in PvE. On the ranged side, Gladiatrix and Skyfire are good, but ultimately too fragile, especially for maps which require a robust T2. The parts of Fire's T2 functioning well are therefore its siege units and its damage spells. Given the upcoming season will strongly encourage playing Pure Fire, we wanted to take the opportunity to introduce a new PvE focused T2 unit which still fits Fire's core identity without being overly fragile. Enter Fire Wormlings.
Fire Wormlings are a 2-unit M-sized ranged squad. Their initial stats are mediocre at best, but each attack causes a damage over time area to be created, similar to Gemeye (). These burning areas stack, meaning that groups of Fire Wormlings can create highly destructive locations on the map similar to a Fire Emitter or a Mine. At the same time, the Wormlings move fairly quickly, allowing the player to use them for hit and run tactics. In addition to the burn effect and the normal worm earth dive, they have an effect which makes their damage scale around other Primordials. This makes for good synergy with Nature in T2, specifically Deep Ones, and allows for any leftover Wormlings to scale well into T3 when used alongside the new Hellhound card.
Fire Wormlings will be part of the seasonal rewards of Season 1. 
 
• Skylords Mega Quiz

Players who have participated in one of Ultralords many events, know he loves asking quiz questions on his live streams. Find out what happens if we give him access to a bunch of Prizes and the official Skylords Twitch channel!  Join us on May 3rd for the Skylords Mega Quiz, live on Twitch! 

Test your knowledge of BattleForge and win prizes while doing so! There are a bunch of boosters and BFP up for grabs, so even if you don't win the whole thing, chances are you are walking away with a good time and something to show for it!
We hope to see you there!
 
• Team Changes
Our video-editor Ultralord, responsible for our various trailers and card spotlights, is no stranger to events. Even before joining the team as video-editor he already hosted a variety of community events. After reassurance that he will be able to continue hosting wacky events, even in an official role, he has now formally joined the team as event manager. Nothing will change for the players, but we are glad to finally be able to credit him with the role! 
The marketeer role for Skylords Reborn has been infamously challenging to fill, and unfortunately RainZy did not beat the odds. Due to a long period of inactivity, we have decided to restart our search. RainZy has been removed from the team. 

• Contribute to Skylords Reborn

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 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!
 


Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 
• 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!

Current events:
• STARTING SOON - Skylords Reborn Mega Quiz - 03.05.2025 at 20:00 CEST
Win prizes with your knowledge of BattleForge! Join the Mega Quiz live on Twitch for a chance to win BFP and boosters. Come hang out with us, win some prizes, and perhaps learn a new thing or two! More information. 
 
• NEW - A Fresh New Start - 02.05.2025 
This event will test your skill with the cards that we all start with! Beat the first single player campaign map “Encounters with Twilight” on advanced difficulty and win some great prizes! More information. 
 
• NEW - Legacy Tournament - 11.05.2025 17:30
Travel back to 2013 in this Legacy PvP tournament! Played on our Legacy server, experience BattleForge before the Skylords Reborn team added any balance changes. The tournament will be streamed live on Twitch. Please sign-up in advance. 
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers @Metagross31 or @Ultralord. 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.
 
• 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: JOIN-MEGA-QUIZ-MAY3
This 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 2024

I dont even know how you have so much gold? It feels like Im always broke when it comes to gold... Using it for reforging also costs you gold, which in return gives you cards that you could sell and thats how you get bfp. I dont think the current system needs a change like that. Its perfect as it is.

Today, marks the 4th Anniversary of Skylords Reborn! We’re thrilled not only to have revived this wonderful game but also to continue its development. This project is truly by the fans, for the fans, and we’re deeply grateful for your support in the Forge.
To mark this special occasion, we’ve prepared an exciting event! Starting December 22nd, our Save Christmas event goes live!
With this patch, a new achievement will challenge you to conquer three special Christmas-themed maps. Succeed, and you’ll earn a unique Frost Mage promo card as a reward.
Join us on December 22nd for the full patch notes and celebrate this milestone with us!
In the meantime, have a look at this teaser trailer. 

If you want to share and see more card suggestions, you can join our balance discord, which as a dedicated section for this. As for this idea, we currently have no plans to add other XL-units to T2 beyond Harvester. Similar to how Sunderer is the only L-unit in T1, we think it is better in this case to preserve faction uniqueness but not overusing large and extra-large units in the lower tiers.

This is nothing big but i still thought it was cool, the youtube content creator perafilozof drops rts new on a regular basis and even though he covers more like new rts games, in this video he also talked about Skylords and its newest patch. Its just nice to see that this game is getting attention like this. :)
 
 
 

This is nothing big but i still thought it was cool, the youtube content creator perafilozof drops rts new on a regular basis and even though he covers more like new rts games, in this video he also talked about Skylords and its newest patch. Its just nice to see that this game is getting attention like this. :)
 
 
 

This is nothing big but i still thought it was cool, the youtube content creator perafilozof drops rts new on a regular basis and even though he covers more like new rts games, in this video he also talked about Skylords and its newest patch. Its just nice to see that this game is getting attention like this. :)
 
 
 

This is nothing big but i still thought it was cool, the youtube content creator perafilozof drops rts new on a regular basis and even though he covers more like new rts games, in this video he also talked about Skylords and its newest patch. Its just nice to see that this game is getting attention like this. :)
 
 
 

Patch #400048 - Echoes of the Amii
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our fourteenth balance patch for the game, 4 brand-new cards, 2 new campaign maps, a new PvP mode, four new achievements, and much more!

Patch Preview
Four new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Amii Sentinel, Skydancer, Energy Core, and Umbabwe! Added two new campaign maps! Continue the story of Skylords Reborn in the first two maps of our new campaign. BattleArena has arrived! Play against your friends in 2v2 or 3v3 battles in this casual PvP mode. Four new achievements and cosmetics to go along with the new maps and game mode. A few balance changes and major card reworks mostly to previously unviable cards.
General Changes
The Shadow enemies found on the summoning menu in the Forge have been swapped with their NPC versions. Amii enemies have also been added to the Forge's summoning menu. A new section has been added to PvE leaderboard to account for potential speedrun changes arising from changes to Amii Monument without wiping the rankings.  Upgrades have been redistributed, you can find more information in-game by using the "Show Upgrades" option on each map. All Rebirth edition cards have had their U2 and U3 upgrades moved to the new maps. The Lost Souls Forge skin is now available. Complete the new achievement "After All These Years" on expert difficulty to unlock it.  Deleted players are now displayed as <deleted> rather than empty. New setting "Force create unit group when holding SHIFT key" added to options. Reverted previously undocumented changes to attack-move command (shortcut Q), that were causing issues with unit responsiveness. Added Map of the Day info to the "Daily Rewards" section. When a player completes the Map of the Day in a given day, the flame on the world map will be grayed out. This change is to help players remember if they have already completed a particular Map of the Day for achievement progress. Players can continue to play the Map of the Day for extra upgrade rewards as normal.  Re-enabled the chat command export collection. Re-enabled the explore replay button.
New Campaign Maps
At long last the Skylords Reborn story continues with the addition of two brand-new fully-voiced (in English) campaign maps. These maps continue the story after Dwarven Riddle and are the product of hundreds of hours of our team's artists, designers, community map testers, translators, and voice actors. Both come with new achievements and rewards to encourage you to dive-in and explore. 
Unexpected Visitors, 2-player campaign map
Journey into the northern wastes to find the secrets hidden within the Riddle of Gnaur. Discover the last enclave of the elusive Amii and save them from certain destruction.

Into the Jungle, 2-player campaign map
Brave the jungles of Viridya's island to find a new home for your Amii allies. 


New Cards
Amii Sentinel - 260p T4 Amii Unit 
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Into the Jungle."
Our goal for Amii's T4 is to create a micro-intensive deck where most of the damage is unit-based. With Amii Sentinel in particular, our goal is to create a frontline tank that functions as a perfect conduit for Shadow's single-target buff cards. Volatile Body's 120% reflect turns Sentinel's health into a damage resource, which synergizes perfectly with cards like Regrowth, Transcendence, and Skydancer. 
 
Energy Core - 140p T4 Amii Unit 
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Unexpected Visitors."
Energy Core's original design came from the Community Card Contest we held over a year ago. The idea behind Energy Core is to create a unit which is more of a mobile spell than it is a traditional unit. It has no auto-attack, but it has two active abilities. Both abilities damage Energy Core, one more significantly than the other, requiring the player to pay close attention to unit health and weigh their options over what is possible for them and whether or not risking losing the unit is worthwhile. 
 
Skydancer - 120p T4 Amii Unit 
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Unexpected Visitors."
While Sentinel and Energy Core fit the roles of tank and damage dealer respectively, Skydancer functions as the supporter. Skydancer has two different mode-changes, one debuffing enemies and one buffing allies. The debuff functions as a kind of anti-rage effect, while the buff increases allied life points by a set amount. The health buff effect directly synergizes with Sentinel and Energy Core who both has health-based damage mechanics. 
 
Umbabwe - 200p T4 Legendary Unit 
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map "Into the Jungle."
Blight's infamous witch doctor is finally making his player card appearance. As a standalone legendary unit, he is intended to function as a spellcaster type unit. To accomplish this, the card has a lot of built-in flexibility via its spells. Umbabwe has an auto-attack which is a meteor from Inferno, the ability to cast his signature spell Oink, and an active ability to summon a fiery tornado which applies a painful burn effect. 
 

BattleArena - New PvP Mode
For a long time, we have been developing an alternative PvP mode called BattleArena which we feel is finally ready to release. In this game mode, players do not use cards from their deck. Instead, they are given spell devices and progressively stronger creatures which they must use to overcome their enemies. The mode can be played 2v2 or 3v3 and comes with a new achievement to reward players for trying it out. Go to Sparring Grounds in-game to play BattleArena.


Voice Actors
Many of the above new features would not be nearly as enjoyable without the help of our volunteer voice actors. In this patch, the following players have lent their voices to liven up the Skylords Reborn universe. We thank them greatly for their help!
Vox - Gaeron (new Frost Skylord) Ultralord - Burning Spears Edgelord - Skydancer Edgelord - Amii Phantom (includes the card's voice lines and the unit's appearance in the new maps) Elijah - Amii Sentinel Dreamlord - New map loading screen narration
Achievements
As part of the release of the two new campaign maps and BattleArena, we have released four accompanying achievements. There is a normal achievement just for beating the new maps, which rewards the player with the new Amii Sentinel on advanced and the Lost Souls forge on expert, as well as two achievements for mastering the maps. BattleArena has a new progressive achievement for playing the mode. We are also adding new Amii borders to the existing endless achievements for playing Amii decks in PvE and PvP.
[ New Achievements ]
After All These Years [Card: Amii Sentinel; Forge: Lost Souls]
Win the 2-player scenarios Unexpected Visitors and Into the Jungle on Advanced / Expert difficulty or higher.
Evacuation Expert [Progressive Banner: Bronze rank ➜ Ember rank]
Win the 2-player scenario Unexpected Visitors on Expert difficulty in under 35 / 33 / 31 / 29 / 27 minutes.
Earth, Wind, Fire [Avatar: Tribal] 
Win the 2-player scenario Into the Jungle on Expert difficulty after defeating all 3 bosses in a single match.
Honor Bound [Booster: 1 General; Avatar: Mo Ocean] 
Play BattleArena [3 matches & 10 matches]
[ Existing Achievement Changes ]
Giver and Taker of Life (PvE) & Path of Insight (PvP)
Both achievements now grant progressive Amii borders in line with the requirements of other faction borders. Borders will be added to the player's account retroactively based on achievement progress.
 

Legacy Server
While we are happy with the game's development since its revival, we understand that there are some parts of old BattleForge that players might miss. In response to this feeling, we have created a legacy server. This legacy server is equivalent to BattleForge the day it was shut down, with none of the balance changes, new cards, or new maps that have occurred as part of Skylords Reborn's continued development being included. The legacy server functions similarly to the public test server in that the player already has all cards and upgrades. To access the legacy server navigate to the game folder, in standard installations the game folder is be found at C:\Games\Skylords Reborn, and start StartBattleForgeLegacy.bat. From there, you login with your normal account information. 

Game Balance Changes
[ Global Balance Changes ]
 Amii faction passive scaling: Amii's faction passive Elusive now scales based on the unit's tier.
Tier 2: 10% less Freeze and Paralyze duration.  Tier 3: 20% less Freeze and Paralyze duration.  Tier 4: 30% less Freeze and Paralyze duration.  Legendary building restrictions: Legendary buildings are now one-per-player, not one-per-team.
Random PvE 1p starting void power: Starting void power has been changed to account for the Amii Monument changes.
Standard / Standard+ (Difficulties 1-2): 600 starting void power Standard++ to Expert+ (Difficulties 3-8): 700 starting void power [ Card Changes ]
 Amii Monument:
1. Power Cost: 250p ➜ 125p
2. Ability Cost: 140p ➜ 100p
3. Orbs granted by Amii Monument no longer increase a player’s tier. Players still gain access to cards within their current tier that require the orb granted by Amii Monument. For example, if a player has 3 Fire orbs via normal Monuments, and builds a Nature orb via Amii Monument, they will still be T3, but will be able to summon Juggernauts and heal them via Equilbrium.
   A. Description - “Switch into this mode to gain one tierless Shadow Orb. This orb will not increase a player's tier, but will allow the player to play cards within their current tier that would require this Orb. The Orb will be ready and functional after 10 seconds. It cannot be switched back for 30 seconds.”
Amii Monument in its existing state is a cheat card. It breaks a map's design, allowing players unfettered access to T4 cards when the map is balanced around the player only having access to T3 cards and creating a persistent toxic effect on the normal game experience.
Amii Monument removes an entire tier from the game. This has a disruption impact on the game experience by changing deckbuilding at its core. In decks without Amii Monument, the player needs to consider how many cards they can budget for each tier and choose accordingly. With Amii Monument in a deck, the player can simply remove all T3 cards from their deck besides Amii Monument itself (spells like Infect which scale well into T4 are the exception), opening up more deck slots for T1, T2, and T4 cards. Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4. Combined with the fact that T4 cards are significantly stronger than T3 cards (the power difference between T4 and T3 cards is the single largest increase in card strength between tiers) means that the player requires fewer T3 and T4 cards in their deck, allowing the use of more card slots for T1 and T2. This heavily warps the game experience by making the player stronger than the map is designed to account for at all tiers, not just once the player reaches T3. 
There is also the psychological effect Amii Monument has upon players. Since we first started balancing cards in Skylords Reborn, players have asked us to nerf Amii Monument, not just because of the balance issues, but because they felt compelled to always include it in their deck regardless of the situation. This is unsurprising as many game studios have recognized that players in general will choose the most efficient option, even to the detriment of their own enjoyment. And who of us have not experienced this? How many of us have not used mind-numbingly boring methods to grind in games just because it is the fastest way to procure loot, even if it ends up making us hate the game? Who has not included Amii Monument as a default deck option at some point in their time playing Skylords Reborn?
To briefly summarize, Amii Monument undermines map design, deckbuilding, and possesses a factor that makes players feel compelled to include it in their decks, even when they know it undermines their own enjoyment. While designing our new maps, including not just the two maps releasing with this patch but the multiple additional maps currently in development, we found ourselves face to face with these issues in a way that made the card's problems no longer ignorable. For all these reasons and more, we felt that the time had finally come to nerf Amii Monument. Yet we do not want to destroy the card. The new design is tailored towards enabling unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities, in direct opposition to its previous design. We also realized that many T3 cards were not generally strong enough to be satisfying to use, so we dedicated almost the entire last patch to adding new T3 options through buffs, reworks, and new cards, and we are dedicated to continuing this project next patch. 
Lastly, we understand that this change will upset many people, but we hope you will see that we did not make this choice lightly. We do not enjoy nerfing cards players like, but we do it because we think it is the best choice for the game. At the same time, we think that the time of major nerfs is now at an end with these changes to Amii Monument, and we as a team commit to no further nerfs on the scale of Amii Monument or the previous Batariel nerf from 2 years ago to existing cards going forward.
 Dying Breed:
1. Power cost: 100p ➜ 90p
2. Orb cost: 1 Fire, 2 Neutral (T3) ➜ 2 Fire, 1 Neutral (T3)
2. Tainted Plunder (p):
   A. Description - Target enemy unit is filled with plunder. If the target enemy dies within the next 30 seconds, all friendly fire units in a 25m radius gain Looter for 25 seconds. Units with Looter harvest the bound power of enemies. Up to 10% of an enemy's original power costs can be harvested relative to the amount of its maximum life points received as damage. Reusable every 30 seconds.
3. Gifted Plunder (g): 
   A. Description - Target enemy unit is filled with plunder and takes 30 damage per second. If the target enemy dies within the next 30 seconds, all friendly fire units in a 25m radius gain Looter for 25 seconds. Units with Looter harvest the bound power of enemies. Up to 7% of an enemy's original power costs can be harvested relative to the amount of its maximum life points received as damage. Reusable every 30 seconds.
4. New FX to go with the new card effect.
One of our long-term design projects is trying to give other factions besides Pure Shadow, with its Resource Booster, the ability to accelerate their power in higher tiers. We started this with changes to Nature's power flow via Forest Elder and Promise of Life, and now we are turning our eyes to Fire. Most Fire players are responsible for building 2 Shrines of War as soon as they get T3, immediately putting them behind by 300 power. Combined with high power cost units in T4, this gives Fire a painfully slow start with a frequent reliance on hoping your allies brought a Breeding Grounds for you to use. After carefully considering our options to accelerate Fire's power gain, we decided to bring back the Looter mechanic, but have it applied only temporarily with moderate percentages. We choose Dying Breed as the rework target because its previous effect was unsalvageable. The changes should allow Fire to use Dying Breed in early T3 to accelerate the transition into T4, or to payoff the bound power invested into Shrine of War, without being so strong as to cause Fire's power gain to grow out of control. 
 Fire Force (Formerly Girl Power):
1. Change name: Girl Power ➜ Fire Force
2. Power cost: 50p ➜ 80p
3. Blessed Morale (b): 
   A. Description - Target own melee unit will be designated the champion of Fire. All friendly melee units in a 30m radius will take 20% less damage. If at least 2 enemies die within a 30m radius of the champion within a 10 second period, the damage reduction increases to 50% for 15 seconds. Lasts until the champion dies, or until a different champion is chosen. There may only be one champion of Fire per player at a time. Reusable every 60 seconds.
4. Infused Morale (r):
   A. Description - Target own melee unit will be designated the champion of Fire. All friendly melee units in a 30m radius will deal 25% more damage. If at least 2 enemies die within a 30m radius of the champion within a 10 second period, the damage buff increases to 50% for 15 seconds. Lasts until the champion dies, or until a different champion is chosen. There may only be one champion of Fire per player at a time. Reusable every 60 seconds.
5. New FX to go with the new card effect.
Girl Power was an odd card that did not fit within the game. It was never clear to the player what cards were men, which were women, and which were neither. We did not see a way to salvage the card as it was, so we reworked it into a tool to enable new melee based strategies in Fire decks. The newly minted Fire Force is a permanent spell effect that you apply to a single unit which transforms that unit into a leader type unit. Allies around the leader are buffed, either with increasing damage reduction or increasing damage dealt, when enemies around the leader unit die. Our hope is that this card enables previously niche T2 and T3 melee units to become viable options in PvE.
 Grove Spirit:
1. Movement speed: 4.8 m/s ➜ 6.4 m/s (normal L/XL-speed)
2. Life points: 1100 ➜ 1600
3. Healing Song cost: 90p ➜ 60p
Grove Spirit has found itself a niche in a deck which uses it alongside Offering to cycle Mind Control. The idea of this deck is to use Grove Spirit as ground presence while you build yourself an army out of your enemy's units. The issue is that Grove Spirit itself is slow and dies in one-shot to artillery buildings. We have given the unit a booster shot of life points and made her undulate her tentacles faster, alongside a discount to the Healing Song ability. Pending any further rework to the unit, we hope in the meantime that this helps the unit in the one niche it has found for itself.
 Lost Dancer:
1. Tainted Blast affinity effect: 50% more damage against humans ➜ 30% more damage against humans
Lost Dancer has proven too strong in PvP and we are toning down the extra damage against humans to bring her back in-line. 
 Lost Manabeast:
1. Immortalize requirement: 7 enemy life essences ➜ 3 enemy life essences
Immortalize's enemy requirement is too strict, making it overly difficult to make good use of the ability. We are substantially reducing the requirements to hopefully give Lost Manabeast a better synergy with Revenant strategies. 
[ NPC & Map Changes ]
 Spearmen (NPC):
1. Toggle ability Defensive Formation: 25% damage reduction now applies properly
 Fire Emitter (Slavemaster version):
1. Power cost: 2000p ➜ 200p
New NPC Entities: Available for use by official and community mapmakers.
Added Frost NPC entities: Units: War Eagle, Tremor, Mountain Rowdy, Northland Drake, Icespike, Avatar of Frost, Construct, Dreadnought, Core Dredge, Dredgling, Mountaineer, Tempest, Winter Witch Buildings: Ice Launcher, Frost Crystal, Frontier Keep (large spawner), Kobold Inc. (small spawner) Added Amii NPC entities: Amii Crossbowmen, Amii Paladins, Amii Phantom, Amii Sentinel, Amii Keep Bad Harvest: Both orbs near the Treasure Wagon now spawn when a player in position 3 is playing solo.
The Soultree: The map now requires all 5 normal orbs to be built or under construction to fulfill the map's victory requirement. Amii Monument no longer counts towards this goal. 
[ Bugfixes & Miscellaneous Changes ]
Fixed card descriptions in various languages. The longstanding issue which caused players' games to slowdown substantially when they destroyed multiple frozen air units at once, has now been fixed. The most well known occurrence of this bug was connected to Shatter Ice.  Dropdowns for rankings are no longer scrollable.

Amii monument was controversial from the start and honestly it just invalidated almost every single t3 card. And there are so many fun cards to use from t3. You had to be a little bit more tactical in your deckbuilding. I look forward to that change even though I've used it plenty myself and will certainly miss it at some points. But sometimes more impactful changes are needed for the health of a game. Anyone remembers how back in the days enlightenment was only 175 unupgraded? It was bonkers and got changed, its still being used to this day. Maybe this change that is currently being made is not the most ideal one, I can't tell because I don't know sh1t about balancing, but it doesnt't mean that further changes can be applied in the future.
But most importantly I am superhyped for all the new content. Can't wait to see what you've been brewing all this time, and once again:
Thank you all for your hard work, I'm very impressed by your dedication to this project!

Try to think about the Amii Monument changes from the perspective of a game designer or a map maker. You put endless hours into designing and balancing a new map with a very cool T3 section or you design a T3 concept of a faction with lots of cool possible interactions, just to see people skip it entirely with a single card. That probably feels like the gamedesign equivalent of making a fancy 3 star dinner and buying some expensive wine just to see your guests drown the Food in tons of Ketchup and chugging the wine down with coke.
You can see a decent number of community maps and many past events, which ban Amii Monument for that reason. The most extreme example of this in my oppinion though is Soultree, where you skip the only real enemy base with buildings on that map by cheesing it. I really hope this will be fixed with this update as well.

Amii monument was controversial from the start and honestly it just invalidated almost every single t3 card. And there are so many fun cards to use from t3. You had to be a little bit more tactical in your deckbuilding. I look forward to that change even though I've used it plenty myself and will certainly miss it at some points. But sometimes more impactful changes are needed for the health of a game. Anyone remembers how back in the days enlightenment was only 175 unupgraded? It was bonkers and got changed, its still being used to this day. Maybe this change that is currently being made is not the most ideal one, I can't tell because I don't know sh1t about balancing, but it doesnt't mean that further changes can be applied in the future.
But most importantly I am superhyped for all the new content. Can't wait to see what you've been brewing all this time, and once again:
Thank you all for your hard work, I'm very impressed by your dedication to this project!

Lately we have been seeing an alarming rate of issues regarding the launcher of Skylords Reborn. We'd like to take some time to explain the situation, what you can do yourself, and how we are working to resolve these issues.
Since our last patch, several antivirus programs have been flagging certain Skylords Reborn files, with pcre3.dll often being identified as the culprit, though we have also seen mentions of proxy-internal.dll, proxy-legacy.dll and proxy-test.dll. 
Unfortunately, reversing some of the changes in the patch did not resolve this issue. We are now considering alternatives, such as purchasing certificates to mark these files as safe. However, as a volunteer project, we need time to explore these options, ensure they will solve the problem, and make sure that server upkeep costs are not significantly impacted.
In the meantime, players can make an exception for the Skylords Reborn folder in their antivirus programs. We understand players might be hesitant to do so, and while we do not know for certain what exactly makes antivirus programs consider these files unsafe (as their explanations are usually very vague) we’ll give an example why they might. The Skylords launcher functions in a way that triggers some antivirus programs, yet this functionality is necessary for the game to work and is harmless for the user.
By default, the game is designed to send your login credentials to the EA server, just like every other always-online game communicates with its official server. However, EA shut down the official server, leaving nothing to communicate with. Without the EA server, the game cannot function. To make Skylords Reborn work, it uses a technique that "reroutes" the login credentials you enter to the Skylords Reborn server instead of the non-existent EA server.
Because login credentials are being sent to a different server, it makes sense for antivirus programs to be alarmed. However, to be clear, what is being redirected is only the credentials you enter on the login screen. These are your Skylords Reborn account credentials, which the project already has from your registration. They are then sent to the Skylords Reborn server instead of the dead EA server. Otherwise, the game would fail to connect and not work.
To allow the launcher to function correctly, you need to make an exception for the folder so the antivirus program leaves it alone. Otherwise, the launcher might get stuck trying to find a file that was quarantined by the antivirus program. Please note that this issue might resurface with future patches. How to make an exception varies for each antivirus program. If you need assistance, please head over to technical support, and we’ll try to help you.
We understand these issues are causing frustration among our players, and we are working hard to find a solution that prevents users from having to take actions they might not feel comfortable with. We appreciate your understanding and patience as we search for solutions.

While its really unfortunate you ran into the project in a time like this, please take a look at our Community Updates for a more accurate state of the project over the last 3 years. We are, and have been, very active with the development and maintenance of the game.
The game is still playable, but Windows Defender and other AV programs suddenly decided to block these files, requiring the user to make an exception themselves. Obviously not a good look for a project you just encountered, so we are still exploring other solutions.

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?