Chimaka( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

ALT + F1/F2/F3 should not cause any issues, but ALT + F4 is the shortcut for closing applications in Windows. I assume that is the crash you are experiencing.

Mapmaking Fundamentals - Spawn Design (Cont.)

Practical Considerations
In the course of testing and balancing new maps, a number of important questions have arisen regarding practical considerations which must be taken into account. Here we will examine the various practical concerns which have appeared during the development process regarding both spawn and camp design. 
Small vs. Large Spawn Buildings
Each faction should have a small and a large spawn building. As a standard practice, the small spawner should have 1200 life points and the large spawner 3200 life points. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as the Fire and Nature gateways in Titans, which have 2000 life points, and Lost Temple, which only has 1000 life points. In the case of Lost Souls, a large spawn building is currently in the process of being developed, after which the small spawner Lost Temple will likely see its health pool standardized. 
There are a few ways to utilize the different spawn buildings. The most straightforward method is to use small spawners for T1 and T2 camps, and large spawners for T3 and T4 camps. This creates a sense of progression and ensures that later camps are not easily cheesed through Eruption spam. On this topic, it is important to position primary spawn buildings within camps such that the player cannot easily destroy them without interacting with the camp itself. Spawn buildings, particularly the primary ones, should be the most protected things within standard camp arrangements. Another way to use the spawners is to differentiate them by purpose, such as objective spawners being of one type while standard camp spawners are of another type, though it is also common to use a spawner as a camp and an objective spawner simultaneously. Some maps alternative between small and large spawners as a way to differentiate between the type of units being spawned. A good example of this would be Encounters with Twilight. The various lodgement areas of Encounters are punctuated by small spawners which only spawn weaker units, while the main spawner is a large spawner which generates the main threat in each respective area.
Beyond lodgement areas where the aforementioned type of design is common, some individual camps include both types of spawners with a similar goal, small spawners for weaker units and large spawners for stronger units. Higher tier camps with increased levels of complexity can create a sense of strategic depth and player progression by having a large spawner nestled in the back, with various minor objectives, such as small spawners and artillery buildings, placed in easier to access locations for the player to focus on and destroy. This allows the player to move forward and destroy an objective, thereby permanently weakening the camp's defenses, without requiring that he destroy the camp outright all at once. An example of this might be that in a Twilight map, the primary large spawner generates Abominations and Evil Eyes, while a small spawner closer to the player's expected point of entry generates Whisperers and Mindbenders. While the majority of damage comes from the large spawn units, the destruction of the small spawn would be a major win for the player because it would substantially reduce the camp's CC capacities. 
Time to Respawn & Player Downtime
Imagine playing a Twilight map and moving forward into a well fortified camp. You destroy the frontline of Vilebloods, move forward to wipe out the archer line, and then just as you are about to kill the spawner a second wave of Vilebloods spawn and destroy your army. By the time you return, the entire camp has respawned and because none of it was towers or support structures, you essentially achieved nothing. What I just described is how a normal player experiences trying to destroy the Shadow camp on Nightmare Shard. In the face of this frustration, the player often chooses to learn how to cheese the map, or they decide to suicide their army for the spawn building from the beginning so they can feel like they actually achieved something. What this example illustrates is the problem of camp respawns and how they relate to camp design. 
A typical spawner in BattleForge has a time to respawn of 15 seconds. This is universal and encompasses nearly all maps and spawners in the game. It should be fairly obvious that the lack of granularity in what is an essential component of map design is a fundamental issue for the balance of both individual camps and maps as a whole. 
Time to Respawn Considerations:
1. Individual unit strength - If the individual units are weaker, the camp might be balanced around more frequent respawns. This can create a pleasure experience of fighting through waves of the enemy. If the camp's units are relatively strong compared to the player, such as our example of the player fighting Vileblood's with T1, the respawn timer should be longer because each unit that respawns is a substantially bigger threat.
2. Unit to building ratio - If the camp is entirely made up of units, thereby providing no ability for the player to permanently degrade its strength except through killing the spawner, it might be appropriate to exclude some key units from respawning at all or to increase the overall time to respawn. If a camp's strength is mostly concentrated in buildings, a faster respawn timer for units can be used because only a small percentage of the camp's total strength will be reviving. 
3. Player Tier - In lower tiers, it is harder for players to reach and destroy spawn buildings due to a lack of available tools. In higher tiers, players have numerous options for disabling units and destroying key buildings, including spawners. This suggests that longer respawn timers are better for lower tier camps, because in these camps players usually have to fight through a significant portion of the camp to be able to begin damaging the spawn building. The same is not true for higher tier camps and therefore the respawn timers can be shorter. In general, the higher the tier, the more complex a camp can be in its design, and faster respawn timers are a component of camp complexity. 
4. Distance to Spawner - In a simplified form: time to respawn + travel distance from spawn = player downtime. The farther the distance to the spawner, the longer the player has to recuperate. This is particularly important for defensive scenarios to allow time for healing, respawning, and repairing player defenses. Closer spawn locations will often correlate to longer respawn timers, and vice versa, but the map designer should really balance downtimes based on wall and building repairs and adjust according to the intended feeling of pressure. 
Group vs. Individual Spawning
The general rule is that attack waves should be spawned as a group while units within a camp should spawn individually. By placing attack waves into groups, it means that the player does not have to deal with a constant trickle of units which either preclude any repairs because of a lack of downtime or fail to cause sufficient pressure due to lacking the critical mass needed to challenge player defenses. On the other hand, group spawning often leads to clever players trapping a few units to prevent the group as a whole from respawning. This will be discussed more below. Individual spawns in camps are necessary to allow the camp the dynamism to respond to player attacks. Group respawning, the timer for which only begins after the death of the last member of the group, would mean that the camp will likely never respawn any units before the player can destroy the spawner, but if the group can respawn, the entire camp, or at least a major sub-group, would respawn all at once. Neither of these options are desirable, so camps should use individual spawning.  
Preventing Spawn Trapping
The majority of respawns in the game are based on timers that only begin after the unit which will be replaced has died. The standard timer throughout the game is 15 seconds. As mentioned above, some spawns are group and others are individual, with in-camp respawning typically being individual-based and attack wave respawning typically being group-based. Given that group-based spawns will not respawn until the entire group (or a particular percentage of the group) is dead, this leads to a situation where the player can "trap" units within the attack wave and prevent further respawns from occurring, functionally turning off the defensive aspect of the map. While this mechanic has been normalized on most existing maps and therefore will likely remain unchanged, the same need not be true for future maps. The best way to get around spawn trapping is to make the respawning of attack waves multi-conditioned. For example, if an attack wave takes 30 seconds to reach its destination and lives on average 30 seconds once it has reached its intended location, the average respawn time for that given wave would be once every 75 seconds (15 second respawn + 30 sec travel time + 30 sec fighting to death time). This means, when accounting for slow decks and the player being overrun, it might be appropriate to make the attack respawn on death of the group OR if 120 seconds have passed, whichever is shorter. That way if the wave gets trapped, a second attack wave still spawns after 120 seconds regardless.
Another key point to consider with spawn trapping is abuse of waypoint markers. When attack waves progress towards their target location, they act by moving from one waypoint to another, wait for the entire group to arrive, and then proceed to a third waypoint. If a player is able to block one member of the group from successfully progressing to the next waypoint, the entire group will fail to progress. This is what allows the MotK spawn trap trick on Nightmare's End. When a ranged unit enters the spellbane aura, it immediately retreats in an attempt to move far enough away to attack. If the unit's attack range is less than or equal to the spellbane aura radius, it ends up in a loop where it continually moves in and out of the aura. If the waypoint location is within the spellbane aura, such that the other units can progress to it, but not so close that they will aggro on the source of the aura, the looping ranged units will fail to reach the waypoint marker and therefore lead to the entire group remaining permanently stuck (it should be noted that not all ranged units act like this. The flying units on Mo continue to patrol back and forth despite any spellbane aura, so their scripting ought to be studied to learn how to achieve a similar result). There are a few ways to avoid this. One is to include at least one long range unit within the attack wave, which can then destroy the source of the spellbane. A second, if the spawn trap is discovered pre-release, is to add a patrol along the path where the spellbane will be placed to destroy it and free the normal attack wave. A third is to look at maps like Mo and figure out how to circumvent the issue and allow the units to patrol regardless. 
Tier Emphasis & Camp Design by Tier
Nearly all campaign maps will take place over all four tiers, but the emphasis of each map is different. Some maps will have long T1 sections, while others, such as Bad Harvest, will skip T1 entirely. While it might initially seem best to spread the map out equally between all tiers, this is often less ideal than it might initially seem. One of the largest limitations in BattleForge is the 20 card deck limit. By requiring the player to be able to respond to threats equally at all tiers, the designer encourages the player to opt for more generalist deck options. For example, if the map required the player to be able to respond to ranged, melee, and flying units at T3, the player would forced into using cards which can respond to all three threats. If that player were playing Fire, they will likely default to using Magma Hurler with Unity. If he wanted void return and had to defend a wall, he is also going to include Shrine of War and Tower of Flames. At that point, since the player needs to be flexible on all four tiers, he will only have 1 slot left for T3, which he might want to flex into other tiers given Magma Hurler can take care of most threats. If, instead of designing the map to have equal threats at all tiers. the designer instead decided to shorten the T2 and focus on a larger T3, the player will now have more deck slots to specialize versus any challenges the map might include. If there were large amounts of buildings in T3, the player might be able to include Virtuoso or Juggernaut as a response. If there were no flying units, the player could opt for Vulcan or Giant Slayer. If the camps had weak AA or if there were a lot of hard to reach flying units, the player could choose Spitfire. On their own, each of these options is unlikely to be the sole choice of unit for a Fire player, but each can easily become supplemental options when the camps a player faces in a particular tier allow for such specialization and the other tiers do not use up all available deck slots. 
The key takeaways here are that it is often better to focus on 1 or 2 tiers in a given map, so as to allow for more interesting deck building options within those tiers, and that unifying camp and spawn design across a tier can allow for and push players towards less typical options, for example, not including flying units but giving camps strong AA, can open up space for melee units to succeed.
Defender's Advantage
When fighting against camps, the general principle is to balance the camp's composition as equivalent to being 1 tier higher than the player (on expert, advanced can be equal strength). The reason for this is that players have an adaptability that NPCs do not. This is seen both in the fact that players can cast spells while NPCs must rely on unit abilities or inflexible events via map scripts, and that NPCs cannot rebuild their own camps. If the artillery piece keeping the camp together dies, it cannot come back. In contrast, if a player loses a unit or misplaces a tower, they can just summon a new one. So if the entities in an NPC camp are typically one tier stronger than those currently available to the player, what about when it is the player defending and the NPCs attacking? It would be nice if we could provide a simple rule here stating that attacking units are always one or two tiers stronger than the defending player, but it is not that easy. Defending scenarios are simply too varied for a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, let us consider some factors that might change the player's strength while defending.
Defense Considerations:
1. Location Fortification Potential - Whether or not a player can easily fortify their location substantially changes the relative strength of incoming attack waves. Fortification potential is related to two key factors, (1) Are they buildable walls, and (2) how wide is the enemy's angle of attack? Buildable walls increase the relative defensibility of a location more than any other single factor. Walls add effective life points to the defending towers and units, while also impeding enemy progress, therefore providing the player with more strength depth. Attack waves which might overrun a player in an open field can become a joke to him when he is sitting behind a set of Amii walls. The width of an enemy's attack angle attacks in a similar way. If, similar to Guns of Lyr, enemies attack into a narrow chokepoint, even giant waves become trivial to defend against. At the same time, if the enemies can spread out such that area of effect spells and abilities cannot hit large portions of the attackers at once, the wave's overall threat increases. Therefore area with narrower angles of attack and buildable walls need stronger attack waves, while areas with wider angles of attack and no buildable walls need weaker attack waves.   
2. Length of Defense - The longer a player is allowed to sit in a single location, the larger the attack waves will need to be to dislodge him. While small, low tier waves might threaten a player initially, even waves one or two tiers higher than him will seem insignificant if he has been given a large enough time to prepare. In general, if a player has only been given a short time to begin preparing his defenses, attack waves could be sufficiently strong even at tier and unit count parity. But once he has been allowed to settle in and build a layered defense, attack waves will likely need to be both stronger and more complex to overrun him.
3. Player Tier - Lower tier players have less defensive options than higher tier players. The higher the player's tier, the stronger the attack waves will need to be in comparison to the players on paper strength.  
4. Total Areas to Defend - A key point discussed at length in this guide has been that the fewer areas a player needs to defend simultaneously, the easier it will be for him to succeed. While even the equivalent of a Tier 6 attack wave from a single direction might fail to overwhelm a player with T4 protected by a wall, even T3 units from enough different directions could overrun the same player. Creating multiple areas where a player must defend taxes not only his power pool, his charges, and his cooldowns, it taxes his mind. It becomes exponentially more difficult to respond to major threats that could undermine your defenses, when these threats are coming from different directions, and particularly if they are far enough apart to not be visible on the same screen. Particularly at higher tiers, where the tools available to players are so strong, it is essential to create multiple avenues of attack. At the same time, a map designer must be careful not to overwhelm the player's mental capacity with an excess of attack directions simultaneously.

Majority of rts players play vs AI, thats normal. Or if they play pvp, its team games.
There are problems in pvp duels with map pool and balance, but the biggest problem i see is the lack of comeback mechanic and poor win condition together.
A small mistake can lead to defeat very fast.
(Giving out lvl 120 pvp decks for free was a good idea)
As for T4 not being viable in pvp is normal, and should be never viable. 
 
In Dawn of War 2 which is very similar game to BF, the pvp is same and the "problems" are the same. Some players argue that T3 (equal as T4 BF) should be more viable in 1v1, but they only say this cos the game offers those units, but u wont use them and its a heartbreak.
In DW2 one comeback mechanic (opjective) is the area control for victory points, which leads to victory also.
But getting resources are very important too (its also has 2 type of resources instead of 1 like in BF), however losing resource farms, doesnt cut away unit production or it is not tied directly to victory condition. This is not the case in BF.
Everything is tied to the resource buildings. If you lose the building you lose everything. there is only 2 option to make this better.
Either make the buildings tankier or introduce  a 2. objective/ win condition for the game. 
As for making a building tankier, we could have buffs with long cooldown which can be activated and affects all orbs and power buildings, making them invulnerable for x time. This is something Dota is using to compensate.
Another help could be also giving powergain by default for orbs.
 
Fog of War: playing  BF again i was shocked that there is no fog of war in pvp. this should be enabled?

Tbh I think the biggest problem with pvp is the small player pool and if we're being honest a new player will get absolutely destroyed in tier 1....
 
In starcraft or warcraft you'll at least be in game for a decent amount and realize you're not building an army soon enough and that's why you die... in battleforge I'm seeing players just lose matchups they shouldn't do from lack of information.
I've invited a few new players to BF and while they enjoy the game after 2-3 games in pvp they pretty much felt like they're not going to pvp anymore. 
 
While I think this is a daunting task to ask but I feel like Halo Wars 2 card pvp was a lot more nooby friendly and would be a better mode to intro/ push people into pvp. 

The Amii NPC does not have elusive. The faction abilities (Revenant 's Doom, Elusive, Lifestealer, etc.) are exclusive to the player versions of those units or buildings. 
Additionally, many NPCs are equivalent to U2 player cards in terms of stats, though this is not a hard and fast rule as some are different tiers entirely (i.e. Bandit Sniper or Stone Tempest vs. Stonekin Rockstorm).
We have been trying to fill in the various missing NPCs from each faction, both for ourselves but also to give our community mapmakers more options. 

Afaik not as it is a different entity and seperate from the player card. This would also affect balancing of the whole map.

Patch #400044 - 28 October 2023
🎃👻 Welcome to the Spoooooky Halloween Patch! 🦇🕷️
Skylords, gather 'round as the shadows lengthen and the nights grow cold! We're thrilled to present our ninth balance patch, teeming with delightful treats and perhaps a trick or two.
Dive deep into the abyss to discover a mysterious new card, unveil chilling new achievements that await the brave, and embrace the night as you light up the forge with a hauntingly beautiful new theme.
Happy Halloween in the Forge, Skylords!

Achievement Updates
[New] Happy Halloween! Rewards: Halloween Pumpkin (Avatar) + 1x Lost Souls Booster
Win the PvE community map Spooky Encounters on expert difficulty during the Halloween season. (One week from Oct. 28th)
[Updated] Never Thought of Him
Now rewards a brand new Fire Forge theme in addition to the 100,000 gold. Reward is retroactive.
Corporate Downsizing
Added 2 additional levels to the achievement with 2 additional progressive avatars.
General Changes
The deck limit has been raised to 500 total decks, inclusive of PvP, Tutorial, and General decks. Please note: Performance issues may occur at higher deck counts. A warning for this will be displayed once you reach 100 decks. Players using a deck level below 100 will now receive a notification encouraging them to check out the free PvP decks. High-res textures are now used for "Flightblocking" objects. Completed goals in maps will now be stored in replay files. The "Seasonal" forge theme has been renamed to the "Featured" forge theme. The new Fire Forge will be the featured theme until the end of November 2023. The game's file system logic has been updated to use UTF-8 paths for enhanced support. This feature is experimental and may be rolled back if necessary. Profile comparison section has been improved with filters allowing sorting by achievement group, achievement type, and locked achievements.
General Fixes
The 'Show Upgrades' button has been repositioned, creating more space between it and the 'Create Game' button. The brown background issue that occurred when clicking on the leaderboard entry in 2 player scenarios has been fixed. Leaderboard filters no longer reload incorrectly after choosing the map from the dropdown. Flying units are now restricted from opening gold chests. This rectifies an issue introduced by a previous change. Issues related to entities like power wells, monuments, and walls not updating their position correctly when teleported via map scripts have been fixed. Achievement Fixes
The tooltip for the forge spring theme locked achievement now correctly displays (8 maps) instead of (10 maps). Corrected faulty achievement descriptions with missing placeholder values in the profile comparison section. Resolved issues with the type filter not functioning properly in the profile comparison section. Chat commands in the chat menu will remain visible when switching chat regions. Community Map Fixes
Removed misleading error messages that appeared after downloading a community map when joining an open game. Resolved issues related to rapidly switching between community map entries which affected the minimap load. Private maps will now be deleted after 3 hours as intended. Downloaded maps will now properly replace older map versions on the filesystem. The "Local" map type filter will from now on display all locally available community maps, including those downloaded and already on the server. Fixed the issue of daily quests not progressing when playing featured community maps. Rectified the error where maps were counted multiple times for the 'complete different featured community maps' achievement. Resolved inaccuracies in the text for hardcoded local community maps.  

New Cards
Soulstone  - 70p T1 Frost ()
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Defending Hope.
A common complaint among players is that Frost lacks good shield spells and abilities for PvE before T4. This hole in Frost's design is real, and leads to other issues, such as a lack of teamplay oriented utility and army sustain in the early game. Soulstone, a Frost-like version of Fountain of Rebirth that grants ice shields, fills this gap. It is also the first card to make use of a new evolution mechanic we are adding to the game. Once the player reaches T2, Soulstone can be transformed into a stronger version of itself. This allows it to scale with the player, without being overpowered in T1. We hope players enjoy this new card and the many synergies it brings to Frost, and we cannot wait to see what you do with it.  

Card & NPC Balance Changes

Global Changes
Standardize Basic Class Types:
Added missing faction & affinity class tags to all player buildings. Fixed wrong affinity class type on dozens of units. Added missing class type to dozens of units and buildings.  While technically a balance change as it fixes several card inconsistencies, such as some affinities not working with the correct elemental crystal card, this change also improves the accuracy of the card filtering function.

Description Fixes:
  Cleaned up the descriptions of dozens of player cards and NPCs for improved clarity in each language.     Introduced a new standard description for rage on all cards with the ability. Bug Fixes:
Shrine of Martyrs: Fixed a bug preventing alive units from being affected by a shrine if they had already been affected and the current one was destroyed. Sun Reaver: Fixed various faulty interactions with linked fire.
PvE Balance Changes
 Earthen Gift:
1. Charges: 8 ➜ 12
 Frontier Keep:
1. Power cost: 250p ➜ 125p
In truth, we have little idea how strong Frontier Keep is as a card, merely that it is overpriced for its current effect. As such, we are cutting its price in half and seeing what happens. 
 Grinder(r):
1. Infused Provoke (r): The damage buff is now stackable with external effects. 
Grinder's built-in damage buff after using provoke will now stack with effects like Earthen Gift(r) and Wheel of Gifts. 
 Mindweaver:
1. Fixed a bug where the population cap would be permanently increased beyond the 120 limit if a controlled unit died.
2. Edict of Command range: 30m ➜ 40m
3. Added a 40m radius indicator for Edict of Command on card play-out.
 Parasite Swarm:
1. Can now takeover T3 units on upgrade 2 instead of upgrade 3. 
Make Parasite Swarm more accessible to new players by reducing the total gold investment to reach T3 takeovers. 
 Sleet Storm:
1. Radius: 15m ➜ 20m
2. Spell delay: 5 seconds ➜ 4 seconds
Sleet Storm released below the power level we wanted for the card. We have increased the effect radius and decreased the time it takes for the root and gravity surge effects to activate to ensure the player can ensnare faster moving L and XL-units more consistently. 
 Stone Launcher:
1. Orb cost: 1 Frost, 1 Nature, 1 Neutral ➜ 1 Frost, 1 Nature, 1 Hybrid
2. Power cost: 70p ➜ 100p
3. Life points: 1700 ➜ 2200
4. Rock shot
   A. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
   B. Now damages both air and ground units
5. Pulldown power cost: 80 / 80 / 75 / 70p ➜ 50 / 50 / 45 / 40p
Stone Launcher is now a normal tower. We think that T3+ AA-only towers are largely a bad design, and, on top of that, we needed a normal T3 Stonekin tower for our upcoming card Bedrock to be able to summon and Tectonic Shift to teleport.
 Stronghold:
1. Power cost: 150p ➜ 200p
2. Displayed attack value: 2850 dp20 ➜ 4950 dp20
3. Life points: 3600 ➜ 4500
4. Cannon Turrets: 
   A. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 10m
   B. Turret firing arc: Allow up to 3 turrets to attack a target at a time.
   C. Damage: 74 damage, up to 110 in total ➜ 164 damage, up to 246 in total
5. Bombardment:
   A. Now an active ability
   B. New description: Activate to shoot a mortar shell that deals 800 damage to enemies in a 15m radius around its target, up to 3200 in total. Knocks back small, medium, and large units. Has a range of 40m. Reusable every 30 seconds.
6. New passive, "To the Last!" 
   A. Description: If the fortress has equal to or less than 3000 life points left it will deal 25% more damage and take 25% less damage. If the fortress has equal or less than 1500 life points left it will deal 50% more damage and take 50% less damage.
7. New passive, "Slowed Construction:" Construction time is increased by 50%.
Stronghold has been reworked from the ground up and is finally worthy of being an Ultra-rare card. We encourage players to experience the card for themselves and we hope that we have done the card sufficient justice so that it will live up to its name and model. 
NPC Balance Changes
[ Existing NPC Changes ]
The changes discussed in this section pertain to the non-player versions of these entities which players encounter in campaign and random PvE.
 Flame Crystal:
1. Can now be frozen and disintegrated.
 Howling Shrine (rPvE variant):
1. Root Network connection radius: 25m ➜ 40m
 Mindweaver (rPvE variant):
1. Added small and medium knockback.
2. Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
 Nature Random PvE Boss Units:
1. Removed the "Nature" class to prevent unintended interactions with player cards (such as Protector's Seal)
2. Boss Tier: T5 ➜ T4
 Primal Defender (rPvE variant):
1. Orb cost: 3 Nature ➜ 2 Nature
2. Power cost: 150p ➜ 100p 
Now able to be overtaken by both affinities of Matter Mastery.
 Root Network Units (Nature rPvE Variants):
1. Fixed an issue where Treespirit, Thornbark, and Guardian of Nature would not aggro against flying units.
2. Increased ranged at which these units root to attack enemies from 20m to 28m.  
 Root Nexus:
1. No longer provides 2 support. 
2. Removed from Nature rPvE and replaced by the new Earth Crystal.
 Stranglehold:
1. Tower range: 30m ➜ 40m
[ New NPCs ]
These new NPCs are available to map makers to use for community maps. 
New NPC Units:
   1. Pest Creepers: A permanent version of the nature affinity Pest Creepers spawned by Sunken Temple. 
   2. Earth Crystal: Provides 2 support to root network entities within a 20m radius, replaces Root Nexus in Nature rPvE. 
   3. Fortress of Nature: Boss variant of Howling Shrine with 50m range.
   4. Bramblethorn: New Nature variant of Stonekin Rockstorm which roots on-hit. 
   5. Amii Phantom: Ranged-only with swift. 
 

Mistake in the description of "Revenge".
"All friendly entities in 25m radius take only 80% damage" now is translated as if they take only 20% damage and transfere 80%. Correct translation: "Все дружественные существа в радиусе 25м получают только 80% урона"

2 cards with identical names: "Бандиты-копейщики".
I suggest: "Bandit spearmen" - "Бандиты-пикинеры" или "Бандиты-копьеносцы", "Bandit lancer" - "Бандит-копейщик"
2 cards with identical names: "Бандиты".
I suggest: "Banditos" - "Бандиты", "Thugs" - "Разбойники".

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• Soon™

Last Community Update we revealed our upcoming new achievements and ever since we get daily questions when those (and the patch in general) will hit the live server. We are currently hard at work finalizing the upcoming patch, but aren't able to reveal a concrete release date just yet.
We expect to share more information with you regarding its release in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that. 
In the meantime, we are excited to reveal a new card today! 

• New Card Reveal: Burning Spears

Burning Spears is a new tier 2 fire unit, requiring two fire orbs. Upgrading the card reduces its power cost and increases its stats. The values noted here are for U3. It will be an Uncommon and won't have an affinity. 

Burning Spears is an S-sized squad unit that contains a weapon-switch similar to Ghost Spears. They will also have the Steadfast passive ability, meaning they can't be knocked back. 
 
Weapon Change
Type: mode-switch
Makes unit more effective against large units instead of extra-large ones. Lasts until deactivated.
 
Weapon Change
Type: mode-switch
Makes unit more effective against extra-large units instead of large ones. Lasts until deactivated.
 
Burning Lance / Scorching Injury (passive ability)
Enemies hit by Burning Spear's attacks will be set on fire and take additional damage that steadily increases the longer they burn. The burn deals 2 damage per second and stacks up to 25 times. Attacked units may only walk at walk speed for 15 seconds.
 
Design Goals
Burning Spears are designed as a new tool to increase deck building options in pure Fire. The faction currently has a limited pool of pure cards in PvP, leading to a very M-unit centric deck design with a limited amount of deck building options and balancing levers to change specific matchup behaviors.
The addition of Burning Spears will add a versatile small sized unit into the faction, that is supposed to help with some of the factions counter issues against L and XL units in T2, while demanding a deck slot investment in return. The passive ability enables very high backloaded damage potential to punish players that try to ignore them, whereas the slow and steadfast ability allow Burning Spears to stick to their priority targets while enabling further spell synergies with cards like Wildfire.
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, numbers and effects might still change before release.
 
• Artwork Spotlight

Now that our art team has grown, we tried a different approach for our creation process. The card was already play tested, so we knew its effects and that it would use the Ghost Spears model, but there were no other hard restrictions for the art. 
Our artist Spirit Alpha worked together with Tweeto to explore some ideas, which resulted in multiple concept arts. They settled on a barbaric look. 


The next step was to visualize the design in-game, and make sure what we had in mind would actually be possible to implement, preventing a mismatch between art and model.

Once the theme, colors and general appearance were fleshed out, it was time to start working on the artwork. Different compositions were explored again.



 
Spirit Alpha then handed in this artwork. While we were generally happy with how this design turned out, there were still some things to be done. While the Deep One claw was a nice touch, we found it did make the artwork more cluttered and distracted the viewer's eye. With the help of Tweeto, adjustments were also made to the background, contrast and skin, left arm anatomy, right arm shape and the spear. 
 

After a couple of extra iterations (and lots of discussion about flames with our art critique), we finally settled on the current design. A big thanks to our artists Spirit Alpha and Tweeto for drawing the artwork, to Friendly Firefly for working on the ability icons and to our art critiques for their support and comments. 
As you can see, a ton of work went into this, and we haven't even showed you half of the iterations. 
We are very happy with how it turned out, and hope you like it as well!
 
• Upcoming PvP changes

While PvP has a very passionate community, the game mode currently has certain flaws that prevent players from getting into it. We hope to tackle these in our upcoming patch. Here are some of the changes we will implement:

Queue will drain the BFP reserve
PvP often enters a "Spiral of Death" when too few players are online. It takes too long to find a match, so players stop queuing, which results in it taking longer to find a match... We want to give players an incentive to wait in the ranked lobby for more than a few minutes, resulting in the lobby no longer being empty and the next person who wants to play finding an opponent quickly. If you queue for at least 5 minutes, even if you don't find an opponent, you will earn BFP as if you were ingame, meaning you get BFP not just for playing, but also while searching for matches. 

Hide Player Names
We have seen that some players tend to dodge certain high ranked players while playing ranked, not queuing up when they see higher skilled opponents in the lobby. To prevent this behavior, we will hide player names in the ranked lobby. To not impact casual play, we have separated the sparring and ranked lobbies, allowing you to still invite players into your lobby and make things like tournaments and Toggy's Fightclub still possible.

Hide Losses
Another reason that prevents players from queuing up is the fear of messing up their win/loss ratio, or even feeling shame to have their losses publicly shown on the ladder. It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We hope this change encourages players to focus on what matters (playing the game and improving yourself) instead of stats that might not even represent your current skill level.

New Player Protection
To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started, we will prevent players with <102.000 base ELO from getting matched with players at >135.000 base ELO. 

Changes to Free PvP Decks
With upcoming balance adjustments and new cards, we will update our free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. Additionally, we have made changing these decks more flexible; resulting in no longer having to reset all the free PvP decks when we make these changes.
If we update one of the free PvP decks you have currently selected, you will now have the option to either swap to the new cards, or keep your current set up. We are currently planning to make the following changes:

Pure Nature:
+ Parasite
- Shrine of Memory

Fire/Nature
+ Twilight Minions (G)
- Ghost Spears

Pure Shadow
+ Executor
- Nightguard

Rebalanced 2vs2 Maps
While we mostly balance the game around 1vs1, we know players really enjoy 2vs2 as well. We are very happy with how our rebalanced 1vs1 maps turned out, and we want to give 2vs2 the same treatment. 

Changes include removal (or adjustments) of walls, wells, slight changes to the layout, and making certain area's immovable for flying units. This should result in a better play experience and more balanced maps. 

These maps will also have observer versions, meaning it will now be possible to host 2vs2 tournaments again! We also updated the minimaps to be accurate. 


PvP Happy Hours
A feature long in the works and finally nearing release is Happy Hours. Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. 
We have noticed PvP is currently quite scattered, with a lot of players wanting to play, but going offline again when they can't find opponents. While rewarding to queue is one incentive to have players stay online longer when the lobbies are empty, we also want to help players find opponents in general. We hope that by clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 
Happy Hours will take place during the following times:
- 1vs1 happy hours: 7pm-9pm CET
- 2vs2 happy hours: 9pm-10pm CET
- 1vs1 happy hours: 4am-5am CET

These times were decided upon by going over our available data and keeping different time zones in mind where possible. During Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

We hope to release all these features with our next patch, though Happy Hours is currently still in active development. We hope to finish it in time to be included as well. 

• Team Changes

We have a new teammember in Nukie, who has joined the team recently as a Global Moderator. Welcome, and thanks for your help!

• Open Positions Rework

We have made some changes to our open positions and spotlighted them in their own forum section. It is now easier than ever to see the current open positions, and we also added some extra information to each role, better showcasing what you will be doing. 

Skylords Reborn is always looking for motivated volunteers to help out the project. You can currently help out in multiple areas, ranging from artwork to development, map design and much more. 

Want to help out but don't want to join the staff? No problem! We also have positions like proofreader and map tester where you can more easily drop in and out, helping out when you have time. Lastly, we also have open-source projects and our Skylords Bounty (see below). Please take a look!

 
• Active Bounty

While we already have some nice contenders, our current Bounty to create a Spring Forge is still open. A Skylords Bounty is an open-source task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn. If your entry gets chosen, you can win a great prize, and we will reward everyone who applies with a serious attempt with a participation reward as well. View more information on Active bounties.

• OPEN - Spring Forge Bounty
Spring Forge Bounty is an opportunity for the community to have full engagement with the next upcoming Forge. This allows everyone to submit a possible design for how they would like the Forge to look! The winning design will be rewarded with a Promo Razorleaf!
A tutorial video has been provided to assist and help the community take its first steps for doing so!

• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Toggys Tome Tournament #4 17.05.22 
A midweek tournament held on Tuesday May 17th, at 18:30 CEST (Berlin time). The format will be Tome, meaning you will build your decks for this tournament out of a booster pool Toggy provide to you. Tome tournaments always result in crazy decks and cards you dont see very often, so be sure to join the action or watch the tournament on Twitch. The tournament will be played on the Testserver. More information and sign-up. 


• STREAM - Official 2p rPvE Contest#3 Last Resort - 25.05.2022 16:30 CEST
In this event, players were only allowed to use units, not spells or buildings. We will host a stream revealing the winners of this contest on Wednesday 25rd of May, 16:30 on our official twitch channel. 

• FINISHED - CCC #4
Kapo hosted another successful Crappy Community Contest© on the map Mo. Players were encouraged to play as few cards as possible to complete the map. As one of the first events to not focus on speed, this resulted in some interesting strategies. As with all CCC, the more players attend, the better the prizes are, in this case resulting in a free booster for the whole community. 
 
• FINISHED - Skylords Open 14
The Skylords Open returned with a blast! We saw some of the best players battle it out, with some match results that would surprise you. You can rewatch the matches here. 

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: FIRE-CARD-HYPE-TIME
The code is valid until June 4th, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #22

Good question, though sadly not a positive answer.
While a lot of work already went into its development, we currently dont have a map artist so DRPvE is currently bottlenecked and on hold. 

We hope someone will be able to help us out and get it back on track. 

Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings.
Welcome to the third official rPvE event!
We hope you will have a lot of fun with this event!

THE CONTEST HAS ENDED

If you want to see the winners click here, the replays wil be cast on our twitch channel.



Everything you need to know:
 
Event            - rPvE 2player, Map of the Month Difficulty      - Choose your own! Date             - 16.04.2022 - 30.04.2022 Rules            - Only units allowed! (No Spells, Arcanes, Enchantments or Buildings) Prizes           - Boosters for top 50% players Stream         - 25.05.2022 16:30 CEST at Twitch Replays        - Through DM to me on Discord (Minashigo Hiko#1126) or through PM on the forum (@Minashigo Hiko).
Sign-up
Send in your fastest replay, including the player names,your reached time And your difficulty 
For example: "Hiko_Majora_Time_00h20m30s_Diff6"

You can send in your replays until the 30.04.2022. 
You can find your replays here: Documents=>Battleforge=>replays

Please note: 
You are allowed to send in different replays, but only the fastest one with the highest difficulty will count. Difficulty>time
Meaning that if you compete with multiple teams, the team that has the best time will also be your personal best time. 
Prize pool
The following prize pool will be adjusted according to the amount of participants.
The prices are per person. If you compete with multiple teams, only your highest place will be rewarded :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1st place                        10 general Booster packs
2nd place                       9 general Booster packs
3rd place                        8 general Booster packs
4th-8th place                 5 general Booster packs
9th-50% place               1 general Booster pack

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rules
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The team with the fastest time wins. Use only cards that are units. Only Map of the month Any difficulty, starting with 2 and up to 6 is allowed, the higher the better. The entry has to be a victory Have fun! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


We are looking forward to seeing all your replays!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.


Best regards,
Skylords Reborn Team
 

[ Skylords Bounty: Seasonal Forge ]


A Skylords Bounty is an open-source task for the community to create something needed in one of the departments of Skylords Reborn.
If your entry gets chosen, you can win a great prize, and we will reward everyone who applies with a serious attempt with a participation reward as well. 
A bounty is not a classic contest, and will run until the task is complete. We will give a heads up when the entries are about to be closed (at least two weeks in advance).
 
• The Task: Seasonal Forge


For our first Skylords Bounty, we have selected the task to help us create the next Seasonal Forge.
During our December update, we gave the Forge a snowy look. Now we want to move to spring; so bring out your grass, flowers and good vibes and help us create a Spring Forge! 
This is your chance to get your work into the game!
 
• How to build your Forge


We know how hard it can be to begin such a big task, so we asked @Emmaerzeh to prepare a Tutorial video to help you get started!
You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3InQfBSWhJ8
We will also provide you with the legacy version of the forge, which you should use as the starting point of your theme. You can download it here:
19000_sandbox01.map

You can open the file with the map editor, which is already included in your game. It can be accessed via the file pluginbasededitor.exe in your BattleForge directory.
 
• How to Apply


• Download the Legacy forge file.
• Watch the Tutorial.
• Follow the restrictions below.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind while building your own spring Forge:

Restrictions:
1. Use the provided version of the legacy forge as your starting point
2. Don't change the general layout, including power wells, walls and the map structure itself, like the position of the 3 spawns. 
3. Don't add any obstacles, like buildings or additional walls. 

Of course you are encouraged to add assets like scenery, flowers, etc. as long as they don't block units.
We recommend using the grass assets, since the summer Force will probably be using the desert/wasteland assets. 

Satisfied? Send your file on Discord (Minashigo Hiko#1126) or PM through the forum (@Minashigo Hiko)
Include your player name in the .map file, for example: "Hiko_SpringForge.map".  You can send in multiple attempts. 
 
• Bounty Reward


Every serious attempt will get rewarded with a participation award (limited to one per player):
1 Nature Booster

The attempt that will be used in the game, gets the big prize (Bounty):
1 Razorleaf PROMO
Please note: 
You are allowed to send in different attempts, but you can only earn the participation award once. The best submission (from all players) will earn the bounty. 
We reserve the right to do modifications to the winning submission, if needed.

We hope the Skylords Bounty will motivate you to explore the necessary tools and skills for the different bounties and may lower the barrier to help out Skylords Reborn!

New card! Hear my word - This is how affinities were supposed to be designed. From this point onward, we can state clearly that you guys, the whole team, have outperformed original creators now in everything.

New card! Hear my word - This is how affinities were supposed to be designed. From this point onward, we can state clearly that you guys, the whole team, have outperformed original creators now in everything.

New card! Hear my word - This is how affinities were supposed to be designed. From this point onward, we can state clearly that you guys, the whole team, have outperformed original creators now in everything.

New card! Hear my word - This is how affinities were supposed to be designed. From this point onward, we can state clearly that you guys, the whole team, have outperformed original creators now in everything.

New card! Hear my word - This is how affinities were supposed to be designed. From this point onward, we can state clearly that you guys, the whole team, have outperformed original creators now in everything.

New card! Hear my word - This is how affinities were supposed to be designed. From this point onward, we can state clearly that you guys, the whole team, have outperformed original creators now in everything.

New card! Hear my word - This is how affinities were supposed to be designed. From this point onward, we can state clearly that you guys, the whole team, have outperformed original creators now in everything.

Greetings Skylords!
Every three weeks, we give an update on the things going on behind the scenes of Skylords Reborn. Welcome to another Community Update!

• New Card Reveal: Transcendence

We are hard at work on our new content patch, which will come with balance changes for both PvE and PvP, bugfixes, QoL features and new cards! Stay tuned for more information on the features and release date.   
We are excited to reveal one of the upcoming new cards today; the first Amii spell Transcendence!

Transcendence is a tier 4 spell for Nature/Shadow. Upgrading the card reduces its cooldown and increases its duration, the values noted here are for U3. It will be a rare and won't have an affinity. 

This new Amii spell has a different effect, depending on if you cast it on an enemy or own unit:
Kenosis
Target own unit takes 100% more damage and deals 75% less damage. Friendly units within a 25m radius around it deal 50% more damage and benefit 50% more from any regenerating ability. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
Tyranny
Target enemy unit deals 100% more damage and takes 75% less damage. Enemy units within a 25m radius around it deal 25% less damage and benefit 50% less from any regenerating ability. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 30 seconds.
 
The effect of Transcendence expires if the target of the spell dies. This results in a spell that provides a powerful buff or debuff as long as you keep its target alive, rewarding careful management of the fight. 
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it and feel comfortable revealing it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 
 
• Artwork

Once again the artwork has been created by our artist Tweeto. It went through multiple iterations and we are very happy with the result! 

The artwork is actually based on the Altar of Chaos wallpaper from Nano.
Here you can see an early concept:

 
• We Need Your Help

We hate to sound like a broken record, but there are currently multiple positions open that greatly delay or prevent further development of Skylords Reborn. Please take a look at our open positions to see where you can help. Below are three positions highlighted. 
 
• Open Position - Audio Editor
We would love to continue adding voice lines for more cards and narration for new maps. As an Audio Editor, you will be responsible for selecting and extracting the best takes, doing post-production and making sure the overall quality is high enough to be implemented into the game. If you have more skills, you will also be able to design new sounds for the game as Audio Producer. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Community Manager
As a community manager, you are responsible with aiding the communication to and from the community. You will work closely with the Project Coordinator (previously Community Manager) to communicate staff and project decisions to the community through, for example, The Community Updates and self-written announcements. Furthermore, you will act as a contact person for the community to share project feedback and suggestions, and are expected to keep the staff informed and be up-to-date with the state of the community. Read more and apply.
 
• Open Position - Game Client Developer
As a game client developer, you are responsible to maintain and develop the game client. This mostly includes add new pre-game features (content outside of matches, so no game mechanics) through .pak files used by the game. You will be responsible to create and design in-game interfaces for new features, add networking support for new features that require it, solve bugs etc. using LUA, XML and little bit of Rust. BattleForge uses LUA and XML in their .pak files, which are loaded by the client. Communication with the server happens through a proxy written in Rust. Read more and apply.
 
• New Legends (Lore)

We hope most of you are aware of the Chronicle book, that can be selected on the top menu. The tabs [World], [Plot] and [Legends] contain interesting story points and lore that explore the world of Nyn. Every campaign map has an epilogue, and quite a few important story points happen outside the actual game.

While you are browsing through the Chronicle book, be sure to take a look at the Skylords Reborn feature [Cosmetics], that was added to the game during our anniversary patch! We noticed a lot of people overlooked this feature when it was released. 

 
With the help of the community on our Lore Discord, we are expanding on the lore by adding new Legends pages for various units. Below is an example of the upcoming Legends page for Snapjaws, written by Metauriel. You can expect more of these lore entries for other units to be added into the game with our next content patch. We hope you look forward to them!

"Like the entirety of these catacombs, the grand chamber reeked of death. On the far side stood a tall, obsidian statue that radiated an aura of fear and awe. Wings sprouted from its back, no less than six horns from its head, and it was wreathed in clouds of smoke that almost concealed the bones littering the floor around it. Stepping into the room, I crouched to investigate the bones. They were diluted by some dark substance. It wasn’t blood, for when I touched it, I could feel it sap my strength. That was when I heard them. No voices, but a cackling and murmuring of a hundred jaws, shifting all around me. I raised my lantern, and that was when I saw them. Hundreds of eyes glinting in the flickering light. Thousands of teeth, dribbling darkness. A swarm of floating creatures, trailing smoke, gasping for their meal."
- Journals of a Witchhunter, pt. 6
 


• Tournaments / Events

• NEW - Official 1 Player  rPvE Contest#3 The Minimalistic Firewatch - Difficulty 7 - Until 17th March 2022
An exciting new event for all kind of players! In this event you have to beat the map of the month on difficulty 7 but with an interesting twist: use as few cards as possible! There are multiple leagues so you can choose your difficulty level, ranging from 15 cards to only 3. More information and sign-up.
 
• FINISHED - CCC #3 - You think this game looks good? 
CCC#3 offered a competition of a totally different kind. This time Kapo moved away from speedrunning, away from maps, even away from playing. For this contest you had to share the best screenshot you could create. As with all CCC, the number of participants unlocked a reward for the whole community, so be sure to grab your mini-booster scratch code if you haven't already! The winners will be revealed soon.

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 

• Team Changes

Cocofang and Xanatoss have joined the team as balance developers. They will help us with implementing PvE and PvP changes, as well as adding new cards into the game. We are very glad to have them, since this is an area of game development that greatly benefits from more help. If you are interested in joining them and help speed up our progress, please click here.
 
• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: AMII-CARD-HYPE-TIME
The code is valid until April 2nd, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 
 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #19

Welcome Skylords and Cute Beings.
 
Kingdom of Lyr receives a lot of attention recently, some even could say too much attention. It’s residents would enjoy peace, that is for sure. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
After Blight’s death, remaining Ravenships scattered across the globe, gaining influence among other Bandit clans. Some of them found Lyr vulnerable and decided to attack, before Kingdom grows in strength. Aeglos Fortress is already partly-captured, we must hurry.
 
Trailer
 
New Community Map!
Aeglos Fortress is a new single-player Community Map.

As you can see on the minimap, the map has linear progress and takes place in a mountainous terrain.
As a player you start in bottom left corner and progress though the map until you reach enemy fortress on north west. On the right there is allied Frost Fortress which must be defended throughout the game. It is attacked by steadily stronger opponents.

The map should be now available in community maps tab:

The map is named differently in German and French versions of the game. Look out for “Festung Aeglos” and “Forteresse d’Aeglos” respectively. 
The map exhibits following features:
Fresh campaign experience Audio narrative in all 4 official languanges Objectives in all 4 official languanges Frost themed fortress in northern part of the map Side objectives which enhance experience, but are not necessary to complete the map One easter-egg Event on the map
If you complete the map on Advanced difficulty before 21st February 2022, you may participate in the event. See more details there:
 
A few insights about the map:
The map was supposed to be "Siege of Hope but cooler,", but turned out as "buggy rPvE with benefits". The map was in development for 55 days. There were made over 260 edits/versions of the map. The map uses 2406 lines of code.  
Thanks
To: All administrators, founders, developers and staff members who kept the project alive until now.
To: Mynoduesp, RookieN, Emmaerzeh, LEBOVIN, Kubik, AstralShadow and Menchrese for help with map making and scripting.
To: Sykole, Metagross31, Kapo, Chimaka, Volin for help in map’s concept development.
To: All the beta testers: Dutchy, Emmaerzeh, Kapo, Sykole, Metagross31, Chimaka, Bini Inhibitor, Cobalt, CrazyCatGirl, Kettle, Mynoduesp.
To: All those who played and will play the map.
Your time was valuable to me. I really appreciate.
 
Kind regards,
Dallarian

no special prize for the fastest pure frost timing? 😛

There is a longstanding bug in the calculation of AOE (area of effect) damage, affecting spells, unit abilities and unit attacks which have a max damage per target and max overall damage. Examples of affected spells are Eruption or Fire Sphere, abilities like Rifle Cultists' Dark Grenade or AOE attacks of units like Construct, Frost Mage or Deepcoil Worm.
TL;DR at the bottom!
 
How the bug works:
If an AOE damage effect kills a unit, only 50% of the overkill damage is transferred back to the pool of available damage which is to be distributed to other targets.
Let's take Fire Sphere (u3) as an example. The spell has a maximum single target damage of 6000 and a maximum total damage of 8000. As it stands, the spell will only ever do its full damage if its primary target (closest to the area of effect center) has at least 6000, and its second target has at least 2000 health.
If you use Fire Sphere on a group of weaker enemies, it's effectiveness will vastly diminish. Let's take for example a group of 8 Sunderers (u3), which have exactly 1000 HP each, for a total of 8000 HP. Fire Sphere will kill 3 of them, and damage a fourth Sunderer for 375 damage, leaving him with 625 HP. Total damage dealt: 3375. It would get even worse for lower health targets.

Why does it happen? Because of faulty calculation in the damage formula, which returns only 50% of overkill damage to the pool of remaining damage.
So what's the maths behind it?
Before: max single target damage = 6000, damage in pool = 8000
Target 1: health = 1000, damage dealt = 6000, overkill damage = 5000, damage returned to pool = 2500, remaining damage in pool = 4500
Target 2: health = 1000, damage dealt = 4500, overkill damage = 3500, damage returned to pool = 1750, remaining damage in pool = 1750
Target 3: health = 1000, damage dealt = 1750, overkill damage = 750, damage returned to pool = 375, remaining damage in pool = 375
Target 4: health = 1000, damage dealt = 375, health remaining = 625
 
Is it a bug, or is it a feature?
That's a non-trivial question. But so far, there is every indication that this is in fact a bug.
1. There is no indication whatsoever in the spell descriptions, especially the big AOE spells like Fire Sphere, that they massively lose effectiveness against groups of enemies, or that they deal only half damage to further targets.
2. Against a heterogenous group of enemies, the total damage dealt varies greatly, depending on which target was closest to the spell center, thus in which orders the targets are affected.
3. Logic dictates, that there is no reason for an explosion to lose effectiveness (as in: deal less overall damage) the more viable targets are affected.
4. Increasing "maximum single target damage" reduces the overall damage dealt by the spells, if they are used against groups of enemies, to a point where Lava Field sometimes deals more overall damage than Fire Sphere. How does that make sense?
 
What's the proposed bugfix/change?
To enable full overkill damage overflow. As in, if the single target damage is 6000, and the target has only 1000 health, let 5000 damage return to the remaining damage pool.
 
Using the example above again, that's 8 dead Sunderers for a total of 8000 damage and a happy, fulfilled Fire Sphere.

 
Can it be implemented easily?
We've been hard at work and testing with Kubik (who's effort and insight are massively appreciated!), and the relevant code already exists, ready to be implemented. It also is easily adjustable, should it turn out that another value, like a 75%, or 80% damage carryover on overkillis the sweet spot.
 
What will change if the bugfix is implemented?
Every AOE spell, ability and attack, which has a listed damage per target and maximum damage will be affected by this change. However, the degree to which it will have an impact, varies greatly from one case to another. For most cards, especially with low damage numbers, the increase will be negligible (not JUST because these are low numbers, but primarily because those spells/attacks have a low chance to kill a target with any given shot).
Generally, the bugfix is a direct buff to many cards and abilities. However, damage is only actually increased if 1. at least one of the targets is killed, 2. there are more viable targets in range than (total_damage / max_singletarget_damage) rounded up. Also, to be clear, damage is NEVER going to be increased for the primary target
Spells which are affected the most, are spells which have high enough numbers, that they are expected to reliably kill some, or most of their targets. The greater the single target maximum damage of the AOE damage source, and the greater single target maximum damage in relation to total maximum damage, the more any given spell/attack/ability is affected. Also, spells/attacks/abilities which have a larger AOE and the above characteristics, tend to be affected more (because more targets fit into the AOE).
 
My predictions concerning the impact on specific cards:
High impact: Fire Sphere, Rifle Cultists* (ability: Dark Grenade), Boom Brothers* (ability: Boom), Necro Fury* (ability: Bone Shards), Altar of Chaos (against really large groups), Worldbreaker Gun (attack and ability: Heavy Snowball, though the latter only against really large groups), Shatter Ice, Comet Catcher (against really large groups).
* - Unholy Hero increases the impact
Moderate impact: Construct (attack), Giant Wyrm (attack), Ironclad (attack), Wasteland Terror (attack), Abomination (ability: Blessed/Tainted Fury), Skycatcher (attack), Gemeye (attack), Volcano (attack), Artillery (attack), Hatecaster (attack), Deepgorge (attack), Thornbark (rooted attack), Treefiend (rooted attack), Lost Horror (attack), Soulshatter (>3 targets), Backlash (depending on void power, may be low impact), Corpse Explosion (>3 targets), Morklay Trap, Shadow Phoenix (>4 targets), Lost dancer (ability: Necro explosion, only with lots of targets in range), Nasty Surprise (>3 targets), Necroblaster (attack, and shadow affinity ability: Tainted Voodoo).
Low impact: Magma Hurler (attack), Sun Reaver (ability: Metal Spikes), Deepcoil Worm (attack), Twilight Bombard (attack), Lost Disruptor (attack, moderate impact against grouped very low health fliers), Shadow Mage, Eruption (>3 targets).
 
My predictions concerning the impact on PVP balance:
(I am not an active PVP player currently. I did play a decent amount in times of Battleforge, but I am in no way up to date, so take these predictions with a grain of salt).
Shadow will slightly gain in power, as the explosions have actually high enough damage numbers to reliably kill at least some of their targets, but except for Shadow Mage, it only ever becomes relevant when there are >3 targets in range of the spell/ability. The slight buff to Eruption shouldn't have an impact. Otherwise I expect nothing much to change. The vast majority of significantly affected cards are T4.
 
My predictions concerning the impact on PVE:
Enemies: Long range AOE attackers, like Bandit walkers and high tier defensive towers (e.g. artillery) will be more proficient at murdering grouped units.
Players: Stronger tools of destruction at player disposal. It should only really affect T4, and shadow at lower tiers (Shadow Phoenix in particular should be noticeably more effective against large groups, Necroblaster will get stronger, Corpse explosion and Soulshatter will also be noticeably more effective).
 
Final thoughts:
I was for a long time under the impression, that large AOE damage sources are somehow underperforming, without really understanding why. Fire Sphere! Enormous explosion! Which... kills 3-4 units out of a cluster of 15 units. Now that I found out why those spells underperform, I've taken the effort to try and fix it. That's the result. I consider it a bugfix, even though it is also a moderately impactful balance change. That's how Skylords Reborn, and earlier Battleforge, handled AOE damage. A bug that had largely become a feature. I propose we change it in a logical way. Maximum 8000 damage in the area? If the targets in range have as much overall health, the damage will be dealt in full.
 
Special thanks:
Kubik, for his unending patience and making the unreadable mess of code actually parsable for the human mind.
 
TL;DR:
High tier AOE spells and abilities promise big numbers. Against lots of small targets, numbers are much smaller, because overkill damage is halved (multiple times). The proposed change fixes stuff, so that big spells deal the promised damage. Fire Sphere -> big boom -> big damage -> lots of dead bandits. Vote big damage. Vote dead bandits!

Should i donate a Harvester... I can.