Venomlord

Awesome job on the Gaeron artwok. He looks like he was always there, he really looks so cool, cant wait to see him ingame. Maybe even new neutral card in the very far future? 😁
Crazy what you can put off! 
 

Thanks for your work, im gratefull that you keep updating this unique game, it makes me really happy.

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!

 
• Halloween Patch

Happy Halloween Skylords! Last weekend, we released a surprise Halloween patch. This patch contains various bugfixes and quality of life changes. Additionally, we have implemented some balance changes, including the previously announced Stronghold changes. 
We have also added the Fire-themed Forge. Keep yourself warm this month with this special themed Forge (active as a featured Forge till the end of November), or complete the achievement ''Never Thought of Him'' to permanently unlock the Forge in addition to 100.000 gold. This reward is retroactive, meaning those who already completed the achievement in the past automatically have the Fire-forge. 
Skylords might remember our Spooky Encounters Halloween Event from last year. We have now implemented a returning achievement, where you can earn a Lost Souls booster and a special Pumpkin-avatar for beating the map during the Halloween season. 
For those looking for a more classic event, we also have a Halloween event that went live earlier today. 
We hope you enjoy this special Halloween patch. You can find the full patch notes here. 
 
• New Card Reveal - Soulstone

This patch also contained the surprise reveal and release of Soulstone!
Today we would like to dive a bit deeper into its design, and how the release is both sudden and overdue.  
 

 
Soulstone is the very first building card we have introduced in the Rebirth Edition (if you don't count our Promo Worldbreaker Gun). It is a Frost card requiring only a single Frost orb, but with a unique twist: Skylords are able to upgrade the card to tier 2 once they have a second orb available. This allows the card to transition throughout the game, powering up alongside the other tools at your disposal. 
Upgrading the card reduces the cost for its memorial ability, and increase its lifepoints. Soulstone is a rare card and can drop from boosters or be reforged into. We also have a special Halloween event where you have a chance to earn it, more about that later in this Community Update.
 
 
 

Let's break down the card: 

Frozen Ward
Activate to trigger a global shielding spell that enchants every friendly structure to grant friendly units within a 20m radius an Ice Shield that absorbs up to 120 damage for 10 seconds. Units that already have an Ice Shield are unaffected. Each unit can only be affected once every 10 seconds. Lasts for 30 seconds. Also affects structures that are still under construction. Has a 60 seconds cool-down after the building was built. Reusable every 60 seconds.  
 
Memorial (mode change)
Activate to regenerate the full power of the Soulstone. After 2 seconds, the building gains Soul Armor and loses Frozen Ward. Requires 2 orbs to activate. Has a 60 seconds cool-down after the building was build. 
 

Soul Armor
Activate to trigger a global shielding spell that enchants every friendly structure to grant friendly units within a 20m radius an Ice Shield that absorbs up to 180 damage for 10 seconds. Units that already have an Ice Shield are unaffected. Each unit can only be affected once every 10 seconds. Lasts for 30 seconds. Also affects structures that are still under construction. Reusable every 60 seconds.
 
Soulstone has been in the making for quite a while now, and we would like to share some behind the scenes' information about its road to release. To do so, Lead Designer Windhunter will take you all the way back to 2021.
 
• Soulstone Design Notes

The release of Soulstone is a testament to how far the Skylords Reborn team has come in its development capacities. The original design concept for Soulstone dates back to June 2021, where it was one of the first cards ever designed by the faction design department. Soulstone's initial design pattern was very closely on the Soulstone players encounter in Defense of Hope, similar to how Banzai Lord is patterned closely on its eponymous mini-boss in Mo. The idea was that the player Soulstone would achieve its full its strength upon reaching T2 just as the Soulstone in Defense of Hope regenerates its strength partway through the mission, summoning Skyelfs to defend itself. We did not think that Frost needed a Skyelf spawner, but we did believe that Frost needed early game sustain and that providing shields would fit well with Soulstone's existing identity. In terms of initial vision and final design, the Soulstone we released a few days ago and the Soulstone we originally designed 28 months ago are highly similar. So why did it take so long?
The challenge of creating a card like Soulstone that could transform into a stronger version of itself upon reaching a higher tier was riddled with technical hurdles. Despite how much we have achieved, it is important to remember that we do not have the source code for BattleForge. Much of what we do is a slow process of reverse engineering and subsequent tool development to allow ourselves to make use of that reverse engineering. Many of our new cards and major redesigns to existing cards have required at least one new mechanic to be successfully reverse engineered before they could proceed. It is a frequent occurrence for our team's faction designers to put forward an idea, have it be accepted as worthwhile to pursue, only for development to hit a wall while we wait for our developers to play Marco Polo with the game engine until they can isolate the correct variable that then allows our card implementers to make the card a reality.
For Soulstone, the primary challenge was the description length. Embedding the functionalities of two cards would result in an exceedingly lengthy description, unprecedented in the game. When we run into major issues like this, we ask ourselves, can we design around it? The best idea we had was to make the Memorial ability self-destruct the existing Soulstone and summon a new, better Soulstone in its place. Altar of Chaos and Portal Nexus both summon new buildings, so this was clearly possible. A little janky, but a promising workaround nonetheless, except that both Altar of Chaos and Portal Nexus' summon abilities are hardcoded, meaning that if we add the ability to a different building, it will always and only summon the building from the original ability. Additionally, even the ability icons were hardcoded, so even if we got it to work, Soulstone would have had an Altar of Chaos icon on it. For regular followers of our Community Updates, you may have pieced together that this same issue would seem to be true for our upcoming card Bedrock, which summons its own Stone Launcher, and if so, you would now have a better understanding of one reason for why said card is not yet released. Anyway, the workaround also proved impossible, so we decided to adjust the design so both the T1 and T2 version could reasonably fit into a single card.
While lacking its originally intended evolution mechanic, Soulstone would have still made a good addition to the game. We implemented the global shields and found that it worked fine. Then we started designing a slightly frostier texture for the building, the original is quite gray, only to find that when we tried to construct the Soulstone in-game that the building got stuck under the ground. It was there, but completely buried. With no knowledge of how to fix this issue, we had to abandon the possibility of using the Soulstone building itself. What we knew we could do was retexture existing buildings with functioning build animations, so we decided to change the name and use a different building instead. Our most promising attempt was trying to retexture Fountain of Rebirth, turning its roots into icicles in the process.
After a half dozen aborted tries leading to more and more frustration from the art team, and in light of the ongoing implementation struggles, we made the decision to shelve the development of Soulstone for the time being. This, while the right decision, became very awkward for us as a team because we justified several changes to Frost T1 cards with the reasoning that a new "Frost T1 sustain option" would be releasing next patch. Obviously, this was no longer true, so we scrambled to make changes to Northern Keep as compensation. Instances like this one are one reason we are careful not to announce things until we are sure they are possible.
For nearly two years, Soulstone sat untouched and largely forgotten until early this summer one of the team members pointed out that the original Soulstone design was now fully possible. We did a few preliminary tests and discovered that the team member was correct. In the course of two years, we had advanced our understanding of the game to the point that what was previously impossible was now relatively simple. Once the various card and ability artworks were finished, the building retextured, and the 3D FX crafted, the card implementation took a little under a week. At long last, on Oct. 28th 2023, Soulstone made its way into the Forge.
 
• Events

If you want to get your hands on the brand-new Soulstone card, be sure to participate in our official Halloween event! We will distribute the card among 50% of the participants, and there are also Lost Souls boosters to be won! 
 
• NEW - Official 1p rPvE Contest - Resurrection of the Lost Soul
The Bandits have disturbed our rest for too long! It is time for the Souls to hunt the Soulhunters, show the Power of Lost Souls in this rPvE 1p Contest. The more participate, the more Soulstones we will Raffle! More information.
 
 • FIRST PHASE - PvP AI programming contest
We are gathering players for a new type of event. Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! More information.
 
• FINISHED - PvP Rookie Tournament
Last weekend, Triggz hosted a special Rookie 1vs1 Tournament. 22 inexperienced players entered the ring and battled it out. The tournament was streamed live, and can be rewatched on the YouTube-channel of Eirias. More information. 
 
In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our other Event Organizers, @Metagross31or @Minashigo Hiko. 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.
 
• Community Spotlight - Masters of the Forge

In this podcast-like series, Kapo interviews various staff members to discuss the project and personal stories about their interaction with BattleForge and Skylords Reborn. There are currently 5 episodes to watch:
• Episode 1: Dutchy, Lead Moderator - Watch now.
• Episode 2: Majora, Project Coordinator - Watch now.
• Episode 3: Volin, Testing Coordinator -  Watch now.

• New: Episode 4: RadicalX, Faction Designer
In this episode, Kapo and RadicalX talk about Radicals fame as one of the best players in speedrunning and PvP, but also about design (decisions) and loads of topics submitted by user questions. Watch now.

• New: Episode 5: Ult, Server Developer
In this episode, Kapo and Ult talk about the server side of the game, especially about systems like the achievements or cosmetics, as well as future projects like map modifiers. Watch now.
Episode 6 will be hosted live on the 4th of November and feature Ultralord, Video Editor. Tune in live on Twitch, or watch back on YouTube the day after.  
 
• Team changes

During the past month, WaterMelonLord, Nukie and Dallarian have moved on from the team for various reasons. All three of them helped us out with moderation. Additionally, Nukie managed the Event Department, where Dallarian helped the Map Department set the first step into new campaign maps. We appreciate their contributions and wish them well in their future endeavors!
Meanwhile, Noah.K has joined the team as our second Audio Editor. He is helping us out with adding new voicelines into the game by providing editing and advice regarding the recorded takes we have received from our voice-actors. In the moderator department, Linkz has been promoted to Global Moderator. 
 
• Contribute

Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fuelled by the passion and dedication of over 45 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!


We are especially looking for an active and passionate outreach coordinator, helping us reach new Skylords by contacting streamers, influencers, media, and other potential parties. This role can make a drastic impact for Skylords Reborn, so please consider applying.
• Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator
As a Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator, you are responsible to spread the word and create awareness about Skylords Reborn, attracting veteran and new players alike. 
Your tasks will include actively researching and reaching out to potentially interested streamers, YouTubers, Discord channels, game magazines, among others. You will be responsible for the communication to and from interested parties and for any promotion deals (for example involving scratch codes). Please note that Skylords Reborn cannot do any paid promotions. 
More information. 
 
• 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 Lost Souls booster: SOUL-STON-ENOW-LIVE
The code is valid until December 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 October 2023

Cool Interview, i like the rpve topic, so it was interesting to see the behind the scene view. Cant wait to try it out myself!

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

After his death the NPC Vileblood version does deal damage and makes an visual pulsation effect. What i noticed is that he deals longer damage than suggested by the optical effect.
Bini Inibitor noted aswell, that the visual effect is fine but the damage is desynced. It seems to be that the effect starts either too early or the damage starts too late.
My suggestion would be to adjust the damage with the visual effect, so they have the same lengh and start at the same time, for an better estimation.

After his death the NPC Vileblood version does deal damage and makes an visual pulsation effect. What i noticed is that he deals longer damage than suggested by the optical effect.
Bini Inibitor noted aswell, that the visual effect is fine but the damage is desynced. It seems to be that the effect starts either too early or the damage starts too late.
My suggestion would be to adjust the damage with the visual effect, so they have the same lengh and start at the same time, for an better estimation.

After his death the NPC Vileblood version does deal damage and makes an visual pulsation effect. What i noticed is that he deals longer damage than suggested by the optical effect.
Bini Inibitor noted aswell, that the visual effect is fine but the damage is desynced. It seems to be that the effect starts either too early or the damage starts too late.
My suggestion would be to adjust the damage with the visual effect, so they have the same lengh and start at the same time, for an better estimation.

After his death the NPC Vileblood version does deal damage and makes an visual pulsation effect. What i noticed is that he deals longer damage than suggested by the optical effect.
Bini Inibitor noted aswell, that the visual effect is fine but the damage is desynced. It seems to be that the effect starts either too early or the damage starts too late.
My suggestion would be to adjust the damage with the visual effect, so they have the same lengh and start at the same time, for an better estimation.

Wow, really epic stuff is coming. I love the Artwork of Sanctuary, it looks so good and high in quality, really nice job!

Greetings Skylords!
This Community Update is a few days ahead of schedule because we have two events that we don't want you to miss! From today until 2nd of November there is a special Halloween event, and on Saturday 29th October we have a PvP tournament with a participation prize! Let's get you up to date. 

• Halloween Event

The Lost Souls have altered the timeline for a special Halloween event! Instead of Encountering Twilight, Rogan Kayle finds himself in the face of new horrors. Enjoy a spooky experience on this adjusted map to celebrate Halloween, and the upcoming release of the new card "Evil Eye" with us!    

You can find the full event details here. This is a temporary event which ends on 2nd of November. Check it out now to not miss out!

• Evil Eye release and adjustments

Evil Eye will release next week in a small dedicated patch (which will not break replays).
Players participating in the Halloween event will have the chance to be rewarded with the new Twilight card the moment it comes out! After the event is over Evil Eye will also be eligible to drop from General and Twilight boosters as an uncommon card. So save your boosters till then!
Since its original reveal, we have made some adjustments to the card based on testing feedback.
The original design had a couple of issues, including a lack of splash damage, squishiness, mobility issues and increased susceptibility against crowd control. While the damage output of the card has a very high potential peak, in practice the card turned out to be hard to use and didn't add much to the Twilight faction besides a new transformation effect. 
To make the card feel more rewarding to play, we gave it a new mechanic; a unit being attacked by Evil Eye explodes if it dies (thematically its insides are superheated and explode), dealing damage in a small area. Having on-enemy-death mechanics is already part of Twilight's identity (i.e. Twilight Warfare) and we found this could solve the splash issue in a more creative manner. 
While this addition goes against the single-target attacker role we originally had in mind, it makes the card more fun to play and gives the player the option to either focus on a strong unit (i.e. a boss) by making use of its passive Rage ability, or micro it to benefit from Searing Sight's new on-death ability. 
Lastly, we gave the card a much-needed health increase from 3300 to 3800. We are happy with how the card turned out, and hope you will enjoy playing it! 
 
 
CHANGED: Searing Sight
Casts a superheated beam that deals 200 damage to a target enemy every second. If a unit directly attacked by Evil Eye dies, its corpse explodes, spewing forth boiling liquids that deal 1000 damage in a 15m radius, up to 3000 in total. 
 
Transform
Evil Eye has the faction's ability "Transformation", allowing it to transform into other Twilight units. Because Evil Eye is already a strong tier 4 card, it has a special passive ability to make transforming it worthwhile. 
 
Conjuration
If the unit is transformed, it will restore spell card charges. The card of every Fire, Nature, and Twilight spell will be granted one more charge and will be immediately reusable. The maximum number of possible card charges for a specific card will not be exceeded.
 
ADDED: Rage
Unit does increasingly more damage the longer it attacks, up to a maximum of 300% more damage, but falls back to its original damage output if it doesn't fight for 5 seconds or changes target. 
 

• New Card Reveal: Raven Walker

While Evil Eye releases in the coming days, there are more new cards in development. We are hard at work adding a new legendary card into the game: the infamous Raven Walker.
Raven Walker is a powerful tier 4 Legendary card, meaning only one can be summoned on the battlefield at a time (like i.e. Viridya or Ravenheart).  Besides being a strong ranged unit, Raven Walker has the ability to corrupt the very air around it, causing played out cards to backlash, dealing huge amounts of damage to both allies and enemies, including buildings! If Ravenheart or its summoned Raven Ships are nearby, Raven Walker will lose its slow passive ability and move like a general XL unit.
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 

 
Slow
Unit has Slow movement.
 
Blackpowder Turret
Every 4 seconds, unit fires an explosive shot that deals 920 damage to enemies in a 10m radius around its target, up to 1380 in total. Knocks back small and medium units. Affects ground targets only.


Corrupting Aura (100p)
Activate to cast a destructive aura of 30m radius at the target location. Every card played out within it will backlash, dealing 10 times their power cost times their orb count as area damage distributed among all hostile and friendly entities, up to 10000 in total. Lasts for 30 seconds. Reusable every 60 seconds.
 
Fleet Support
If Raven Walker is within 25m radius of a Raven Ship or Ravenheart, it will lose Slow.
 
Some of you might be wondering why Raven Walker is a Legendary card, instead of a Bandit card. While exploring our options, we found two issues with a Bandit approach. First, we feel Bandits as a faction is currently quite complete in terms of T4 units, and this unit would not add anything interesting to the faction; it would not be much different from Construct-decks which already use double Shadow for Nether Warp.
Additionally, Raven Walker's Corrupting Aura ability works on buildings. This means it can be used even with healing spells to destroy enemies and important structures, allowing for a wide variety of decks to build around it. But because of how Corrupting Aura works, it can be stacked infinitely, which is problematic from a balance point of view. It does not come up often that we want something to be limited to a single instance, making this the perfect Legendary. It is also a good opportunity to expand the existing Legendary deck and slowly add Blight's entire raven squadron to the game.
Raven Walker is planned to release in an upcoming content patch. We are not ready to announce a release date yet. 
 
• Tournaments / Events

Since Community Updates are posted on a monthly schedule, events might come and go in between Community Updates. Be sure to keep a close eye on the ingame event-tab and the forum calendar to not miss any events! 

• NEW - Official Halloween Event - until 02-11-2022
The Lost Souls have altered the timeline for this special Halloween event! Instead of Encountering Twilight, Rogan Kayle finds himself in the face of new horrors. Enjoy a spooky experience and celebrate Halloween and the release of the new card "Evil Eye" with us! More information.  
 
• NEW - Official PvP Tournament - 29-10-2022
On Saturday 29.10 we are hosting an official PvP tournament with prizes! The tournament starts at 14:00 p.m. CEST (Berlin time) and will also be livestreamed on our Twitch. Every player who participates will get a booster, so be sure to join even if you are inexperienced! More information. 

• FINISHED - Battle of Tactics #2: Perfectly Balanced
Ultralords latest contest has finished, and the winner reveal can be watched on Twitch. Big thanks to Ultralord for hosting this event, please let us know if you liked it! More information.  

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizer, Metagross! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 
 
• Team changes 

We are glad to announce two new members to the team behind Skylords Reborn. WaterMelonLord has joined us as a Global Moderator. Cool. 

Mynoduesp has also joined the team as Quality Assurance (QA), helping with maintenance and player friendliness, for example by improving descriptions. 

We also had a couple of replies to our translator roles, thank you! We could always use more translators, so if you are fluid in French, Russian or German, please consider doing some translations for us.



• Contribute to the Project

We have opened up a new staff role: Social Media Manager. We heard multiple times that people are intimidated to join the team as a marketeer, so we split up the responsibilities and tasks, making the entry barrier a lot lower. As a Social Media Manager, you are responsible for keeping our Social Media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit) up to date. Help with our Twitch and Instagram account would also be greatly appreciated.  
As always, we hope you will also consider helping out the project. Please take a look at all our open positions on how you can do so. 

There are also a variety of contributor roles like translator, that don't require you to join the staff, but still allow you to help out now and then. Please take a look. 
 

• 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 Lost Souls-booster: LOST-SOUL-TIME-LINE

The code is valid until December 1st, 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 #28

Ok lets crunch some numbers.
In theory it takes 5625 damage to fully destroy this building, while potentially dealing 738 single target damage every 4 seconds to 2 targets and 492 to a third target. While 1500 HP make it seem like it only reaches its' maximum damage capability while on the verge of collapse, the damage reduction buff it receives during this time makes it so that it will deal max damage during the last 40% of the damage needed to take it down (Assuming constant DPS), which makes it the longest lasting phase out of all 3 phases.
This seems kinda insane to me for 200 power if it is not locked behind 3 frost orbs. World Breaker Gun is 2 frost orbs and it is already the most popular T4 building, the fact that a deck can run 2 frost orbs and have access to these 2 monstrosities is sort of OP. WBG is t4 so its fine, but this is essentially a smaller WBG that can also damage air and is tankier, and cheaper.
A deck that runs 2 frost orbs, and 2 others, will potentially have access to the best 2 defensive buildings while also being able to use gemeye, bloodhorn, wyrm, lost spirit ship, etc etc. for a solid offense. Colors should not have their strongest cards readily available like that.

Really nice work with evil eye. Artwork looks well done and the unit itself sound really cool aswell. Especially the attack and the transformation is very unique. I enjoy the behind the scenes scenes sections so please keep them included. 😊

Patch #400035
Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains our sixth balance patch for the game, brand-new cards, and many other changes, enjoy!

Patch Preview
 - Three new cards are now available! Jump in-game to collect Twilight Slayers, Twilight Crawler, and Tranquility.
 - Our initial balance pass on towers, a large number of buffs to well-designed but underperforming cards, our first PvE nerfs, and a substantial amount of changes to Fire, Nature, and Twilight cards.
 - Changed several PvE maps to improve player experience.

General Changes
Updated in-game player banner colors for GM accounts to represent the current roles. Added a search bar to the community map and sparring PvP map selection screens, which can be used to search for map names as well as map creators' names. Added a dropdown menu to the community map and sparring PvP selection screens to filter for player count.  Added a "reset all filters" button to the filtering widget in the deck control window. Added a "search in marketplace" option in the right click menu of cards in the inventory. All-time PvE rankings have been reset due to many times no longer being possible.  Made changes to the Shadow/Nature, Nature/Shadow, Fire/Nature, and Nature/Fire decks free PvP decks to keep them up to date with the new cards and balance changes. 
New Cards
Twilight Slayers - 75p T3 Twilight  (Fire and Shadow Affinity)
You will find the upgrades for this card on the maps Crusade (fire affinity) and Defending Hope (shadow affinity). 

Twilight Slayers are our first ever T3 S-archer unit. Like their NPC cousins, they deal less damage if enemies are nearby. In exchange, they sport a very high attack value for use with Nature's plentiful crowd control. One affinity deals increased damage to elementals, making them an ideal counter for Stonekin, while the other deals increased damage to humans and ogres, making them a good choice against Bandits. For more information, check out Community Update 26.
 
Twilight Crawler - 80p T2 Twilight  
You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Encounters with Twilight.
A new M-sized S-counter for Twilight T2. Since changing Ghostspears to , Twilight has been reliant on Scythe Fiends as an S-counter in PvP. This opens up a Twilight specific S-counter which takes reduced damage from ranged attacks and spells, just like the NPC version. 

 
Tranquility - 40p T2 Amii Spell 
You will find the upgrade for this card on the map Nightmare's End.
Like Transcendence before it, Tranquility has a different effect depending on whether it is cast on an ally (buff) or an enemy (debuff). The card's flexibility should help it fill a much-needed role in Amii's T2, particularly in PvP, as well as remain relevant in T3. For more information, check out Community Update 27.  
 

I think your Balance philosophy is really good and logic, it makes me sad that not more Developers from other RTS titles have the same mindset.
Defently speaks for you. 🙂

I think your Balance philosophy is really good and logic, it makes me sad that not more Developers from other RTS titles have the same mindset.
Defently speaks for you. 🙂

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!

• Survey Results

Once more, a big thank you to everyone who provided feedback in our 2022 Survey. 2.227 of you provided feedback regarding various topics, from general opinions regarding the project, to balance and upcoming features. We have collected the answers and provided them in a short presentation. 


• Upcoming Patch 

Last month we promised more information about our upcoming new content patch. We are almost ready to bring you a new patch that will include a ton of balance changes, map changes, bug fixes and new cards! While we sadly can't give you a concrete date on the patch yet, we are aiming for a release around mid-September. We are also planning to release some additional achievements in a small follow-up patch soon after. 
As for the upcoming content patch; we have added new Transformation effects to T2 and T3 Twilight cards, aimed at making Twilight's Transformation ability worth using. We have also made substantial changes to Fire T4 cards, while continuing our work on Nature. At the same time, we are making some much-needed changes for the health and future of the game. This patch will implement changes to Batariel, Decomposer, Frenetic Assault and mindcontrol-effects like Nightguard and Parasite Swarm. These cards have been the topic of many heated discussions over the years, which is why we would like to take some time to explain why we are making these changes. 
 
• Why Nerf Cards?

It has been the conscious choice of the Skylords Reborn Team since we began balancing the game nearly 2 years ago to avoid any PvE specific nerfs. The reasoning was twofold:
(1) Nerfs feel bad and continued nerfs of popular cards can be demoralizing to players, and
(2) There did not exist a sufficient number of strategies such that nerfing top performers would actually lead to more diverse gameplay. The top performing strategies were sometimes the only viable strategies in the game, and removing them would have just lead to an ever decreasing set of viable archetypes. 
Instead of nerfing cards, we in the faction design and balancing team have endeavored to create an increasingly large set of viable strategies, both between and within factions. Within factions, Bandits has been our greatest success, with several top tier Bandit deck archetypes being viable across all maps and game modes. Across factions, we have also steadily been succeeding in our original goal. Pure Frost and Pure Fire do not have as much intra-faction deck diversity as something like Bandits, but both do have viable archetypes capable of succeeding at all levels of play. Slowly, but steadily, we have also been working towards this same goal with Pure Nature, Pure Shadow, and their non-pure derivatives such as Shadow's Death Ray archetype. In the next few patch cycles we are hoping to touch the Stonekin, Lost Souls, and Twilight factions as well, simultaneously adding new unique strategies while also fleshing out their existing viable archetypes. All in all, we think we have come a very long way in creating both fun and viable strategies for the majority of factions, and we will labor every patch to continue this work. 
Unfortunately, despite the work that has been done, there is still a perception among much of the playerbase that decks like Pure Frost are not strong, despite Pure Frost being viable against all factions even in RPvE 10. This is because, with the exception of the addition of Banzai Lord and Plague, the top decks have remained nearly identical from release until now. This is unsurprising. In T4, Batariel-Enlightenment and Bloodhorn decks are so strong that if we attempted to make all archetypes compete with them, we would thereby trivialize the game through power creep. In T1, we have made substantial changes to ensure that every faction has a viable opening for all maps and game modes, but by and large a majority of players still progress through the campaign using Nightguard in at least a plurality if not a majority of maps. This situation of having a large set of viable playstyles but a few select ones that outshine all others, creates the impression that Skylords Reborn lacks gameplay diversity and leads to players defaulting to the same few decks over and over again. This is not a recipe for long term success. Even after the most recent patch, you can still see messages in global chat to the effect of "I wish there were other strategies than Batariel or Nightguard." There are many more strategies, it is just that some strategies are so strong that everything else seems paltry in comparison. 
Given the current state of the game, we as a balancing team have determined that it is finally time to nerf some of the game's top performers and that by doing so we will actually be expanding the set of strategies players view as viable, thereby hopefully leading to increased in-game deck diversity. Yet, our goal is not to remove the existing top strategies from the game. We want them to remain top strategies, but to be closer to the strength of other archetypes which have proven themselves to be viable alternatives. We are truly convinced this is the best course of action for the long term health of Skylords Reborn. The other options are increasing the strength of all cards to the level of these very few cards, thereby trivializing existing content, or accepting a perpetually stagnate meta where the same few strategies continue to dominate forever. 
As a final note, we want to assuage any fears that we will be going through and nerfing any and every strong card in the game. We are convinced that there are less than 10 total cards problematic enough to justify large changes. Balancing is more music than algebra. There is a band of viability within which cards sit. It is okay if some cards are better than other ones, as long as those cards are neither too powerful nor too weak. As long as a strategy is not so dominant across multiple game modes that it warps the game around itself and adversely affects the playerbase's perception of what is acceptably strong, we can and will happily turn a blind eye to it and allow it to continue unchanged. 
Our upcoming patch notes will dive into what exactly will be changed about these cards. These will be posted alongside the patch release.

• New Card Reveal: Tranquility

The results from our feedback survey shows you really like new cards, so we are excited to reveal our new Amii spell: Tranquility!

This card holds the record for longest development cycle, going all the way back to November 2021. Having changed names, effects, art and visuals multiple times during its long process since then. We are very happy with the end result though, and we hope you look forward to playing it.
Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it, numbers and effects might still change before release.
Let's break down the card: 

Tranquility is a tier 2 spell for Nature/Shadow. Upgrading the card increases its effect and reduces its Power Cost. It will be a rare and won't have an affinity. As with the card Transcendence, the effect of this new Amii spell changes depending on if you cast it on an enemy or friendly unit:
 
Soothing Whispers
Empowers a friendly unit to fight more joyfully. Target friendly unit will deal 20/30/30/30% more damage and regenerate 50 life points every 2 seconds if the unit deals at least 80 damage every 5 seconds. Lasts 20 seconds. Reusable every 25 seconds.

Foreboding Whispers
Weakens an enemy unit and makes it unable to fight. Target hostile unit cannot attack or use special abilities and takes 20/20/30/30% more damage for 10 seconds. Reusable every 25 seconds.
 
Tranquility offers Skylords a flexible early game Amii spell that can be used in both PvE and PvP.
For its buff/debuff visual, we have created a completely new flower model, another milestone in our development for Skylords Reborn! 

 
• Phone Wallpaper

The artwork for Tranquility was created by Tweeto, and went through many iterations (as tends to happen with our team full of perfectionists). The final artwork goes beyond the size of what we can show on a card, which is why we decided to release the full artwork as a Phone Wallpaper. We hope you like it!  

• Skylords Reborn Instagram


Want to see more art, exclusive content and giveaways? Be sure to follow us on our new Instagram! Rumors say you might even catch a glimpse of a new and not yet revealed card in the upcoming days! Follow us now to join our upcoming giveaway for a chance to win some Twilight boosters.
 
• Tournaments / Events

Now that the Community Updates moved to a monthly schedule, events might come and go in between Community Updates. Be sure to keep a close eye on the ingame event-tab and the forum calendar to not miss any events! 

• NEW - Community PvE League Season 1
In this Community-hosted PvE league, you will compete against other players of similar abilities and ranks in a series of challenges, consisting of campaign, community and rPVE maps. There are exciting prizes to be won, so be sure to click here for more information! 

• NEW- Crappy Community Contest #8
The contest-idea-contest (CCC#7) has brought some excellent ideas to light, and the yet unannounced winner will be presented tomorrow as a new contest. As always, if enough Skylords participate, there will be a booster code as prize for the whole community!

• FINISHED - Community event #4: Onslaught on the Ground
Can you finish King of the Giants Solo under 13 minutes - without using flying units? The winner of 'Onslaught on the Ground' was able to pull this off, check out his replay here.
 
• FINISHED - Battle of Tactics #1: Your actions count
How many clicks do you need to finish Encounters with Twilight? See a super-cut of how the participants tried to be as efficient as possible: watch the video. 


• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizer Metagross! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 
 
• Team changes 

A lot has happened in the team behind Skylords Reborn in the past month. 
Sadly nkmol, who worked with Freund and Maze on the web-interface, has left the team due to personal circumstances. We are grateful for his work and wish him all the best.
Luckily, we also have some good news to share! 

Ult has recently joined the team as a client and server developer. He has been working on something exciting we can't wait to show you on in a future community update! 
Katchau also joined the team as a client developer. He will be helping out in adding new features into the game that were previously blocked due to a lack of UI developers.  
Lebovim (one of our Skylords of Honor) has done a ton for the project already, but always worked alongside the team, not in it. He has now formally joined the team, and will be helping out with implementing map and card changes, among other things. 
Maxxxel is also new to the team and working on creating tools and workflows capable of editing and adding new 3D models. We hope we will be able to add new models to the game at some point, but no promises yet. 
Lastly, Dallarian will move from a Global Moderator role into the Map Department. Our survey showed loud and clear that you want more campaign maps, so he is currently exploring the map editor to make that happen.
Welcome, and we are grateful for all of you who spend their free time helping out with Skylords Reborn! 

• Contribute to the Project

As always, we hope you will also consider helping out the project. Please take a look at all our open positions on how you can do so. 
We have also opened the position of Global Moderator, and are currently in need of more Russian Translators.

 
• 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 Amii-booster: REAL-SOON-THIS-TIME

The code is valid until October 1st, 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 #26

Twilight slayers looks so cool, the Artwork is really epic. I was one of those who hoped they would get a playable card at some point. Keep up your awesome work. 👍

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!

• Recent (and upcoming) Patch 

On the 16h of July we released a small Quality of Life patch, containing some bugfixes, and updating the Free PvP decks to adjust to the new meta. You can check out the patch-notes here. 
We are also working on a new content patch, which will bring more balance changes and two new cards into the game. We will share more information on this patch in the next community update, but we will reveal one of the new cards today! 
 
• Survey

First things first: a massive thank you to everyone who filled in our Feedback Survey for 2022! You completely shattered our expectations with over 2000 responses! 
Especially since this project is run completely on a voluntary basis with no profits (which 12% of you were not aware of by the way!) we couldn't be more proud of your praise for the state the game is currently in:

We will need some time to go over all the comments, but the data and individual responses are very helpful to us, and your kind words are a motivation to continue trying to make this project the best it can be! 
We will share more insight in community feedback on a later date. Thank you for being part of this great community!
 
• Introducing: Hybrid Orbs

Before we reveal our new card, we have to talk about a new orb requirement coming to Skylords Reborn: Hybrid orbs. 
A Hybrid orb allows you to meet its requirements with one of its two colors. For example, a  card can be played with  or .
Hybrid orbs are a nice in-between of heavy and loose orb restrictions. Restricting a Twilight card to require double Fire or double Nature, would cause it to be unplayable for half of the Twilight decks. Opening up the card by having the 3rd orb be a neutral orb, would however cause unintended synergies with other factions. For example; access to Nature's heal for a Bandit card, or Shadow's Motivate for a Twilight card. By going for a Hybrid orb, we reward playing a faction deck in tier 3, without locking the other color combination of that faction out. 
 

 
We will use this new flexibility to make adjustments to some older cards. We are planning to make use of Hybrid orbs for Treefiend, Twilight Hag, Deepfang and our upcoming new Nightshade Plant design. While we could also make use of this for tier 2 and tier 4 cards in the future, we currently only have plans for using it on tier 3 cards. We won't use Hybrid orbs for Tier 1 cards either, one of the reasons being the first card played decides what orb you get, running into all kind of weird issues with hybrid T1 cards and orbs. 
Hybrid orbs have been the topic of many conversations in the past, and we are very happy to finally introduce them into the game! 
 
 
 
 
 



• New Card: Twilight Slayers

Our first new card to make use of Hybrid orbs is a card that has been requested quite a bit over the years: a new tier 3 archer unit: the Twilight Slayers! The card will be a common and come in two affinities, impacting the damage output towards certain factions. Let's break down the card. 
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.

 
Bow Attack
Every 2 seconds, unit fires arrows at enemies that deal 19 / 20 / 22 / 25 damage. Deals 50% reduced damage if a hostile unit is within an 8m radius, unless Twilight Slayers are mounted on a wall segment. Has a range of 30m.

Infused Fury
Deals 50% more damage against elemental units

Tainted Fury
Deals 50% more damage against Human and Ogre units. 

Like all Twilight units, Twilight Slayers will come with the faction's ability "Transformation". While transforming Twilight Slayers does not trigger any additional effects, we are working on a shift towards more impactful transformation effects for other Twilight units, making transforming your units more worthwhile.

In our Force of Nature patch, we already changed the power cost reduction for Transform effects, and we will also make adjustments to the transformation speed in our next patch. On our balance discord, you can find out more about our future Twilight plans, such as our intention to change the card Nightshade Plant to be an exciting tier 3 Twilight pay-off card.
We hope you are looking forward to this new card and the changes coming to the Twilight faction.
 
• Artwork Spotlight

The artwork for Twilight Slayers has been created by SpiritedAlpha. As always, there were multiple iterations and feedback sessions to reach the final artwork. Here are some earlier versions, where you can notice a slightly different color scheme and background, alongside other ideas that were improved upon, adjusted, or removed to better fit the piece (sorry Twilight Negator!). A big thanks to SpiritAlpha and everyone who gave feedback during the process. 
    
Twilight Slayers are a recreation of the original NPC enemy, but we found the artwork (especially for a playable card) below the standard we have set for our Skylords Reborn additions. Looking at the artwork side by side shows the drastic difference in quality between them. 
     
2009 / 2022
• Adjustments to Reforging

It has now been 8 months since the advent of the Reforging system. Back in January, we gave the community an update on the health of the economy, and we would like to do the same again today. 
Some important information on the data: When it says "Fire Pool" it includes every card in the game which includes a Fire Orb. The data was collected and presented in this manner because this is how Reforging works when it tells you that the output card has an X% chance of containing a Fire Orb. Additionally, all price information presented is an average of actual sales in the auction house over a given period. While some extreme outliers were removed from the data set, such as 5 bfp Harvesters and 400 bfp Northguards, in 99% of instances the data was accepted as-is without tampering from our side.
Data Set: (Click to pop-out and expand)

Updated Analysis of Data Set:
At first glance, you can quickly see that after the update the following changes occurred (Neutral Cards are excluded from the analysis as they are the control set):
The average, median, minimum, and maximum prices of Common cards increased across the board.  With two exceptions, the average, minimum, and median prices of Uncommon cards increased across the board, while the maximum decreased. The decrease in average Frost prices can be attributed to 3 outlier cards in the Frost Pool, (Coldsnap, Frost Mage, and Lost Spirit Ship) which pre-reforging were very expensive for Uncommon cards. The increase in maximum Uncommon prices in the Fire Pool is caused by Wasteland Terror, which as a new card is still quite expensive for its rarity. Wasteland Terror is in general causing an inflation of the maximum Uncommon card costs in the Fire, Shadow, and All Card Pools.  The same thing happened to Rare cards as happened to Uncommon cards. Average, median, and max price of Ultra-rare cards decreased across the board while minimum price increased. The one exception is the Nature Pool, where the median price of Ultra-rare cards actually decreased. If you look closely, you can see that the median prices for cards in the Fire Pool and among All Cards are almost identical before and after Reforging. The average prices of All Cards is also only slightly negative and has been steadily trending upwards in recent months.  General booster worth increased from 378 bfp to 420 bfp. This means Reforging has made it more worthwhile to open boosters after the update than it was before. Promos have been excluded from the data set, making this even more true. On average, the daily discounted booster will profit a player 70 bfp post-update versus 28 bfp pre-update. The data is at this point fairly stable. Reforging established a minimum base worth for all cards dependent on rarity that did not exist prior. This seems to have stabilized around: Common: 5-6 bfp Uncommon: 22-23 bfp Rare: 100-102 bfp Ultra-rare: 200-220 bfp 
Fun Facts about Reforging:
- To date, 2.35 million cards have been Reforged. 64.4% of the cards were Common, 27.2% were Uncommon, 8.1% were Rare, and 1.3% were Ultra-rare.
- Only 0.87% of all Reforges produce Forge Shards (FYI, it usually is not worth it to produce Forge Shards)

Changes to Reforging:
The introduction of Reforging has accomplished many of our goals for the economy. At the same time, we have noticed the total amount of Reforges has steadily decreased as time has progressed, which is expected, but it has also come coupled with a slow increase in the prices of Ultra-rare cards. While prices for the most expensive Ultra-rare cards are down substantially, the average and median prices of Ultra-rare cards are steadily moving towards parity with the old prices. This is an issue, because the average price of all cards has risen due to Reforging, making it harder for new players to collect and charge cards. The introduction of many new beginner achievements last patch has helped to slightly alleviate this issue, but it still exists, even in reduced form. As such, we have made the following changes to incentivize Reforging and to make it easier for all players, not only those with large gold and card stockpiles, to interact with the system. We intend for these to be the last changes we make to Reforging.
 
Gold Cost to Reforge into the Following Rarities:
Common = 125 gold --> 50 gold
Uncommon = 300 gold --> 150 gold
Rare = 750 gold --> 400 gold
Ultra-rare = 1500 gold --> 800 gold
 
Reforging Rates:
We have made it easier to produce an Ultra-rare card when Reforging. For example, 4 identical Rare cards will now guarantee an Ultra-rare card. 
 
The changes to Reforging have been implemented today, and are now live on the server. 

• Tournaments / Events

Now that the Community Updates moved to a monthly schedule, events might come and go in between Community Updates. Be sure to keep a close eye on the ingame event-tab and the forum calendar to not miss any events! 

There are currently two gameplay events planned by Dutchy and Ultralord, which can be found on the calendar already. More info about them soon!

• NEW - CCC #7 - Contest-ception
A new CCC is now live: a contest to come up with... a contest! Share your wildest ideas and get rewarded for it! We hope to see many cool ideas that we might use in future contest, so be sure to brainstorm cool stuff and join the contest! More information.
 
• FINISHED - CCC #6 - Back to the Roots
Kapo hosted another successful Crappy Community Contest, this time on a very special map. This custom map is a copy of the Introduction map with a few new jumps and turns, where you play with a Shadow/Nature deck instead. As with all CCC, the more players attended, the better the prizes became, resulting in a free booster for the whole community! View the event and the code.
 
• FINISHED - Skylords Bounty Spring Forge
It has been a while since we have closed this bounty and players have been wondering what happened to the Spring Forge. While we had a clear winner (congratulations Wanky!), the entry was not fully ready for release yet, and working on it took more time from the team than we had anticipated for a community bounty. Since spring is long gone, we will move this Forge over to next year. 

• 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. 

• Contribute to the Project

In our last Community Update, we went over various features that could be added to the game if we get the right people to work on them, please take a look if you haven't done so already.

We have also added a new contributor (non-staff) role: Internal Tester. 
As an Internal Tester, you will be testing and exploring in-game mechanics with additional information that is normally hidden from players. Your contribution will allow us to fix bugs and create new designs. 
 
As always, we hope you will consider helping out the project. Please take a look at all our open positions on how you can do so. 

• 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 Twilight-booster: MORE-PLAY-WITH-ORBS

The code is valid until September 1st, 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 #25

Twilight slayers looks so cool, the Artwork is really epic. I was one of those who hoped they would get a playable card at some point. Keep up your awesome work. 👍

Twilight slayers looks so cool, the Artwork is really epic. I was one of those who hoped they would get a playable card at some point. Keep up your awesome work. 👍

Twilight slayers looks so cool, the Artwork is really epic. I was one of those who hoped they would get a playable card at some point. Keep up your awesome work. 👍

Awesome, alot to try out with this update. Cant wait to enter the Forge. 😁

Nice, looking forward to it.

It would be SO MUCH cooler if the Treespirits got spawned from the projectile, not from the unit itself. I mean, it is literally called a "Spore Launcher".
Having it on every auto attack (or every few ones) would be amazing but it would have some wonky quirks to work out. The amount of spawned Treespirits could even scale with the amount of spores shot and therefore with support, as far as I have seen. They'd have to be temporary though.

Imagine if attackers got swamped like that. Could take Spore Launcher into an entirely different direction. Nerf the amount of default spores it shoots from 3 to 1 but let every attack spawn a Treespirit, amount of spores and Treespirits scaling with support. Unfortunately, the Treespirits would take up pop cap as we don't currently have a way to introduce new pop-counts per unit ...