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Luke_Meat

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  1. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by Hrdina_Imperia in Community Update - June 2023   
    Amazing stuff! Lot of hard work ahead of us and looking forward to that .
  2. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by Ladadoos in Skylords Reborn - All you need to know!   
    Greetings Skylords, Skyladies and Skyfolks,

    After five years of development Skylords Reborn has finally hit full release, we want to thank every single one of you for joining and supporting us on our journey. This topic will provide you with all the information, details, and answers you need.
    How can I play this game?
    You can find instructions for downloading and installing the game here.

    How do I log in to the game?
    First, you need to create an account on this forum, here. Afterwards you can simply login with the same account in the game. A game account will automatically be created and linked to your forum account. Do not make multiple accounts for yourself. You are allowed to play with your family/friends in the same house.

    What is Skylords Reborn?
    Skylords Reborn is a project which started off as a 2-man team working on allowing the community to play BattleForge again. BattleForge was a Real-Time Strategy Collectible Card PC game (not a MOBA) made by EA Phenomic in 2009 that got closed down on October 31 2013, disappointing many players. The ever-growing Skylords Reborn team has been working hard to make BattleForge playable and accessible for its still large community and new players once more! You can read more about our project on our wiki.

    Can I upload content of Skylords Reborn?
    Yes. You are allowed to make Youtube and Twitch videos and streams of Skylords Reborn.

    Will I be able to use my old account?
    No. As we are not EA we do not have access to your old accounts and never will, so you will have to create a new one and start from scratch. We know this is annoying but there is no way for us to retrieve account information. At least you can play the game again!

    What is the difference between Skylords Reborn and old BattleForge?
    Everything from the original game works but there has been a number of changes. (see list below)
    Cards
    Balance changes and new cards Economy
    Free to Play (no payments for game progression) Daily time based BFP rewards Daily PvP and PvE quests (Resets daily at 10:00 UTC) Seasonal & Lifetime Achievements Faction Boosters Removal of Tokens. Gold is now used instead and is untradable. Removal of Elements of Conversion/Creation. PvP
    Free PvP deck rotations Official Tournaments (BFP rewards) Spectator versions for all 1vs1 maps PvE
    All campaign maps available again (including 12 player maps) New high-quality community maps And many other quality of life improvements.
    Can I buy/sell BFP for real money?
    Absolutely not! People who are noted to sell or attempt to buy BFP or any in-game content with real money may be banned from playing the game at all, or have their accounts reset. We take no responsibility whatsoever in any lost money or in-game content. We don't sell BFP for a very good reason as this project is allowed to exist due to the fact that we are making zero profit or income from the game, which would be using someone else's ideas and content for claiming money. If you buy or sell in-game content, you are essentially doing the same thing and this could put both you as well as the entire project at risk of being shut down.

    How can I earn Gold and Upgrades?
    Since tokens have been removed from the game entirely, you will earn gold instead through playing Randomly Generated PvE, Sparring PvP, and disenchanting upgrades found in Campaign PvE maps. The upgrade drops have been changed, and you can find the new loot list in this topic.

    How can I obtain promos?
    You can get promos as an extremely rare reward in boosters, or during special events that we will host.

    I found a bug! What now? How do I report a bug?
    Please refer to the "Report A Bug" forum, and particularly this topic.

    I have seen someone cheat, flame, or severely break the rules. Where do I report this?
    You can right-click on a player to report them in-game. You can also report this behaviour directly to the Moderation Team (Global Moderators) on the forums or discord. Please refer to the Ticket Tool thread here when reporting on discord.

    Is the game only available in English?
    The game can be played in all languages that were previously available. This includes English, German, French and Russian. However, we are mostly focusing our project and any announcements around the English language.

    Have you asked EA for help with the project? Do you work for EA?
    No, we do not work for EA and we sincerely doubt EA is interested in the funding of the project nor rebooting the game. We do not expect any help from EA. We have, however, been given permission to alter the existing client and make this project a reality until further notice is provided. Former BF staff are likely under NDA as well, disallowing them to help us in the first place.

    If this project is completely non-profit, how will you keep the servers up?
    We have created a patreon page here. Any donated money will be spent on server upkeep, development and a lot will be saved up for future server upkeep. No money whatsoever will go into our own pockets. You can make a one time payment and then unsubscribe from us or you can pick to pay every month. Please note all Patrons will not gain any benefits in game.

    Where is the server located?
    The server is located in Germany.

    Will you distribute the server files for private hosting?
    No. The project is closed source, which means that the files (code) are not public.

    I have another question!
    Alright, that's cool! Before you continue, however, please use the forum's search function to find any threads that may have your question in it. If your question really isn't answered yet, feel free to create a thread.
    That's all! We hope you enjoy your time in the world of Nyn and help the game and its community grow together! As always, We're hugely grateful for all your support, and we wouldn't be here without you all. Keep up the good spirits, you're all fantastic beings. See you in the forge, and may the forge be with you!
  3. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by Majora in Community Update #28 - October   
    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!

    • September Patch Release + Feedback Thread

    Our latest content patch released on September 14th and brought three new cards and many balance changes to the game. You can check out the patch notes here. We hope you are enjoying the many hours that went into creating it.
    As always, we would love to hear your feedback on the changes we have made to the game with this patch. 
    What do you think of our first PvE nerfs? Do the various decks still feel usable? Have they changed much at all, etc.?
    Do you like the changes to card and factions (PvE and PvP)? Why or why not? Where did we hit the mark, and implement something exciting you'd like to see more of? Where did we miss the mark, and what should we avoid in the future? Do you enjoy the new cards, are they balanced, do you like Hybrid Orbs? And what about our map changes? 
    While these are some of the topics we are most interested about, feel free to offer any suggestions regarding the patch and the current direction of the game. Please provide your feedback here, or you can also join us at our balance discord to further discuss changes to cards. 
     
    • Follow-up Achievement Patch 

    In a small follow-up patch, currently planned for this upcoming Monday, we will make changes to some achievements in the game (and add some new ones!). We know players really like achievements, so we plan to continue adding and improving the experience. This patch will also contain some QoL changes. 
    Skylords Reborn released with a base set of achievements, including 3 achievements which reward players for draining their BFP reserves. Unfortunately, since release we have seen that contrary to encouraging more play, these reserve achievements are actually driving players away from the game. Players will grind many hours in a row to finish all three achievements and in the process completely burn themselves out. Given this situation, we have decided to remove all 3 reserve achievements and replace them with general in-game playtime achievements that the player can complete at their own pace. These new achievements will be available to everyone, even those who previously completed the reserve achievements.
    Sadly, our newest achievements, added in our Force of Nature patch, were also not free from issues. "A Wrinkle in Time" caused a lot of confusion with its description and has been updated accordingly. Our new RPvE 10 achievement "Abandon Hope..." has proved to be quite popular, even with brand-new players who attempt it without being properly prepared. This has led to frustration among our more veteran players, who the achievement was meant to help by increasing the RPvE 10 player pool. As such, we have locked the achievement beyond PvE Rank 10, to prevent unprepared players from joining lobbies in hopes of easy boosters. Our Pure Fire achievement "Never Thought of Him" has had a very low completion rate and after talking to players we decided to reduce the restrictions. Now, only the player pursuing the achievement is required to use a Pure Fire deck, instead of the entire team. We have also made changes to Defending Hope to allow the player to activate Rogan with a building and not just a unit. While the fact Rogan required a unit to be activated was intended to be a fun puzzle-like challenge for the "A City Strongly Compact" achievement, we noticed this caused substantial frustration among players, especially those who were also trying to complete "The Long Journey Home" simultaneously.
    You can check out the full list of changes here. The patch is currently planned for release on Monday the 3rd. 

    • New Card Reveal: Evil Eye

    While we just released our latest patch, we are already hard at work on creating new cards and content. Stay tuned to our Community Updates for more information about their release. 
    Our last content patch already contained two new Twilight cards; Twilight Slayers and Twilight Crawlers. We might have kept the best for last, and are excited to reveal another new card coming to the faction in the future; the long requested Evil Eye! 

    Please note: We are still testing the card. While we are generally happy about it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 
    Evil Eye is a new tier 4 unit for Twilight decks, requiring two Nature and two Fire orbs. The card will be uncommon, and won't have an affinity. This ranged Demon Dominator deals increased damage the longer it can focus its sight on an enemy. 
     
    Searing Sight
    Deals 200 damage to a target enemy every second. Evil Eye's sight deals increasingly more damage the longer it attacks, up to a maximum of 800 damage every second, but falls back to its original damage output if it doesn't fight for 5 seconds or changes targets. Has a range of 30m. 
     
    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.

    Evil Eye has been requested as a playable card many times over the years, and we hope you look forward to playing with it in the future! 
     
    • Art Spotlight

    The artwork for Evil Eye was created by SpiritAlpha. As always, it went through many iterations; work on the card started as early as June 2022! We collected some sketches to show a behind the scenes look at the work that went into the final design. 

    First, SpiritAlpha provided 9 possible art compositions for Evil Eye. Our Art Critiques then voted for their favorite designs. The three top voted designs were picked to expand upon. Here you can see some of their exploration: 

    In the end, we went for the first design, which is a take on Nano's Wrathgazer wallpaper. We then spend a ton of time getting the colors and scenery just right for the card, making sure it fit with other twilight designs and the card frame. 
            
    2009 / 2022
    What do you think of the artwork? And do you enjoy these behind the scenes sections? Please let us know in the comments!
     
    • 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 Battle of Tactics #2: Perfectly Balanced - 14-10-2022 until 23-10-2022
    A new event soon to be hosted by Ultralord. To beat this challenge, you are required to play with a deck containing a perfect mix of cards. Four of each color, four of each tier, five of each card type, and every card has to be played out at least once (meaning you can't put filler cards into your deck). Keep an eye on the event calendar on the Forum or ingame news for the full rules and map! 

    • 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 happy to welcome R4bitF00t to our team as Map Artist. He will help out the map department with the graphical side of things, which will greatly help our map projects that are currently in development. 

    • 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. 
    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 Twilight-booster: ISPY-WITH-HUGE-EYES

    The code is valid until November 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 #27
     
  4. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by Dallarian in Community Update #28 - October   
    Beholders receive some love, that's absolutely awesome.
  5. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400035 - 14 September 2022   
    Map Balance Changes

    PvE Map Changes
    Bad Harvest, Defending Hope, & The Soultree: Replaced player variant of Defense Tower with NPC variant.
    All player variants of cards on campaign maps are being swapped out for NPC variants to prevent balance changes to player cards affecting the cards used by NPCs in campaign and random PVE maps. Crusade: Players should be able to fulfil the victory condition immediately now when both paths are cleared early.
    Speedrunners can now compete for top times without having to wait a fixed period of time, therefore removing the existing set minimum time on Crusade. Defending Hope: Rogan will now also move if a player's building is in the vicinity.
    This will allow the achievement "A City Strongly Compact" to be completed entirely with building cards.  Mo: Change blocking at the cliff next to the Command Walker to no longer allow units to walk through the cliff.
    Raven's End: 2 Stonekin units; 1 in the center and 1 in the camp in the right side, are no longer assigned to the Bandits.
    The Dwarven Riddle: The 2 inner monuments that were added in Patch 400033 will now be observable in the fog of war like the other inner monuments.
    The Insane God: Replaced a Twilight Horror with a Twilight Devastator on expert difficulty at Position 1's Tier 3 location and added an additional Slaver to the camp on all difficulties. Replaced all 4 player variant Living Towers with a custom NPC variant. Increased script trigger range around temples to prevent the player from entering the center undetected. Player controlled Urzach's Seeker (transformed Priest) now have the Burrower Acid Spit active ability.
    Slight change to The Insane God to continue to allow use of Nightguard on the map. The addition of a new Slaver to the camp ensures that Position 1's T3 remains similar in difficulty to capture as before for non-Nightguard or Parasite Swarm users. Fixed a bug that allowed a player to sneak into the center without triggering the defense conditions, as well as gave the transformed Priest of Urzach an active ability to make it more worthwhile to engage in the Priest mini-game for the player. The NPC version will not use the Acid Spit ability.  Titans: Replaced 3 Fathom Lords in the Northern camps of Position 4 with Custom Deep Ones (1650 damage, 1650 life points). Expert difficulty only.
    Position 4 is one of the hardest positions on a multiplayer expert map and most players get through it by using Nightguards. This change allows the player to continue using Nightguards, but since Deep Ones are weaker than Fathom Lords, it will increase the difficulty of the map when using this strategy. At the same time, it will minorly decrease the difficulty of Position 4 for non-Nightguard strategies. 
    Bugfixes
    Emberstrike, Tempest, and Fire Worm now properly ignore the 50% damage reduction of dazed units, as their passives suggest. Amii Paladins and Amii Phantom no longer have the "human" class. They now properly only have the "Amii" class. The Tunneling ability of Burrower and Drones no longer grants paralyze immunity during the cast time of the ability. The overkill splash damage bug has been fixed on the following cards: Banzai Lord (p)'s Banzai Birds, Comet Catcher, Death Ray, Fire Dragon, Gemeye, Giant Wyrm, Skycatcher, Rifle Cultist's Dark Grenade, and Worldbreaker Gun. This should constitute a minor buff for each of these cards. Fixed several instances of Revenants' displayed damage being misaligned with the regular unit. Mountain Rowdy's Tainted Ice Block no longer affects flying units on U0-U2. Missing Twilight class was added to the Twilight bug summoned by Twilight Curse. Vulcan now specifies it can only target ground units. Fixed a bug, that caused newly uploaded maps to show an error message as their map name. Fixed a bug that allowed units to clip through terrain with buildings.  Fixed a bug that prevented the use of Twilight Transformation when switching to the other side in the Forge. Community maps should no longer claim to be 2-player maps when they are actually 1-player maps. 
  6. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400035 - 14 September 2022   
    Card Balance Changes

    Global Balance Changes
    Changes to PvE Unit Orb & Power Costs: more details can be found here: Changes to PvE Unit Orb & Power Costs
       - Additionally, the general mind control immunity on the PvE versions of Bandit Windhunter, Twilight Deathglider, and all Lost Souls units and buildings has been removed.
    Each NPC unit in both campaign and random PvE maps has orb and power costs just like player units, which might come as a surprise to players used to using Nightguard and Parasite Swarm to takeover nearly any unit in the game. This is because there has been a longstanding bug, going back to the game's release, where units which are spawned in via map script did not have properly assigned orb and power costs. The original developers knew about this bug, but they do not appear to have known how to fix it. By the time Empire and the Lost Souls RPvE faction were added to the game, the original developers decided to add a universal immunity to mind control to the entire Lost Souls faction to prevent further abuses of the mind control mechanic. They also added total immunity to Windhunter and Death Glider.
    The bug in question has now been fixed and as part of this fix we have gone through and updated the power and orb costs of every unit in the game. The goal of this rework was to create situations where mind control is still useful, and indeed powerful, while tampering down the current situation where mind control units, especially Nightguard, trivialize a map and thus become the universally proscribed solution to nearly any difficult situation. As part of these changes, we are also making several changes to current campaign maps, which we already started last patch with the changes to Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, and Behind Enemy Lines. All map changes can be found in the Map Balance Changes section in the next post.
    S-unit population count: decreased from 6 ➜ 4
    Total root network support cap: 10 maximum support within a network ➜ infinite amount of support possible
    Twilight Transformation duration: decreased from 2 seconds ➜ 1.2 seconds
    Increased turn speeds of several units: 
       - Gladiatrix, Ice Guardian, Knight of Chaos, Lightblade, Mauler, Mountain Rowdy, Rogan Kayle, Shadow Insect, Slaver, Treespirit, Viridya's Treespirit, Twilight Brute, Warlock, and Wrecker.
    Lost Spellbreaker (NPC Unit): 
       - No longer casts Disenchant on-hit, still makes affected units immune to further buffs.
       - Now makes affected units unable to use their special abilities.
    Lost Spellbreaker has been a perpetual headache for us as a balance team because she hard counters some factions while barely affecting others. Every single mechanic we add to the game must face the question of how it interacts with Spellbreaker. If Spellbreaker does remove it, the question then becomes if that faction can still function, particularly against the already difficult Lost Souls faction. At the same time, we want to keep Spellbreaker as a major debuff unit. As such, we decided to remove Spellbreaker's Disenchant ability while leaving the immunity to further buffs and adding on an ability silence. This change should allow players to preemptively apply buffs to their units as a way to counter Lost Spellbreaker. Our hope is that Lost Spellbreaker will remain an annoyance and a priority target, without single-handedly countering entire deck archetypes. 
    Hybrid Orb requirements have been added: A Hybrid Orb allows you to meet its requirements with one of its two colors. For example, a  card can be played with either  or . Hybrid Orbs can be found on our Twilight Slayers, Twilight Hag, Treefiend, Nightshade Plant and Deepfang. 

    PvE Balance Changes
    While changes are split here between PvE and PvP sections, many of the changes, such as Deep One, Nightshade Plant, and Twilight Creeper, have important consequences for both game modes. Our PvE and PvP balance teams work closely together to ensure that the impact of all changes are evaluated for both game modes. Below, we have listed both the changes and our reasoning behind them. 
    [ Tier 1 ]
     Decomposer:
       - Now only works on own units
    Decomposer has been a controversial card for a long time. When usable on friendly units, Decomposer allows players to transfer power between themselves. Practically speaking, this means that Decomposer turns previously multiplayer maps into effectively single-player maps, where one player can gain power far in excess of what should be possible at a given time, even if all Power Wells were given to one player. For this reason, it is a mainstay of speedruns and goldfarming alike, to the point of choking out other potential strategies. Decomposer also stands in direct violation of our fundamental design principle that power should only be generated via Power Wells. While violations of design principles are possible to justify via card restrictions such as high power cost, tier, or orb restrictions, the power generation principle is the most fundamental of all principles and Decomposer is able to violate it as a Tier 1 Shadow card. 
    There is an additional consideration which is often forgotten in discussions on this topic, and that is the experience of the player feeding the Decomposer, usually called a "feeder." While there can be no doubt that many Decomposer-based speedruns, including the existing record on Bad Harvest, are matters of strategic brilliance in terms of planning, the same is not true in terms of execution for the majority of the players in the speedrun. While feeders do contribute in a minor sense, the runner does the overwhelming majority of the actions in the run and it truly succeeds or fails based on the skill of the runner. In more casual settings, this often becomes even worse, with the feeder doing close to nothing. Decomposer transforms the feeder from a teammate into little more than a spectator. The feeder is a mere battery powering the runner, a resource to be used instead of a person with whom you play alongside. Feeding makes for a gameplay experience where teammates give up almost all of their agency. It is not engaging, and we should not be creating a situation where the player must chose between efficiency and an engaging experience. 
    The continuing preservation of this kind of gameplay has done great harm to new player retention. For that reason alone we should have made this change a long time ago. In fact, we have planned this change for nearly 18 months, yet have repeatedly delayed it in hopes of releasing a Decomposer-like mode simultaneously with the nerf for players who enjoy the mechanic and who wish to opt-in, even without rewards. This optional Map Modifiers game mode is something we are still desirous of completing eventually, but as we announced in Community Update #25, without further developers we can only commit to releasing card balancing changes for the foreseeable future. Given the many factors surrounding Decomposer and the strong negative impact it creates on the game experience of many players, we have decided to finally go through and change the card to no longer allow it to transfer power between players. 
    [ Tier 2 ]
     Parasite Swarm:
       - Takeover limit: 150 power cost ➜ maximum of 175 power cost
    Allows us to make some units able to be transformed by Twilight Curse and taken over by Parasite Swarm, while remaining out of reach of Nightguard.
    [ Tier 3 ]
     Corsair:
       - Inspirational Call: deal 50% more damage ➜ 60% more damage
    Corsair was previously changed to work not just on human units, but all Bandit units. This helped a lot, but the card itself as well as Bandit's T3 is still somewhat lacking. We are giving a slight boost to its aura to help encourage more Bandit-based unit compositions. 
     Frenetic Assault:
       - General Changes: 
          - Power cost: 80 ➜ 90p
          - Initial Amok effect duration: 20s ➜ 15s
       - Frenetic is now a two-stage effect:
          - Stage 1: Bewitches the targeted hostile target attracting the aggression of up to 7 of its allied units within a 20m radius for 15 seconds.
          - Stage 2: If the target dies within 10 seconds, up to 10 of its allied units within a 20m radius are bewitched for 10 seconds.
       - Affinity swap: Gifted Aggression (g) ➜ Infused Aggression (r)
          - Infused Aggression(r): No longer slows or prevents healing, change description to clarify it can be used on buildings and units. 
    Frenetic Assault is potentially the strongest card in the game. It is also the strongest crowd control spell, has no downside, and has no death effect. While not necessarily wrong, it is a bit odd for such a card to exist in Shadow. All in all, it is more a Bandit card than a Shadow card. We as a balance team have endeavored to nerf the card from an S+ tier to an A tier card, while also giving it mechanics to make it feel like a Shadow card. 
    Frenetic now has two stages. The first stage affects 7 targets for 15 seconds. The second stage, which triggers off the death of the initial target within 10 seconds, affects 10 targets for 10 seconds. This gives Frenetic a total possible duration of 20 seconds if used perfectly with up to 17 total affected enemies. It should remain one of the strongest spells in the game, without being so good as to single-handedly carry entire archetypes. 
     Healing Gardens:
       - Ritual of Recovery duration: 30 seconds ➜ 45 seconds
    Healing Gardens' increased rejuvenation effect is strong, but its short duration requires two Gardens to be built simultaneously. This can significantly slow down deck archetypes dependent on the effect, so we are increasing Ritual of Recovery's duration to allow the player to utilize just one instance of Healing Gardens with the downside of a slight effect downtime. Additionally, the lack of regular activation is a common problem among all active global effects in casual play. This should help to alleviate that problem by making it so that when the effect is actually activated, it stays up for longer. 
     Ice Age:
       - Now allows multiple instances of the spell to be active at the same time.
    Ice Age previously had anti-synergy with itself, such that multiple Pure Frost players could not cast it simultaneously. Given that this is not an issue with healing sustain options, we decided to remove this restriction.
     Sandstorm:
       - Power cost: 160p ➜ 140p
       - Ability radius: 10m ➜ 12m
    We previously gave Sandstorm two large buffs, a 70p cost reduction and the addition of L-knockback on the blue affinity. Even with these changes, Sandstorm remains an uncompelling option. As such, we are further reducing the power to 140p while increasing the radius of the tornado, which should allow the player to more easily crowd control priority targets. 
     Twilight Creeper:
       - Tainted / Infused Spit, total targets: 3 ➜ 8
       - Infused Spit(r) debuff: 30% less damage ➜ 40% less damage
    Small buff to Twilight Creeper's debuff and a large buff to total target count, allowing Creeper to debuff substantially more enemies in a camp.
     Wrathgazer:
       - Disintegrating Gaze: May only disintegrate units ➜ May only disintegrate units and buildings.
       - Pain Link: 100% damage distributed ➜ 50% damage distributed.
    Wrathgazer's Pain Link distributes damage before Resilient is applied. This means that as-is, 100% of damage is done to surrounding units and 50% also to Wrathgazer (assuming non-piercing damage). The total damage is thus multiplied by 50% assuming there are any allies in range. With the changed numbers, 50% of damage is now done to Wrathgazer and 50% to surrounding units. This should make Wrathgazer usable in an army without being an active detriment. Additionally, only being able to target units severely restricts Wrathgazer's usability. To remedy this, we are adding the ability to disintegrate buildings as well, allowing Wrathgazer to be more useful offensively. Note, this change does not allow wall segments, Power Wells, or Monuments to be disintegrated. Wrathgazer will also be unable to disintegrate spawn buildings, as this causes a bug where the spawn building, despite being destroyed, begins phantom spawning waves of enemies. 
    [ Tier 4 ]
     Altar of Chaos:
       - Enable overkill splash damage bug fix. 
       - Mass Destruction Nether Bomb life points: 4000 ➜ 4500
    Nether Bomb will no longer lose damage when overkilling enemies, constituting a minor buff for unfed bombs and a major buff for fed bombs. Additionally, the small increase in bomb life points is intended to synergize with Lost Spirit Ship's recycle ability. One bomb will now provide enough life points for 3 Lost Spirit Ship Crystals. 
     Batariel:
       - Damage: 4400 ➜ 5600
       - Purgatory's damage is no longer affected by damage modifiers, including buffs on Batariel itself and debuffs on enemies. 
       - Stage 1 Activation Threshold: 1000(r) and 1250(p) ➜ 1200 damage (both affinities)
       - Damage/Effect per Stage Batariel (p):
          (a) Stage 1: 100 dmg ➜ 100 dmg + 25% increased enemy damage taken
          (b) Stage 2: 100dmg + 35% increased damage taken ➜ 100dmg + 50% increased enemy damage taken
          (c) Stage 3: 100dmg + 75% increased damage taken ➜ 100dmg + 100% increased enemy damage taken
       - Squad damage: Only damages a squad once instead of each member individually.
       - Gates of Hell power cost: 150p ➜ 120p
    It would be uncontroversial to say that Batariel and the deck that surrounds it is the strongest deck in the game. The question has never been the strength of Batariel, but what to do with it. Some do not want it changed at all. Among those in favor of nerfs, many people have suggested nerfing Batariel itself, others Enlightenment, others Frenetic Assault, still others Unholy Hero as the main source of the problem to bring Batariel from S++ tier to closer to S or A+ tier. After much discussion among all segments of the playerbase, and especially with some of the game's top players, we have come to the determination that we cannot successfully balance Batariel unless we also nerf Unholy Hero or at least decouple it from Batariel. At the same time, we cannot directly nerf Unholy Hero without affecting a large portion of decks that are otherwise balanced. Frenetic Assault, while very powerful in combination with Batariel, is also overpowered in its own right. In the end, we have settled on nerfing both Batariel and Frenetic Assault while decoupling it from Unholy Hero.
    Batariel's damage aura no longer benefits from any buffs on Batariel or debuffs on enemies, including Batariel(p)'s own armor shredding aura. With this drastic step taken, we have also increased Batariel's base damage significantly, along with adjustments to its stage 1 activation threshold. Batariel can now activate stage 1 in 2 attacks against XL-units and in 3 attacks against non-XL units. A Batariel buffed with Unholy Hero can now also one-shot a small spawn building, while the base damage buff helps Batariel substantially when fighting bosses. The cost reduction to Gates of Hell allows the player to quickly and efficiently activate Batariel's stage 3 in a single ability. Overall, our tests have shown that while Batariel is slower than before, the Enlightenment-Batariel deck remains intact as a top tier deck for both skilled and casual play. 
    The bigger issue in balancing Batariel came from the purple affinity regularly used in Pure Fire decks. In the current meta, Pure Fire typically uses a mix of both affinities, with the purple affinity amplifying the already substantial damage of the red affinity to even greater heights. With the changes to Batariel's aura, this damage amplification is no longer possible. As such, we had to get creative in keeping the Pure Fire deck viable. Alongside these changes, we have also buffed other Fire cards such as Bloodthirst, Magma Fiend, and Fire Sphere. The changes to Bloodthirst help make a Batariel(p) + Fire Dragon deck much more viable and significantly more durable. We increased the synergy between Batariel and Fire Dragon by making the purple affinity increase the damage taken by enemies even further. When Batariel(p) and Fire Dragons are both fully enraged with Bloodthirst, Fire Dragons deal 30,000 damage per 20 seconds. We also increased the speed of Magma Fiend to open up the option of using it with other Fire cards. Finally, the changes to Fire Sphere have proven much more substantial than initially anticipated. A perfectly executed Fire Sphere (remember it has a 10 second wind-up period) that combos with a stage 3 Batariel(p) can one shot an entire camp. All in all, while Pure Fire will prove to be much different after the changes, it increasingly has a playstyle that feels all its own.
     Bloodthirst:
       - Power cost: 160p ➜ 140p
       - Unit count: 7 total targets ➜ 8 total targets
       - Duration: 20 seconds ➜ 25 seconds
       - Healing: 175 life points per second ➜ 200 life points per second
       - Damage buff: 20% more damage ➜ 40% more damage
    Our initial testing for the last round of changes showed Bloodthirst far overperforming its intended power level. Unfortunately, the new Bloodthirst received a double nerf upon release when we not only reduced its healing, but we also removed its ability to heal stack. Since then, it has performed below what is appropriate for a card of its requirements and its weak state is keeping Fire archetypes from achieving their true potential. We have buffed up nearly all aspects of the spell.
     Cluster Explosion(p)
       - Initial radius: 20m ➜ 25m
    Equalizing initial radii of both affinities to be 25m.
     Coat of Protection(b)
       - Increased Ice Shield total cap, which can be strengthened to absorb from to 2500 damage ➜ 3000.
    The purple affinity of Coat of Protection has by and large been the better of the two affinities. Additionally, the current cap makes using the blue affinity of Ice Age with the blue affinity of CoP quite inefficient. This change rectifies that issue.
     Fire Sphere
       - Damage maximum: 8000 ➜ 10000 in total
       - Spell radius: 15m ➜ 25m (visual FX already appeared to be 25m)
       - Knockback: Small, medium, and large units ➜ Knocks back all unit sizes in the area (regardless of whether they are damaged or not).
    Fire Sphere is not a good card. It also lacks identity due to how good its competitors are in its own faction. While thinking about the card, we realized it could keep its boss killing identity while providing 3 Fire+ decks with a thematically appropriate CC effect in knock back. By changing the way its knock back applies and increasing its effect radius to match its existing visual effect, we allow the Fire player to potentially knock back an entire camp. The changes to its splash damage last patch also mean that it no longer loses damage when overkilling an enemy. Our tests have found that a perfectly timed Fire Sphere combined with a fully enraged Batariel give Pure Fire the ability to fully wipe camps in both RPvE 9+ and expert campaign maps. 
     Fire Worm:   
       - Power cost: 210p ➜ 200p
       - Charges: 4 ➜ 8
       - Attack range: 30m ➜ 40m
    Fire Worm is not a bad card per se, but it lacks a firm identity and a reason to choose it over other options. Its stats are also not great, having only 2640 life points, lower than several T3 units, with a real attack value of only 4000 despite its claim to deal 4800 damage. Thinking about Fire Worm more, we have decided to move it into the role of a disposable sniper unit. The longer range helps it to survive longer and pick out priority targets without placing itself in danger. Fire Worm will be the first and only XL-unit to have 8 charges. This, along with the lower cost, will allow the player to spam them out quickly, allowing them to function as skirmisher like units without having to fear losing a precious charge on an XL-unit. 
     Grove Spirit:   
       - Healing Song healing capacity: 5000 life points ➜ 5500 life points
    Minor correction to allow Grove Spirit to actually heal as much as she claims. 
     Ice Tornado:   
       - Power cost: 145p ➜ 140p
     Jorne:   
       - Wrecking Hammer radius: 20m ➜ 25m
       - Wrecking Hammer damage total: 6600 in total ➜ 8800 in total
    Minor buff to Jorne and the accompanying legendary deck. This should make Jorne's anti-building ability easier to hit on multiple targets and more worth the power investment.
     Lifestream: 
       - Life Link: 20% of absorbed damage transferred ➜ 30% of absorbed damage transferred
    After the recent buffs, Lifestream is in a good place but is slightly too strong. We as a team do not want to encourage strategies which can functionally create invincible armies, particularly not in a faction with already strong sustain options. As such, we are slightly toning down Lifestream by making it take more damage. This should make the downside real, with the possibility of killing the Lifestream if the player does not pay close enough attention.
     Lost Dragon: 
       - Damage: 335, up to 502 in total (3000 dp20) ➜ 416, up to 624 total (3715 dp20)
       - Life points: 3780 ➜ 4080
    Lost Dragon card is very weak for its requirements, even with its very strong passive debuffs. Given it is a support unit, we considered placing more of its power budget into its debuff effects, but after consideration determined that the current debuffs are already sufficiently strong and well-designed. Lost Dragons stats are just too low. As such, we decided on a ~23% damage buff and ~8% life point buff. We wanted to preserve the existing trait of Lost Souls units, where life points are generally higher than damage. 
     Magma Fiend: 
       - Burning Liquid cost: 100p ➜ 50p
       - Movement Speed: 4.8 m/s (run) + 2.4 m/s (walk) ➜ 6.4 m/s (run) + 4.8 m/s (walk)
    Burning Liquids is a decent ability, but like many abilities in the game it is overpriced. We are reducing its cost to align the price more closely with the effect produced. Additionally, we are increasing Magma Fiend's movement speed from slow to normal XL. We think that slow speeds should fit the unit in terms of balance, theme, or both. In the case of Magma Fiend, there is neither a thematic nor a balance reason for its currently slow speed, so we changed it.
     Noxious Cloud: 
       - Power cost: 250p ➜ 230p
       - Initial damage: 13 (3750 total) ➜ 24 damage every second (5640 total)
       - Time between damage increase: 2 seconds ➜ 3 seconds
    Noxious Cloud is one of the most expensive spells in the game. While theoretically having a large potential total damage of 37,500, this rarely occurs as it requires all 10 initial targets to both live for the full duration and to remain inside the area for 37 seconds in total. In practice, even the Tier 3 Thunderstorm is usually better. Even in perfect situations, Noxious Cloud is heavily outcompeted by rival options such as Plague and Cluster Explosion. We wanted to buff Noxious Cloud without turning it into a copy of these other spells. As such, it continues to only affect units and we kept the total spell duration at 37 seconds. This is similar to the other Nature damage spell, such as Thunderstorm and Parasite, which have long durations and are only capable of damaging units. The new Noxious Cloud should kill most XL-units that remain within its effect for the full duration, while also cleaning up more S and M-units units due to its higher base damage. It also remains expensive, as Nature's faction identity is centered around unit-based damage, not damage dealing spells. 
     Plague: 
       - Power cost: 150p ➜ 170p
       - Parasite duration: 15 seconds ➜ 10 seconds
    Despite toning down the new Plague before release, it remains one of the strongest spells in the game and is capable of single-handedly clearing camps, any respawns, and even bosses. We have decided to increase its cost to reduce power efficiency and reduce parasite duration. This reduces each parasite's single-target damage from 1500 to 1000, while making it harder to proc the secondary parasites due to reduced duration. The reduced duration also nerfs the powerful non-immunity applying ranged silence. Overall, this should mean Plague is no longer a cast and forget spell; players will need to encourage the initial parasites to proc themselves if they want to make get full use out of the spell. 
     Primeval Watcher:
       - Orb cost: 2 Nature, 2 Neutral ➜ 3 Nature, 1 Neutral
       - Damage: 600 / 288 / 192 / 127 / 84 (6550 dp20) ➜  660 / 330 / 220 / 165 / 132 (7220 dp20)
       - Life points: 4650 ➜ 4850
       - Stasis Field:
          - Targets: 7 enemies ➜ 9 enemies
          - Ability cost: 0p ➜ 25p
       - New passive, "Siege": Deals 50% more damage against structures.
    Primeval Watcher is Pure Nature's primarily damage dealer. As such, Pure Nature's viability as an army-centric faction rises and falls based on Primeval's performance. We have wanted to increase Primeval's stats, but its current orb requirements limited our options as it would have mainly buffed Primeval Watcher in non-Pure Nature decks. Due to this, we have decided to increase its orb requirements to 3 Nature orbs to make room for more substantial stat buffs. Additionally, given that Primeval Watcher is one of Nature's only ways to kill buildings, particularly in the back of a camp, we have given it Siege to aid in this role.
     Skycatcher:
       - Damage 520, up to 780 in total (4660 dp20) ➜ 600, up to 800 in total (5000 dp20)
       - Fixed bug where killing the initial unit would reduce all splash damage to 0.
       - Twilight Infection power cost: 50p ➜ 0p
       - Twilight Infection cooldown: 20 sec ➜ 3 sec
    Slight buff to Skycatcher to allow it to better perform its role as a backline attacker. The changes to Twilight Infection will allow Skycatcher to quickly transform a T2 or T3 army into a T4 army. 
     Transcendence:
       - Radius: 25m ➜ 30m
       - Kenosis, healing buff: 50% ➜ 75% more healing
       - Tyranny:
          - Healing debuff: 50% ➜ 75% less healing
          - Damage debuff: 25% ➜ 40% less damage
    We are happy with Transcendence in concept but not in practice. The stats it released with have proven too low for it to be a compelling option in decks that might otherwise want to make use of it. We are buffing up its buffs and debuffs and increasing its radius to make it easier to use in chaotic T4 fights.
    [ Tower Changes ]
    It is the general principle of the faction design team not to change abilities or introduce complex mechanics needlessly. Cards should generally perform a single function and perform that function well. A lot of the buildings in the game are already well-designed but lack sufficient stats or possess too strict of requirements. As such, we have opted wherever possible to introduce simple changes to bring the tower to the appropriate power level. If you would like to learn more about our thought process behind the tower changes, please head to Skylords Reborn Documents to read our design Deep Dive on Towers, as well as other design documents. 
     Artillery:
       - Orb requirements: 2 Fire, 2 Shadow ➜ 1 Fire, 1 Shadow, 2 Neutral
       - Power cost: 190p ➜ 150p
     Deepgorge:
       - Power cost: 225p ➜ 200p
       - Damage: 480, up to 720 in total (3000 dp20) ➜ 675, up to 1015 in total (3760 dp20)
       - Cold Clutch freeze radius: 20m ➜ 25m
     Frost Crystal:
       - Power cost: 70p ➜ 60p
       - Damage: 72, up to 110 in total (728 dp20) ➜ 92, up to 138 in total (920 dp20)
       - Frost Wave freeze radius: 20m ➜ 25m
     Hammerfall:
       - Power cost: 150p ➜ 130p
    Hatecaster:
       - Orb costs: 2 Fire, 2 Nature ➜ 1 Fire, 1 Nature, 2 Neutral
     Howling Shrine:
       - Life points: 3160 ➜ 4260
       - Linked Fire support: 1 support ➜ 4 support provided while out of combat
     Living Tower:
       - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 10m
     Mindweaver:
       - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
       - Damage: 250, up to 375 in total (1900 dp20) ➜ 290, up to 435 in total (2200 dp20)
     Necroblaster:
       - Splash radius: 10m ➜ 12m
       - Corpse cost per shot: 500 life points ➜ 825 life points
       - Maximum corpses storable: 4500 ➜ 6600 life points
       - Corpse gathering radius: 33m ➜ 40m
     Primal Defender:
       - Cloudstrike damage: 220 ➜ 225 per hit
     Rioter's Retreat,
       - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Stone Hurler,
       - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Time Vortex: 
       - Life points: 2820 ➜ 1830
       - Splash radius: 5m ➜ 8m
     Tower of Flames:
       - Damage: 216, up to 324 in total (2160 dp20) ➜ 266, up to 399 in total (2660 dp20)
       - Splash Radius: 5m ➜ 10m
    Twilight Bombard:
       - Splash radius: 10m ➜ 15m
    Volcano:
       - Orb cost: 3 Fire, 1 Neutral ➜ 2 Fire, 2 Neutral
       - Gifted Eruption(g):
          - Self regeneration: 150 ➜ 200 life points per second
          - Regeneration duration: 5 sec ➜ 10 sec
    [ Miscellaneous Changes ]
     - Mind controlled units can no longer be targeted by revive effects.
     - NoClaim and NoCardPlay have been removed from the effects list of The Incredible Mo and Dryad(g) as neither are debuffs nor weakening effects. This means that these two cards will no longer prevent the removal of ground presence or the removal of the ability to claim walls, Power Wells, and Monuments. 
     - The temporary immunity to revive effects on units recently resurrected by Promise of Life is now displayed as an effect. 
     - Viridya / Ravenheart: Now spawn summoned units one at a time, no longer requiring the player to kill one unit to spawn a third unit.
     - Changed several more units with unbound power costs to show 0 power as the power cost when hovering over them in-game.
     - The following units have had their class changed from Beast to Primordial: Deepcoil Worm, Deep One, Fathom Lord, Fire Worm, Magma Fiend, Shadow Worm, and Twilight Horror
     - The ability "Accelerated Construction" has been renamed to "Fast Construction" to conserve space on cards.
     - Added visual effect for Dying Breed on air units.
     - Magma Spore now properly shows it is Swift.
     - Portal Nexus's Explosive Death now has a range preview when hovered over. 
     - Viridya and promo Viridya's Treespirits have been renamed to Viridya's Treespirits.
     - The Bandit random PvE boss Equestrian Twins debuff duration has been decreased from infinite to 30 seconds.

    PvP Balance Changes
     [ New Card Design Spotlight  - Twilight Crawler ]
    Twilight Crawlers will be a new addition to Twilight decks in T2 and widen the pool of potential transformation targets. They will be a Twilight oriented replacement for Scythe Fiends with the upsides of lower costs and an increased durability against ranged units and spells, creating synergy with healing effects like Ravage. Their transformation ability grants a faster animation, leading to a lowered risk of getting interrupted in PvP scenarios. With fast movement, they will add more versatility to the Fire Nature T2 and even more so when opting for a Twilight unit deck.
     [ New Card Design Spotlight  - Tranquility ]
    We are happy to add a second spell to the Amii faction. Tranquility was designed as a flexible T2 support spell, emphasizing Amii's current PvP identity with a strong early game oriented around low energy trading. As the majority of units accessible by Shadow Nature are very cheap, the existing single target buffs from shadow splashes exceed the unit cost, makes buffing units less efficient compared to playing a second unit most of the time. The Foreboding Whispers effect should add more counterplay when facing buffed single units, which opt into focusing down Power Wells. Beside Nightguard, who has been nerfed recently, Amii lacks direct counters for L/XL units, making them slow to take down key targets. As the spell scales fairly well into higher tiers, it might also see play in late game battles, as well as PvE scenarios.
    [ Twilight Rework ]
     Twilight Transformation:
    The Twilight Transformation mechanic has been perceived as disappointing by most of our players. The existing aura effects were not cost efficient, and the upside of creating strong units with reduced bound power was overshadowed by Breeding Grounds. On top of that, the transformation mechanic was very clunky. A two second channel time made it difficult to use the ability in the midst of battle. A unit would risk taking a large chunk of unnecessary damage during channel time, or even have its transformation canceled by crowd control. As we have wanted to buff Twilight Transformation effects across the board, the clunky nature of this ability needed to be addressed first. To achieve this goal, we reduced the channel time of all Twilight Transformations. To address the issue of weak transformation effects, we will buff up existing ones while also adding several new mechanics, rewarding players for engaging in smart transformations. We intend to keep working on the Twilight archetype into the future, including focusing on more PvE centric changes following the same design approach seen here. This should ideally solidify the transformation ability as a powerful mechanic and make Twilight as a faction more rewarding and fun to play overall.
     Slaver:
       - Power cost: 75p ➜ 70p
       - Blowout:
          - Now also damages air units
          - Now also triggers after transformation
       -. Infused Blowout(r):
          - Max damage: 450 ➜ 900 total damage
          - Now knocks back S-units
       - Tainted Blowout(p):
          - Max damage: 350 ➜ 810 total damage
          - Now knocks back S and M-units
    Slaver was outclassed by other L-counter options in Fire Nature decks. As we want to allow more options for Twilight oriented decks, the high slot investment for its various units needs to offer more value in return. With the listed changes, we want to allow Slaver to compete with other L-counter options and also add more room for creative usage of the blowout ability. Channeling a transformation or killing the unit by yourself to get extra burst damage in critical situations should create interesting gameplay options, especially since it has an in-built L-counter bonus that gets applied even after the unit dies.
     Twilight Brute:
       - New passive, "Bloodlust": If the unit is transformed, it will incite friendly units within a 20m radius to restore 25% of their damage dealt as life points. Lasts for 20 seconds.
    Based on its stats, Twilight Brute has been a viable option to Fire Nature decks in the past. Its playrate was strictly limited due to deck slot issues though, as the unit was good at defending against key units like Bandit Stalker or Scythe Fiends, but didn’t add much pressure during counter-attacks compared to other M counter options like Skyfire Drake. To raise the incentive of playing him in Twilight decks, we will add a new Transformation effect, that can enable strong counterattacks after a successful defense. We will keep an eye on him to see if he can find his place in Twilight decks moving forward. We might also adjust his Burstout ability in the near future, which was not touched this patch cycle for workload reasons.
     Twilight Minions:
       - Gifted / Infused Incentive radius: 20m ➜ 25m
       - Gifted Incentive(g): Now also affects Fire and Nature units
       - Infused Incentive(r) damage buff: 50% ➜ 65%  
    Twilight Minions fill the role of a main M-counter regardless of whether you want to pursue the current Fire Nature style or move towards a Twilight oriented deck. We want to make sure the transformations are a little more useful for both of these decks.
     Vileblood:
       - Gifted / Infused Liquids, radius: 15m ➜ 18m
       - Gifted Liquids(g) healing: 200 ➜ 250 life points per wave
       - Infused Liquids(r):
          - Damage: 100, up to 330 in total ➜ 130, up to 520 in total
          - Now knocks back S and M-unit
          - No longer damages structures
    We are buffing the Vileblood transformation towards unit damage instead of cheesing for a guaranteed 600 damage on power wells. With the newly added knockback, it should be fairly useful to punish stacked melee counter units. Also buffing the green affinity a little bit to keep up in value.
     Mutating Maniac:
       - Removed "Hex" passive ability (both affinities).
       - New passive, "Infused Fervor"(r):
          - If the unit is transformed, it will incite friendly Twilight units within a 20m radius to move 40% faster. Additionally, they will deal 50% more damage. Lasts for 15 seconds. 
       - New passive, "Gifted Fervor"(g):
          - If the unit is transformed, it will incite friendly Twilight units within a 20m radius to move 40% faster. Additionally, they will be immune to all major debuffs. Lasts for 15 seconds. 
    Since its previous changes, Mutating Maniac started performing fairly well in multiple decks. That said, the transformation ability remained fairly underwhelming. The effect was both very weak and there was no unit worth transforming into. Since moving Nightshade Plant to T3 will change the second part, we are remedying the first issue by replacing the current transformation effect with a more powerful one. If utilized correctly, this should make transforming worthwhile despite the significant power investment.
     Nightshade Plant:
       - Orb cost: 2 Nature, 2 Fire (T4) ➜ 1 Nature, 1 Fire, 1 Hybrid (T3) 
       - Damage: 6380 ➜ 4100
       - Life points: 5800 ➜ 3400
       - New passive, "Siege": Deals 50% more damage against structures.
       - New passive "Adept Mutation": Reduced transformation cost 208p ➜ 180p 
       - Tainted Tendrils, damage: 50 per sec ➜ 20 per sec
    Nightshade Plant has been highly redundant in PvE due to being outclassed by Abomination. As the card's design doesn't enable a different playstyle for Twilight decks, we have decided to rework it into a T3 unit that is most efficient when being summoned through transformation. This should add more depth to the Twilight archetype in both PvP and PvE. In PvP, Fire Nature often doesn't have the option of playing more than 2 or 3 cards in T3. This led to late game issues against more defensive oriented decks. Closing out leads was often quite a tough task outside the top echelons of play. Adding a strong game finisher will help the faction to compete to a certain extent. Decks including various Twilight units from earlier game stages will have more strategic options to utilize the card through different transformation effects. Twilight Minions will provide a very cheap summoning, Twilight Crawlers can quickly move to desired locations before transforming, and Mutating Maniac will provide the most powerful transformation buff and unit synergy.
    [ Bandit Touch-up ]
    Bandits has been in a very strong position ever since the release of its new cards, especially in lower ELOs. As a result, we will tweak it from both ends by slightly nerfing Bandit Minefield and Bandit Stalker, while also buffing some of its most favorable matchups with Pure Nature and Fire Nature. We received a lot of feedback mainly regarding the Bandit Minefield being perceived as fairly oppressive and will closely observe whether this continues to be the case after this set of changes.
     Bandit Minefield:
       - Cooldown: 25 seconds ➜ 30 seconds
    Bandit Minefield has been extremely popular since its release. We noticed the spell is getting spammed a lot, as it ensures great trades in almost any state of the game. Microing around the spell and punishing a player during its cooldown is supposed to be this spells intended counterplay. This downside demands a good understanding of matchup from the opponent's side as well as a solid level of execution, making the card even more efficient in lower ELOs. As we want to add more possibilities to play around the spell, we will increase its cooldown. This should open up bigger time windows to attack a Bandit player, who used the spell too recklessly. With reduced power on the Bandit Stalker, see below, there also should be more room to make use of beast creatures that can avoid the mines more consistently due to their mobility.
     Bandit Stalker(g):
       - Damage against Beasts: 100% more damage ➜ 80% more damage
    Bandit Stalker received a powerful buff in the past to help Bandits deal with a lot of the beast units, against which the faction used to struggle. With new powerful cards added to the faction, Bandits has become a bit too good against beast reliant decks. As a result, we decided to reduce the beast bonus damage on the green affinity of Bandit Stalker, providing players with the opportunity to snowball a lead against Bandits without getting shut down by this powerful counter unit.
     Bandit Lancer:
       - Branding targeting range: 5m ➜ 8m
       - Added a targeting range preview to Branding when hovered over.
    QoL changes which will make the ability smoother to use.
    [ Miscellaneous Changes ]
     Deep One:
       - Life points: 1450 ➜ 1500
       - Gifted Catch root immunity duration: 20 seconds ➜ 10 seconds
       - Species class: Beast ➜ Primordial
    Pure Nature did not perform to the level we had hoped after its small rework. While we do think it was the right move to reduce Deep One’s health pool, we went a little too far. Pure Nature started struggling to break through strong Frost Splash defenses. We will revert some parts of the health nerfs and also reduce the CC immunity duration applied by gifted catch, which had a much longer duration compared to the usual cc abilities. Outside of that, the Nature versus Bandits matchup has been perceived as fairly oppressive amongst most players that gave us feedback. Deep One will move from Beast to the new Primordial class to make sure it is not getting hard countered by units like Bandit Stalker in the future. With more freedom to use its various units in skirmishes, Nature should also gain more room to play around Bandit Minefield. The spell strongly punishes any misplacement of Ghostspears or Spirit Hunters, which were the only viable trading units in this matchup, assuming a normal nature deck build was being played.
     Emberstrike:
       - Fire Lance can no longer damage Monuments and Power Wells.
    Small change to alleviate issues regarding the card in 2vs2 in order to keep games enjoyable without affecting any PvE unit interactions.
     Icefang Raptor:
       - Infused Reserve(r): 30% ➜ 35% of damage reflected to melee attackers
       - Blessed Reserve(b): 25% ➜ 30% damage reduction
    With the addition of Amii Paladins and buffs to cards like Twilight Minions or Ghostspears, the impact of small sized medium counters has increased overall. As a result, Icefang Raptor has fallen a bit behind. Its issues are amplified by the bonus counter passives of some S-units it is supposed to fight against, such as Stone Shards or Bandit Spearmen. Adding more power to the unit's passive should balance this out and push the unit further towards decks that can provide appropriate support in the first place.
     Mumbo Jumbo:
       - Debuff (both affinities): 20% ➜ 25%
    Adding a bit of power to Mumbo Jumbo as the spell is fairly difficult to use. The buffs should enable a small extra reward for nature players opting into a large T1 without altering the potentially unhealthy interactions around its spawn presence denial.
     Warden's Sigil
       - New passive, "Fast Construction": Construction time is reduced by 50%
       - Cooldown: 20 seconds ➜ 15 seconds
    Frost T1 has struggled a lot against early T2 attacks centered around Nightcrawlers and Burrowers. These units were capable of ignoring any counters entirely by focusing down structures. This inherent weakness often pushed players in the direction of playing frost very aggressively instead of methodically securing map control and power leads over time. These changes to Warden's Sigil should add more options for Frost to keep power wells alive without altering its capabilities in unit trading. While Warden's Sigil will be able to help a player get through the early game more consistently, it will be at the cost of fewer card slots for higher tier options. Since we did not want to support forward siege building strategies, the ability to attach on buildings under construction will only remain on the green affinity (this already got added in the last patch).
  7. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400035 - 14 September 2022   
    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.  
     
  8. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Community Update #27 - September   
    We have some exciting plans for Twilight and Lost Souls coming up in the not too distant future. The upcoming patch includes a major rework of nearly all T2 and T3 Twilight units. While we don't have anything for this patch yet, we are working on making each of the hybrid faction spells help enable a unique play style for their respective factions.
  9. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by Kapo in CCC #6 - Back to the Roots UNTIL 24.07.2022   
    Hello Skylords, Skyladies and other Skybeings; and welcome to CCC #6 – the sixth Crappy Community Contest!
     
    THE CONTEST HAS ENDED.
    To see the winners, CLICK HERE. If you are just here to grab the booster code, there you go:  CCC6-TUTO-RIAL-DECK

     
     
    What are “Crappy Community Contests”?
    CCC's are meant to be small-scale contests with weird challenges, hopefully luring you away from well-trodden paths. They are small-scale on the organizers side too: there will be no stream, video or event announcing the winners. What's special about these contests is a participation price for the whole Skylords community.
    While the first CCC was a small event, some CCCs have developed into a quite laborious undertaking - and this one especially. @LEBOVIN has poured dozens and dozens of hours into this contest's map, so we are at a point where the "crappy" is undeserving.
     
    What, when, where, how?
    While the last CCC was with unlimited amounts of resources, this CCC will be about a very special map with a harsh deck limitation:
     
    Back to the Roots

    New Skylords have conquered these lands to learn from Moon about the powers of the Forge.
    Now it is upon you to take the forces of Nature and Shadow to these lands to bring peace once more.

    This challenge is to win the Custom 1-player-map “CCC #6 - Back to the Roots”
    on Standard difficulty with a predetermined deck as fast as you can.

    This custom map is a copy of the Introduction map with a few new jumps and turns. To participate, you will have to use the following mirrored tutorial deck:
    Forsaken Skeleton Warriors Surge of Light Burrower Stone of Torment Thornbark Mutating Frenzy Fear not - we removed as many ultra-long explanations as possible from the map. But, if you have some spare time, it is nice to check out the original tutorial before diving into this one - you will enjoy and appreciate the map a lot more if you can see what has been altered. Playing a disallowed card or playing it on any other difficulty than Standard will result in disqualification. Upgraded cards are allowed, you don't need to make a real tutorial deck out of it.
    The contest has started with the release of this post – submit your entry through Discord (DM to Kapo#0116) or the Skylords Forum (DM to @Kapo) until 24.07.2022 23:59 CET  (= 9 days time total). You can submit multiple times, but only the fastest will count. Please note that your submitted replay may be posted here in the forums.
    Battleforge automatically saves a replay file of the last match you play, named autosave.pmv.  After playing the contest map, rename this file, so it doesn't get overwritten. You can find your replays here: Documents => Battleforge => replays. To reduce my workload, you may rename your file to CCC6_<Time>_<IGN>.pmv (e.g. CCC6_15.53.9_Kapo.pmv).

    There is some minor, unavoidable problem that it might appear in the lobby as a two-players-map - of course you have to play it alone.
     

     
    Community Maps
    How to access the map:
     
     
    What's the price pool?
    Since this is not just a Crappy Contest, but a Crappy Community Contest, you may help with your participation to earn a price for the whole Community. If we reach more than 20 participants (unique players, not entries), we will unlock a Mini-Booster code for the entire Skylords Community. If more than 35 participants enter, the code will be upgraded to a Booster instead of a Mini-Booster. So tell your fellow Skylords to try this challenge – it's an occasion to try something completely new, and it raises our chances to hand out a code for everybody. 
    Of course, the fastest Skylords will get prices too, sponsored by myself, the Community and the Skylords Reborn Team:
    1st place               5 General Boosters + Promo Mana Wing + Juice Tank (x4)
    2nd place              4 General Boosters + Promo Rogan Kayle + Nether Warp (B)
    3rd place              3 General Boosters + Promo Fallen Skyelf + Grinder (R)
    4th place              2 General Boosters + Dreadnought + Matter Mastery (P)
    5th place              1 General Booster + Avatar of Frost + Gravity Surge (B)
    6th place              Primeval Watcher + Banzai (P)
    7th place              Nether Warp (G)+ Banzai (G)
    8th place              Cluster Explosion (R) + Bloodhorn (P)
    9th place              Amii Monument + Bloodhorn (R)
    10th place            Skycatcher (G) + Shrine of Memory
    11th place            Forest Elder (P) + Grinder(P)
    12th place            Church of Negation
    13th-16th place   Bandit Minefield (x1 each)

    Last place              Juice Tank (x5) + 500BFP
    For participation, there is a random chance to win one of the following cards:
    Random Draws          5x1 General Booster, Ironclad (R), Dreadnought, Wheel of Gifts, Core Dredge (R), Church of Negation, Moloch, Timeshifter Spirit, QueekQueek, Disenchant (P), Backlash, Disenchant (P), Gravity Surge (P), Oracle Mask (G), Shrine of War, Infect, Enlightenment, Abyssal Warder(R)
    This CCC has a new feature for beginners, the Newbie Card Pool. By participating, players of Bronze or Silver Rank will automatically receive an uncommon random card sponsored by @THE_BIG_WET. Of course, you may also win other random draws additionally if you are lucky. The Newbie Card Pool contains the following cards:
     

    Should we get more entries than 15 Bronze/Silver, the pool will be expanded, so every newcomer will receive a card. Those expansion cards will be rare cards (instead of more uncommons) sponsored by @Vysnia, so tell your fellow beginner to participate!
     
    Sponsors
    If one or more mighty Skylord(s) decides to sponsor this event, please contact me. I would be more than happy to beef up or expand the prize pool beyond the 10th place, add additional random draws, special bounties or any other upgrades to the prize pool. 
    The following prices have been sponsored so far:
    Skylords Team          General Boosters (x20), Community Booster Code
    @Kapo                Promo Mana Wing, Promo Fallen Skyelf, Promo Rogan Kayle
    @Simplifying*       Skycatcher (B), Nether Warp (G), Primeval Watcher, Cluster Explosion (R), Ironclad (R), Forest Elder (P), Church of Negation, Moloch, Timeshifter Spirit, QueekQueek
    @THE_BIG_WET     Newbie Card Pool (see above)
    @Metagross31     Grinder(R), Matter Mastery (P)
    @Donaar             Juice Tank (x9)
    @Trando             Dreadnought, Core Dredge (R), Gravity Surge (P), Gravity Surge (B), Oracle Mask (G), Backlash, Disenchant (P), Nether Warp (B)
    @Sylar                Avatar of Frost, Dreadnought, Wheel of Gifts, Bandit Minefield (x4), Bloodhorn (P), Bloodhorn (R), Banzai (P), Banzai (G), Shrine of War, Shrine of Memory
    @Kemek             Infect, Enlightement, Amii Monument
    @Prajoss            Church of Negation, Abyssal Warder (R), Grinder(P)
    @Vysnia             5000 BFP (Last Place BFP + Newbie Card Pool Rare Cards)

    * Simplifying, a player who stopped playing, also donated his complete account. This is the fourth (and last) contest his collection is sponsoring - he expressed how nice the community is, and he wanted to give something back through the CCC.
     
    Special thanks and Conclusion
    My very special thanks goes out @LEBOVIN, who created this awesome map and introduced many surprising new features never seen to Battleforge before, also @Hodron who helped with the special camera sequence, and the Skylords Team in general who really went out of their way to support the creation of the map.
    I hope you are having fun with the map, and I hope to see some awesome replays from our many Skilllords that have to work and think hard with the limited possibilities due to the deck.
    Good luck, I hope you enjoy this twisted version of the Introduction!
    Kapo
         
    Future Events - get involved!
    If you are interested in helping with these (or better) kinds of events for the community, or want to host one yourself, don't be afraid and simply reach out! Contact our beloved Event Managers @Minashigo Hiko and/or @Metagross31 on the forums or discord. They are happy to assist you with upcoming events and with sponsoring your prize pool!
    If you especially like this small-scale-format, and you have an idea for it, you may also contact me directly to discuss your idea and host your own Crappy Community Contest.
  10. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400033 - 5 June 2022   
    Map Balance Changes

    PvE Map Changes
    Behind Enemy Lines: increased initial power wells from 2 to 3. All three have a capacity of 1200, equivalent to a 40 min lifetime.
    Behind Enemy Lines is a map with a high failure rate with non-Nightguard strategies, and is none to have substantial periods where the player is forced to wait. The primary goal is to keep the map strategic and difficult, while removing the tedious moments. A secondary goal is to buff non-Nightguard strategies in preparation for the upcoming changes to mind control. Convoy: buildings are now properly blocked from being built in the canyon in the center of the map in all locations.
    Nightmare Shard: increased initial power wells from 2 to 3 and increased the capacity of the T2 & T3 power wells from 600 (20 min) to 900 (30 min). Once the goal is activated to destroy the infected Twilight spawns (which occurs either after the player has reached the Shard or the first Twilight Witch spawns, whichever is first) the fog of war over each infected camp is cleared in a 35m radius.
    The average completion time for this map on expert is 48 minutes. The idea is to increase early power generation to reduce waiting, and to increase well capacity in-line with how long the map actually takes. Additionally, many players do not have a good idea of the strength of the various Twilight camps. The choice to remove the fog of war over the camps should help the players to make a better informed decision of where next to attack. Nightmare's End: increased initial power wells from 2 to 3 and increased initial well capacity from 900 (30 min) to 1200 (40 min). Increased the capacity of the T2 power wells from 600 (20 min) to 900 (30 min). 
    Nightmare's End has an average completion time of 72 minutes. This makes it the longest map in the game, and it is notoriously frustrating, leading to low replayability. Initial power generation and well capacity does not match the map's actual difficulty or length, so we are hopeful these changes can help bring about a smoother gameplay experience. There are other issues with the map in need of changing, but they will need to wait for a future patch. The Dwarven Riddle: added a monument and 3 power wells on each side of the map, regardless of number of players. 
    This change will allow both players to go T4. It should only affect players who play the map in a more "standard" method, in contrast to the speedrun method.   Standardized all official single player campaign maps to have 4 gold chests.
    Defending Hope: added 2 gold chests to match the standard.  Ocean: removed 2 gold chests to match the standard. The Soultree: added 1 gold chest to match the standard Introduction: added one gold chest to introduce new players to the concept of gold chests.

    PvP Map Changes
    While PvP has been moving steadily towards a more and more balanced state, a major issue we still face is the maps themselves. Just like we previously made changes to the 1v1 maps, we are happy to finally unveil our changes to all the 2v2 PvP maps (and Yrmia). These changes should create a more competitive and fair play environment, with many existing imbalances and cheese opportunities removed. All minimaps have been adjusted to reflect the changes and to be more accurate in general.
    [ 1v1 Maps ]
    Yrmia / Yrmia (Spectator Map):
    Decreased the capacity of all power wells with 900 capacity to 600 capacity (1). Decreased the capacity of all power wells with 1500 capacity to 600 capacity (2). [ 2v2 Maps ]
    Danduil:
    Removed the 4 fortification walls surrounding the Monuments on both sides. Added 1 power well of 600 power capacity at each of the 4 monument positions in the corners. Fixed an issue where it was not possible to spawn non-S-sized units by the ground presence solely provided by the outer power wells (2 and 3). Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Fyre:
    Increased the construction cost of the 4 outer fortification walls from 25 to 50 energy. Decreased these wall's distance to the power wells. These walls can no longer be built by enemies if the player or ally own the power well closest to the wall. Additionally, slightly narrowed the layout of the respective area around the wall in the bottom left to enable the same effect there. Added flying blocking at the 2 big lakes in the center to prevent sieging across them with long-ranged flying units. This is now visualized by permanently present clouds in the area. The power wells in the top left of the upper starting base now provide spawn presence for units and buildings. The power wells in the bottom right of the lower starting base now provide better spawn presence for units and buildings. Fixed various other minor blocking issues. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Gorgash:
    Increased the construction cost of the fortification walls at each starting position from 25 to 50 power. These walls are no longer pre-built at the start of the game. Increased all player's starting void power from 400 to 425 to compensate for wall changes. Decreased the power cost of the walls at the central northern and southern bases at the border of map from 75 to 50 energy. Adjusted the position of the monuments and power wells in all 6 bases in the north and south of the map to decrease distance to the wall. These walls can no longer be built by enemies if the player or ally owns the power well or monument closest to it. Removed the 2 walls around the northern and southern bases in the center of the map. Changed the layout of power wells and monuments in these bases by rotating each cluster by 180 degrees. Moved the power wells and monuments in these bases outwards, hence further away from the center of the map. Removed the northern and southern power well in the well cluster in the middle of the map. Moved the 4 power well clusters near the outer left and outer right bases closer to the center. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Koshan:
    Swapped the starting positions between players, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Added 2 ramps to the sides of the new start positions, granting access to the plateau behind. Opened up the plateaus in the corners by creating connecting ramps towards the diagonal of the map. Adjusted the positions of wells, so that they are further away from the nearby wall, and thus hostile units mounted on the wall cannot attack the wells anymore. Nadai:
    Added 1 power well of 1200 capacity at each side of the center monument position. Adjusted the positions of monuments and walls, so that 4 of the walls cannot be taken anymore if an enemy has taken the adjacent monument. Adjusted the positions of monuments, so that they are further away from the nearby wall, and thus hostile units mounted on the wall cannot attack the orb anymore. Swapped the starting positions including the starting power wells and monuments only within teams for consistency, whilst preserving map symmetry. Turan:
    Opened up the middle of the map by creating 4 connecting paths between the power well clusters and the central monument. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Yshia:
    Adjusted the positions of the 4 outer fortification walls to prevent offensive walling, by moving them outwards and thus closer to the power wells and monuments there. Opened up the plateaus by adding 2 ramps to each of them. Widened one of the ramps leading up to the two small plateaus. Increased the cost of the plateau walls from 25 to 50. Moved the well clusters more towards the center of the plateau, but keeping them close to the wall to prevent offensive walling. Moved the monuments previously located off the plateau to add to each of them 1 power well of 600 power capacity. Swapped the starting positions including the power wells and monuments of the teams, whilst preserving previous symmetry. Zahadune:
    Added flying blocking at various places at the borders of the bodies of water to prevent sieging across them with long-ranged flying units. This is now visualized by permanently present clouds in the area.
    Fire Random PvE Balance Changes
    Fire was added as an enemy faction in rPvE in our Anniversary Patch. While we are currently working on adding Nature as the next faction to fight against, we have been keeping a close eye on the balance and player experience against Fire among all skill levels. With this patch, we will be making some changes to improve the experience. 
    [ System Changes ]
        - Significantly reduced the difficulties 6 and below.
        - Volcano now only spawns in level 4 camps and beyond.*
        - Incoming attack waves should now be less oppressive on higher difficulties.
    [ Bosses ]
    Removed fire class from all fire boss units - Protector's Seal no longer blocks the damage of Fire bosses.
    Abaddon: 
       - Rage:
           - Reduced the damage bonus from the second stage from 300% to 200%.
       - Gates of Hell: 
           - Reduced the initial damage from 800 (2400 in total) to 400 (1200 in total).
           - Reduced the eruption damage from 2000 (6000 in total) to 1000 (3000 in total).
    Aspect of Summer:
       - Global Warming: No longer prevents ice shield from being applied to target units.
    Brannoc:
       - Reduced life points from 65000 to 60000.
       - Fire Sphere:
           - Increased channeling time from 3 to 5 seconds.
           - Reduced damage from 2000 (10000 in total) to 1500 (7500 in total).
           - Reduced the radius from 25m to 20m.
           - Reduced the casting range 30m to 25m.
    Fireback:
       - Increased life points from 30000 to 40000.
    Fiend of Fire:
       - Flamethrower: Reduced damage per second from 600 to 500.
    Molten Golem:
       - Blazing Surface: Reduced damage returned from 50% to 25%.
    Vulcanos:
       - Unit is now XL.
       - Can now damage air units.
    [ Units ]
    Emberstrike:
       - Fire Lance
           - Reduced damage from 1200 (3100 in total) to 1000 (2500 in total).
           - Only deals 50% damage to structures.
    Firesworn:
       - Fixed a bug that prevented the unit from attacking units other than L-sized units.
    Fire Dragon:
       - Rage: Reduced the damage bonus from the second stage from 300% to 200%.
    Fire Worm:
       - Earthquake:
           - Reduced the damage per hit from 1000 to 500.
           - Now properly deals L counter damage.
    Magma Spore:
       - Ground Blast: 
           - Reduced the damage from 720 (1120 in total) to 350 (1050 in total).
           - Reduced the area Radius 15m -> 10m.
    Spitfire:
       - Fire Bomb: Reduced range from 50m to 35m.
    [ Buildings ]
    Pyromaniac:
       - Reduced the duration of the damage over time debuff from 10 seconds to 3 seconds.
    Tower of Flames:
       - Volcanic Ground:
           - Reduced the damage from 6 times 200/1000 to 6 times 150/750.
           - Reduced the range from 25m to 20m.
    Volcano:
       - Reduced life points from 5000 to 3500.
       - Reduced the size by 10%.
    New Building: Flame Crystal - Spawns in Level 4 and Level 5 camps* and will periodically remove debuffs and cc effects from allied units
    Fire can be extremely strong, but due to its high attack and low defense, it is extra vulnerable to Crowd Control spells. We want to counter this weakness with a brand-new building, while some major enemy damage dealers have been rebalanced
    * Level 3 camps are usually right behind the T3/T4 camp; Level 4 camps are the row behind Level 3; Level 5 is always the last row.

    Map Editor Changes
    Increased maximum allowed file size of community maps from 64 to 512 megabytes. Added optional verbose logging for LUA. This is relevant for mapmakers and can be enabled in the debug section of the configuration file at `/Battleforge/config.json` using the `lua` configuration. The logs can be found in the `/Battleforge/Diag` folder. Increased max brush size in the map editor. Fixed crashes for the height map generation for Random PvE in the map editor in certain cases. Allowed selection of the fire Random PvE preset in the map editor.
    Bugfixes
    Fixed issue related to character names becoming too long with the added `{GM}` prefix and not being able to be whispered. Fixed issue with deleting community maps while they are being downloaded by another player. Fixed incorrect ordering for all time rankings in the leaderboards. Fixed ability to add 21 cards or 21 boosters to trade, instead of 20. Fixed too large scroll step size for upgrade view when trying to scroll through the upgrades. It now scrolls with the same steps as the cards scroll view. Fixed inconsistencies in the Amii card frames. Card descriptions will no longer overflow into the card artwork. Fixed walk speed mismatch between respawned squad members and existing ones, causing the group as a whole to move at an unfavorable speed. This could be noticed for example with Werebeasts and Strikers. Fixed wrong displayed remaining card charges for Offering in rare cases Fixed incorrect handling of overkill stampede damage when destroying buildings. In general, this has a nerfing effect on stampede. Improved error handling and logging for issues related to starting BattleForge with DirectX10. and many more!
  11. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by WindHunter in Patch #400033 - 5 June 2022   
    Patch #400033 - Force of Nature
    Welcome to our newest patch, titled "Force of Nature"!
    This update contains our fifth 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 Wasteland Terror, Burning Spears, and Transcendence.
     - Major changes to the PvP game mode, including PvP Happy Hours, reward reworks, hiding player loses, and more. 
     - Added 18 new, primarily PvE achievements for both beginners and veterans alike. Including one to earn the new promo Mana Wing!
     - Rebalanced Fire RPvE to provide a still challenging but less frustrating experience
     - Rebalanced over 40 cards, with a large focus on Nature cards. 
     - Changed several PvP and PvE maps to improve player experience 

    General Changes
    Updated in-game player banner colors for GM accounts to represent the current roles. Added ability to search for missing copies and charges in the Auction House. For example, writing `(charge=2 & copies<2) | (charge=1 & copies<3) | (charge=0 & copies<4)` in the textbox will show you all the cards you can still potentially buy to get a fully charged collection. Added ability to play cards by clicking on the upgrades in the upgrade scroll view or the upgrades in the upgrade window. Added ability to change the play speed in the forge, or to pause and unpause it. New hotkeys are available in the options menu. The default hotkeys are J, K and L for decreasing speed, toggling pause, and increasing speed. Added a responsive deck counter to the decks window that shows how many decks the player has, relative to the maximum number of allowed decks. Improved the UI that displays what is remaining to complete an achievement. Previously, players could hover over the progress bar to see a tooltip, but this was unclear. Now, there will be a clearly visible (?) icon next to the progress bar that has the tooltip instead. Added ability to press the Space button in the reforge window to reforge the current cards in the window. This removes the need to press the Reforge cards button.   Increased unit icon (dot) size on in-game minimaps from 4x4 to 5x5 pixels. Added the new Force of Nature loading screen. Added ability to change how the automatically generated replays are named. There is an extra setting in the GUI section of the configuration file at `/Battleforge/config.json` called `savereplaysnameparts` for this.
    New Cards
    Burning Spears - 80p T2 Pure Fire
    You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Oracle. 
    S-unit designed to counter Large and Extra Large units. For more information, check out our design spotlight below in the PvP Balance Changes, section as well as Community Update #23.
     
    Wasteland Terror - 260p T4 Pure Bandits  (Fire and Nature Affinity)
    You will find the upgrades for this card on the map Blight (Fire Affinity) and Raven's End (Nature Affinity).
    Bandit dragon for those Bandits players who want other options besides Tortugun. Its ability acts as a mass Disenchant to let your army continue to more forward through crowd control. For more information, check out Community Update #14. 
     
    Transcendence - 90p T4 Amii Spell 
    You will find the upgrade for this card on the map Sunbridge. 
    Our first Amii spell is castable on both enemies and allies, with different effects depending on the target. When cast on enemies, it buffs one unit and debuffs all of its surrounding allies. When cast on allies, it debuffs one unit and buffs and its surrounding allies. In both cases, it rewards careful target selection and micromanagement from the player side. For more information, check out Community Update #20.

    Mana Wing - New Promo Card 
    While not a new card, we have also added a new promo to the game. Every player will be able to get a promo Mana Wing by completing the new achievement "A Force of Nature". The promo will not be available in boosters, but it will be trade-able. For more information, check out Community Update #24.
     

    PvP Game Mode Changes
    [ New Player Protection ]
    To protect new players from facing top players when they are just getting started in ranked play, it is no longer possible to get matched with players with a base ELO above 135.000 if your own base ELO is below 102.000.
    [ Made Player Names Anonymous ]
    To prevent players from dodging bad match-ups, player names have been anonymized in the ranked lobby. This does not affect the sparring lobbies. 
    [ Losses are Now Hidden]
    It has been proven in other competitive games that showing losses on the ranked ladder results in demotivation and higher entry barriers. We have therefore removed losses from the ladder. The information is still accessible on your profile if you want to look it up. 
    [ Updates to the Free PvP Decks ]
    We have made some changes to the cards contained in the free PvP decks to compete with the new meta. If we made updates to 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. Changes have been made to Pure Nature (Parasite over Shrine of Memory), Twilight (Twilight Minions over Ghost Spears), Pure Shadow (Executor over Nightguard) and Pure Fire (Burning Spears over Scorched Earth). 
    [ Improved Rewards ]
    We have removed the gold penalty that was currently active for playing sparring games. Quests that require you to play 2vs2 games, now also count 3vs3 games for completion. 
    We have also allowed you to drain the reserve while looking for ranked a match. 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. 
    [ Happy Hours ]
    Happy Hours are specific time periods where players will receive additional gold and BFP for playing PvP. The daily boost / reserve will drain at a factor of 1.5x, while you will also get 1BFP per minute extra for queuing. For Happy Hours, there will be an in-game announcement, and the icon on the world map will indicate Happy Hours are active. 

    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
    By clustering players together during certain time frames, players will have an easier time finding matches more frequently. 

    New Achievements
    Skylords Reborn currently faces primary two issues in terms of content: early game progression is too steep, and endgame content is nearly nonexistent. These achievements are intended to make the first step in tackling both issues. Smaller, more digestible progressive achievements will mean a player will no longer finish the campaign on standard, with the next goal in sight being to play all the maps again on advanced before being rewarded. New players will now be slowly guided through the campaign and RPvE, allowing them to steadily accumulate cards along the way. 
    At the same time, we are adding our first set of endgame achievements to the game. This will provide more content for our veteran players and give them a reason to replay old maps, often with a twist. We hope you all enjoy these new challenges, and we will continue to expand the endgame content into the future.  
    [ Infinitely Scaling Achievement ]
    Reborn in Fire  [1 Mini-booster]
    Reforge Cards (Unlocks every 20 reforges, scales infinitely)
    [ Beginner Achievements ]

    Just a Story  [1 Twilight booster]
    Complete Viridya and Brannoc's story on standard difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Soultree, Crusade, Sunbridge, King of the Giants, Titans, Ascension)
    The Most Dangerous Game [1 Bandits booster]
    Complete Mo's story on standard difficulty or higher {Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, Blight, Raven's End, Empire)
    A Debt Unpaid  [20,000 gold]
    Complete the story related to the Treasure Fleet on advanced difficulty or higher. (Bad Harvest, Treasure Fleet, Mo, Blight, Slave Master, Convoy) 
    A Mile in His Shoes  [2 Stonekin boosters]
    Complete Rogan's story on advanced difficulty or higher (Encounters, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Crusade, King of the Giants, Titans, Dwarven Riddle, Guns of Lyr, Empire)
    A Wrinkle in Time  [250 bfp]
    Win the 4-player map Empire spawning at least 5 different Lost Souls cards from a deck containing only frost, shadow, and Lost Souls cards.
    Godslayer  [250 bfp]
    Win the 2-player maps Sunbridge and Insane God on any difficulty. 
    Apprentice  [1 booster]
    Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 5 or higher. 
    [ Veteran PvE Achievements ]

    The Road Not Taken  [3 boosters]
    Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 9 or higher.
    Turn Back All Ye Who Enter Here  [6 boosters]
    Win 20 randomly generated PvE matches of difficulty 10.
    Nevermore  [2 Bandit boosters]
    Complete Blight's story on expert difficulty (Blight, Raven's End, Slave Master, Ocean, and Oracle)
    Make it Double  [2 Amii boosters]
    Complete all 2-player maps on expert difficulty. (Crusade, Sunbridge, Nightmare Shard, Nightmare's End, The Insane God, Slave Master and Convoy)
    Never Thought of Him  [100,000 gold]
    Complete the story of Mo becoming the new king of the fire tribes on expert difficulty with all players in the map using decks containing only Fire cards.  (Mo, Ocean, Oracle, Slave Master, Convoy, and Raven's End)
    The Long Journey Home  [2 Frost boosters]
    Complete the story re-establishing the Kingdom of Lyr on expert difficulty using decks containing only frost cards. (Encounters with Twilight, Siege of Hope, Defending Hope, Bad Harvest, Dwarven Riddle, and Guns of Lyr)
    Not Even My Final Form  [Rogan Kayle Card]
    Win the 1-player map Encounters with Twilight on expert difficulty without using T3 or T4 cards.
    Forest for the Tree  [Viridya Card]
    Complete the 1-player map The Soultree on expert difficulty using only Nature cards from T1 and T2.
    A City Strongly Compact  [Stronghold Card]
    Win the 1-player map Defending Hope on expert difficulty with a deck containing only spell and building cards.
    A Force of Nature   [Promo Mana Wing]
    Complete all 1-player and 2-player scenarios on expert difficulty with all players in your team using decks containing only Nature cards.

    Those who complete "A Force of Nature" will be rewarded with a Promo Mana Wing! This promo is unique to this achievement and will not be available from boosters, but it will be trade-able. We hope you look forward to the challenge!

  12. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by anonyme0273 in Fear of a slow death of a community   
    Hi, all you weird people who like me still visit the forum for some reason.
    I've come to share my first negative experience with the project and hope to bring more attention to what I believe matters most.
    Now we all are here for the game and its community (can't have one without the other for long). The game is almost the same as when we fell in love with it so many years ago. The community changed over the years since the establishment of this project until now - for the better in most cases, I'd say. There is still positivity everywhere I look and support has seemingly never been stronger, now that we can play to our hearts content. But is playing all I expected from this project? Not really.
    The game is (essentially) the same, you can tell me all about the changes to BFP, quests, balances... I think I know all of those. But the community, in my opinion, is at a standstill. Not because the hype is dead, that is not the case. But there is nothing official happening. We have a few amazing streamers and content creators and honestly praise be onto them, they keep this project fresh for me. Things are happening BY the community FOR the community, while the staff team hires more people to work on the game. Why is that not a good thing? More maps, more stable development, a clearer image of what the game can be - all those are great, but are all for nothing if the life of the game is stale with no official events, tournaments or something to look forward to by the staff.

    I brought this idea up in Discord without much reply, so I took it then privately to @Ladadoos, who ignored the content of the message because of the way it was worded - a rather shallow behavior. I admit, I lost my temper in how I addressed this, but I will not apologize because I firmly believe that map designers, discord moderators, and more developers are not necessary until the word gets out there to both existing and hopefully new players. We can have the best game, but with only ~1000 active players it won't be long until those numbers start to fall and sooner or later the hype dies with it. What we should be doing, in my opinion, is supporting the community, its content creators, the games public image, rather than the inner workings. I believe noone here can complain about the job done until now - impecable! The game works, we can play, trade, talk, strategize, get better, grind. But that won't last forever, unless the community has something more to look forward to - again, tournaments, events, official livestreams, contests of all kinds. I love this game and the community that grew over the years and don't want it to die just because the staff is busy growing itself and the game mechanics when the player numbers are what essentially matters long term.

    So yea, to be blunt and completely honest, in the last few weeks, I couldn't care less about rebalancing cards or hiring new staff and in my opinion @Toggy has done more for the game this year than any other actual staff member. Watching his tournaments and seeing the people root for their favorite deck, player, and generally enjoying the vibes is what I always looked forward to! I am so grateful we get to play the game, and I want it to stay a great place to go to, but not if it's at the cost of the people that came along with it.

    If you disagree with me, please, let me know. Maybe I am missing a big picture, some future amazing prospects and plans that elude me, but for now I stand firmly by my beliefs that if nothing changes, soon this game will be just that - another game, nothing special. And that would be the worst thing to happen after all this work.
  13. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by FrozenZeus in My Account lost?   
    Hello,
    I tried to log in today. But now I habe a new Account and all My cards and battleforge Points are gone.
    Do you know why?
    Best regards 
    Michael 
  14. Luke_Meat liked a post in a topic by MrXLink in We're Releasing Q4!   
    Greetings once again, Skylords, Skyladies and other Skyfolk!
    First off, thank you all so much for showing up to the major announcement stream hosted today! We couldn't be more grateful for all your support over the years. For those of you who haven't been able to see it, here's a brief recap and a very important announcement:
    You can re-watch the stream to catch up over here! We have released a huge update to live servers! This includes the following: 12-player maps are now a thing! We finally got them to work. 2vs2 Ranked is now also a thing! Lots of QoL changes to the Auction House, like refresh rates, setting up multiple auctions at once, and 48h auctions. The ability to play cards from the marketplace in the forge without actually owning them New faction boosters that will help increase your odds for cards of a faction that you like! All 2-color and pure factions now have their own separate boosters costing respectively 475 and 500 BFP. New BFP system that replaces the 30m free booster quest. This system will allow you to earn BFP over time rather than hitting a wall after 30m of play, and will allow those with jobs or less time on their hands to catch up on others in order to give them a chance at auctioning and partaking in the economy. For more details on the BFP system and how it works, check out its most recent thread here. BFP and quests that are missed can be stored up to 3 days (6 quests max, 550 BFP stored max, 100 per day.) Numerous fixes and improvements Please check out this thread for all the details and full patch notes!  We're going to get a brand new updater in the near future, which gives easy access to things such as server selection, the map editor, social links, and much more! Check it out on-stream! PvP players rejoice! We're planning to introduce several pre-built decks to PvP that will be level 120, fully upgraded and charged to get the full PvP experience of being on the same level as your opponents. In the meantime, you can use your rewards earned through PvP to collect and build other decks or refine your current one. These decks cannot be used in PvE. And last, but certainly not least, we are proud to announce the following: We have finally progressed far enough to announce a release time!
    Skylords Reborn 1.0 will be released in Q4 2020! Along with one and only reset.
    That's October, November or December, depending on how well we progress and how many bugs and difficulties we still encounter. We are confident we can actually get this done in time, after many years of holding back on release dates. 
    Recently, our developers @fiki574, @Aviat0r, but most notably @Ladadoos and @Zyna, have done massive work towards the project, as you can see, and thanks to them we have come very far throughout the past few months despite losing a great help to the project, Kubik. We've made a lot of progress too on design decisions thanks to @MephistoRoss and @Ultrakool and of course we wouldn't be anywhere without your support, be it through helping us by reporting bugs, by supporting us on Patreon, or just for sticking along this long!
    Please enjoy the fresh new patch that we released on live servers today, and keep up the positivity! We're ever closer to that sweet gold status and to that final reset, and we're insanely grateful to have come this far. We'll keep you updated on all of our developments through the forums, discord, and also our new Trello! Here you can follow the latest developments, future plans, and our roadmap to 1.0!
    https://trello.com/b/vvpUdT3b/skylords-reborn-roadmap-to-release-2020-q4
    That covers it all for now! For some more information you can refer to the Q&A that we did on-stream! 
    Stay frosty, stay healthy, stay undead, and stay burning, guardians of Nyn! See you in the forge!
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