Majora

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! • Yearly Feedback Survey Every year, Skylords Reborn has a Feedback Survey. While it is typically released in the summer, we decided to give players more time to explore our new Campaign Maps before inviting you to share your invaluable feedback. Because Skylords Reborn is a community project, we want to understand what our players enjoy and what could be improved. Your input is vital to helping us refine the game and expand our player base. We hope you’ll take a moment to answer the survey questions, as your responses will directly shape our development priorities. As a thank-you, everyone who completes the survey will receive two boosters. Your feedback will be anonymous. • Christmas Event & Anniversary This year, we have something very special planned to close out the holidays. Check back later this month for the official announcement of our Christmas celebration! We are hard at work finalizing the challenge, but the special reward is already prepared. Players who complete the achievement will receive a new Promo Frost Mage card! More information is coming soon, so stay tuned! The 4th anniversary of Skylords Reborn is also coming up. Traditionally, we celebrate this milestone with an announcement stream and a large content patch. But with a significant patch in September, the Halloween Event in October, and our plans for Christmas in December, it has been an incredibly busy period, and we are not sure if this will be feasible this year. Rest assured that we are still hard at work on the second batch of new campaign maps, new cards and other features we are sure you will enjoy, but we feel rushing ourselves to release a content patch just to fit the anniversary window this year, is not the right approach. We would still like to celebrate this milestone with you however, so we will explore our options and let you know. • New Card Spotlight - Molt We already talked a bit about Molt in our Twilight deep-dive last month, and are now ready to reveal the latest spell coming to the Twilight faction. Lets break down the card and share some of the thoughts behind its design. Shed Trigger a unit’s latent capacity for transformation. Target an own Twilight unit and trigger its transformation effect as if it had used Twilight Transformation. Reusable every 40 seconds. Design notes: Twilight Transformation has seen a number of improvements, such as reduced transformation time and a built-in cost reduction. At the same time, we have been steadily adding more transformation effects to the Twilight units to give the ability more strategic depth. Still, we are largely restricted by the fact that we cannot lower transformation costs without also lowering bound power costs in units. So as units scale in costs, our only choice is to make transformation effects scale in strength. We do not think this efficiency arms race is rightly achievable, so we are moving in a different direction through the introduction of Molt. For a low fixed cost, Molt will be able to trigger the transformation effect of any Twilight unit, meaning we can now design transformation effects with Molt in mind and not solely based on bound power costs. This also allows for more flexibility as players can now trigger transformation effects quickly and easily without having to make use of the often clunky Transformation process. Molt will release alongside our next content patch, date to be announced. • Art Spotlight - Molt The artwork for Molt (originally called Evolution during development) was created by SpiritAlpha. He envisioned Twilight creatures shedding their old skin, transforming into even greater monstrosities. SpiritAlpha quickly produced two early sketches: We liked the early concept, and work continued on the one involved the Mutating Maniac. To ensure the artwork fit well within the card frame and kept the focus on the main design, we removed the extra characters. At one point, we considered depicting old skin transforming into new body parts, but we quickly discarded the idea, as it didn’t enhance the artwork. We were pleased with how the artwork was progressing but concerned it wasn’t clear enough that this was a spell rather than a unit. We explored several options but weren’t satisfied with the results. The first attempt made the card feel like a binding spell, while the second clarified it was a spell but faced contrast issues when displayed in the deck bar. Wherever possible, we aim to ensure players can quickly identify cards at a glance. We spent some time tweaking the base artwork, experimenting with various intensities of the blue glow to emphasize the spell aspect of the card. We also ensured the toxic Twilight clouds, iconic to the faction, were present to highlight the transformation effect being triggered. Ultimately, we chose a strong blue contrast against the creature and mirrored the artwork to further distinguish the card from its creature counterpart when viewed in the deck bar. We are happy with how the artwork turned out and would like to once again thank SpiritAlpha for his incredible work and contributions to the game. Our art department is severely understaffed, and it’s almost entirely thanks to him that we’re still able to add new cards to the game. If you’re an artist or know someone who can create art in a style fitting for BattleForge, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! You can apply directly here, or contact Majora or Dutchy on the Forum or on Discord. • "How Does It Work" series - BFP We recently launched a new video series on our YouTube channel, How Does It Work, where we dive into various topics that often raise questions. So far, we’ve released a video on Void Power, the Root Network and a guide on how to install the game. Another topic that often comes up is ''How do I earn BFP?", the topic of our latest video! We’d love to hear feedback from the community on this series. These videos take quite some time to create, but we’re more than happy to continue if they’re appreciated. Are the videos clear and interesting to watch? Are there any other topics you would like to see covered? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below! • Contribute to Skylords Reborn Expanding on a game like BattleForge requires a lot of enthusiastic and skilled volunteers. While we are very happy with how the game shaped out to be, over the years we have struggled filling certain roles that are now truly becoming a problem for the health of the project. We would like to highlight a couple of positions that we could really use (more) people for. Critical: Artists Despite multiple calls for help, we have unfortunately not received any applications for the artist role. Due to the remote nature of our team and current global challenges, both of our artists have been heavily impacted, with one now completely inactive. This has significantly slowed the release of new cards and placed immense pressure on our sole remaining artist. We would like to stress our appeal: if you know any skilled artist who might be willing to contribute to Skylords Reborn, please forward them our way. Your support is vital to keeping the game alive and thriving! For more information, click here. Critical: Marketeer One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive from players is, “You should market the game more.” While we completely agree, this is easier said than done. Our options are greatly limited—paid marketing is off the table—and more importantly, we currently don’t have a dedicated marketer. Unfortunately, no one with the necessary skills or experience has applied for the role. If you’re motivated, have a strong network, and believe you can help us spread the word about Skylords Reborn, we’d love to hear from you! For more information, click here. Map Testers With our increased focus on map-related content, we are looking for more Map Testers to help identify bugs and ensure balance. As a Map Tester, you’ll gain early access to new maps and game modes, with the responsibility of playtesting and providing valuable feedback to the map development team. This includes evaluating the balance and fun factor of maps, identifying exploits, suggesting areas for visual improvements, and ensuring overall quality. The availability of dedicated Map Testers not only improves the game’s quality but also significantly speeds up the release of high-quality content. This is a non-staff contributor position. Tasks for these roles come and go, and they are a great way to help without receiving too much responsibility. For more information, click here. Other roles Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions! Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member. • Events In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events! Current events: • FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 7 - Egg ball The last SSS-event finished past Friday, and was one of the most unique events we have seen in Skylords Reborn. Find out the winners in the event stream, or play it yourself in a versus mode that is being developed in the future! More information. • COMING SOON - Christmas Challenge While not technically an event, be sure to check in for our Christmas challenge later this month! • SECOND PHASE - PvP AI programming contest Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! Players are still able to join this programming contest. More information. • Host your own tournament / event Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer @Metagross31. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. • In Conclusion That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it. As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support. The code will reward you with a general booster: GIVE-FEED-BACK-TIME Please note: Filling out the feedback survey also rewards you with 2 boosters. The code is valid until January 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign-up to our e-mail newsletter here. Archive • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide) • Overview Community Updates • Community Update November 2024

I completely understand it sucks to have your account reset, but I'd like to stress that this was always communicated from the start; during stress and beta tests there would be resets, and at release all accounts would be reset one final time. We have not (and will not) reset accounts post the release in 2020. We have also drastically improved the new player experience to make sure the game is less grindy. I don't want to invalidate any feelings of frustration to losing your collection, but it really is a lot faster to get the cards you want now compared to the beginning or the original game. And there is a ton of new content to explore after 4 years of active development, include new cards, new maps, and balance changes to improve multiple factions. It's definitely not a matter of ''BattleForge, but without all your cards''. Skylords Reborn has a lot to offer.

We also have a video teaser for the Halloween event 🙂 Big thanks to Ultralord for this one!

Greetings Skylords! A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn! • Halloween Patch Happy Halloween Skylords! Halloween has become a beloved tradition for Skylords Reborn, and this year, we have something truly special in store for our players. First, our recurring achievement, Happy Halloween, is active again. Completing the map Spooky Encounters during the Halloween season will earn you a Lost Souls booster and a special Pumpkin avatar if you haven't earned them already last year. Secondly, we have released a new Halloween-themed map this year: Spooky Giants! Help Rogan outrun a zombified Jorne in this unique twist on the King of the Giants map. Successfully completing this challenge rewards you with a brand-new Promo Jorne card! Please note, this Promo reward is available only between October 28th and November 11th. If you don’t unlock it within this timeframe, you’ll have to wait until 2025. Last but definitely not least, we have released a new content patch! Two new cards are now available: the Amii card Simulacrum, and a new addition to the Twilight faction, Twilight Archers. Click here for the full patch notes. • Twilight Deep Dive In our Deep Dive documents, we share our thoughts and plans for each faction, giving you insight into our balancing process. Previously, we explored the state of Pure Frost, Bandits, Stonekin, and Pure Nature. You can read them here. Today, we're excited to reveal our plans for the Twilight faction. After examining the faction's core characteristics, we take a closer look at its strengths, weaknesses, and play patterns. To further enhance the Twilight faction, we're also working on new cards and reworks. Be sure to check out the Deep Dive to learn more! Twilight Deep Dive.pdf • New Card Spotlight - Twilight Archers Twilight Archers are our latest addition to the Twilight faction, and are now available with the release of our Halloween patch! Lets break down the card and share some of the thoughts behind its design. Crossbow Attack Every 2 seconds, unit fires bolts at enemies that deal 8 damage. Transformation Like all Twilight units, Twilight Slayers will come with the faction's ability "Transformation". Infected Cure If the unit is transformed, it will trigger the regenerative abilities of every friendly Twilight unit in a 25m radius. They will regain 15 life points every second for the next 20 seconds. Cursed Birth When being transformed into or spawned, the unit receives 600 cursed fragments that improve the unit's performance. As long as the stored fragments last, the unit deals 100% more damage. Design notes: Twilight Archers will add a new tactical layer to their faction as a T2 ranged unit with frontloaded damage. Cursed Birth allows them to outperform most T2 units in early combat and low energy skirmishes, but also breaks with the traditional scaling concept of ranged armies. After using up their Cursed Fragments Twilight Archers will be weaker than most T2 units, so it's best to integrate them into the transformation chain or seek for specific synergies like the Twilight Minions (r) transformation buff. Infected Cure is designed to reward the transformation playstyle and compensate for the lack of scaling in extended combat with increasing unit counts. In PvP, Twilight Archers will be a valuable counter to Burning Spears and air units, while also synergizing with the Nature spells like Ensnaring Roots. In PvE, they can serve as a ranged alternative to splash options and also offer formidable anti-air damage. • "How Does It Work?" series - Root Network We recently launched a new video series on our YouTube channel, How Does It Work, where we dive into various topics that often raise questions. So far, we’ve released a video on Void Power and a guide on how to install the game. Our latest entry focuses on the Root Network. The Root Network is a popular yet often misunderstood mechanic of the Nature faction. When built correctly, the root network can be incredibly powerful; however, a lack of understanding can lead to underwhelming and confusing outcomes. Let’s dive into this unique ability and help take your gameplay to the next level! We’d love to hear feedback from the community on this series. These videos take quite some time to create, but we’re more than happy to continue if they’re appreciated. Are the videos clear and interesting to watch? Are there any other topics you would like to see covered? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below! • Events In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events! Current events: • NEW - Seven Strategy Showdown 6 - Stand Still! Can you imagine how annoying it must be for the AI if the player is micro-managing their units? Find out in this event! Please note, the event page goes live at 18:30 CET November 1st. More information. • FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 5 - PC on Fire Is more always better? Players pushed their skills and hardware to the limit in this event where unit count is everything. Find out who won, and how they did it, here: More information. • IN PROGRESS - Seven Strategy Showdown Every two weeks there will be a new event in this series of seven events, each bringing a fun handcrafted challenge or mechanic! Be sure to check them out, as there are some great prizes to be won! More information. • SECOND PHASE - PvP AI programming contest Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! Players are still able to join this programming contest. More information. • Host your own tournament / event Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer @Metagross31. 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. • Contribute to Skylords Reborn Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions! Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member. • In Conclusion That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it. As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support. The code will reward you with a Twilight booster: TWIL-IGHT-DEEP-DIVE The code is valid until December 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign-up to our e-mail newsletter here. Archive • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide) • Overview Community Updates • Community Update October 2024

The green wanderer heals the iceshield itself, not the unit

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! • Continue the Story Our new patch has released! With it comes two brand-new campaign maps, 15 years after the original story concluded. We are thrilled to continue the legacy of BattleForge, and we created a special video to celebrate to occasion. • Patch Overview Video Our latest patch has a lot to offer, so we also have a Patch Overview Video for you. Because we are extremely limited in what we can do on the marketing side of things, we would highly appreciate it if you can give it a like and share it with your friends! You can read the full patch notes here. We are very happy that the response from the community to these maps has been very positive, and we want to thank everyone who dropped in to share some kind words. We have spend a lot of hours on balance, map art, voice-overs and playtesting, but nothing can quite prepare you for the whole community exploring them. We are collecting all the feedback and will make sure to take it into account for our next maps as well. We have more maps in the works, but we will talk about them in another community update! • New Card Reveal - Simulacrum We hope you are all enjoying the new Amii units released in our last patch. Many of you are wondering where the character in the middle of the key-art is. Today we are ready to reveal Simulacrum. Let's break down the card. Please note: We are still working on the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. Elemental Wrath Every second unit unleashes a hail of primal energy that deal 70 damage to enemies in a 5m radius its target, up to 105 in total. Attack slows enemy units who may only move at walk speed. Lasts for 10 seconds. Relocation Unit relocates to another spot within a 50m range. Requires the target location to be within a 15m range of at least one other own ground entity. Reusable every 20 seconds. Elusive The duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze are reduced by 20%. Design notes: When we decided upon adding some golem-like units to the Amii faction, we thought that the Tempest model was perfect alongside the models used in Amii Sentinel and Energy Core. The issue is that we did not want the Tempest playstyle where the player would need to walk Simulacrum forward, root, attack, unroot, move, then re-root, ad infinitum. This playstyle already exists with Stone Tempest and Tempest and neither see much play because of how tedious it is. So we decided to move in a different direction and give Simulacrum a teleport ability which is usable while it is rooted. This will make Simulacrum play similarly to a T3 Phase Tower, but easier to micro because units can be grouped unlike buildings and Simulacrum can benefit from spells affecting units. Alongside this teleport ability, we gave its auto-attack a slow effect, allowing both PvE and PvP players to use the slow and teleport in combination to kite their enemies with Simulacrum's long range of 40m. Simulacrum will release alongside our next content patch, date to be announced. • Interview Regarding New Campaign Maps We hope everyone has had a chance to try out the new campaign maps already. Now that they are finally released to the public, we thought it would be a nice moment to sit with WindHunter and R4bitfoot, two team members who were heavily involved in their creation, and ask them what the design process was like to create Into the Jungle (ItJ) and Unexpected Visitors (UV). Lets start with introductions, for those who do not know you, what is your role on the Skylords Reborn team? Hello! I am R4bitF00t and my official designation is Lead Map Artist, but in the end I do pretty much anything on new maps, starting from initial layout, scripting functionality, balance changes and ending with map art. Hello, I am WindHunter. I am Skylord Reborn’s lead designer, a role I have had since January 2022. Generally speaking, anything that affects how a person plays or experiences the game comes under my purview and needs my stamp of approval before it gets added to the game. That includes things like new card design, balancing, the economy, achievements, and map design. What is your favorite original campaign map? My favorite is absolutely Encounters with Twilight, the map just feels so alive and is split into several very clean, and well-thought out chunks, it is by far my most played map. Behind Enemy Lines. I enjoy the slow build out from the center that makes you feel like you are conquering the map, compared to many maps where you feel more like a saboteur than a conqueror. And what was your involvement with the new campaign maps specifically? I started work on Into the Jungle - the original concept and layout came from the community map made by Emmaerzeh, Lebovim and other contributors. When we turned it into a campaign map, we wanted to keep the original idea and improve upon it. To achieve that, we made changes to the map's layout and introduced some new mechanics. So my job was to implement all the layout and script changes, and make the map pretty. After that, I designed the map concept for Unexpected Visitors with Emmaerzeh and WindHunter, made the functional prototype of the map, and then came in later to do some finalizations and balance changes with WindHunter. Besides balancing the maps, I did a lot of writing. I am in charge of the lore, so I wrote the storybook entries and the map outcries, and I also wrote two design documents which have become the basis, or template, for how we design new campaign maps. When did work first start on a new campaign map? The idea for new campaign maps was here long before I joined the team. There were some attempts at official maps at that time, but since we didn't have proper guidelines, we ended up scrapping or repurposing them into community maps, like the Restoring Lyr map. Work on ItJ started shortly after I joined the team, so around two years ago. What were some of the challenges to overcome? As I mentioned before, we didn't have proper guidelines when we started work on ItJ, we fought with the most basic things, like designing enemy camps properly. We made some changes based on tester feedback, but once implemented, they were not happy with them, so we had to go back to the drawing board. We just had to try and try again to capture that old-school BattleForge feel, and there is a lot that goes into that. For anybody interested, I recommend WindHunter's design documents, which were a massive help: Spawn Design and Camp Design. These are not the first two PvE projects we have undertaken. Previously we had another “official” map called Restoring Lyr from a former team member RookieN which we have recently polished and released as a featured community map. We also were deep into developing a defensive random PvE mode, but we ran into major design issues we did not think we could easily fix, causing us to postpone further work on the project. The fact is that we really did not know what we were doing and we had significantly underestimated how much went into making something worthy to be called an official campaign map. These issues and the early work on ITJ, which we did not want to fail, forced us to step back and really examine what went into making a campaign map. I came into the map design department at around this point and the first thing I did was pause further map development. We were changing things so rapidly and reactively it was wearing out the map testers and designers alike. At that point, I went back through all 26 existing campaign maps and I started documenting what made BattleForge maps distinctive and what made the good maps good. This is similar to what we did with faction design when we started making new cards. Eventually, this study culminated in two large design documents, one on camp design and one on spawn design. With these in hand, we restarted map development in-line with our new design principles and made rapid progress. We also took this time to outline everything a new map needed and to develop the kind of workflow we needed to make continual map development possible. So, I would say the biggest challenges were systematic ones and with these under control it was amazing how fast new maps could develop. Both maps are two-player maps, was there a specific reason for this? Can we expect other player sizes in the future? Into the Jungle was originally a speedrun challenge map from one of our map designers Emmaerzeh that required two players. So we started with ITJ as a two player map. The issue is that ITJ is the second map in the story, so when we decided on UV’s design, we thought it was only right that it was also a two-player map. Players can definitely expect new 1p and 4p maps in the future, though probably not any new 12p maps. Campaign Maps always have some kind of twist, did you have hard time coming up with one for these two? The original ItJ design was a simple map - go from point A to B and destroy things along the way. While every map in BF does some variation of this, I felt it needed that "hook" or "twist" as you call it, and I thought that adding secret passages through the jungle would be nice, make the map more exploratory and open it up from the original linear design. Luckily, I was not the only one who liked the idea so we got to see it on the map. For UV, we knew we wanted to have a defensive portion on the map, but BattleForge's mechanics really struggle with having one static defensive location - there is no resource, worker or base management, so we decided we need to break up the defense by giving players an incentive to sally out and conquer extra parts of the map. But pushing through enemy attack waves is in most cases too annoying, so we added the day/night cycle to make it clear for players when to attack and when to defend. So this map "twist" came organically from the map's design. I would say no. In the case of both maps, the twist developed organically as we designed them. In ITJ, you have the secret passages and the Amii well-building mechanic. The first came from experimentation and the second flowed from the lore. In UV you have the portal and Amii Monument charging mechanics. These were part of the map’s original design, and then we ended up creating the day/night cycle as a response to the design issues caused by the player turtling around the portal shrine. We were conscious of the need to differentiate these maps from existing maps, and the story we wanted to tell with both maps led naturally to the different mechanics each map has that sets it apart. What is your favorite part about each map? After all this time working on the maps, I am pretty numb 😀 so I’ll leave this one to WindHunter. I enjoy the secret passages on ITJ a lot, especially because of how much they change how you approach the map’s early game. For UV, I like that we get to fight Frost units for the first time. I am very happy with their design, and I think they provide an interesting contrast to the factions the player usually encounters in campaign maps. What about the story? How did you decide on that? One of the major problems of making campaign maps is obviously the campaign aspect. While we could just release good maps disconnected from the existing lore, having a cohesive narrative adds to the enjoyment of the map by letting the player enter into the game’s universe. So we wanted to make sure the narrative fit the Skylords universe. In this case, we really wanted to fill in the Empire storyline. Skylords Reborn tells stories through action more than exposition. The exception to this is Empire, which skips over a ton of in-game events which would otherwise be standalone maps in an attempt to give the story a conclusion. This happened because the original devs knew they would not be able to add anymore maps. What we are doing with ITJ and UV is filling back in the Empire storyline in a way the original devs were unable to do, so that the players can be part of that story, and not just read about it. How long did you spend on each of the maps? Oh, that’s a tough one, I am pretty sure I spent well over a hundred hours on ItJ. It will be a bit less for UV, since Damo and Kayrie took over at some point and made most of the map art. Several dozen hours per map. Can you tell us something about balancing the maps? Well, it is not easy. It is easy to get feedback and then make a change and think you fixed the problem and move on. But it rarely works. It is harder to sit down, gather a lot of feedback and then try to figure out the root causes behind the issue before making a decision. I mean sometimes the camp is just too strong and you tone it down, but other times the solution is less obvious. As an example, on ITJ we did not have any patrolling units or attack waves beyond the event spawners at the beginning. Testers told us the map felt lifeless, so we added attack waves. Then next iteration they told us that the waves felt designed just to destroy them and that they felt unfair. We toned them down but the same feedback kept recurring, so we eventually removed them, only to return back to the first problem. The answer I think is that good balance comes from good design. While we want the maps to respond to the tools the players might bring, for example, we cannot add too many ground units at T1 because they just become Mine fodder, we also want the camps to feel like more than a video game. The goal then is that the map feels organic, like the enemies really live in the map, but while also tailoring each map to the player’s expected strength. We might add certain challenges to the camp, like a Mark of the Keeper or a Lost Dragon, but they should feel like they are meant to be there. On Into the Jungle in particular, you can look at a replay without fog of war enabled and just scroll over the camps. Each one is unique. One is a bug infested temple, another is a Ghostspear village, and yet another is a beast taming ground for Amazons. We came up with these ideas first, and then we asked ourselves how these units would position themselves and how they would respond to hostile threats nearby. Then we tuned from there. What about the visuals? Luckily, I got to practice map art on other maps before ItJ - namely the yet unreleased drPvE and both of the Battle Arenas that dropped with this patch. I learn a bit more with every map I create, but in the end I am happy with ItJ visuals, I feel they are unique in the game and I had fun coming up with different points of interest in the jungle and enemy camps. My favorite place on ItJ is the top-left camp, it features a giant stone statue, a nearby volcano and an Amazon temple. I just wish we could have added a waterfall coming out of the mouth of the statue. Damo and Kayrie worked on the art for UV so I cannot comment on that, but my favorite place from that map is definitely the Ami city. Damo did a great job with the layout and making it feel like a real city, but still fitting BattleForge. I also really like the Lost Souls siege camp in front of it. What took the longest time in the whole process? When talking about pure hours spent working on the map - that would be map art (I’d say ItJ art took me about 80 hours). But while map art can take a couple of weeks to finish, actually testing the map - balancing and improving upon mechanics is what drags on the most. Both maps have spent months in testing periods, where we took feedback from testers, discussed it and implemented it. Going back and forth and trying different versions of mechanics. Having so many people involved, it takes quite a while to chisel out the final vision for the map. In terms of total time, probably the testing phase. There is a lot of waiting for feedback, playing the maps yourself, and then watching replays. Then you need to figure out how to turn all that data into something which can change the map, and that is very difficult to do correctly when you want to change a lot of things at once. So instead we usually change 1-2 big things, and then we need to wait all over again to see if it worked. It is a draining process. What can players expect in the future? We want to keep expanding the story and making new maps. The team has several other map projects currently in-progress, not just of new campaign maps, and a few of them are nearing the point where we can almost start showing them off. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our players? Just to enjoy the game and the new campaign maps we have created. Shameless plug incoming: If you’re interested in creating maps of your own, check out our official map editor tutorial! We worked hard to make sure that each map had more than one way to complete it, and that different decks would have different strengths at different points. So, I would encourage players to view the maps as a kind of sandbox where they can try different strategies and different decks, instead of just viewing the map as a once and done experience. • We Want Your Feedback We want to hear what you think about the new maps Unexpected Visitors, Into the Jungle, and Battle Arena! Do you like them or not? What would you like you see more of in the future and what less? What would you leave the same and what would you improve? Let us know here: Unexpected Visitors - Discussion Thread Into the Jungle - Discussion Thread Battle Arena - Discussion Thread or on our Balance Discord September Patch Feedback New Maps Feedback • Get Ready For Halloween By now it has become tradition for Skylords Reborn to have a Halloween-themed event, and this year will be no different! Be sure to check in on the 31st of October for a spooky event with a very special reward! • Events In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events! Current events: • NEW - Release Event To celebrate the release of the new campaign maps we have a special event. All you have to do is upload your replay of completing Unexpected Visitors and/or Into the Jungle for a chance to win some prizes! More information. • NEW - Seven Strategy Showdown 4 - Guardian Skylord Rogan is on the run again, and will need your help. Again.. Help Rogan to finish a round as fast as possible. Support him exclusively with spells and each spell can only be cast once. More information. • FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 3 - Wrecking Time The 3rd event in the series has concluded! This time Skylords were the ones destroying buildings. Players had to destroy as many buildings as possible within the time limit for a chance to win some great prizes. More information. • IN PROGRESS - Seven Strategy Showdown Every two weeks there will be a new event in this series of seven events, each bringing a fun handcrafted challenge or mechanic! Be sure to check them out, as there are some great prizes to be won! More information. • SECOND PHASE - PvP AI programming contest Get ready for an AI Programming Tournament, where the submitted programs will face off in an epic showdown to find the ultimate AI strategist! Players are still able to join this programming contest. More information. • Host your own tournament / event Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizer @Metagross31. 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. • Contribute to Skylords Reborn Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions! Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member. • In Conclusion That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it. As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support. The code will reward you with a General booster: AMII-AMII-AMII-AMII The code is valid until November 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features. You can also sign-up to our e-mail newsletter here. Archive • Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide) • Overview Community Updates • Community Update September 2024

For everyone trying out the new maps; dont forget to submit your replay for Ultralords event to win some nice prizes!

We are working hard for Skylords in our free time. For those who disagree with our changes, we now have the option to play the Legacy server that was released alongside the patch, which contains no new cards or balancing changes we did. In this way you can enjoy the original BattleForge in case you disagree with our work.

Not sure if we are talking about the same thing. After you reach the amii city, you have a big portal in the middle. After defending the first night wave, it allows you to activate the control nodes next to it to warp some units to the right. Move north from there, and cleaning the camp will deactive the Amii gate. Once you have done so, the Amii monuments in your main city are now buildable, meaning you can both go tier 3*. With tier 3, one of you should be able to get the Monument outside of your base on the east. *Be careful that you now also have to defend the small base up north, or you lose your amii monuments again.

Are you aware that in Unexpected Visitors you can use the teleporter to clean the second camp, which rewards you with monuments in your base to go tier 3? As for this: The original maps were all beatable on expert with non-upgraded decks of the 40 free-to-play cards. Try beating this map on advanced/expert with these 40 unupgraded cards (though unupgraded cards were even buffed in this game, as they got 50% extra charges). Please remember the original maps are 15 years old, and these new maps are not even out for 24 hours. Im fairly sure no one was completing Blight Expert on day 1 with a non-upgraded deck. Regardless, we are tracking player feedback and if needed will adjust.

Nope, neither is amii ritual

We are deploying a hotfix regarding the map Into the Jungle and being unable to build monuments on them. Downtime should be minimal. Edit: and done!

Patch is currently being implemented, downtime is expected to be 30 minutes.

We are currently updating, you can view the patch notes here while you wait:

Wish granted, but you spend so much time on this thread that you missed applying for that crucial job opportunity. I wish Toggy would revive his Fightclub streams