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Greetings Skylords!

Welcome to the first Community Update of 2022! We hope you had a blast playing Skylords Reborn in 2021 and hope you will continue to do so in this brand new year. Even though we just released a major content patch, there is already a lot of interesting things to talk about, so let's get started!

• Yearly Recap 2021
On the 17th of December we had our Anniversary Stream, celebrating the 1-year anniversary of Skylords Reborn. Sadly, something went wrong with the playback of the stream that we were not able to fix. Instead of doing a rerecording, we decided to record a recap of 2021 instead. 
In this yearly recap video we go over everything that was added to the game in 2021. Use it as an easy catch-up or as an introduction video for your returning friends!

A lot was added in the patch on the 18th, so we can understand you might have missed something in the overload of changes and new content. To make things a bit more easier for both current and new players, we have also collected information into a handy overview. 
We grouped all the documents (deep dives, behind the scenes, PvP guide, etc.) we have released last year, and collected every community update thus far on a single page with highlights. Especially Community Update 16 went into all the changes added in the last major content patch. We hope this will make it easier for you to keep track of progress.
 
• New Voicelines Implemented
With some help from our friends in the C&C community, we were able to fix the issues we had with the sound converter needed to implement new voicelines into the game. We are happy to announce we added English* voicelines to Banzai Lord and Amii Paladins! 
Banzai Lord is voiced by Dreamlord. We tried to create a character that is both sinister towards his enemies, and caring towards his birds. Because both Tortugun and Wasteland Terror (soon™) are non-humanoid, we hope he will give some flavor to the lategame of Bandits. 
Amii Paladins is voiced by Rothriel. The Amii can go into multiple directions; they are full of energy as part of their elemental nature, a joyous unrestraint and/or an excess of emotion. At the same time they are a race still shrouded in mystery. We went with a serious and calm vibe for these Amii soldiers, and we plan to lean into the more energetic approach for Amii Phantom. 
In the near future we plan to also add voicelines to Bandit Sniper, Dryad, Mountain Rowdy and Amii Phantom.
Additionally, there are already plans for other cards that are currently without voicelines, like Bandit Lancer or Warlock. 
*Adding voicelines is a ton of work, both for the voice actors and those implementing. Because of this, we currently are only able to provide voicelines in English. We have added these English voicelines into each version of the game, no matter what language you play it in. We would like your opinion on this. If you play the game on German, French or Russian would you prefer your cards to be without sound, or with English voicelines? Fill in the poll here. 
 If you want to help with the implementation of voicelines and have experience with video and audio, please check out our open position for Video Editor below. 
 
• Creating New Lore and Campaign Maps
We are excited to announce that we are planning on expanding the Skylords Reborn lore! This will include future story expansions as we work on adding new campaign maps and new in-game characters, as well as new Legends pages (for the Lore book).
The initial goal is to add 5 new Legends pages for each faction, including the hybrid factions. Yet we cannot do this alone, so as part of this endeavor, we would like to invite anyone interested in the lore and in writing to join us in a new official Lore Taskforce server! Any member of the community will be able to submit proposals for new Legends which, if approved, will be included in the game. So if you have ever had a great story idea for your favorite unit, now is the time to put pen to paper and give it a try! Join the Lore Discord here.
We will share more about our plans and progress for campaign maps at a later date. 
 
• Advanced Filtering Survey
In our last patch we added advanced filtering options, both for the inventory and the AH. We are curious if you are aware of it and/or use it. 
To gather data and figure out how many of you are aware of the new options, we have created a very small survey. We hope you will take the time to fill it in. 
You can find the survey here, it should only take a few minutes of your time. 

• Pure Nature Rework
After Pure Frost and Bandits, the balance team has now set its eyes on Pure Nature as the next faction to receive major changes. On the balance discord you can already see some of the proposals for multiple cards, ranging from Nerfs to Deep One and Energy Parasite, to buffs to Ghost Spears and the Root Network. Cards like Grove Spirit, Forest Elder, Mind Control, Abyssal Warder, Colossus and Grimvine are also being looked at. 
The Root Network is an interesting yet complex Nature mechanic that is often misunderstood (and poorly explained by the game). Some of the ideas currently being discussed are changing Thornbark to count as multiple entities for the Root Network and reduced power costs for cards like Spikeroot and Treespirit. After the changes are a bit more fleshed out, we plan to provide you with another Deep Dive document, going into what makes Nature tick, its strength and weaknesses, and how we plan to tackle them. 
Alongside changes to Nature, we are also going to test out a couple of nerfs and buffs on the test server in the near future. Some of the cards that are currently being looked at are Nightguard, Executor, Phalanx, Ice Guardian, Warlock, Stoneshards and Twilight Minions. 
You can find all our current idea's and join the discussion on our Balance Discord. 
 
• Update to Skylords Marketplace Journal 
Maze has been hard at work and released a new version of the website Skylords Marketplace Journal. On this website you can easily track prizes of cards. The redesigned site is now at a stage of development where he felt it is viable enough to replace the old version, which broke with the anniversary patch. The old version is and will probably stay available, but it won't receive any more updates. It can still be found here.
There are a bunch of exciting features in the new website, including a larger variety of filters, more price details for each card, general card info and other interesting QoL features. You can even find the average value of the reforged card when destroying 4 of the same card and on what map you can find the upgrade for the card. 
Read up all about the changes, or go directly to the new website here. 

Maze is not the only one who provides market statistics through his website however. Some of you might be aware of the Auction House Archives, created by DraginMaster. The goal of this site is to track each card's journey through the in-game auction house and beyond. Since it tracks each individual auction, it can deduce when a card has sold in the auction house and for how much. More information can be found here. 
 
• Update to the Stats Website 
The Skylords Reborn Stats website also received an overhaul. Here you can find interesting and up-to-date stats from Skylords Reborn, like current number of players online and running matches, but also fun stats like unopened boosters. It now also contains Auctions and Leaderboards!

• Tournaments
• NEW: Official 2p rPvE Contest#2: The Bandit alliance UNTIL 31.01.2022
For this challenge, we want to see your adaptability in unique situations.
We are looking at the fastest time with only one rule: each player may only spawn one single unit with ground presence through the whole run!

• FINISHED: Official PvE Contest#4: Winter is coming
The fourth official PvE contest has ended, and the winners were revealed in a stream you can rewatch on our Twitch channel. 

• FINISHED: CCC #1 Hunt Down The Stragglers
Kapo took the initiative to host the first in a series of ''Crappy Community Contests'' This and future CCCs are meant to be super-small-scale contests with weird challenges, hopefully luring you away from well-trodden paths. They are small scale on the organizers side too: there is no stream, video or event announcing the winners. Because of this, the entry barrier was low, and this resulted in 130 players participating! 
 
• Host your own event / tournament
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers Hiko and/or Metagross to have your event prizes sponsored by us. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you. 
 
• We need your help!
We are in dire need of a Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator!
As you are probably aware, Skylords Reborn does currently not have anyone who helps actively promoting the game. We would love to promote and increase the player base for Skylords Reborn. To do so, we have two open positions. If you have the time and the required skills to help, please consider having a chat with us. We would love to get help in these area's!
 
Open Position - Video Editor
As a video editor you are responsible for creating exciting video content for Skylords Reborn. This can range from short card reveal videos to exciting trailers and cutting up Twitch-stream content for highlight videos on our Youtube channel. If you have any experience with audio post production, you can also help us out with the process of adding new voice-lines and sound effects into the game. Click here to read more and apply.

Open Position - Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator
As a Marketeer / Outreach Coordinator you are responsible to spread the word and create awareness about Skylords Reborn and to attract veteran and new players alike. This includes actively researching and reaching out to potentially interested streamers, youtubers, Discord channels, game magazines, among others. You will be responsible for the communication to and from interested parties and for any promotion deals (for example involving scratch codes). Please note that Skylords Reborn cannot do any paid promotions. Click here to read more and apply.
 
• Team changes / Open Position
The position for  Community Manager has opened up, which might come as a bit of as surprise. Over the past 10 months I have been in charge of bringing all of you these community updates and enjoy doing so. However, I have taken on more and more tasks lately, resulting in a shift to a new role; Project Coordinator. In this role I will put a bigger focus on streamlining our workflow and planning of patches. Because of this, we are now looking for someone who can help with some of my previous responsibilities. If you are interested, please check out the description below. 
Open Position - Community Manager
As a community manager you are responsible with aiding the communication to and from the community. You will work closely with the Project Coordinator (previously Community Manager) to communicate staff and project decisions to the community through, for example, The Community Updates and self-written announcements. Furthermore, you will act as a contact person for the community to share project feedback and suggestions and are expected to keep the staff informed and be up-to-date with the state of the community. Click here to read more and apply.
 
• In Conclusion
And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 
As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a mini-booster: COMM-UNIT-YNEW-S17B
The code is valid till January 29th, when we will bring you another Community Update. 
Please keep in mind that the 100BFP discount on all boosters is still valid until January 18th. 
As always, we are open to feedback so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments! 

Archive
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #16

Greetings Skylords!

It's been two weeks already since our last community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

New Logo
Already teased in the updated Discord icons and Facebook profile, we also have a new logo! We are very happy with our fresh new look, which inspired us to also take another look at our landing page. Nothing to share yet there, but we are currently in the first stages of a redesign, and hope to share more with you in the future.
We'd also like to take this time to let you know we are going to post these Community Updates on our Reddit as well. Please make sure to follow us there if that is your preferred platform to stay up to date on Skylords Reborn. 

New cards are now in development
As mentioned in the last Community Update, the exciting moment has come to design brand new cards for the game. We will release these new cards in batches, instead of a full expansion. Our plan for the first batch is to create new cards for 3 different factions, with up to 9 cards added in total. We are also planning to add affinities to some, if not all, of these cards.
The past week, patrons with the Moon tier or higher were able to vote for their favorite factions. We are excited to announce the 3 factions that will receive new cards:
- Frost
- Amii (Shadow / Nature)
- Bandits (Shadow / Fire)

Don't worry, we plan to add new cards for each faction over time, the voting only impacted the order of our release. Since this is new territory for us, we are currently not able to say when new cards will be ready, and when the vote for the next batch will be. We will be actively working on this, but we don't want to rush out new cards.
 

Expansion Icon

New cards need a new expansion icon! The community was able to vote for their favorite icon on our social media (Twitter, Discord, Facebook and Reddit). All icons (from left to right: Phoenix, Ouroboros, Triskelion and Lotus) were symbols of Rebirth, which we found fitting for the current stage of the project. The votes were extremely close, with our Discord community heavily leaning towards Ouroboros, while the other media were rallying behind the Phoenix icon. Here is the icon you can expect on our upcoming cards (not just the factions mentioned above):


Until further notice, all upcoming Skylords Reborn cards will have this icon. We are also looking into creating multiple versions of this expansion symbol, depending on the rarity. And of course not all cards will be ultra rare. Please note again: new cards have now started development, but we have no specific cards to share at this moment. 
Thank you all for your votes and comments, and thank you Tweeto for your awesome work!

New Patch on the test server

A lot is happening on the test server as well. A large patch has hit the test server on the 9th of June. 
The patch contains many balancing changes and experimental changes. Please take a look at the patch notes, test them out on the test server and take place in the discussion.
Speaking of discussions, we would like your help in making a decision regarding the card Unity and if it should only effect own units or also allies.
Please check out our Unity poll here.

Upcoming Tournaments
• FINISHED Official PvE Contest#1 Siege of Hope 
The first official PvE contest on Siege of Hope is now finished! We will announce the winners in a stream on the 26th of June at 19:00 CEST.
We will also do some giveaways, so even if you did not participate; we invite you all to join us! 
 
• NEW: Host your own event / tournament
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organiser Hiko to have your events prizes sponsored by the Skylords Reborn team. If you got 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. 
 
New Art for Firesworn
Besides a new Logo and Icon, our artist Tweeto has been working on adjusting the art of Firesworn. As most would agree, Firesworn always felt a bit off compared to the other fire cards. Tweeto made a few changes to make it feel more in line with the rest of your deck. We hope you like it! 
 
Current Artwork
 
Adjusted Artwork

The artwork has not yet been adjusted in-game yet. We expect to add it in an upcoming content update to the live server. 
There are still some cards we would like to give a slight upgrade, but we will only do so if there are no other tasks with more priority to work on. With new cards in development, new artworks for those cards currently have more priority. 

New Team Members / Team Changes
Our moderation team welcomes a new (old) member! Bradley will be helping us out with moderation again.
We are also happy to announce our first official Map Designer: Hodron! 
Right now he is spending a lot of time on designing the new rPvE presets mentioned in the last community update; specifically what units and or bosses you will encounter. 
Our developer _empty_ stepped down from his position. He worked on creating the installer used by new players to more easily be able to install and play the game. We would to again thank him for his contributions!
Additionally, we will soon be adding at least one new server developer. 
We have also added a new role into our open positions; Marketeer/Outreach Coordinator. As an Outreach Coordinator you are responsible to spread the word and create awareness about Skylords Reborn and to attract veteran and new players alike. This includes actively researching and reaching out to potentially interested influencers, streamers, youtubers, Discord channels, game magazines, among others. 

As always; if you want to see Skylords Reborn succeed, please take a look at how you can help. There are still some open positions in our team.
 

In conclusion
Thanks for reading! 
Is there anything you wish us to cover in upcoming community updates? As always, we are open to feedback so please let us know!
Here is a scratch code you can redeem in-game for 100bfp. COMM-UNIT-YUPD-ATE5
The code is valid till July 3rd. 
Archive
Community Update #1
Community Update #2
Community Update #3
Community Update #4
 

Greetings Skylords!

It's been two weeks already since our last community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!
Some exciting news to start off this community update: 

New cards development: starting soon

We have reached a great milestone: we are ready to create some new cards! We will release these new cards in batches, instead of a full expansion. Our plan for the first batch is to create new cards for 3 different factions, with up to 9 cards added in total. We are also planning to add affinities to some, if not all, of these cards.
As a thank you to our (Moon and higher) patrons, they will have a chance to vote on the 3 factions which we will create cards for. The two most picked factions will receive new cards. The Skylords Reborn team will then pick the last faction to create new cards for, resulting in a total of up to 9 brand new cards (excluding affinities) for the game! 
Don't worry, we plan to add new cards to each faction over time, the current voting only impacts the order of our release.
A few things to note:
• The poll will be open for one week, until the 11th of June.
• Voting happens on Patreon. Moon tier and higher Patrons will be able to vote. 
• The factions to vote for are: Fire • Frost • Shadow • Nature • Bandits • Stonekin • Lost Souls • Twilight • Amii (Nature/Shadow).
• We are currently not able to add Fire/Frost cards.
• We have not commited to a 3-3-3 split, some factions might get more or less cards, depending on their needs or design space. 
• People vote for the faction, not the actual cards. Our balance and development teams will look at what cards to add, and what role they will play.
• Since this is new territory for us, we are currently not able to say when new cards will be ready, and when the vote for the next batch will be. We will be actively working on this, but we don't want to rush out new cards.

Changes to Patreon benefits
From now on, being subscribed on Patreon with at least the Moon tier will give you a vote for the next poll. Once a new poll is here and you unsubscribed in between, we will reach out to you to ask for your vote. After a poll is done, you will only be allowed to vote in the next poll if you subscribe for at least one month again.
We hope this new flexibility will make it easier to support the project in a way you feel comfortable with.

Fire/Frost cards 
Let's talk about the elephant in the room: Fire/Frost cards. As most of you are aware, EA never released a single Fire/Frost card before the servers got shut down. Because of this, there is no cardframe for a Fire/Frost card in the game, and because of the way the game is written, it's currently not possible to add new cards for this faction.
We are however hard at work to make this possible in the future.

More factions for rPvE (on the test server)
We rolled out a change on the test server which unlocks more factions in rPvE. For example, its now possible to play against Lost Souls in 1 player rPvE. You can read the patch notes that includes this change and how to join the test server here. This is currently still being tested, so please let us know on our rPvE Discord server if you run into anything weird.
Prior to this change you could only receive:
• Luminousland, Jungleland, Winterland and Lavaland in 4 player rPvE
• Bushland, Ghostland and Twilightland in 2 player rPvE
• Greenland, Frostland and Cactusland in 1 player rPvE
We also have plans to add Shadow, Nature, Fire and Frost as enemies in the future, resulting in four more factions you might fight your way through rPvE. It's already possible to test these out in the community map section on both the test and live server. 

We hope you will enjoy this new content on the test server and we hope to bring it to the live servers soon.

New PvE Taskforce


In the last community update we shared our design philosophy. In an effort to gather good PvE feedback for the future, we are happy to announce our newly constituted PvE Taskforce! For now, we have decided to include 5 initial members:

1. Lebovim – Mapmaker, Skylord of Honor, Master of the Skylords Reborn wiki, and one of the game’s top speedrunners.
2. Keksmonsta – Top PvE player with a wide and deep knowledge of the game who has shown his ability to constructively represent the interests of the competitive PvE and speedrunner communities.
3. Volin – Very active and helpful top RPvE player. Volin’s knowledge of PvE and RPvE will help us to have the knowledge to make informed design decisions.
4. Chibiterasu – Our own beloved balancing developer, Chibi has already been partially playing this role in the background, we now want to formalize and expand it.
5. Bini Inibitor – Bini has previously proven himself full of good suggestions, the initial idea to allow heal/rejuvenation stacking should be credited to him, the further development of the idea to Chibi.
As you might have noticed, we tried to include representatives of the different segments of the Skylords community, from average players up to the game’s top speedrunners. In the future, we would like to rotate in guest members as well.
Additionally, in the near future we will be releasing a document detailing our new balancing process. While we are happy with the progress we have made recently, we also think that a more defined process with set deadlines will help us to increase our pace of development, especially as we begin adding new cards to the game. This will also come with larger changes to the balancing discord.

Upcoming Tournaments
As we mentioned in our first community update, you can also check out the new tournaments and events happening in-game. Just click the scroll on the menu and check out the event tab for the upcoming events you can participate in. 
• Official PvE Contest#1 Siege of Hope 
Our first official PvE contest is running! Play Siege of Hope Expert with a twist! Our Event Organizer has created a point system that allows multiple strategies and hopefully rewards for thinking outside of the box. Speedrunning still gets you points, but speedrunning alone won't be enough to win this one! A promo of your choice is one of the prizes, so make sure to check it out!
• Finished: Community Challenge #3: King's Ridge
The King's Ridge PvE contest has finished! Check out the winners here.
 
New Team Members
We mentioned earlier that we are looking into making Fire/Frost cards possible. A key member in this task is Kubik, who has returned to the project as Client/Reverse Engineer Developer.
We are also planning to add more server developers in the very near future to speed up progress. We are still looking for new team members however! If you want to see Skylords Reborn succeed, please take a look at how you can help. 

In conclusion
We are very excited to be at a point where we can actively start working towards adding new cards into Skylords Reborn. We hope you will continue to join us on the ride!
Thanks for reading! Here is a scratch code you can redeem in-game for 100bfp. The code is valid till June 19th.
COMM-UNIT-YUPD-ATE4
Archive
Community Update #1
Community Update #2
Community Update #3

Greetings Skylords!

It's been two weeks already since our second community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!
Promo Snapjaws
Collectors rejoice! Promo Snapjaws will be trade-able after the next maintenance update. This promo was handed out through a scratch code that was only valid around the time of the game release. If you missed out on this one, you can now trade or buy them in the AH from other players. If they are willing to part from it of course!
There are currently no plans to distribute the Snapjaw Promo through boosters.

New Patch on the Test Server
A new patch has hit the test server with quite a lot of changes in all kind of categories. Full notes can be found attached to this post, but here are some things that are currently being tested. Please note: none of those are final, and they will not necessarily make their way to the live server in this state! Please give us feedback regarding those changes on the balance discord!
Global Changes
Various tier 3 units (Swamp Drake, Bandit Lancer, Fallen Skyelf, etc.) have had their charges increased. 
PvE Changes
Thugs have received a new ability to compensate for the nerfs they received with the removal of looter. There is also some love for pure frost. 
PvP Changes
After some necessary nerfs in the last few patches, we are now in a position where we can also buff some cards to provide more options and playstyles. Various tier 3 units (Drones, Unstable Demon, Magma Hurler, etc.) are seeing some buffs, while counter units like Lyrish Knight and Gladiatrix are also being looked at. 
Bug Fixes
A couple of bug fixes and a change that makes Bloodthirst and Unity stackable with every other regeneration ability in the game (others will follow).
Class Fixes
Some units have had their class changed or fixed. This can mean the correct melee or ranged class, but also creature class (Deathglider is now a Demon for all you Eliminator lovers out there!). 
QoL description changes
Some nice Quality of Life changes in descriptions have been made to make cards easier to understand or consistent. Please note this is not the big description changes mentioned in an earlier update yet; that is still in the works. Noteworthy would be the Mountaineer: It now shows the hidden ammo generation used for its attack and ice shield, so one can better use the card. Additionally U0 now also has the Glacier Shield for consistency with the shown ammo system.

As mentioned before, those changes are still on the test server and you can find the full list of changes in the document attached to this post. Please note that for the changes to be implemented, we had to clear the test server accounts. So don't be startled if you have to create a new account. 

Skylords Reborn Design Philosophy
Now that Skylords Reborn has been released fully, we are looking at the future of the game for the next couple of years. Over the past months there have been a lot of discussions and feedback regarding the state of the game and the changes to make (or not make) moving forward. In the attached document, we go extensively into this topic. We understand not everyone will be interested in reading 12 pages, but we did want to take the time to clarify our vision for the future as much as possible.
As unique as Battleforge is, it also has some unique concerns in regards to balance. Where most RTS games only provide a limited number of factions to play, the number of decks in Battleforge is virtually uncountable. And while most other RTS games limit their balancing concerns to either competitive or cooperative play, Battleforge has to serve them both. Fortunately, this is mitigated by the fact that PvE and PvP are often build around different core-cards. However, some overlap between cards is inevitable and some changes will have ripple effects in other formats.
In this document we have striven to detail the thought process behind how we will be balancing the game moving forward. We have broken the document into three parts: Introduction, PvE Balance, and Fundamental Game Principles.
The reason we have written this document is to give you, the community, a clear view into our philosophy and stance on certain topics. We will use the topics described here as guidelines for the changes we will make in the coming months.
This is just a start that covers our fundamentals for faction design and more concrete documents will follow. We want to analyze and discuss each faction in particular and shed light into our roadmap.
As always, we are open to constructive feedback. 
Upcoming Tournaments

• NEW: Skylords Open #8
Next week (30th of May) you can again battle it out in the Skylords Open #8. A 1vs1 community tournament hosted by Toggy, open for everyone, and with prizes! 
If you want to participate, it helps a lot if you sign-up in advance!

• Community Challenge #3: King's Ridge
The King's Ridge PvE contest is still going on until the 31th of May. Try to complete the community map King's Ridge as fast as you can in the Community Challange #3 for a chance to win some prizes!

• NEW: Official PvE Contest#1 Siege of Hope 
Our first official PvE contest is here! play Siege of Hope Expert with a twist! Our Event Organizer has created a point system that allows multiple strategies and hopefully rewards thinking outside of the box. Speedrunning still gets you points, but speedrunning alone won't be enough to win this one! A promo of your choice is one of the prizes, so make sure to check it out!

New Team Members / Team Changes
Another new member, HardwareHeinz, has joined the Skylords Reborn team. We are happy to have him as our new Global Moderator.
We would also like to take this time to thank MrXLink for all the work he put in Skylords Reborn over the years. After many years and many roles, he has decided to step down as a member of the Skylords Reborn team. You can read his full explanation here. We wish him all the best and are grateful for all his hard work. 
We are still looking for new team members! If you want to see Skylords Reborn succeed, please take a look at how you can help. We recently added these new positions: backend web developer, frontend web developer and C# developer.

In conclusion
And that's it for this Community Update! We hope we were able to share something you like. See you again in 2 weeks!
What do you guys think of this biweekly status update? Is there something you would want to see covered more? We are open to feedback so please let us know. 
Thanks for reading! Here is a scratch code you can redeem in-game for 100bfp. The code is valid till June 5th.
COMM-UNIT-YUPD-ATE3
Archive
Community Update #1
Community Update #2
Attachments
Balance_Philosophy_Skylords_Reborn.pdfTest_Server_Patch_Skylords_Reborn.pdf

Greetings Skylords!

It's been two weeks since our first community update so it's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!
PvP Balance Patch 2 (Patch 400028)
We released a patch filled with balance changes this week. You can check out the detailed patch notes on the Wiki.
Some 1vs1 maps have also been changed (no more offensive walling!) and are now added to ranked play as well. 
In the meantime, we are already setting our sights on Balance Patch 3. You can check out the upcoming changes in the document attached to this post. Those changes will hit the test server much earlier than the previous ones. This is an intended move as it allows us to work with more iterations to make sure a lot of fine tuning can be done. This patch is focused more on buffs, and many of the changes will bring some new strategies into the Forge, that require more testing compared to the previous process. On top of that this will also be an opportunity for you to test the changes a little bit longer as well to provide more playtesting feedback, that we can use to reevaluate our proposals. To join the discussion, please check out the balance discord.

PvE: State of PvE

This is the second Balance Patch focused on mostly PvP changes. We understand this might give the impression PvE is less important for us. We would like to take a bit of time to assure you this is not the case and give you an idea of things that are currently being worked on.
First of all, you can expect our Design Philosphy to be shared soon. This document was a bit delayed, but we think it's important to have a clear vision of the PvE scene going forward so everyone knows what to expect and give a better explanation of why we do the things we do.
 Of course you can always share your personal feedback in the balance discord, even if we don't respond immediately, all the feedback is important to us and is discussed. We are also planning to restructure the balance discord, you will hear more on that subject soon.
PvE is a lot harder to balance than PvP, because the playerbase is very divided on what they consider fun, fair, or part of the coregame. We know not everyone will agree with all the changes we will make in the future. We encourage you to provide feedback, but please do so in a constructed manner. We are all fans of the game, and we want what's best for it. 
PvE: Patch
Speaking of changes, there is also a PvE patch coming up. Just like with our PvP patches, we will test those changes out on the Test Server first and make adjustments where necessary. You can find all the upcoming changes in the document attached to this post.

PvE: In Development
Some cool things are also coming to PvE in the future. They are currently in various stages of development.
- Defensive Random PvE mode
Similar to a 4 player Random PvE, but instead of attacking you are defending against random enemies. We hope this will provide a fun twist to the rPvE scene. 

- Random PvE presets rework
We are reworking existing rPvE factions and adding the 4 basic elements as factions. This means in the future you might go up against Harvesters and Fire Dragons. 
- Polishing Battle Arena 
Some of you might already be familiar with Battle Arena, a fun PvP map where you get one random unit and have to score points by killing the other units. Once your unit dies, you get a new one and move slowly up the tiers. 
- New World Map Overview
Still in its early stages, but we are also considering adjusting the world map to include popular PvE community maps. There are some great gems hidden in the community map section and there might be great content waiting for you out there already that you have never discovered. 
Most of those things are not ready to go public yet, and we will use the community updates to keep you up to date on their progress. We found it important to share them with you already to show we have definitely not forgotten the PvE scene. We are always in need of map testers, map artists and map creators however, so if you want to help, please check out our open positions. 

Public Test Server
Some of you might not be aware of how easy it is to play on the test server, so here is a quick reminder. To get to the test server, all you have to do is start "LauncherTest.exe" in you Battleforge folder. On the test server you can check out the new changes that are currently being tested and provide feedback on the balancing discord. To get back to the official server, all you have to do is launch the normal launcher again. 

Upcoming Tournaments

• Skylords Open 7
This sunday (9th of May) you can again battle it out in the Skylords Open #7. A 1vs1 community tournament hosted by Toggy, open for everyone, and with prices! 
• Community Challenge 3
There is also a PvE contest going on until the 31th of May. Try to complete the community map King's Ridge as fast as you can in the Community Challange #3 for a chance to win some prices!
There are also some new events in the works, which brings us to the next point:

New Team Members
We are happy to announce two new team members have joined the Skylords Reborn team. 
First up is Minashigo Hiko, our new Event Organiser. He will be the go-to person for people who want to organize an event in Skylords Reborn. Got a cool PvE contest idea or do you want to host a PvP tournament so Toggy can actually play instead of host? Please contact Hiko and he will help you make it happen! Hiko is also hard at work at creating fun events for you to play, so look forward to that as well. 
We would like to point out that the event organizer role is not exclusive. If you want to help organizing events, you can still apply for this position as well.
We are also very excited to have MarcoMaar join the team as our new Client Developer. He will be responsible for adding new features, modifying user interfaces, or fixing bugs in our game client. Up until recently, he was working on a new ingame section, where you are able to see all of your opened boosters. Below, you can see a sneak peek of this new feature


We are still looking for new team members however! For example, we currently have a lack of Discord Moderators, which actually prevents us from being very active with our marketing (in the current state we would risk being overrun with new players without moderators). If you want to see Skylords Reborn succeed, please take a look at how you can help. We will also added new positions: backend web developer, frontend web developer and C# developer.

List of Discord channels
Skylords Reborn is a big project, and it can be tricky to keep track of everything that is going on. To help you with this we have started these very community updates, but if you want to be right there where the discussions are, discord is the place to be. Below you can find a complete list of all Skylords Reborn discords and their roles. If a discord channel is missing, please reach out to @Majora. We also created a #discord channel in our official server where you can also find the list of servers. 
OFFICIAL DISCORDS

• Skylords Reborn
The main Skylords Reborn discord. If you need any help, or have any general questions about the project ask here!
https://discord.gg/wex9AA6wBt
• Skylords Reborn Balance Changes
The Skylords Reborn discord for discussing balancing changes. All card and map balancing changes can be discussed here. 
https://discord.gg/NvSUwpf
• Skylords Reborn Description changes 
The Skylords Reborn discord for reworking all the descriptions in the game. Managed by @Mynoduesp.
https://discord.gg/WMqvMVYgCH
• Skylords Reborn rPvE Faction Changes
The Skylords Reborn discord dedicated to reworking and adding new presets to the rPvE maps.
https://discord.gg/CUvh2ZAUzt

COMMUNITY MANAGED DISCORDS

• Skylords Reborn Creators Guild
A group where you can discuss or contribute to the community youtube channel.
https://discord.gg/5hPdhnPfsE
• Skylords Tutors & Apprentices
A group where you can teach others, or be taught on how to improve in Skylords Reborn.
https://discord.gg/JbhbSjMyvH
• Skylords Reborn PvP
A group for organizing and finding PvP games.
https://discord.gg/T3WsbVt8me
• Communitymap Community
A group for discussing anything related to map making and the map editor.
https://discord.gg/DBC3TrbpqH


In conclusion
And that's it for your second Community Update! We hope we were able to share something you like. See you again in 2 weeks!
What do you guys think of this biweekly status update? Is there something you would want to see covered more? We are open to feedback so please let us know. 
Thanks for reading! Here is a scratch code you can redeem in-game for 100bfp. The code is valid till May 22th.
COMM-UNIT-YUPD-ATE2
PvE_Testserver_Iteration_for_PvE_Patch.pdf PvP_Testserver_Iteration_for_PvP_Patch_3.pdf

Hello everyone,
I am excited to announce that I will join the Skylords Reborn team as Community Manager!
As Community Manager I will be responsible for the communications between the Skylords Reborn team and the community. This will allow the team to focus more on their own positions, bringing you content and balancing patches faster, where I will be keeping you up to date about everything Skylords Reborn. This also includes on our social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook.
One of the ways you can expect this to work is with biweekly status updates, highlighting things you might have missed and giving you sneak previews on what is being worked on.
I will also be making notes on frequently asked questions and the hot topics that are being discussed in the forums, discord or in-game. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to post them in the forum or discord page, just as you are doing now. I will make sure to forward your ideas and questions to the team.
I'm happy and honored to join the team, being a Battleforge fan from the very first hour and I look forward in helping the project. If you also want to help, please take a look at the open staff positions here.
For now, please give me a bit of time to get up to date with the things happening behind the scenes. After that you can expect the very first biweekly status update, which I hope will result in a positive tradition.
I hope you are as excited as I am about the future of Skylords Reborn, and I look forward to working (and playing!) alongside all of you!

Should also disable purchasing card upgrades with gold. Force people to only be able to unlock them from their specific campaign loot. That's sounds pretty hard-core too.

I just recently  wanted to start a new account that I will be playing with NO TRADE and NO MARKETPLACE restrictions.
So you will be only able to play with the cards and build decks around the cards you get from buying packs or get through achievements.
This has several benefits and is based on the formula that Runsecape and Oldschool Runescape have added to their game modes, called: Ironman mode.
It allows for:
- To strategize and make us of the resources you have at hand. So more "useless" or less played cards will get used in-game and new strategies will be formed around them.
- Replay value for people who already own all the "interesting" cards and upgrades. For me personally the will to play came from grinder for BFP to buy the cards I wanted. But once achieved, it left me in a void not having a real goal to strive for and as a result I lost interest. 
Making a game mode where you will have to make do with what you have and grind for cards you need or want to have to complete your deck is on a much bigger scale. This will give you a much bigger sense of accomplishment when making progress.
- The pack buying process adds a whole new dimension to the strategic concept. You might have to think about which cards fit well with the ones you have now before building out an ideal deck from the start. This way, players don't immediately jump to the most powerful cards such as Batarial and Enlightment, but rather have to go for a well rounded deck first with "average" and more "common" cards in order to progress in the game.
- Probably some other topics I'm not thinking about at the moment...
Currently it is impossible to make a new account due to multi-account restrictions.
Would I have to delete my existing account to start anew or how does this work if I want to go about making such an account?

Making a new playstyle with simple account restrictions like this will open a whole new game + discussion panel on the forums about strategies and tactics of which people think of.
It also let's people know in game that you are playing with cards you pulled yourself, so you are more restricted in the strategies you adopt. You will have to coordinate with your team members on a bigger scale to complete certain aspects of the game. It will also be much more rewarding.
So I think it could be cool.
Just a suggestion
 

I sorta get where you are coming from, but I think it is rather the other way around. With the free decks, you have all the tools you need for a viable deck from the start, of course you would still need to put in the effort to get to know the individual cards and what they do, but that is a much gentler transition than getting to have to know every single card in the game to build your deck, and perhaps missing key counter components, or using wrong affinity cards for example and then proceed to perhaps blame the balance of the game.

Once you learned the basic meta decks, you can then suit the decks to your playstyle, by switching/removing/adding cards.

Economics (/ɛkəˈnɒmɪks, iːkə-/) is the social science that studies how people interact with value; in particular, the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.[1]
In other words, economics is attempt to understand what is happening with prices in different environments, and Battleforge is environment with production and consuption of both goods and services. I dare a statement that economics is a simulation based on reality in order to predict many, including Battleforge marketplace.
Can you please explain me why knowledge should be forbidden within Skylords Reborn environment?
Your Death Ray example: Thanks to freedom of market, the action is possible to make, and everyone can make such risk. At my time of writing Death Ray is at 95 BFP buyout and is slowly going back to it's usual price. Even with market manipulation, the price comes back to it's usual. Furnace of Flesh is a great example of that. 5 pages of Furnace of Flesh for 500 BFPs was trully impressive, however it took one day for people to restore old, and right now even cheaper price than before 18th Jan.  People who do market manipulation will profit only if. other people buy their cards. Therefore any market manipulation is a risk, and massivly buying a card automaticly freezez large amounts of money.
If you are looking for a particular card, you will be familiar with it's usual price and able to compare prices. Maze's SMJ is great for cards comparision and let you know how prices change over time. Buying in unstable environment like this is risky, however suggested solution will not help you. I can think of workarounds right now, so even with more complex system there will be ways for determined players to continue their procedeer. While I do not find it ethical to sell normal cards for price of Promo cards, or worse affinities for price of better ones, it's a good live lesson - be careful for yourself, because nobody will do that for you. Limits on prices would be bad as well - in-game marketplace is too dynamic for fixed changes and heavily influenced by many trends.
And about trying to control marketplace, buying cards for 3 BFP and selling them for 10 BFP is evil. But isn't 16k BFPs frozen in 130 copies of Furnace of Flesh a punishment on it's own?
As time goes on, most cards will get cheaper anyway, while most expensive ones will keep on gaining value. It is a result of some interesting phenomena, but ask more clever people than me to explain it.

Oh boy this thread is a goldmine. XD

I'm a big fan of chess, and when someone asks me what BattleForge is, I describe it as real time chess - complex, requires strategy, predicting your opponent and playing accordingly. If you don't like the analogy or think it's just the description of any RTS, ok, but I'm bringing in a closer point.
Chess puzzles
Many people get better at chess by doing puzzles - being thrown into an existing game environment where they need to quickly adapt to the situation despite not progressing to that current state themselves, then find a few best moves. After making a move, you immediately find out if you did the right thing and sometimes there is a sequence to be found, not just a single move. Except the easier puzzles, the player is either in a disadvantage, under heavy attack, or in a middle of an attacking sequence. Each scenario only has one correct solution, which quickly makes puzzles a good learning experience, though can get very hard very fast.

As you can see in the image above, the game already started, but the player (Black) only sees the last move. Now he plays what he thinks is the best move, usually leading to a checkmate, simplification or a serious advantage. For chess fans - see if you can find the solution, I failed my first few tries ^^
Problem with chess puzzles like this is - there is always only one best move. That's not the case for BattleForge most of the times. Usually any situation can be resolved more ways than one, some easier, some harder, but I believe there is hardly ever just one very specific thing to do.
BattleForge puzzles
I propose a similar thing for BattleForge - though a tad different, because BF isn't turn based mostly and also there can be no action for a while, while in chess you can't skip your turn to wait for more Power to flow to your pool. Still, being thrown into an existing battlefield or game situation where one player is in an advantage gives room for both strong and new players to grow.
For example - it's hard to instantly know how to deal against a Harvester if you haven't seen or played the matchup before. It also very much depends on your deck and the map you are playing. So imagine a scenario where a half health Harvester is on it's way, but you have plenty of Power and some standing units to try and defend against this. Writing down all the customization options for this would be too long, could be dozens - Power pool, standing units, deck, own unit Tier...
What I'd imagine could work nicely is two (or more) players open up a Sparring match, choose a position in an existing match as in PvE with a very specific map, where both know (or don't) all important values, layouts, units, used decks, and start playing. Once ingame, it's completely up to them what to do - they do what they think is best to win, which could be waiting, attacking, getting another Power well or going T3... unlike chess, there is no right answer, because games vary so much, until the top PvP ranks, where both players likely know exactly what to do. But mid and low elo players like me could learn a lot by playing short scenarios from a position of an advantage or disadvantage against a better or worse player on a map they don't know how to play properly.
Another example to keep things not completely boring - T2 Pure Fire vs T2 Bandits, cliffs, Firedancers on their way to destroy your wells, whatcha gonna do if you got units on the other side of the map? Attack a different base and sacrifice yours? Spawn two Skyfire Drakes and try to defend? Is there a right answer, or are both equally good to learn something? And from the position of the other player - you got Firedancers attacking, but the enemy is attacking a different base from a weak side. Same options, defend, focus on attack?
Coaches and their students could really use this since getting to a specific scenario is tedious, lengthy and usually not worth it since the game can then be resolved in a minute after a 5 minute build up. This could save time and give everyone something new to try.
One more example - a lengthy game that dragged on for twenty minutes, both players have huge Void power pools but no unit charges left, most Power wells are almost or completely empty, few units standing. What's the best thing to do? Wait and try and assemble a larger army, split push with small units, box up and defend until time runs out? Something that's not often practiced in real games but the experience could be worth it.
What it means for development
This suggestion, if accepted by the community and staff, would probably not be easy to implement. As it now stands in my mind, it would require certain specific things to be created and some to be changed (first one is the most important and also easiest though, and likely the only one really necessary to make this viable, the rest is building on top of that)
snapshot option in a Sparring match - a nice feature that would export the current state of the game as a separate playable map, easier than creating a scenario by hand - players play as they would and at a certain point a snapshot is made. The game can then be continued, finished, then replayed starting at that snapshot (with saved decks) - to try different outcomes of a specific fight map editor that only does units, buildings and all important values (unit healths, Power pools, both Void and available), so creators of these puzzles aren't burdened by scripts, map generation and all the other stuff that creates a steep learning curve for the editor itself. Could import aforementioned snapshots to edit them, give one player an edge for increased difficulty a way to play these puzzles in Sparring grounds, so either a list or a manual download, which again, can be a tad confusing customizing these Puzzles in the created lobby - perhaps scaling the advantages of one player to even out skill levels, or create more difficult scenarios to really put the pressure on. Not yet sure how that would look or work, just listing it all out here a lot of time to create a batch of puzzles to be played at first, so the game mode has some varying content form day 1 Actual gameplay
Both players join a lobby with a scenario selected, as they would select a normal PvP map. Both players see or know the map and can choose their position (and maybe deck, if allowed), the rest of the settings is global (handicaps that add Power or additional units to one player)
Pros
I believe this would have many pros when it comes to learning and getting better at PvP
trying out new things getting better at ones weak points (playing against Harvesters, Ashbone spam, Mortar spam, walls, Burrower spam) perfecting a specific matchup fight scenario change one small thing and see a different outcome of the whole game (perhaps ya didn't want to miss that Eruption or not take that Well so early?) switch places as your opponent, see things from their perspective TL;DR
Players finding the best course of action to win against each other in customizable midgame/endgame scenarios that saves time for PvP practice
 
Let me know what you think, if you like the idea, if you'd add something or just think it's garbage and useless.

this is the fun part for me about the game..you make the best out of the crappy cards you get and you save up some coin for that one fancy unit or whatever now and then. As far as i know, most if not all maps can even be played with the starter decks on expert.
Also i wonder why you handycap yourself by playing rPvE9 4 player matches only with 2 or 3 players or even do rPvE10 for the challenge, but at the same time want fully upgraded cards for free. You could have the same difficulty level in rPvE if you simply don't have the perfect meta-decks.
Today i struggled in rPvE again because i did not have any of these veryvery handy cards, to counter certain situations. Instead of rPvE 9 or 10 i played more 6 or 7 BG lvls with the same challenge and fun when i could finish it with my starter decks.