Community Update - September

[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!

 

• Echoes of the Amii

Nearly 15 years have passed since the original BattleForge story concluded. When we revived the game through Skylords Reborn, two questions kept coming up: Will we get new Amii cards, and will we see new story or campaign maps?

One of the final cards released for the original game was Amii Phantom, offering a glimpse of what might have been. Over the years, our team has carefully expanded the mysterious Amii faction with new cards like Amii Paladins, Tranquility, and Transcendence, gradually shaping a distinct faction identity. With our upcoming patch, we're accelerating this effort by introducing three late-game units: Amii Sentinel, Skydancer, and Energy Core. These new units provide players with exciting options for building a dedicated Amii deck.

We are incredibly proud of how far this project has come, and we're grateful for the opportunity to expand the Amii faction with these new cards. Rest assured, we have more cards in development for the faction, some of which you can expect to see before the end of the year.

In addition to new cards, our next patch marks a significant milestone by adding new campaign maps. And what better way to do so than by properly integrating the Amii into the story? These new maps take place during the original story's timeframe, filling in some of the gaps and answering lingering questions, while also introducing a new Skylord and bringing the ancient Amii into the present-day narrative.

Our next patch will feature two new maps, with more in development. We've dedicated significant time and effort to these campaign maps, carefully refining the balance, map art, story, and gameplay. We hope players will appreciate the passion that went into their creation. After all this time, we want to ensure that these maps stand proudly alongside the original campaign. These maps are the product of hundreds of hours of our team's artists, designers, community map testers, translators, and voice actors. We hope you are looking forward to them!

We are excited to announce Echoes of the Amii will release on September 21st.

 

• New Card Reveal - Energy Core

With the patch release imminent, we have another new card to show you that will be included. Crackling with energy, Energy Core is powerful, but unstable. By overloading the core, it can deal massive amounts of damage, but doing so comes at a heavy cost. Let's break down the card!

Please note: We are still finalizing the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release. 


Pulse 
Activate to unleash an electric shock through enemies in a straight line that deals 1200 damage to enemies in a 20m radius, up to 3000 in total. The shock damages Energy Core by 1150 life points points. Must have at least 1000 life points to activate. Reusable every 15 seconds.

 

Overcharge
Activate to overload the unit, dealing 2000 damage to enemies in a 25m radius, up to 6000 in total. The overload damages Energy Core by 2300 life points. This self-inflicted damage ignores damage modification and cannot be warded off with the help of damage reducing abilities because it is able to circumvent every buff or protective shield. Must have at least 2000 life points to activate. Reusable every 30 seconds.



Elusive
Units with Elusive have the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze reduced by 30%.

 

 

Sharp eyes might have noticed a change in the percentage of the Amii passive ability "Elusive". Starting with our next patch, the Elusive ability will be different depending on the tier of the unit. The current cards, Amii Phantom and Amii Palladin, and any future tier 2 Amii units will remain at 10%. Meanwhile, tier 3 will move the percentage up to 20%, and tier 4 units will have a 30% reduction to the duration of Freeze and Paralyze. 
 

Design notes: Energy Core's original design came from a player in the Community Card Contest we held over a year ago. At the time we were fleshing out the basic design of Amii's T4 and we thought that Energy Core was the perfect fit for what we envisioned regarding this faction's playstyle. The idea behind Energy Core is to create a unit which is more of a mobile spell than it is a traditional unit. It has no auto-attack, but it has two activatable abilities. Both abilities damage Energy Core, one more significantly than the other, requiring the player to pay close attention to the unit's health and weigh their options over what is possible for them and whether or not risking losing the unit is worthwhile. It synergizes directly with Skydancer, whose buff increases a unit's base health, allowing Overcharge to be used without directly killing Energy Core. The damage to enemies is modifiable by Shadow's buffs, allowing the card to work directly with Shadow's buffs and Nature's healing spells. 

Energy Core will release alongside our next content patch on the 21st.
 

• Art Spotlight - Energy Core

As the creators of Monuments and Powerwells in Nyn, the Amii seemed like the perfect faction for a unit embodying the essence of a monument's core. For the initial concept of the card, our artist, SpiritAlpha, took the model of Magma Spore, and incorporated faces in its design—a direction we've explored before with the spell Tranquility.

From the start, we knew we wanted to move away from the iconic chains of the Magma Spore, aiming to make the design feel more distinctive. While we're limited to the models from the original game, it was important to us that this unit didn’t come across as just another simple reskin.

We were drawn to this next concept art, evoking the feeling of soldiers stumbling upon an ancient construct in a temple-like setting. However, we were concerned that it resembled a spell too closely and weren’t entirely convinced by the facial design.

To refine the concept, we revisited other Amii structures in the game for inspiration. We noticed that the Amii Shrines featured a unique eye in their design, which we felt was worth exploring further. We paused work on the card art to ensure this idea could be executed well in the model. Once the model was finalized, we resumed work on the card artwork.

  

We were thrilled with the direction we took. The core not only looks powerful, but it also brings a distinct personality to what could have been a rather plain model. With its ominous eye watching over the battlefield and its rhythmic hum, the Energy Core is something truly unique in the lineup. We hope you love it as much as we do!

 

• Amii Monument Changes

One of the most anticipated—or depending on your perspective, feared—changes will be implemented in our next patch. After careful consideration and years of discussion, we have decided to change the card Amii Monument. We are fully aware of the controversy surrounding this topic, so we want to take the time to explain our reasoning and the thought process behind it.

 

 

The following changes will be made to the card: 

1. Power Cost: 250p ➜ 125p
2. Ability Cost: 140p ➜ 100p
3. Orbs granted by Amii Monument no longer increase a player’s tier. Players still gain access to cards within their current tier that require the orb granted by Amii Monument. For example, if a player has 3 Fire orbs via normal Monuments, and builds a Nature orb via Amii Monument, they will still be T3, but will be able to summon Juggernauts and heal them via Equilbrium.
   New Description - “Switch into this mode to gain one tierless Shadow Orb. This orb will not increase a player's tier, but will allow the player to play cards within their current tier that would require this Orb. The Orb will be ready and functional after 10 seconds. It cannot be switched back for 30 seconds.”
4. Once built, Amii orbs attack as if they were a normal orb.
5. Legendary buildings are now one-per-player, not one-per-team.

Reasoning
Amii Monument in its existing state is a cheat card. It breaks a map's design, allowing players unfettered access to T4 cards when the map is balanced around the player only having access to T3 cards and creating a persistent toxic effect on the normal game experience.

Amii Monument removes an entire tier from the game. This has a disruption impact on the game experience by changing deckbuilding at its core. In decks without Amii Monument, the player needs to consider how many cards they can budget for each tier and choose accordingly. With Amii Monument in a deck, the player can simply remove all T3 cards from their deck besides Amii Monument itself (spells like Infect which scale well into T4 are the exception), opening up more deck slots for T1, T2, and T4 cards. Consider also that nearly all PvE maps are functionally finished before the player ever reaches T4. Combined with the fact that T4 cards are significantly stronger than T3 cards (the power difference between T4 and T3 cards is the single largest increase in card strength between tiers) means that the player requires fewer T3 and T4 cards in their deck, allowing the use of more card slots for T1 and T2. This heavily warps the game experience by making the player stronger than the map is designed to account for at all tiers, not just once the player reaches T3. 

There is also the psychological effect Amii Monument has upon players. Since we first started balancing cards in Skylords Reborn, players have asked us to nerf Amii Monument, not just because of the balance issues, but because they felt compelled to always include it in their deck regardless of the situation. This is unsurprising as many game studios have recognized that players in general will choose the most efficient option, even to the detriment of their own enjoyment. And who of us have not experienced this? How many of us have not used mind-numbingly boring methods to grind in games just because it is the fastest way to procure loot, even if it ends up making us hate the game? Who has not included Amii Monument as a default deck option at some point in their time playing Skylords Reborn?

To briefly summarize, Amii Monument undermines map design, deckbuilding, and possesses a factor that makes players feel compelled to include it in their decks, even when they know it undermines their own enjoyment. While designing our new maps, including not just the two maps releasing with this patch but the multiple additional maps currently in development, we found ourselves face to face with these issues in a way that made the card's problems no longer ignorable. For all these reasons and more, we felt that the time had finally come to nerf Amii Monument. Yet we do not want to destroy the card. The new design is tailored towards enabling unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities, in direct opposition to its previous design. We also realized that many T3 cards were not generally strong enough to be satisfying to use, so we dedicated almost the entire last patch to adding new T3 options through buffs, reworks, and new cards, and we are dedicated to continuing this project next patch. 

Lastly, we understand that this change will upset many people, but we hope you will see that we did not make this choice lightly. We do not enjoy nerfing cards players like, but we do it because we think it is the best choice for the game. At the same time, we think that the time of major nerfs is now at an end with these changes to Amii Monument, and we as a team commit to no further nerfs on the scale of Amii Monument or the previous Batariel nerf from 2 years ago to existing cards going forward. 

 

• Battle Arena

Next patch will also bring the release of a new PvP mode called Battle Arena. 

In this game mode, players do not use cards from their deck. Instead, they are given spell devices and progressively stronger creatures which they must use to overcome their enemies. The mode can be played 2v2 or 3v3 and will come with a new achievement to reward players for trying it out. 

 

• 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:

• UPCOMING - Release Event
Once the patch is out, we will have an event to celebrate the release of the new campaign maps. In this special event, you'll have a chance to win some of the new cards or boosters! More details will be shared on patch day. 

 

• NEW - Seven Strategy Showdown 3 - Wrecking Time
The 3rd event in the series is now live! The tables have turned, and this time Skylords are the ones destroying buildings. Destroy as many buildings as possible within the time limit and 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.

 

• FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 1 - The Salesman Problem
For this event players had to kill all the units on the event-map as fast as possible. It wasn't long before people broke the one minute mark, but after that the real competition kicked off. You can now watch the winners on Twitch. More information.

 

• FINISHED - Seven Strategy Showdown 2 - The Last Fortress
One building is all that stood between players and the leaderboard. Watch how the fierce competition concluded in the winner reveal stream on Twitch! More information.

 • SECOND PHASE EXTENDED - 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.

 

• Team Changes

Two team members have concluded their roles; Piskr as Client Developer, and Xanatoss as Card implementer. We would like to thank them for their contributions to Skylord Reborn.

 

Meanwhile, Titan has transitioned to help us with audio, alongside the role of 3D-artist. 

 

• 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!

 

 

If you have any experience with e-mail newsletters, we could especially use your help as we move towards the release of our latest patch. Please take a look at this new role. 

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 an Amii booster: ISPY-WITH-AMII-EYES

The code is valid until October 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 August 2024

[Maze]

I am happy to see my idea be turned into a card. 🙂 

[Jodekoek]

The amii monument nerf is understandable, for sure. I have mixed feelings about the Batariel nerf but this one is a great choice, I think. I feel there is a whole new way to discover the game now because there is actual incentive to use T3! It felt so stupid to spawn a bunch of deepcoil worms when you can just spawn yourself some T4 cronies using the amii monument.

 

I think the following question is inevitable to come up now: What about enlightenment? Will it be touched? I hope not, personally. I feel as it is requires 2 nature orbs it doesn't negative impact the game diversity the same way.

 

Great work as always, thank you to the skylords team.

[Chronopie]

Firstly, 1) Are the Energy Core's abilities going to be usable from U0, or was the plan to lock one away behind an upgrade?

2) Will they have an additional power cost to activate, or just the lifepoint cost? Do they start on cooldown, or will they be able to be activated the moment the card is summoned?

3) Aesthetically, the Amii buildings tend towards a bronze/brass/stone appearance, why so much black on the units?

 

Secondly, 1) Amii Monument is ruined, ruined I tell you! /dramatic

2) It was well worth sacrificing a card slot to switch orbs without destroying and rebuilding a static Monument, say, for example, a temporary second Nature orb to throw down some WoGs, before pivoting to Fire for Fire Dragons and Regrowth. Less bound/lost power too. With the reworked card being in addition too, rather than instead of, that feels like a net loss.

3) With Deck slots already being at a premium, any 'unique, previously impossible, deckbuilding possibilities' would have to be significant outliers to justifying including both a full T3 and a reworked AM.

[WatcherOfSky]

Amazing news! Love the look of Energy Core! I do think it could be given some knockback or some sort of small CC, but otherwise a very neat idea!

I'm definitely going to play those new campaigns when they come out!!   🙂   🙂 

As for the Amii Monument rework, I am 100% on board with it. I had suggested a similar card before in Amii Shrine (I wonder if that had inspired any of the change 😄), and I think it works so much better in allowing interesting color combos instead of making t3 entirely obsolete! Now we'll have to think harder on decks since we don't get to just skip a t3 strategy and actually get to use a lot of the cool tier 3 cards!

 

Super happy to see where everything is going, and I'm constantly astounded by the progress you've all made as wholly volunteers! Cheers!

[Majora]

33 minutes ago, Chronopie said:

Firstly, 1) Are the Energy Core's abilities going to be usable from U0, or was the plan to lock one away behind an upgrade?

2) Will they have an additional power cost to activate, or just the lifepoint cost? Do they start on cooldown, or will they be able to be activated the moment the card is summoned?

3) Aesthetically, the Amii buildings tend towards a bronze/brass/stone appearance, why so much black on the units?

1 - I believe both of the abilities are available right away
2 - At least the overcharge will have a powercost, but between writing and releasing this community update, we already tweaked the numbers, so you'll have to wait till their release for the final numbers.
3 - The design of the Amii is an interesting one. Where possible, we try to stay true to the vision of the original game. Compared to other factions, we were lacking quite a bit of information and reference for the Amii, but also just enough to not give us free reign on what to do with them. As you might know, only Amii Phantom was part of the original game (released with no context), but there were also lore entries we had to keep in mind. For example:

From the official lore:
Five thousand years before the Twilight fell, as the elemental war subsided and the giants took domination, fathering the Skanes - the Amii came. They were elemental spirits that had lost their form, casualities of the elemental war. From the darkness that the war had left behind, they shaped themselves bodies, jet-black, tall and slender, in the image of the surviving mortals.

Our first Amii units were Paladins, and a rework of Phantom*, who followed the jet-black design. Because this is an (RTS) game, it was important the faction was easy to recognize, just like you can immediately tell if a unit is Nature, or Lost Souls for example. Therefore, it made little sense to suddenly use a different color scheme for their other units, even if some of those other units are Constructs like the Amii Sentinel. This is why the faction leans into the black color scheme, alongside gold, which could be seen on some Amii buildings.

*Funnily enough, the original Amii Phantom, which can be seen in the art spotlight section in this CU, actually contradicted the lore. 

Hope that answers your question! 

[Hrdina_Imperia]

Hype! Cannot wait for all the new stuff. Especially, when finally a new campaign maps are added. As a map maker, this greatly pleases me. 

[Loriens]

It would have been a good change if it had been implemented a long time ago, before the start of the SR open beta. Now, with the player base dwindling and the community feeling the effects of careless balancing and overreactions for fair critisim , it's just not as relevant anymore. At least it's good that this time you publicly announced the major change before its release, rather than insisting that someone just forgot about it and that people shouldn't criticize such situation. However, it doesn’t really make a difference in the current situation. For example in rPvE it stille better to change orb to Fire, build SoW and change it back, instead of taking new Amii in additional slot.

2 hours ago, Majora said:

Activate to overload the unit, dealing 2000 damage to enemies in a 25m radius, up to 6000 in total. The overload damages Energy Core by 2300 life points. Must have at least 2000 life points to activate. Reusable every 30 seconds.

So Energy Core dies after it anyway? 

Edited September 1 by Loriens

[Cocofang]

Skydancer has a mode where she grants extra base life to surrounding units, allowing Energy Core to survive the self-damage, as mentioned in the CU.

[WindHunter]

3 hours ago, Jodekoek said:

 What about enlightenment? Will it be touched? I hope not, personally. I feel as it is requires 2 nature orbs it doesn't negative impact the game diversity the same way.

We stated at the end of the Amii Monument explanation that we commit to no further major rework nerfs on existing cards. This means we will not be nerfing Enlightenment now or in the future.

[GeekAlot]

Batariel nerf ? where ? 😮

 

[WindHunter]

5 minutes ago, GeekAlot said:

Batariel nerf ? where ? 😮

 

The Batariel nerf (and subsequent re-buff) happened 2 years ago. We were just referencing it. 

[GeekAlot]

Ooof, thank god 😄 Ty for the info

[This Is Halloween_2]

It's fair to say the Amii monument nerf was expected to happen sooner or later.

However I have a few objections about this patch :

1) As explained by Chronopie, deckslots are at a premiums in decks. Considering this, if we want to see the new amii monument being played in some rainbow decks, is it ideal to keep an energy cost for the buiding's orb ability (100 is still a lot) as well as the slow building construction speed, since the card is unlikely to cause anymore issues with map design ? I feel paying a fix 125 energy + 1 card slot is already significative cost.

 

2) With the new restriction on unique building (1 per player), have you consider the fact that Incredible Mo ability might create some issues (if multiple Mo are activated). I know it was fixed with wheel of gifts, but I understood that non-heroes & heroes cards are different in term of hard coding in BF. Might be good to have a look at it, they might be some unintended bug created there.

Edited September 1 by This Is Halloween_2

[Oops]

As much as I understand the Amii Monument change to omit cheating out T4 cards in map-phases where you shouldn't do so, the card is functionally ruined, as it's utility to "increase" the orb pool while staying "in-tier" is not that useful in most of the decks - instances where it might be cool is an addition of color to otherwise pure decks (especially situations like pure fire combined with nature heals etc.) or support-less decks, that usually dont have heals/CCs - and even then its basically to empower your T3 options.

For obvious reasons, the card is unusable in PvP.

 

So I am a little skeptical about it, as my assumption is a straight downfall in use of it altogether.

[Fimion]

Before you ruin amii monument and turn it into a shit tier card that nobody uses better use your time to add a new and original card to the game...

I can guarantee you that basically nobody will use amii monu anymore maybe some people will mess around with it on easy difficulties for a while but thats it.

Edited September 1 by Fimion

[Draconnor]

New Amii monument could be cheaper... but it seems fine. As long Enlight exist 😛

And im hyped for all the news.

Great work!

 

But please make Energy Core free of Bedrock bug - that don't allow use skill while multiple units are selected 😉

Edited September 1 by Draconnor

[GeekAlot]

Im hyped that amii monument is finally out. Good Job!

[SunWu]

1 hour ago, Fimion said:

I can guarantee you that basically nobody will use amii monu anymore maybe some people will mess around with it on easy difficulties for a while but thats it.

Once everyone used curse well, now nobody does - and it's a good thing. It's really obvious amii monument was only added as a desperate OP cashgrab by a studio having to milk a dying game for it's last drops,

[GeekAlot]

4 minutes ago, SunWu said:

Once everyone used curse well, now nobody does - and it's a good thing. It's really obvious amii monument was only added as a desperate OP cashgrab by a studio having to milk a dying game for it's last drops,

100% Approved

 

[WindHunter]

Is Amii Monument's playrate going to decrease, likely severely, after this change? Yes. That is to be expected of a card included in 33% of all PvE decks across all PvE modes (community, campaign, rPvE). This card has the same playrate as a T1 staple card like Windweavers, Surge of Light, or Nomads. No T3 card should have a play rate even close to this level, especially not a legendary. 

I also think it is bad reasoning to argue a change is bad because it will decrease a card's playrate, when that card's high playrate is the exact reason why an entire tier of cards have low playrates. Amii Monument's loss becomes all of T3's gain. Regardless, we do still want the card to be useful, and play tests have suggested it still is.

Right now, the card is an auto-include in most scenarios. It is the rework's goal for Amii Monument to enable new deck archetypes. Post-rework, players will need to consider if it is worth the slot and adjust accordingly. That is a good thing! Players should always be considering this, no card should be an auto-include. If Amii Monument proves too weak, we will buff it. But we are going into new territory here, so we are being a bit conservatively initially with the numbers.

[This Is Halloween_2]

6 minutes ago, WindHunter said:

Is Amii Monument's playrate going to decrease, likely severely, after this change? Yes. That is to be expected of a card included in 33% of all PvE decks across all PvE modes (community, campaign, rPvE). This card has the same playrate as a T1 staple card like Windweavers, Surge of Light, or Nomads. No T3 card should have a play rate even close to this level, especially not a legendary. 

I also think it is bad reasoning to argue a change is bad because it will decrease a card's playrate, when that card's high playrate is the exact reason why an entire tier of cards have low playrates. Amii Monument's loss becomes all of T3's gain. Regardless, we do still want the card to be useful, and play tests have suggested it still is.

Right now, the card is an auto-include in most scenarios. It is the rework's goal for Amii Monument to enable new deck archetypes. Post-rework, players will need to consider if it is worth the slot and adjust accordingly. That is a good thing! Players should always be considering this, no card should be an auto-include. If Amii Monument proves too weak, we will buff it. But we are going into new territory here, so we are being a bit conservatively initially with the numbers.

That's the only part I am afraid of, that the card proves too weak for rainbow like deck and is abandoned. I already said that I'm 100% for the nerf, but I've also listed the pb I find for the rework, notably the high ability cost.

[Oops]

53 minutes ago, SunWu said:

Once everyone used curse well, now nobody does - and it's a good thing. It's really obvious amii monument was only added as a desperate OP cashgrab by a studio having to milk a dying game for it's last drops,

I agree with this statement, but - Curse Well was a direct problem before, as it affected gameplay in PvP, which included players and their mutual gameplay directly. But Amii Monument is nigh exclusive for PvE content only, hence not quite as relevant  in discussion of how OP it potentially is (albeit being a little bit too popular) - more so if neutral and available for all color variations.

 

27 minutes ago, WindHunter said:

Is Amii Monument's playrate going to decrease, likely severely, after this change? Yes. That is to be expected of a card included in 33% of all PvE decks across all PvE modes (community, campaign, rPvE). This card has the same playrate as a T1 staple card like Windweavers, Surge of Light, or Nomads. No T3 card should have a play rate even close to this level, especially not a legendary. 

I also think it is bad reasoning to argue a change is bad because it will decrease a card's playrate, when that card's high playrate is the exact reason why an entire tier of cards have low playrates. Amii Monument's loss becomes all of T3's gain. Regardless, we do still want the card to be useful, and play tests have suggested it still is.

Right now, the card is an auto-include in most scenarios. It is the rework's goal for Amii Monument to enable new deck archetypes. Post-rework, players will need to consider if it is worth the slot and adjust accordingly. That is a good thing! Players should always be considering this, no card should be an auto-include. If Amii Monument proves too weak, we will buff it. But we are going into new territory here, so we are being a bit conservatively initially with the numbers.

Now, I also agree with this ideology, as it surely makes sense. However, let's be more pragmatic here - if we are truly eager to bring a normalizing aspect into the game, that would prevent players from cheating themselves through maps, instead of destructuring Amii as a Tier stepstone, it would be more fair to prevent abusement of exploits and bugs that exist in the game in the first place, LIKE nether warping through closed gates, like triggering map mechanics out of order or like ignoring 75% of the objectives due to a bug in spawned NPC behaviour (KotG cave block, Slave Master prisoner exploit, Matter Mastery interactions with specific map buildings, ...) and many more. If you want to be fair not only in gameplay, but in rankings too, you would have to ban atleast about 20–30 cards completely, as they somehow interact with a broken mechanic on a number of maps (thus making them an auto-include too for these maps), and erase most of said rankings after this change is employed, for you would still have a lingering issue of having players that actively exploit stuff to rank themselves high or finish the map ASAP against those that don't know how to do it or refusing to do it. Otherwise, a completely pointless debate, as this is trivially targeting a single card to abolish a widespread problem.

 

TL;DR - despite Monument being an issue of jumping from T2 to T4 straight, it is by far not the most concerning problem in the live game currently when it comes to gameplay.

 

Bonus Fun fact - Amii Monument is also bugged, as when you use it in T3 to get to T4, if any of your "standard" orbs gets destroyed, the price to rebuild it is 300, instead of 100 .

Edited September 1 by Oops

[This Is Halloween_2]

Well, we talked a lot about Amii monument, but there's also the new card, energy core.

I'm not sure about it, the requirement are quite high (4 specific orbs, not 1 shadow & 1 nature), the health cost are steep ( 2 use of the 1st ability, 1 of the 2nd, and you need the new skydancer to have it being useful at all), while the damages themselves are low. Sure you can use the shadow buff to help, but still it seems to me a bit weak overall.

I do think the health costs will have to be lowered for the card to really work.

Edited Monday at 01:55 PM by This Is Halloween_2

[Fimion]

2 hours ago, Oops said:

I agree with this statement, but - Curse Well was a direct problem before, as it affected gameplay in PvP, which included players and their mutual gameplay directly. But Amii Monument is nigh exclusive for PvE content only, hence not quite as relevant  in discussion of how OP it potentially is (albeit being a little bit too popular) - more so if neutral and available for all color variations.

 

Now, I also agree with this ideology, as it surely makes sense. However, let's be more pragmatic here - if we are truly eager to bring a normalizing aspect into the game, that would prevent players from cheating themselves through maps, instead of destructuring Amii as a Tier stepstone, it would be more fair to prevent abusement of exploits and bugs that exist in the game in the first place, LIKE nether warping through closed gates, like triggering map mechanics out of order or like ignoring 75% of the objectives due to a bug in spawned NPC behaviour (KotG cave block, Slave Master prisoner exploit, Matter Mastery interactions with specific map buildings, ...) and many more. If you want to be fair not only in gameplay, but in rankings too, you would have to ban atleast about 20–30 cards completely, as they somehow interact with a broken mechanic on a number of maps (thus making them an auto-include too for these maps), and erase most of said rankings after this change is employed, for you would still have a lingering issue of having players that actively exploit stuff to rank themselves high or finish the map ASAP against those that don't know how to do it or refusing to do it. Otherwise, a completely pointless debate, as this is trivially targeting a single card to abolish a widespread problem.

 

TL;DR - despite Monument being an issue of jumping from T2 to T4 straight, it is by far not the most concerning problem in the live game currently when it comes to gameplay.

 

Bonus Fun fact - Amii Monument is also bugged, as when you use it in T3 to get to T4, if any of your "standard" orbs gets destroyed, the price to rebuild it is 300, instead of 100 .

Exactly! Here is another example: Im sure most of you know that a new spawn wave only starts once the previous one is completely defeated so alot of players just leave one unit alive to prevent another wave from spawning on rPvE Expert+ most experienced players including me do that.

Or on Bad Harvest when youre defending the wagon you can just keep casting Glaciation on the wall and those small units will keep pounding on it forever and the big units wont spawn.

That exploit is way more powerful than Amii Monument so when is that gonna get fixed?