Patch #400036 - 3 October 2022

[WindHunter]

Patch #400036

Welcome to our newest patch. This update contains a follow-up to our larger patch earlier in the month with new achievements and changes to existing achievements. 

General Changes

• Added notificaton when all gold chests have been opened.
• Fixed bug where you could start campaign PvE matches with free PvP decks.
• Solved numerous smaller textual inconsistencies in the UI.
• Renamed "Delete all" to "Collect all" in the mail window. Added dialog box that mentions the mails will also be deleted, instead.
• Removed map seeds from the random PvE map pool known to crash the game. This should solve the issue where a random PvE map crashes on start-up.
• Faction ability icons are no longer displayed as status effects on a unit to conserve space for non-permanent effects. This includes: Life Stealer (Bandits), Elusive (Amii), Adamant Skin (Stonekin units), and Adamant Alloy (Stonekin buildings).

New & Existing Achievements
Skylords Reborn released with a base set of achievements, including 3 achievements which reward players for draining their BFP reserves. Unfortunately, since release we have seen that contrary to encouraging more play, these reserve achievements are actually driving players away from the game. Players will grind many hours in a row to finish all three achievements and in the process completely burn themselves out. Given this situation, we have decided to remove all 3 reserve achievements and replace them with general in-game playtime achievements that the player can complete at their own pace. These new achievements will be available to everyone, even those who previously completed the reserve achievements.

Sadly, our newest achievements were also not free from issues. "A Wrinkle in Time" caused a lot of confusion with its description and has been updated accordingly. Our new RPvE 10 achievement "Abandon Hope..." has proved to be quite popular, even with brand-new players who attempt it without being properly prepared. This has led to frustration among our more veteran players, who the achievement was meant to help by increasing the RPvE 10 player pool. As such, we have locked the achievement beyond PvE Rank 10, to prevent unprepared players from joining lobbies in hopes of easy boosters. Our Pure Fire achievement "Never Thought of Him" has had a very low completion rate and after talking to players we decided to reduce the restrictions. Now, only the player pursuing the achievement is required to use a Pure Fire deck, instead of the entire team. While not mentioned here, see PvE map changes below, we have made changes to Defending Hope to allow the player to activate Rogan with a building and not just a unit. While the fact Rogan required a unit to be activated was intended to be a fun puzzle-like challenge for the "A City Strongly Compact" achievement, we noticed this caused substantial frustration among players, especially those who were also trying to complete "The Long Journey Home" simultaneously.

[ New Achievements ]

Thirsty for More  [1/2/3 General Boosters ]
Spend time in matches. (5/15/30 hours)

Up and Coming  [1 Mini-booster]
Complete the 1-player scenario Introduction.

Gym Rat  [3 General Boosters]
Win 20 sparring PvP matches.

Moon's Disciple  [6 General Boosters]
Win 20 ranked PvP matches. (Locked until Gym Rat has been completed)

[ Changes to Existing Achievements ]

All 3 Reserve Achievements (Drink Up, Me Hearties!; Thirsty for More; To the Last Drop)
- Permanently removed from the game

A Wrinkle in Time
- Description changed to clarify it requires Lost Souls cards.

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
- Achievement is now locked until a player reaches PvE rank 10 (Gold 2)

Never Thought of Him
- Only requires the player to use a Pure Fire deck instead of the entire team.

A Force of Nature
- Reward description changed to "1x Promo Mana Wing" to clarify it is not a normal Mana Wing being rewarded.

[Majora]

This patch is planned to release upcoming Monday the 3rd. 

[Lobo23]

Dont nerf achivments based on "frustration" balance them only by seing if its doable or not! i have all the new achivments and can confirm they are indeed dooable, it takes all the credit away from completing them, if they are easy.  Sure ppl are going to cry about it, just like im doing but opposite, its natural, and its also natural for achivments to mean something, and be hard to ACHIVE.

[Carofex]

On 10/1/2022 at 12:03 AM, arroz23 said:

Dont nerf achivments based on "frustration" balance them only by seing if its doable or not! i have all the new achivments and can confirm they are indeed dooable, it takes all the credit away from completing them, if they are easy.  Sure ppl are going to cry about it, just like im doing but opposite, its natural, and its also natural for achivments to mean something, and be hard to ACHIVE.

There could be also some harder archivements.

[Kapo]

I totally agree there should be hard and superhard achievements, though it doesn't have to be that "Play X hours constantly" stuff.  If the data suggests the Reserve stuff frustrates Skylords away from the game, it's the right move to remove them.

But as we have seen on the "Force of Nature" patch, achievements can revitalize interest pretty strongly.

[WindHunter]

In terms of the reserve achievements: these have caused substantial problems and I would argue were a mistake from the very beginning. We should not be encouraging players to burn themselves out from the game. Achievements should generally challenge a player's skill or track their progress, neither of which is true for the reserve achievements. 

In terms of the others: I think we need to draw a distinct between achievements which reward gameplay related items, such as boosters and gold, and those which do not. I agree it would be nice to have a set of much harder achievements as well as more achievements in general. But I do not think very difficult achievements should be connected to gameplay related rewards as these type of rewards, if combined with either too difficult a challenge compared to the reward (Never Thought of Him) or a frustrating hidden mechanic (A City Strongly Compact), lead to a bad gameplay experience because the player is "missing out" by not having the achievement complete. On the other hand, non-gameplay rewards do not have this same issue because missing out on a character avatar, to give an example, is not hurting your game progression. It is just vanity. 

[Hrdina_Imperia]

I welcome these changes. Achievements that tend to take into account actions of other players (ie. whole team needs to use Pure fire) seem a bit out of place, at least for me. As for the reserve ones, I wouldn't mind it too much, if they were more reasonably set. In the end, it's better without them. 

In general though, the achievements are great for improving longevity of the game, as well as keeping interest of the players. I hope for loads more of them in the coming future :^)

[zarakasas]

I'm sorry to post it here, but i can't create topic. In achievment page, i see achievment with white square picture  that say's 'IF YOU SEE THIS, PLS REPORT' so i report here.

[Dutchy]

Thanks for the report. This will be fixed tomorrow.

[Carofex]

the new archivements with "play 20 sparrings" (perhaps also "play 20 ranked matches") make some players to create second accounts. watch out...

[Dutchy]

We are aware that the new achievements have led to people trying to get extra boosters by creating multiple accounts.

We try our best to catch these players. Please report if you see anything suspicious. 

[Mynoduesp]

On 9/1/2022 at 5:03 PM, WindHunter said:

Never Thought of Him
- Only requires the player to use a Pure Fire deck instead of the entire team.

The achivement still says "with all players in your team".

Bugreport: 

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Mynoduesp

[SunWu]

On 10/6/2022 at 5:58 PM, Carofex said:

the new archivements with "play 20 sparrings" (perhaps also "play 20 ranked matches") make some players to create second accounts. watch out...

At first i was like ,,okay let them have their little fun'' but now its kind of getting annoying. 50% of my matches are vs capable players wich cost me 600-1000 ELO every match i lose - and if i win i get 100. Wasn't a problem when there was only one but theyre getting more and playing ranked becomes kind of frustrating.