Community Update #30 - December 2022

[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!

• 2nd Anniversary Stream

The second anniversary of Skylords Reborn is coming up! Two years ago, on the 18th of December 2020, the world of Nyn opened its doors again, allowing more than 100.000 Skylords to re-experience this one-of-a-kind game. Since then, we have been hard at work to bring you even more content, bugfixes, new cards and other features. Skylords Reborn is truly by the fans, for the fans, and we are glad we can celebrate this second anniversary with you. 

On Sunday the 18th of December at 20:00 CEST*, we will be hosting an anniversary stream on our official Twitch channel. We will look back on another year of Skylords Reborn, show off what will be included in our latest patch, and answer questions from the community. 

We hope you will be joining us! 

*Due to the busy December month, this time slot is pending, we will share the final streaming time closer to the anniversary. 

 

• Upcoming Content Patch

We are also hard at work to bring you a new content patch, aimed for release in December. It will include various balance changes, new cards, new achievements and a new feature.

Last year we focused on improving the economy and introduced Reforging; a way to make use of spare cards lying around and to adjust the prices of cards, giving even worthless cards a set minimum value and a creating a soft cap on card prices to prevent runaway inflation among the best ultra rares. We also added more achievements, increasing the number of boosters players can earn to help newer players get started on their collection.

Achievements are a great way to naturally introduce players to more cards, but also to keep players engaged with fun challenges. However, by rewarding items that interact with the economy (boosters, cards) we see some players get frustrated with achievements that provide challenges they don't enjoy or find too hard, yet feel forced to do because of the rewards.

So we started to work on an additional reward layer, and we are proud to reveal the new upcoming feature: Cosmetics.

With our new patch, we are introducing a bunch of new achievements focused on providing fun new challenges for players, while not having to worry about impacting the economy with their rewards. Instead, players will be able to earn special borders, banners and titles, allowing for more expression and fancy bling! Here is a little teaser:  

Cosmetics will be part of our upcoming patch, and we will share more about it and their connected achievements in the anniversary stream. 


• New Card Reveal: Sanctuary

In our Nature Deep Dive back in April, we already mentioned Sanctuary, a card that has been in development ever since. Sanctuary is a new tool for Pure Nature players that provides an effect similar to Mark of the Keeper to a select number of units. 

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

Sanctuary is a new tier 4 spell for pure Nature decks, requiring four Nature orbs. The card will be Rare, and will come in two affinities. The effect of the non-upgraded version is as follows:
 

Blessed Spellbane
Up to 4 friendly units in a 25m radius will be wrapped in a countermagical aura. Affected units are surrounded by a spellblocking zone of 20m where enemies can neither use ranged attacks nor special abilities. Hostile players cannot play out cards within that zone. Additionally, affected units take 25% less damage. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 40 seconds.

Gifted Spellbane
Up to 4 friendly units in a 25m radius will be wrapped in a countermagical aura. Affected units are surrounded by a spellblocking zone of 20m where enemies can neither use ranged attacks nor special abilities. Hostile players cannot play out cards within that zone. Additionally, the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze is reduced by 75% on all affected targets. Lasts for 20 seconds. Reusable every 40 seconds.

Sanctuary continues our work on the Nature faction, alongside various balance changes coming to the faction in our upcoming patch. Sanctuary aims to provide Nature players with a reward for playing Pure Nature decks, instead of Enlightenment decks. It is a powerful effect that covers some weaknesses with which the faction struggles.

Sanctuary is planned to release in our next patch. 

 

• Art Spotlight

Work on Sanctuary started back in July, with SpiritAlpha coming up with a few sketches to explore directions. At this point, we weren't sure what the focus point would be of the spell. During design there were versions with non-nature units like the Overlord at the center of the spell. We thought it would be fun to show these very early concepts.

The art feedback channel was home to many a discussion during the progress, with as many as eight different takes up for discussion. We had versions with the focus on a village (1, 2), a focus on a single unit (Swamp Drake 3, Giant Wyrm 4, Abyssal Warder 6) to Twilight investation around the borders, being held back by the sanctuary (8).

After voting, the version with two dragons in the sky (5) was used to come to the final design. A big thanks to our artists SpiritAlpha and Tweeto for working on this piece and to our Art Critiques for providing feedback. As you can see, we always put a lot of thought and effort into our artworks, we hope it shows!

 

• Tournaments / Events

Since Community Updates are posted on a monthly schedule, events might come and go in between them. Be sure to keep a close eye on the ingame event-tab and the forum calendar to not miss any events! 

• CLOSING SOON – Official PvE Contest #7: Harvest season – until 02.12.2022
For this challenge, we want to see you succeed in playing the map Bad Harvest, while accomplishing several goals of varying difficulty.
The more objectives your team accomplishes, the more points you get, which will lead to greater rewards! More information. 

• NEW – CCC #9 – The Archer's Tournament – Until 10.12.2022
Once the official PvE contest is finished, a new CCC run by Kapo goes live the day. Click here for details.
 

• FINISHED – Official Halloween Event
While our Halloween event is now over, you can still play this new take on a familiar map. Instead of Encountering Twilight, Rogan Kayle finds himself in the face of new horrors. Click here for how to access the map.  

• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event yourself? Please reach out to our Event Organizer, Metagross! We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us, we will gladly assist you.

• Team changes

Sadly, Chibiterasu has decided to quit his role of balance developer. While sad to see him go, we respect his decision and would like to thank him for all his work.
 

• Contribute to the Project

As always, we hope you will consider helping out the project. Please take a look at all our open positions on how you can do so. 
There are also a variety of contributor roles, like translator, that don't require you to join the staff, but still allow you to help out now and then. Please take a look. 
 

• In Conclusion

And that's it for this Community Update, thanks for reading! 

As is tradition, this community update comes with a scratch code. 
The code will reward you with a General-booster: HAPP-YANN-IVER-SARY

The code is valid until January 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update. 

As always, we are open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments! 

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update #29

Edited December 3, 2022 by Kapo

[Majora]

On a personal note; it is hard to believe this is Community Update 30 already! Preparing and writing these always takes much more time than expected, but I hope its appreciated by the playerbase.

Community Updates started out as a way to keep the playerbase informed about all the work going on behind the scenes, as we are always working on more content, quality of life fixes or other ways to expand upon Skylords Reborn, even if it can take a while for a new patch to go live. All of this is done by a team of about 35 volunteers working in different departments on their evenings, weekends or holidays, alongside their job, studies and social responsibilities. It's always impressive to me to see how much we get done and are willing to invest into a fan project for no profit. Sometimes the workload can be a lot, but I am extremely grateful for the fact BattleForge was not only resurrected and I get to play it again, but I also get to work with a bunch of talented and passionate people in a great community. 

Lets celebrate another year of Skylords together, and I hope to see you during the stream and in the Forge. 😄

 

[Volin]

On 11/17/2022 at 3:58 PM, Majora said:

Cosmetics will be part of our upcoming patch, and we will share more about it and their connected achievements in the anniversary stream. 

AWESOME!

[Deadman]

Cool

[Zeroo]

Amazing

[DDrazard]

As awesome updates as always. ^^

[Dallarian]

Cosmetics so that I can make my portrait even more frosty, this is amazing!
People love new achievements, I am looking forward seeing all of you on the server once the patch hits! ^^

[Hrdina_Imperia]

Amazing stuff as always! Already looking forward to it, the new cosmetics are a great idea.

[DemonRJ]

Amazing. Great job again

These updates always makes my day.

[Majora]

1 minute ago, DemonRJ said:

Amazing. Great job again

These updates always makes my day.

Thats very kind, thank you so much 🙂

[Pulsar]

4 hours ago, Majora said:

Preparing and writing these always takes much more time than expected, but I hope its appreciated by the playerbase.

As for me, its highly appreciated, and "working as intended" 😉

[WatcherOfSky]

Sanctuary seems like the obvious way to go for a pure nature tier 4 payoff, love the design! Cosmetic are always a nice add as well. Keep up the good work!!

[Metagross31]

Awesome update!

Will Sanctuary protect players from Willzappers?

[EinherjarRedux]

Great work contributors! Can't wait to try it all out!

[Xamos]

Wow, Community Update 30 already. And I read each and every one of them with so much excitement and pleasant anticipation! Very much appreciated that you put the time in and write it. 

2nd Anniversary already? Time really flys by as we get older (not old but older^^ ) 

I still very much enjoy the game and am so grateful that you guys brought it back and keep making it better! Thanks so much. (Also I'd also love to see new gamemodes like defensive rPvE one day, but I'm patient^^) I don't have the time to play as much as back in the days but every now and then I start to play again and enjoy it on every free evening of a month. Still my favorite RTS out there, and that does mean something with the likes of AoE4 around. 

[JarodDempsey]

o m g 

If you guys are going to keep pumping out epic looking barrier card artworks (not to mention for t4 pure spells) i demand we get more character icon slots because I literally cant help myself. 

But FR amazing work keep it up, you guys are the best ♥

[Jolares]

19 hours ago, Metagross31 said:

Awesome update!

Will Sanctuary protect players from Willzappers?

Please let Sanctuary protect against Willzappers

[Volin]

Sanctuary will deactivate Willzappers if you manage to get into range

[Jolares]

3 minutes ago, Volin said:

Sanctuary will deactivate Willzappers if you manage to get into range

based

[Venomlord]

Wow, really epic stuff is coming. I love the Artwork of Sanctuary, it looks so good and high in quality, really nice job!

[Draconnor]

Its first BIG card that can be major gamechanger.  Great.

and also great art 😉