Character Lighting Adjustments in Barracks, and Sinners Mire
Card Changes
+ Static Discharge
Cost reduced to 5, from 6.
+ Skyborne Crusader
Health reduced to 4, from 5.
Options Menu
Some cosmetic upgrades have been made to the Options Menu as we refine the new art.
Code redemption can now be done directly from the Accounts tab.
Client version number is now displayed less prominently at the bottom of the screen.
Tutorial
A Tutorial Menu has been added to present tutorial progress more clearly.
The Campaign button in the overworld now brings you to the Tutorial menu. This should be clearer for new players until we add campaign missions.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that would cause the Mulligan UI to become stuck on screen if the game reconnected to the server during that phase.
Strict Packmaster and Pack Awakener can no longer buff artifacts.
Fixed a bug where units with on-damage triggers would not trigger at all against a unit protected by Hadrien, The White Rook when Hadrien absorbed all the damage.
Fixed a bug where certain units (Upgrade or Transform units) would not receive Summoner’s Aide’s health buff when deployed.
Fixed Duskblade’s special case VO lines to match the his new gameplay.
Fixed a bug in the options menu where you couldn’t update the Camera Controls bound key.
Fixed a bug that would cause login bonuses to not be awarded if your last login was exactly 1 month ago.
Tutorial UI & More Art!
Hey, Rangers!
Things have been busy here at Spiritwalk, but it’s never too busy for a dev update!
Patch Tomorrow
Tomorrow’s patch contains a couple of small balance changes, as well as a major change with how players get into the tutorial. New players will get a better idea of how long the tutorial is, as well as get an idea of what they’ll learn and unlock from the experience. We were finding the missions on the overworld were definitely confusing for new players in their placeholder state, so we’ve moved everything to a simple UI that’s easy to navigate.
Tutorial UI
Also look forward to the fully arted Zephyr Monk joining the game, ready to send his teammates to the enemy like leaves on the wind!
Zephyr Monk
Art Previews & The Dev Stream
If you haven’t joined our Dev Streams on Twitch, you’re missing out on sneak previews of all the art that’s currently in development - we’ve got dozens (and dozens) of units in dev at various parts of the pipeline. Hunter showed off a lot of art, including concept for the Voice of the Squall, Averos (Currently Prism Dancer) and the Skywatch Dragoon standing tall in the barracks:
Voice of the Squall
Averos (currently Prism Dancer)
Skywatch Dragoon
If you want to join us, we go live every other Thursday @ 4pm PDT - on the weeks where we don’t have patches coming out.
Coming Soon: The Lost Highlands
A new map will be showing up in Shardbound soon! Lost highlands features a lot of twists and turns, ensuring the the axis of combat is always shifting. It also features a VERY close clash point, with only a single highground tile between spawn areas. Games play out very differently from our existing maps, so we’re excited to get it into your hands soon.
Remaining work includes art and lighting polish, as well as ensuring it performs well on lower end machines.
Discord with Us!
Lastly, if you don’t hop in our discord, you’re missing a lot of Shardbound chatter! Join us at discord.gg/shardbound and give a hello!
Take care, and good luck out there!
- Your friends at Spiritwalk
Patch Notes #51
Hero Changes
+ Wynn’s ability has been changed.
“Give a friendly minion +1 Attack this turn. If you’ve cast a spell this turn, give +2 instead.”
Card Changes
+ Chaotic Surged has been replaced with Illumination.
Illumination
3 Cost Orange Spell
“Deal 2 damage to all enemies in a line.”
+ Force Blast has been replaced with Lucent Lance.
Lucent Lance
1 Cost Orange Spell
"Deal 2 damage to a minion in line of sight, then draw a card. Discard it at the end of this turn if it's still in your hand."
+ Fork Existence has been replaced with Ethereal Form.
Ethereal Form
3 Cost Blue Spell
"Choose a friendly minion and add a copy of it to your hand. Give the copy Shroud."
+ Summoner's Aide
Card effect changed to “Your minions can be summoned next to this minion. Give any minions summoned this way +1 Health.”
+ Zealot
Warcry now damages a random enemy minion in line of sight.
Health increased to 3, from 2.
+ Toka Warrior
Attack reduced to 2, from 3.
+ Vigil Keeper
Cost reduced to 2, from 3.
UI
The options panel has received a facelift. This is part of a larger effort to get Shardbound’s UI into shipshape. Upcoming patches may tweak the look of the options panel as we finalize the style.
The social panel (friends list) now has a red badge that shows when you have pending invites or duels.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with new Zephyr Monk not playing his Warcry animation.
Fixed an element in the card picker UI that would cause header text to not scale based on text length.
Patch Notes #50
New Art
Cannoneer now has art!
Card Changes
Astral Champion
Attack reduced to 1, down from 2.
Duskblade
Card effect changed to “Has Poison against enemies that are at full Health”.
Guerilla Raider
Health reduced to 3, down from 4.
Nature’s Herald
Health reduced to 8, down from 9.
Tracker Primal
Attack reduced to 4, down from 5.
Primeval Exalt
Attack reduced to 2, down from 6.
Health reduced to 2, down from 6.
Now gains +2/+2 per friendly minion, up from +1/+1.
Quantum Turnkey
Cost reduced to 3, down from 4.
Zephyr Monk
Card effect changed to “Warcry: Give adjacent allies +3 Movement this turn”.
Achievements
Astral Pattern: Domination has been updated to require an 8 Attack Astral Champion.
Tutorial
All four tutorial missions have had the narrative cutscenes removed to make them significantly shorter. The storytelling components are planned to be reintroduced in a campaign mode further into development.
HUD
On enemy card overdraw, the card is now revealed and animates flipping over and burning.
On enemy card discard, the card is now revealed and animates flipping over and leaving the hand.
Cards added to the deck from a target will now animate from the target to the deck. For example, cards generated by Stellar Replicas will animate from the target to the deck.
Cards that are bounced to a full hand are now exiled and the card animates burning instead of returning to the hand.
Core Tech
We’ve upgraded Unreal engine to version 4.16. In general you shouldn’t notice this, but a lot of things have changed so if you see any unusual bugs, especially with graphics or performance, please let us know.
UI
Time Bank
Critical time now begins at 30 seconds, up from 25.
Ending your turn any time before critical time now banks a flat +5 seconds instead of a dynamic range based on remaining turn time.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where Viperfang Primal’s poison would interact incorrectly with Splash.
Fixed a bug where Crystal Queen killing enemy minions would incorrectly send them to the Graveyard.
Fixed a bug where Warp Specialist killing enemy Deathhowl minions would incorrectly allow their Deathhowl to trigger.
Fix for a common animation pop when Buccaneer kills an enemy with his ability.
Made the word “of” lowercase in card names to make it consistent.
Disabled a network feature that may have been causing reconnect issues for some players.
Fixed the time bank showing an incorrect value upon reconnect.
[Mac] Fixed a number of non-Nvidia cards complaining about no cooked SM4 shaders. They should now properly load the SM5 shaders, and allow the game to run.
Balance, Tutorial, and Mac Testing
Hey there Rangers!
Another week another Dev Update! Hope you’re all having a lovely Monday, so let’s dive right in!
Balance & Tutorial
We’ll be patching the game on schedule tomorrow @ 11am PDT. Expect to see the usual balance changes in this next patch. Duskblade’s Poison now only works on full health targets, allowing players to play around it and making it more situational.
Zephyr Monk’s Warcry now gives adjacent allies +3 Movement, hopefully giving it more playability.
The Tutorial has gone through a bit of an overhaul to shorten its length to get new players into the game more quickly! We’ve decided to kick off the story proper when we launch single player chapters, not try to do double duty with the tutorial.
Cannoneer is the newest minion with full suites of animation and voiceover! Go check her out in the Card Details!
We’ve added a couple more card transitions into the mix to help newer players understand what’s going on.
On enemy card discard, the card is now revealed.
Cards added to the deck from a target will now animate from the target to the deck (i.e. cards generated by Stellar Replicas). On enemy card overdraw, the card is now revealed and burned!
Stream Highlights
Now that the art pipeline is filling up and have multiple units in the works, we’ve been showing off a ton of art on streams, here are the highlights!
Spirit Binder
Baffling Presence
Pile of Tomes
Seedsinger
Concord Artisan
Tune in August 17th for the next Dev Stream! Make sure to follow us on Twitch and get notified when we go live! If you missed the last Dev Stream, watch the VOD!
Mac Testing
The Mac build has started closed testing. There is currently no timetable for release, but we’ll make sure to keep you posted when we know! If you want to join the effort in testing the Mac build, drop us a line at Contact@spiritwalk.com.
Catch ya later, Rangers!
- Your friends at Spiritwalk
Patch Notes #49
New Art
Hungry Gnarbek now has art!
Hero Changes
+ Juro
Card text changed to “Ability (2): Dash up to two tiles, dealing 1 damage to enemies passed through. Transform into a Primal.”
Primal card text changed to “Ability (2): Dash up to two tiles, dealing 1 damage to enemies passed through. Transform back to Juro.”
Card Changes
+ Astral Champion
Health increased to 6, up from 2.
Now only gains bonus Attack based on the cost of the card it draws, instead of both Attack and Health.
+ Cannibal
Bloodtoll effect changed to dealing 3 damage to an ally, instead of destroying a friendly minion.
+ Disciple of Almast
Card text changed to “Your hero ability becomes Chosen Blessing.” (Note: this is so that Disciple of Almast’s effect can now now be granted to Heroes other than Vardan, in case of a clone or in Blame the Deck or whatever).
+ Guerilla Raider
Health reduced to 4, down from 5.
+ Plating Specialist
Warcry effect now grants +3 Health, up from +2 Health.
+ Primeval Exalt
Attack increased to 6, up from 5.
Health increased to 6, up from 5.
+ Radiant Scion
Attack reduced to 2, down from 3.
Supremacy bonus increased to +3 Attack, up from +2.
+ Rook
Attack bonus lasts for a full round, up from just the turn it moved.
+ Spirit Binder
Card text changed to “Warcry: Bond to an enemy minion, while either are bound, neither can act.” (Note: Now uses the Bond keyword and mechanics - cases that previously ended Spirit Binder’s effect, such as Canal or Stone Prison, no longer end it).
+ Stellar Replicas
Adds 2 copies to deck, down from 3.
Draws 2 cards, up from 1.
Cost increased to 4, up from 2.
+ Tracker Primal
Health reduced to 3, down from 4.
+ Thrall Mutation
Now also restores 1 Health to your hero in addition to its other effects.
+ Vaast, the Last Pilot
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
+ Zieger-1
Attack increased to 10, up from 9.
Audio
Heroes will now play Concede VO when conceding (except Juro).
UI
Enemy card draw is now animated.
Enemy card bounce is now animated.
Cards exiled due to overdraw now visually burn away.
The Time Bank UI is now hidden in matches where turn time is infinite, such as bot matches.
The amount of time banked when you end your turn has been increased to plus +2/3/4/5/6 seconds per 10/20/30/40/50 seconds remaining beyond critical time, up from +1/2/3/4/5 seconds.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where cloned Moons or Stars (from Puppeteer or Echo of Light) would not recombine when next to each other.
Raptor Class Mech and Storm Class Mech now have their correct keywords.
Fixed a rare bug with Hadrien where Hadrien would take an incorrect amount of damage when protecting an ally with splash.
Fixed a bug where the displayed ability cost for Chosen Blessing, the ability granted by Disciple of Almast, was 0 instead of 2.
Fixed a bug where units that can move through enemy units (Wraith, Baffling Presence) would display the yellow attack highlight in some cases where they did not have a valid attack target.
Dev Update: Art & Adjustments
Hello Rangers!
Hope you’re having a lovely Monday, here’s another Dev Update!
Adjustments & Tuning
A couple weeks ago we introduced the Time Bank and want to thank everyone for providing feedback. We'll be making some tuning changes that will be coming in the next patch.
We've got some card changes in this patch as we continue to work on balance adjustments.
Astral Champion is being adjusted to have normalized health while allowing for the excitement of variable attack strength. It now only gains bonus Attack based on the cost of the card it draws and is fixed at 6 health.
We also made a quality of life change to Cannibal, giving it more flexibility in its deployment:
Before // After
Lastly, a variety of underutilized cards, such as The Rook and The Zeiger-1 to receive buffs to get them into the mix. Check out the patch notes tomorrow for more information!
Art & Livestream Highlights
In our last livestream we talked about the art pipeline opening up and what's to come. We have a ton of units at different stages of development, including concept, modeling, rigging, and animation. Here are the highlights from the stream:
Soultaker: Cannoneer: Grand Wyrm Primal: Zephyr Monk: Stonecall Seedling:
Dev Livestreams will be every other week for the foreseeable future, on the Thursday before we patch, so make sure to tune in!
Hungry Gnarbek
Everyone's favorite hungry dino will be getting the full art treatment this week! Make sure to check him out in the Card Details to see his full suite of animations and voice lines.
Card Transitions
We've also been working on fleshing out the visual states of cards during different gameplay events, improving viewability and helping newer players understand what’s going on. Enemy cards have animations when cards are being drawn, bounced, and exiled.
Catch ya on the flip side friendos,
- Your friends at Spiritwalk
First Win of the Day Reward
Hey there Rangers,
In our most recent patch (Patch #48, 7/11) we made a change to Shardbound that wasn't recorded in our Patch Notes. The change was that 'First Win of the Day' no longer triggers when winning a game in Training Grounds bot matches. We apologize for any confusion or frustration caused by this change as it was not intended to be hidden from the community and was an oversight on our part. We have a strong philosophy on transparency and want to continue to develop this game with you guys, the players!
The reason for this change is that FWotD is intended to be a reward for those entering Matchmaking and not just a 'login reward'. We were seeing a majority of players playing Training Ground bot matches, then going straight into MM, which is not its intended purpose.
The FWotD reward is for PvP games and if you're matched with a bot you will be rewarded for that win. Hope this clarifies any of the confusion and, of course, if you guys have any questions we're happy to answer them! We always want to be forthright with the community, so thanks for bringing this to our attention!
- Your friends at Spiritwalk
Patch Notes #48 - Time Bank
New Art
Shockblade Smuggler now has art!
Card Changes
+ Ascension
Cost increased to 1, up from 0.
+ Blightlasher
Health increased to 8, up from 7.
+ Cannoneer
Health increased to 5, up from 4.
+ Ghost Blade
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
+ Grand Defender
Attack increased to 3, up from 2.
+ Queensguard
Base Health increased to 5, up from 4.
Melee transform reduced to +1/+1, down from +1/+2.
+ Officer Showoff
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
+ Hungry Gnarbek
Attack increased to 5, up from 4.
+ Menagerie
Now summons five spirit primals, up from four.
+ Osprey Deadeye
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
+ Plague Starter
Health increased to 6, up from 5.
Rat stats increased to 2/2, up from 1/1.
+ The Prodigy
Warcry effect now transforms a minion into another minion that costs 2 more, up from 1 more
+ Snarling Mastiff
Health increased to 6, up from 5.
+ Slow Reflexes
Now requires line of sight.
+ Snap Dragon Cadet
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
+ Spearmaiden
Card text changed to “Warcry and Deathhowl: Add a Throwing Spear to your hand.”
+ Tracker Primal
Now draws a card for each injured enemy, instead of only for minions specifically.
+ Warp Specialist
No longer exiles itself.
+ Weavebreaker
Cost reduced to 4, down from 5.
Health reduced to 4, down from 5.
HUD
Developer Note: Time bank is ready for testing! This feature is designed both to encourage people to take faster turns where possible, while also providing more total time when needed for those particularly complex late game board states. Please note that the UI for this feature is temporary, as we wanted to get it into testing as quickly as possible. Let us know what you think!
New Feature - Time Bank!
Max turn time reduced to 75 seconds, down from 90.
Critical turn time now begins at 25 seconds, down from 30.
Ending your turn while you have more than 25 seconds left will bank time, with more time being banked the more available time you have when you end your turn.
A maximum of 5 seconds can be banked per turn.
The bank can store a maximum of up to 30 seconds at a time.
If you have any time available in your bank when your turn time reaches zero, it will begin to drain the your time bank instead of ending your turn.
UI
Bot games no longer count for wins in the user profile.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug that could cause some friends in the social panel to not be sorted correctly.
[In a hotfix since last patch] Fixed a network stall when reconnecting to a game under certain network conditions.
Dev Update: Time Bank & Patch Cadence
Hello, Rangers! Welcome to another Weekly Development Update. A number of interesting topics to cover this week, so let’s dig right in!
Introducing: The Time Bank
Coming with tomorrow’s patch, we will be adding a new feature to Shardbound with the goal of encouraging faster turn-taking while also providing some extra accommodation for complex late-game turns.
Globally, turn timers will be reduced from 90 seconds to 75. However, your turns will add between Zero to Five seconds to the Time Bank, based on the time remaining when you end your turn.
If your turn timer reduces to zero, you will automatically start drawing from the Time Bank. If the bank empties, your turn will end.
Please note that the UI for this feature is temporary, as we wanted to get it into testing as quickly as possible. Please share your thoughts in our Discord, Subreddit, and Steam Forums - we look forward to your feedback!
The Shockblade Smuggler Arrives!
You’d best space out your minions, because the Shockblade Smuggler is receiving her full art treatment this week. A member of the Duskwind Brotherhood like the Shanker and Buccaneer, she exudes the confidence and guts you’d expect from a free-spirited Sky Pirate!
Balance Adjustments
We’re continuing to make balance changes to Shardbound based on match data and all of your fantastic feedback.
Happy with the results of the first wave, we’ll be continuing the process of increasing health pools for ranged units, giving a bump to units like Cannoneer, Officer Showoff, Osprey Deadeye, and more.
Some underutilized cards like Grand Defender, Plague Starter, and Menagerie will be getting some numerical buffs.
A few units will get quality of life buffs, including allowing Tracker Primal to draw off an injured enemy hero and letting the Spearmaiden draw one of her two spears as a Warcry.
A couple Spells will be getting some changes - Our adjustment to Ascension made it a bit too strong - it will be having its mana cost bumped up to 1. Slow Reflexes will be adjusted to require Line of Sight.
Check out the Patch Notes tomorrow for a full list of changes!
2 Week Patches
We’ve decided to make some changes to our release cadence to optimize our development.
Weekly patching comes with extensive overhead, logistics, and quality assurance testing. We’ve decided that some of that time would be better spent on developing more content and features. Additionally, we are flooding the pipelines with new art, and shipping it on a weekly cadence can actually slow down our speed of getting it in your hands.
As a result, we will be moving to a 2 Week patch cycle. After tomorrow’s patch, expect our next update to take place on July 25th.
Fan Art Friday
We’ll sign off with Cirathiel’s fantastic winning entry from last week’s Fan Art Friday! She perfectly captured Vardan’s stern and powerful presence:
That’s it for this week! We’ll see you next time, or join us on Thursday for our Weekly Dev Stream at 4pm PDT!
