Hey there, Rangers! We couldn’t help but join in on the fun of the Steam Summer Sale, and just launched a new Bundle that’s available for a very limited time!
Until July 5th, you can head OVER HERE and grab the bundle for just 7 bucks. It includes 40 boxes at a 65% discount and throws in 2 Legendary Boxes to boot, each with a guaranteed Legendary card.
Why did we want to join the Summer Sale? Two reasons - first, we didn’t want the Shardbound community to be left out of the season of bargains, so we hope this is an exciting way to supplement your barracks. Secondly, the Summer Sale is a great time to discover new games, and we wanted to get the word out to new players about Shardbound!
We hope you’ll tell your friends it’s a great time to jump in and join our Alpha, and encourage them to pick up this sweet deal. We also hope you’re enjoying our recent balance patch and we’re eager for your feedback! Please keep it coming.
- Your Friends at Spiritwalk
Patch Notes #47: Balance!
Card Changes
+ Rankbreaker
Health reduced to 4, down from 5.
+ Queensguard
Melee transform reduced to +1/+2, down from +2/+3.
+ Outlaw Class Mech
Base Health reduced to 3, down from 4.
Upgrade (1): Now also provides +1 Health to counteract the base Health reduction.
+ Static Discharge
Cost increased to 6, up from 5.
+ Medframe Tech
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
+ Storm Class Mech
Base Health increased to 8, up from 5.
+ Ascension
Cost reduced to 0, down from 2.
+ Absolver
Health increased to 4, up from 2.
+ Ardent Inquisitor
Cost increased to 5, up from 4.
Health increased to 6, up from 4.
Proc damage increased to 3, up from 2.
+ Reckoning
Cost reduced to 5, down from 6.
+ Life Lash
Cost increased to 6, up from 5.
Damage and Healing increased to 3, up from 2.
+ Kindle
Stat gain increased to +2/+2, up from +2/+1.
+ Plainsguard
Health increased to 6, up from 4.
+ Soultaker
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
+ Ancient Caller
Health increased to 3, up from 2.
+ Balos Ambusher
Cost reduced to 3, down from 4.
Attack reduced to 3, down from 4.
HUD
The End Turn button’s underlying timer has been improved to measure the latency between the client and server, providing a more accurate timer with slower connections.
UI
The quantity text is now automatically selected when clicking the Change Quantity button in the store to make typing in a new number easier.
Bug Fixes
Fixed some fallout from last week’s uncontrollable change that caused an issue when uncontrollable units wouldn’t attack adjacent targets in some circumstances.
Fixed a bug where Crystal Queen wouldn’t transform targets she killed with her attack.
Boxes earned while in the Treasury (via achievements, for example) now update the UI.
Fixed a rare crash on startup when the client is unable to initialize the Steam SDK.
Join Shardbound’s Ranked Pre-Season!
In case you’ve missed the news, we recently launched our Ranked Play system in Shardbound and the competition has been out in full force! Players have been taking their strongest armies into battle and climbing the ranks.
If you want to get started on your climb to the top, Ranked Play in Shardbound is simple - as long as you’re marked as “On Duty” when looking for a match, you’ll gain and lose Valor based on the outcome. Gain enough Valor, and you’ll level up through the ranks!
The first players have reached Noble Rank - do you have the skill to join them? Join the competition now!
Patch Notes #46: Core Tech and UI QoL
Card Changes
Crystal Queen’s transform effect will now occur simultaneously when attacking another Crystal Queen (both attackers are transformed).
All placeholder-model Primals will now have the Primal mark attached to them.
Map Changes
Mana crystals will no longer spawn on tiles that are within the default movement range of the enemy’s summoning region.
Mana crystals will no longer spawn within one or two tiles of the hero’s starting tile.
Overworld
Restored shadows in the Overworld level.
HUD
+ Turn History
Hungry Gnarbek’s deploy tooltip now shows the card that was discarded.
Stone Prison’s deploy tooltop now shows the target that was encased in stone.
Stellar Replica’s deploy tooltip now shows the target that was copied.
Requisitions Order’s deploy tooltip now shows the selection that was chosen.
When Vardan’s ability has the Disciple of Almast buff, the ability tooltip now shows the card that was chosen.
If Harbinger deals damage as a result of moving, a turn history element will appear for the movement that displays the damaged targets.
+ After collecting additional mana for the turn from a crystal, the UI will display the current mana value as greater than total mana (ie. 2/1 instead of 2/2).
+ Duplicate cards in the Graveyard UI will now be collapsed into one visual card with a count.
Core Tech
+ Steam SDK
Shardbound will now make multiple attempts to initialize the Steam SDK if it fails.
The error dialog that is displayed when the Steam SDK fails to initialize has been updated to point to the Shardbound.com/help page.
+ Steam Store
Errors reported from Steam when initiating a purchase are now presented to the user in a dialog box, instead of failing silently.
When a Steam purchase is in progress, the client will check to make sure the Steam overlay opens. If it does not, it will present the user with a dialog box explaining how to fix the problem.
Disallow the user from clicking the purchase button multiple times. This was resulting in the user getting rate limited by the Steam API, causing the purchase to fail.
+ In-Match Reconnect
The client will remain in-game attempting to reconnect for 220 seconds before abandoning the game. This replaces the previous behavior which would return you to the Overworld after 40 seconds and then relied on you to manually reconnect.
The amount of latency you need to be considered disconnected has been increased from 1.5 seconds to 2.
UI
When returning from being AFK, taking an action will now cancel out of extremely short turn-length and return the user back to their normal turn time.
If you have remaining actions when your turn time hits 0, you will now be given a very short window in which to complete those actions before your turn ends.
Bug Fixes
Removed the Primal keyword explanation from Osprey Soldier, Deadeye and Captain.
Uncontrollable cards now target cards based on route distance, not raw distance. Fixes a few rare cases where enemies blocked by walls were chosen instead of a closer choice.
Fixed draws not reporting rank changes to the client.
Fixed a rare null reference crash that could occur during the mulligan phase.
Weekly Dev Update
Hello Rangers! Welcome to another Weekly Dev Update.
Spotlight on Balance
In the recent weeks, we’ve been putting a lot of attention on game balance - it’s a complex topic with a lot of interconnected factors, and your feedback is always extremely valuable. Even though Shardbound is in Early Access, it’s a highly competitive game and we’d like to ensure the most balanced experience we can.
Player 1 vs Player 2 Win Rates The Mana Crystal system has been an great solution for balancing the win rates of Player 1 and Player 2, bringing them almost to 50/50. We’ve collected a lot of valuable feedback on the system and will continue to watch it as we make adjustments.
For example, in this week’s patch you’ll no longer see Mana Crystals spawn within 1 movement (3 tiles) of an enemy deploy hex, ensuring your opponent can’t threaten them immediately with basic movement. We’ll also be ensuring your Crystals don’t spawn within 1 or 2 tiles of your Hero spawn location, which was slowing down aggressive decks.
Individual Card Power We have a lot more power to evaluate data from all the games you guys are playing and are able to make much more targeted balance fixes to cards than ever before.
Faction Balance We’re continuing to make good progress bringing the relative power of factions together, but work still remains to be done. We will be continuing to make adjustments carefully to ensure we keep the factions feeling fun and powerful in their own unique ways.
For More Information Please take a look at the VOD from our most recent weekly Dev Stream, where Zalgus and Gasty take a deep dive into some of the current balance initiatives and answer community questions!
The design team has completed the early design stages for the (re)introduction of social House Gameplay. We hope our solution will introduce fun new cooperation between House Members, and bring new forms of competition and rewards into the game. The team will be working hard this week to digest the design and start the first stages of implementation. We can’t wait to share the details with all of you.
New Artists!
There’s a lot of excitement around the studio as we staff up with new artists in service of dramatically speeding up our unit production pipelines. We’re looking forward to sharing their incredible work with you, and are just as eager as all of you to see more units with finished art in the game. Thanks for your patience - it’s all a byproduct of getting that gameplay in your hands as early as possible!
Fan Art Friday Winner
We’ll leave you this week with our Fan Art Friday winner!
RandomBox Comics put together this adorable scene of the often-surly MedFrame Tech helping a Trauma Guard resolve some pesky technical difficulties. A Legendary Box is coming their way! We’ll be giving another one away this friday - we can’t wait to see your submissions!
Join us in our Discord, Subreddit, or Forums!
Catch you next time,
- Your Friends at Spiritwalk
Patch Notes #45: Mana Crystals & Valor Adjustments
New Feature: Mana Crystals
We’re excited to add a new experimental gameplay change to the game this week. Players will now be able to collect Mana Crystals during the start of the match, as follows:
Player 1 will have a Mana Crystal spawn somewhere within their hero’s movement range.
If a friendly unit ends their movement on this tile, the crystal is consumed and the player receives an additional mana for that turn. Deploying a unit on the tile also consumes it.
The crystal can be used on Turn 1 or saved for a future turn.
If an enemy ends their movement on one of your Mana Crystals, it is destroyed!
Destroying an enemy Mana Crystal denies your opponent of bonus mana, but generates NO mana for you.
Player 2 receives TWO mana crystals on their first turn, one appearing within movement range of their hero, and a second crystal elsewhere in their deploy zone.
These three mana crystals are the only ones to spawn for the entire game, but have a dramatic impact on mana usage and positioning for the first few turns of the game. We’re looking forward to your feedback!
New Art
Duskblade now has art!
Hero Changes
+ Build Gizmo (Petra’s Ability)
Floating Gizmos (Flying) have been removed from the possible pool of Modular Gizmo upgrades.
Card Changes
+ Ascension
No longer draws a card.
+ Bless the Meek
No longer grants +1 Attack to the drawn cards.
+ Stellar Replicas
Now additionally draws a card.
+ Osprey Soldier, Osprey Deadeye and Osprey Captain
These cards may now be deployed to your normal deploy region AND next to your hero.
+ Brave Scryer
Attack increased to 3, up from 2.
+ Dancer
Attack reduced to 2, down from 3.
+ Duskblade
Attack reduced to 1, down from 2.
+ Efficiency Expert
Attack reduced to 2, down from 3.
+ Rebounder
Health increased to 5, up from 4.
+ Rift Trickster
Ability cost reduced to 1, down from 2.
+ Shade
Health reduced to 2, down from 3.
+ Skywatch Dragoon
Health reduced to 7, down from 8.
+ Venerated Champion
Stats increased to 6/5, up from 5/4.
+ Wraith
Health reduced to 3, down from 4.
+ Menagerie
Cost reduced to 5, down from 6.
+ Root now correctly prevents self-initiated movement effects (was true for some characters, not all. Namely Rift Trickster, Narciso, Personal Portal Device). Now has a unique warning message when attempting to use a card or ability blocked by Root.
+ Canal now resolves more quickly when Canaling units across longer distances.
Ranked
Developer’s Note: We are making some tweaks to the formulae used in Ranked play’s Valor calculations. The intention of these changes is to more accurately reflect the relative skill of the two players, while reducing how punishing it is to be matched with players significantly under your skill.
Valor adjustments are now based on a continuous function rather than having the 2x multiplier. The multiplier functionality has been removed.
Valor adjustment have been tuned to reduce the spread between the highest and lowest change to approximately 10-40, from approximately 10-60.
Win streaks have been added if you have won 3 games in a row. Points awarded will vary based on rank, phasing out after Gold rank.
Added a replacement string for “No Valor Change” instead of “+0 Valor”.
Map Changes
A number of lights have been updated to use static lighting which will result in a minor performance improvement for users at Medium and High settings.
Options Menu
Added a new graphics quality setting for Resolution Scaling. This was previously set automatically based on the Quality setting, and is now able to be set manually. Users on older hardware can see very significant framerate improvement by scaling this down, at the expense of visual quality.
Core Tech
+ In-match reconnect
The visual indicator for reconnect will now appear earlier.
Triggering a reconnect is now more aggressive when you are interacting with the game than when you are idle.
Telemetry has been added to collect reconnect information. This will be used to tune how aggressively the game will reconnect, with the goal being to balance reconnecting as fast as possible with minimizing disruptions.
Fixed an issue where you could get stuck on the “confirm mulligan” screen until the timeout if disconnected right when clicking that button.
UI
Recipients of a duel request can now see the selected map, turn time and start order.
The character limit for deck names has been increased to 26, up from 15.
The card bar item for decklists now has icons for artifact and spell cards.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a graphics device crash that occurred on some older video cards when loading into Reaver’s Mire or Embassy Gardens (the Prologue mission level). Specifically, this addressed a crash that occurred while using a Radeon HD 6450.
Fixed a bug causing a right-click when moused over the ability icon under a unit to commit the action instead of cancelling it when using drag controls.
Fix for orphaned UI elements and models when transitioning into Profile screen from other screens.
Fixed some cases of transparency popping in the overworld and Reaver’s Mire.
Dev Update: Mana Crystals & Adjustments
Hello, Rangers!
We’ve got some interesting changes dropping in the Tuesday patch. Let’s dig in!
New: Match Start Mana Crystals
Dropping in tomorrow’s patch is an all new gameplay system that is intended to balance the win rates between Player 1 and Player 2. We’re excited about the changes from our internal playtests, and have found the start of matches to be much quicker and more interesting. Now, we’re looking for your feedback on this experimental change. Here’s how it works:
Player 1’s has a Mana Crystal spawn somewhere within their hero’s movement range.
If the Hero ends their movement on this tile, the crystal is consumed and the player receives an additional mana for that turn.
The crystal can be used on Turn 1 or saved for a future turn.
The Mana Crystal is also used if a friendly unit moves onto or is deployed on top of it.
If an enemy ends their movement on one of your Mana Crystals, it is destroyed!
Destroying an enemy Mana Crystal denies your opponent of bonus mana, but generates NO mana for you.
Player 2 receives TWO mana crystals on their first turn, one appearing within movement range of their hero, and a second crystal that is in their deploy zone but not necessarily within initial movement range.
These three mana crystals are the only ones to spawn for the entire game, but have a dramatic impact on mana usage and positioning for the first few turns of the game. We’re looking forward to your feedback!
Card Balance Adjustments
We’ve recently greatly improved our ability to collect in-depth card usage and win statistics. We’ve used some of this new data to make some targeted tuning adjustments to cards that have been on our watchlist. A small preview in anticipation of the patch notes:
Wayfinder spells do a little too much! Ascension will no longer draw a card and Bless the Meek will no longer grant bonus attack.
Some highly utilized cards with powerful effects will see minor hits to their statline, including Dancer, Shade, Efficiency Expert, and Wraith.
Some underused Fatekeeper Minions will see a slight bump to their effectiveness, including Rebounder, Rift Trickster, and Brave Scryer. Additionally, Stellar Replicas will receive a buff by additionally drawing a card when played.
The Osprey units (Soldier, Deadeye, and Captain) will receive the helpful quality of life improvement of being able to be deployed in your spawn area instead of ONLY next to your Hero.
Check out the Patch Notes tomorrow for all the changes, and as always please let us know how they feel!
The Duskblade
Everyone’s favorite poison-wielding two drop is receiving the art treatment this week. Be sure to check him out in game once the patch drops!
In Conclusion...
A lot of the work alluded to in last week’s Dev Update continues - firing up the art pipelines, further work on the Mac build, core tech improvements, design work on House gameplay, and a new initiative to improve Seedling gameplay.
Thanks as always for your support. We’ll see you in Shardbound!
- Your friends at Spiritwalk
Patch Notes #44: Reconnect improvements & Valor Icon updates
Ranked Play
+ Noble players will now have their Leaderboard rank displayed on the Overworld menu instead of their Valor value.
Player Profile
+ Added Right-Click context menu to access player profiles from the Match History and Leaderboards.
VO
+ Petra now has unique lines for Requisitions Order.
+ Trauma Guard now has unique voice lines when played on a full health or very low health hero.
Core Tech
+ In-match reconnect is now much more reliable!
Added a visual indicator when the client is attempting to reconnect.
If an action is primed when a disconnect occurs, that state is now maintained and the action is able to be completed upon reconnect.
In rare cases where an in-match reconnect is not possible, a full game reload and reconnect will trigger automatically.
+ Greatly improved the ability to collect and process match data to support ongoing tuning and balance efforts.
UI
+ Valor rank icons have been updated with more distinct colors.
+ Many bug fixes to text alignment and small visual polish items.
Bug Fixes
+ Fixed a rounding error that could cause your displayed Valor points to be off by one on the Profile and Shardfall screens.
+ Fixed a bug with Visefang Primal that would cause it to remain incorrectly unbuffed after injured enemies unburrow.
+ Vengeful Veteran’s rarity has been set to Basic to match the Novice Knight.
+ Fixed tile lighting in Reaver's Mire at Low quality to not have a strong yellow tint.
+ Fixed an issue where lighting in Embassy Gardens could be broken by switching the quality setting.
+ Fixed an issue where Bot games could impact your matchmaking rating.
+ Fixing an issue where it was too easy to set an incorrect value in the Max FPS option.
+ Fixed an issue where models and effects could be orphaned while leaving the Store.
+ Enabled a proper transition directly to the Player Profile from the vault opening screen.
Dev Update: Coming Soon™
Hey there, Rangers!
We’ve got our fingers in a lot of pies here at Spiritwalk this week, so buckle in for a whirlwind storm of short topics from around the Studio!
Mac Version Work
Work has been progressing nicely on the Mac Version of Shardbound, which has been pulled forward in development thanks to our stalwart Kickstarter backers. We’re hopeful that we should have it up and running soon, and need your help:
If you’re able and willing to help us with initial testing of the Mac version, please reach out to us at contact@spiritwalkgames.com!
Player 2 Balance Experiments
Running our “Player 2 Starts with 2 Mana” experiment a few weeks ago proved very helpful in giving us the data required to narrow in on a design for systemically improving Player 2’s Win Rate. We’re in the final internal testing stages for this change and are currently planning to release it for wider testing next week. We hope to give you guys a glimpse on our Weekly Dev Stream at 4PDT on Thursday.
Priming the Art Pump
If you’ve been following Shardbound for a while, you’re familiar with our current cadence of (generally) releasing full art for one new character in each patch. That cadence is in the midst of being jostled from time-to-time as we undergo some long term planning exercises for art production. On the other end of this planning, you should expect the volume of art going into the game to increase dramatically. We’ll keep you posted on what to expect!
Reconnect Improvements
We know how important stability is for competitive games when your Rank is on the line. In the event of a crash or internet connection disruption, though, we like to ensure our Reconnect feature is there for you. We’ve done work to improve the ability to Reconnect to an in-progress match from the overworld - the game should do a much better job of getting into exactly the same state you were in when your match was interrupted. We’ve also drastically improved the game’s automatic process of attempting to reconnect you within the match in the event of a connection issue. Expect these changes in the Tuesday patch!
And More...
We’ve heard the feedback that our Ranked Play badge icons aren’t quite different from one another, so we’re doing work to improve their visual clarity.
Design work continues on Cooperative House Play.
Expect a Poisonous Ally to receive the full art treatment next week!
Have a good week, and we’ll see you in Shardbound!
- Your Friends at Spiritwalk
Patch Notes #43: Performance
Developer Note: This patch significantly improves performance for low-end machines running with the Potato quality setting. If you use that setting, please give us feedback on how well it is working!
We also have a new UI panel that displays recent Shardbound news. Our goal is to bring more visibility to what’s happening in the game and our community. Expect the content here to update on a regular basis.
New Art
+ Quillblade now has art!
Card Changes
+ Requisitions Order
Efficiency Focus cost reduction reduced to 1, down from 2.
Defensive Focus health increase reduced to 3, down from 4.
+ Rift Trickster
Stats changed to 4/5, from 5/4.
+ Gravity Surge
Damage dealt increased to 3, up from 2.
+ Lightspear Justicar
Health reduced to 4, down from 5.
+ Master of Faces
Cost increased to 6, up from 5.
+ Grave Lotus
Health reduced to 8, down from 9.
New Feature: News
+ The overworld now has a new panel on the left that will be updated with recent Shardbound related news. We expect to use this feature to share patch notes, developer streams, and other Shardbound special events.
+ The news panel will show a red emblem when there are new items to read.
Map Changes
+ All maps have updated lighting, post-process settings, and other tweaks to support the new Simple Forward Rendering. Players on high settings should not notice much change, but players on Potato will have environmental shadows and more balanced lighting.
Options Menu
+ A new Low graphics setting has been added. Players that previously used Potato, and were happy with the framerate, may want to consider switching to Low for improved quality.
Core Tech
+ As part of ongoing tuning, the math for Valor gains and losses has been updated to be more in line with expectations. This includes:
Double or Halved Valor changes can now scale instead of being fixed at 10/60.
A small number of bonus points can be awarded for players that are winning a lot at the lower ranks.
Wins and losses are more symmetrical, so you should no longer win 20 points but lose 22 points against the same player.
+ Both Low and Potato graphics settings use the new Simple Forward Rendering setting. This should result in improved frame rates and, in some cases, improved visuals.
UI
+ The player profile has been moved into the new Profile section. It now resides under the Statistics header.
+ The Statistics section has added widgets for your current Valor and faction usage. Note: Faction usage will begin tracking this patch, so all players will have 0 games played initially.
+ A search widget has been added to the Statistics section allowing you to look up other player’s stats without knowing their #number.
Bug Fixes
+ Fixed a bug where scrolling in the Barracks could cause cards to be stuck on screen.
+ Fixed a bug where you’d get stuck in game if the Valor Update data could not be displayed.
+ Fixed a bug where the client would display a premature rank up if your rating would round up to the threshold for that rank.
