There’s a lot going on at Spiritwalk right now. Between monitoring Ranked Play’s release, the Packrunner rework, an in-development replacement for House gameplay, art for new units, and the normal bug fixes and quality of life features, we have been keeping quite busy!
One thing that we have been working on continuously since our Steam release (but haven’t spent much time discussing) is performance. It’s a less glamorous headline, but we know it’s important to a lot of you out there, so we’re going to dedicate this week’s update to our optimization efforts.
What’s the goal?
With a feature like “performance”, it’s important to clearly define a goal to measure ourselves against. As part of our release plan for Shardbound, we want the game to be playable (which we define as 20+ FPS) on our minimum spec machine. We used the Steam hardware survey ( http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ ) to help us nail down a system configuration that was below that of the vast majority of players. We then cobbled together a representative PC in our office and got to work.
Where to start?
One of the big advantages to using an engine like Unreal is that you get to benefit from their existing tools. Unreal provides a suite of profiling tools that have been invaluable for understanding what the major offenders are. We were able to quickly find that Shardbound is GPU bound (meaning that graphics performance, not game logic, was to blame for slow frame rates). From there, we used Unreal’s GPU profiling tool to break down the cost of rendering a frame.
[Unreal’s GPU profiler showing a snapshot of a frame on Broken Mesa.]
Each item in that list is a portion of the rendering pipeline, and many can be broken down even further. This screenshot is from a powerful desktop computer, but running it on our little minspec PC showed a very different picture. Notably, the Base Pass, lighting passes, and PostProcessing were taking significant amounts of time.
How do we fix it?
Our first step was to add quality settings. These appeared a while back, and have been extremely useful since they allow us to improve performance for low-end machines while not impacting quality for high-end ones.
Each of the quality settings contains dozens of individual tweaks to how the engine performs, allowing us to fine-tune how shadows render (or not!), what post-processing to apply, and so on. This is a slow process of repeatedly toggling settings to find the look we want, but it’s well worth the time!
From there, we found a handful of features that we were not using and were able to remove them completely. Lens flares and a screenspace dirt mask, for example, were not desirable for our style so we’ve been able to entirely turn them off.
At this point, with our basic settings established, it was time to enlist our artists to help us improve the content on the maps. This work has been more recent, with our Technical Artist “Rive” taking the lead. His work could take up an entire post by itself! For each map, we’ve gone through a process of:
Reduce lights, especially shadow-casting ones.
Tuning post-process settings to minimize cost while still looking good.
Optimizing instruction count for the various materials (including characters) that appear on a map.
Reducing overdraw from transparent objects.
Tuning shadows based on the camera for that map.
Adding Level of Detail models with a reduced poly count.
Tagging objects that are expensive to render or did not contribute significantly to the scene so that they would not be rendered at lower quality settings.
Adding Baked Lighting for static objects.
In addition, we have snuck in some visual quality improvements as we spent time in each of these maps.
[New baked lighting [right] allows us to have shadows on the background columns.]
Yay, now we have such good performance?!
We had hoped that all these efforts would get us to a playable framerate on our brave minspec PC, but we were just barely there: 18-20 FPS, depending on the map. In addition, some players were still reporting framerates below that, especially on laptops with Intel Integrated Graphics. We were not satisfied with those results, so we needed to keep going.
We had reduced the quality and content for the lowest “potato” quality setting nearly as far as we were willing to go, so we knew that we had to do something more substantial than simply shave off a few more polygons. Luckily Epic ran into a similar problem with Paragon, and added an additional rendering mode they call Simple Forward Rendering. This mode turns off a substantial number of the features of the engine, making it act more like an oldschool forward rendered game. [If you are interested in the topic of Forward vs Deferred Rendering, this page gives some nice technical details on the difference: https://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/forward-rendering-vs-deferred-rendering--gamedev-12342 ]
The Simple Forward Rendering pipeline only supports a small fraction of Unreal Engine’s features. The work we had already done for Potato quality got us 90% of the way there, so we went about making the final changes for Potato to support this new pipeline. After setting up our project to support it, we were able to get the stalwart minspec machine up to 40 FPS! This change should be rolling out in our patch this week, so if your PC has been struggling to play Shardbound please give it a shot!
What’s next?
First on the docket is to make sure that the Simple Forward Rendering optimization improves performance enough for us to check off our initial goal of a playable game on a minspec PC. We will be keeping an eye on it over the next few weeks and make any tweaks that are needed.
After that, we have freed up some resources to make more art improvements, and we have a lot of work to do! This includes making potato quality look better, improving the overworld, finishing the art for the UI, supporting ongoing feature development, additional map development, and the ongoing effort to get art for all of our units.
Of course, this is also not the end of optimizations for Shardbound. We’ll be continuing to improve the game for everyone as we keep building.
(I’d also like to give a big THANK YOU to the many Early Access players who are helping us improve performance by giving feedback, PC specs, and so on.)
Patch Notes #42 - Packrunner reworks & tunings and Reaver's Mire improvements!
Packrunner Overhaul
Dev Note: Packrunner has been overhauled this week, with these goals in mind:
Introducing more interesting choices and deck variety through the Bond keyword
Making Primal minions more consistently themed (and less the focus of the entire faction)
Increase moment to moment choices both playing as and against Yellow
Increase overall effectiveness, while removing frustrating win conditions
This is the first (big) step towards setting up Yellow for long term success. Yellow cards will still need further adjustments and/or replacements as we get data back from live. Please continue to give feedback about your successes, failures and feelings playing as and against Packrunner going forward.
As many cards new cards have been added, many cards have likewise been removed. Here’s a cheat sheet on how card ownership is transferring:
Primal Vim → Strength of Bonds
Wolf Primal → Blood Brother
Rites Reader → Tracker Primal
Winged Primal → Kiza Skirmisher
Pack Mentality → Spearmaiden
Alpha Packmaster → Balos Ambusher
Roar: Strength → Nature’s Herald
Idol of Eternity → Lozar Tactician
Ghost Primal → Guerilla Raider
Hunting Scout → Toka Warrior
Pack Lord → Primeval Exalt
New Keyword: Bond. Bonds with a friendly minion when played, giving both this card and the target an effect until either is removed with the battlefield.
New Cards Strength of Bonds
Spell for 1 mana.
Give an ally and any minions it’s bonded with +2 Attack this turn.
Spearmaiden
4/2 Melee minion for 2 mana.
Deathhowl: Add two Throwing Spears to your hand.
Throwing Spear (Spear Specialist token only)
Spell for 1 mana.
Deal 1 damage to an enemy in line of sight.
Blood Brother
3/4 Melee minion for 2 mana.
Can move to open tiles next to your hero.
Toka Warrior
3/4 Melee minion for 2 mana.
Warcry: Bond to a friendly minion, giving +2 Attack
Kiza Skirmisher
5/3 Melee minion for 3 mana.
Warcry: Bond to a friendly minion, giving +2 Movement.
Tracker Primal (Primal replacement for Rites Reader)
5/4 Melee Primal minion for 4 mana.
Warcry: Draw a card for each injured enemy minion.
Balos Ambusher
4/6 Melee minion for 4 mana.
Warcry: Bond to a friendly minion, giving Shroud
Guerilla Raider (Non-Primal replacement for Ghost Primal)
4/5 Melee minion for 4 mana.
Deep Strike. Warcry: Fear adjacent enemies.
Lozar Tactician
2/5 Ranged minion for 5 mana.
Warcry: Bond to a friendly minion, giving “After this minions deals ANY damage, draw a card.”
Primeval Exalt
5/5 Melee minion for 5 mana.
Warcry: Gain +1/+1 for each minion you control.
Nature’s Herald
6/9 Melee minion for 7 mana.
Warcry: Give all other allies +2 Attack this turn.
Reworks Visefang Primal has been reworked.
2/4 Melee Primal minion for 1 mana.
Has +1 Attack for each injured enemy.
Idol of Kinship has been reworked.
0/4 Artifact minion for 2 mana.
After you summon a non Spirit Primal minion, lose 1 Health and summon a Spirit Primal next to it.
Tribe Warrior has been reworked.
3/6 Melee minion for 3.
After you summon a minion, gain +1 Attack this turn.
Viperfang Primal has been reworked.
1/6 Ranged Primal minion for 4 mana.
Has Poison when attacking injured enemies.
Grand Wyrm Primal has been reworked.
6/5 Melee Primal minion for 5 mana.
Can move to open tiles next to any injured enemy.
Tuning Moya Primal
Cost increased to 4, up from 3.
Attack increased to 4, up from 3.
Health increased to 6, up from 5.
Tooltip clarified.
Splinterwing Primal
Health increased to 4, up from 3.
Ancient Caller
Attack increased to 3, up from 2.
Roar Earbust
Cost reduced to 3, down from 4.
Strict Packmaster
No longer grants +2 Attack, now only grants Uncounterable.
Map Changes
+ Reaver’s Mire has been given a lighting and texture facelift. For Potato quality, we have hidden a number of objects to improve the framerate.
Before P1:
After P1:
Options Menu
+ Added “Vertical Sync” and “Max FPS” settings to the Graphics options tab. If Vertical Sync is checked, the frame rate will attempt to match your monitor’s refresh rate (or some fraction thereof). If unchecked, the game will attempt to run at the specified maximum FPS (default: 60).
Lowering this value is useful to conserve battery power or reduce heat generation.
Increasing the value may increase responsiveness (for those with machines capable of running faster than 60fps who want mega responsiveness).
Social
+ Error messaging when a friend request fails has been improved to let you know why the request failed.
Core Tech
+ Additional logging has been added to the client to support deck tracking.
UI
+ UI screens at the end of a game (Valor Update, Vault Progress, Achievement Award, and other reward screens) can now be clicked through to advance to the next screen more quickly.
+ The game window can now be dragged to whatever size your heart desires, now that it supports a wide variety of resolutions.
There is a known issue where card tooltips will temporarily appear offset if you resize the window while in a match.
+ [Missed in last week’s patch notes: First Vault of the Day has been added to the Profile with a reset timer.]
Bug Fixes
+ Fix a bug where units spawned as a result of thrall summons during Night of the Living Dead could interfere with subsequent thrall summons.
+ Fixed a bug that could have resulted in blurry textures on characters in some situations.
+ The Player 1 and Player 2 assignment is now randomized to avoid queue time from affecting which position a player gets.
Dev Update: Packrunner Overhaul Edition
Greetings, Rangers!
It’s a pretty big week for Shardbound in the world of card content - the Packrunner forces are receiving their major overhaul this week, and will be the focus of this Dev Update.
Changes are expected to come with our typical Tuesday patch!
Rework Goals
After collecting a lot of player feedback and play data, our Packrunner Overhaul is ready for wider testing. Here are some of the goals of our changes:
To these ends, cards have been removed, replaced, and reworked. Like with previous overhauls, you’ll still own the same amount of cards after the patch. In the case of card reworks, your cards will simply change. In the case of full removals, you’ll receive free copies of cards that have been created in their stead. Please check the Patch Notes tomorrow for the specifics.
Here are some of the major themes you’ll notice when the Patch drops:
Bond Units
The Packrunner motto “Side by Side” references their philosophy of bonding with their allies to strengthen each other on the battlefield. Now, this is brought to life in the game with the “Bond” keyword -- units with “Bond” select a friendly minion when they come into play, bestowing a bonus to the targeted unit AND ALSO to themselves. For example:
When the Toka Warrior comes into play (assuming it can target a friendly minion), the targeted minion will receive a +2 Attack buff, and the Toka Warrior itself will drop onto the board as a huge 5/4. Killing EITHER target will cause the bond to break, and the surviving unit will lose their buff.
Minions can be under the influence of multiple bonds at once, creating a web of buffs that will make your opponent have to make some smart choices to gain back advantage. A Tip: mousing over the tile of a bonded unit will show you the units they’re connected to!
On it’s own, Strength of Bonds is a slightly worse Steelsinger Overdrive. On a Bonded unit, it’s slightly superior. On one of the aforementioned Bond webs, it can be a huge buff to turn the tides!
Primals Love Injured Enemies
Previously, Primals lacked a strong gameplay identity of their own, and were most typically just added to decks for their Tribal Keyword, independent of their card text. Now, Primals thematically revolve around injured enemy minions and related unique effects. For example, this highly mobile new friend:
And to help you injure those enemy minions more easily, we’ve added the Spearmaiden:
Launch a spear at that enemy Katelle and swing into it with the Grand Wyrm. Throw in a Strict Packmaster (Give a friendly Primal uncounterable this turn) for some incredible primal value!
Swarm Tactics
The final theme you can expect to see more support for is the idea of the Packrunner board swarm. In addition to utilizing strong, cheap minions with some efficient card draw, you’ll find more ways to take advantage of a strong board presence. After using Swift Strike and Ancient Caller to litter the board Spirit Primals, follow up with this potential bomb:
Now, it’s much easier for Juro to drop a monster threat in the midgame. The Exalt is a basic card, so be sure to jump in and see what you think!
We’re Ready for Feedback!
Packrunners will likely need some followup tweaks, tuning, and changes - so please jump onto the Subreddit, Discord, or Forums to leave us your thoughts. There's are a bunch more cards that what's listed here!
We’re excited for all of the new ways to build decks for Juro, and we’re excited to see what you come up with!
Developer Note: This is a test we’re running to be able to collect more accurate data around mana advantage. It may be switched off sometime during the week if we feel we’ve collected enough data.
Player 2 now starts with 2 mana.
New Feature: Ranked Play
Developer Note: Ranked will be coming in fully over several patches. Visuals, features, and tuning are all subject to change during the Pre-Season Testing Phase, the duration of which is TBD.Read More on Ranked Play Here
With Ranked Play, you’ll able able to queue up on your Shardfalls and gain and lose Valor
You can freeze your rank by toggling “Off Duty” and your rank will remain unchanged
Earning Valor will progress you through the following Ranks:
In the first 2 Ranks, you cannot lose Valor in matches.
Initiate Ranger (0-299 Valor)
Novice Ranger (300-599 Valor)
In the following Ranks, you can gain and lose Valor through matches, but never be demoted once you’ve attained a Rank:
Bronze Class Ranger (600-899 Valor)
Silver Class Ranger (900-1199 Valor)
Gold Class Ranger (1200-1499 Valor)
Platinum Class Ranger (1500-1799 Valor)
Diamond Class Ranger (1800-2099 Valor)
Master Ranger (2100-2399 Valor)
In the final Rank, your numerical world ranking is displayed. The top Noble Rangers will also be displayed to all players in a Leaderboard on the Profile screen.
Noble Ranger (2400+ Valor)
Card Changes
Census Master - Proc animation and projectile speeds have been increased.
Cards with conditional bonuses from hand (Hunting Scout, Luminator Initiate, etc) will now have a colored highlight when those conditions are met.
Shardfall Changes
The drop rate of Card Boxes has been increased relative to Chroma.
Core Tech
The client has been upgraded to use a new version of Unreal Engine (14.5). This comes with a host of minor improvements. A few of these improvements are reflected in these patch notes, and we expect to leverage the new features over the next few patches as well.
Matchmaking will attempt to avoid matching you with the last player you matched against, to reduce playing the same opponent when both of you immediately requeue.
UI
The UI has been restructured to scale between 4:3 and 20:9 (ultrawide) aspect ratios. There are minor tweaks in a large amount of the UI to compensate for this adjustment.
Fixed an issue that would cause the game to be unable to be fullscreen on a secondary monitor.
Fixed an issue that caused fullscreen to be offset if the Windows taskbar is on the left or top of the desktop.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where 2 Spirit Binder’s binding the same target could sometimes leave the target permanently bound.
Dancer and Shade can now correctly Charm/Fear a Lifelike Statue when it’s the only minion on the board.
Become Dust no longer takes any under-the-hood Attack buffs into account when dusting artifacts.
Thralls cloned by sources such as Puppeteer or Being of Light still count as Thralls.
Idol of Eternity no longer draws off its owner’s hero’s death.
Game camera will now reposition properly when the game window is resized so that you can see the entire playing field.
Improved messaging around having an invalid deck selected when attempting to matchmake.
Improved deck list sorting to avoid cases where decks could get stuck out of order.
Shardbound Weekly Dev Update
Hello Rangers!
We've been keeping busy week here in the studio as we get Ranked Play into the game, which is scheduled to drop tomorrow at our usual patch time 11am PDT.
Catch our Weekly Dev Stream this Thursday the 18th @ 4pm PDT where we'll talk all about the Ranked Play feature! https://www.twitch.tv/spiritwalkgames.
This Week: Ranked Play, Arcanum Steward, and extra bits
What's new this week?
- Full art for Arcanum Steward, make sure to check him out in the Card Details.
- Ranked Play is in, but expect changes as we iterate on the system.
- Player Two now starts with 2 Mana.
- UE4.15 Update
- Play Shardbound in a variety of resolutions (4:3 to 20:9)
Ranked Play
Overview We’re excited to introduce Ranked Play to Shardbound this week. Once the Patch drops, you’ll be able to queue up on your Shardfalls and gain Valor, which will help you climb the ranks as a Ranger of the Frontier.
Queueing Up The logistics of jumping into a Ranked game of Shardbound isn’t very different from what you’re used to. Playing Matches on your Shardfall will make you gain and lose Valor.
Note that there is a single matchmaking queue in Shardbound - by default, all games will cause you to gain or lose Valor. However, in order to allow players to experiment with decks we’ve added an option to freeze your rank by simply toggling on the “Off Duty” option when queuing. Your rank will remain unchanged, allowing you to refine your new meme deck without fear.
And don’t worry, we track a hidden ranking to avoid good players freezing their rank and stomping on new players.
Gaining and Losing Valor Earning Valor will progress you through a series of Ranks, from Initiate to Noble. The following is a full list of the Ranks in Shardbound:
In the first 2 Ranks, you cannot lose Valor in matches.
Initiate Ranger (0-299 Valor)
Novice Ranger (300-599 Valor)
In the following Ranks, you can gain and lose Valor through matches, but never be demoted once you’ve attained a Rank:
Bronze Class Ranger (600-899 Valor)
Silver Class Ranger (900-1199 Valor)
Gold Class Ranger (1200-1499 Valor)
Platinum Class Ranger (1500-1799 Valor)
Diamond Class Ranger (1800-2099 Valor)
Master Ranger (2100-2399 Valor)
In the final Rank, your numerical world ranking is displayed. The top Noble Rangers will also be displayed to all players in a Leaderboard on the Profile screen.
Noble Ranger (2400+ Valor)
The Pre-Season Our development philosophy at Spiritwalk is to develop and refine features with our players. To that end we are launching Ranked with a Pre-Season. Our goal is to collect all your feedback, iterate on how ranked works, and set us up to support a long-term competitive Shardbound scene.
For a regular season, we will want to have concrete plans for parameters like the season duration and how frequently balance changes occur. There are a few things we’d like to try out before we can commit to those specifics, thus the Pre-Season label. Expect us to tweak numbers, add features, and potentially even have a reset before the Pre-Season ends.
The Future In the next few weeks, we will be focusing on tuning the system and introducing additional features, such as enhanced leaderboards and the ability to track your gameplay stats more effectively.
Please keep the lines of feedback open, and share your thoughts with us on the Steam Forums, Subreddit, and our official Discord.
Packrunner
We've been teasing a big Packrunner content drop and it's getting close! We need to balance the expanding playstyles and new cards while also adjusting old ones. Expect to see these changes and additions soon!
UE4.15
This week we have completed updating Shardbound to Unreal Engine 4.15, which comes with a variety of bug fixes and minor performance improvements. Make sure to check out the patch notes tomorrow!
In addition, we have significantly improved how our client handles various resolutions. We now officially support between 4:3 and 20:9 resolutions, so those of you playing on a sweet ultrawide monitor can now run in fullscreen! Any resolutions narrower than 4:3 or wider than 20:9 will simply be letterboxed.
Ultrawide!
Fan Art Friday
We do a "Fan Art Friday" contest every week where we award 10 boxes to an artist for making Shardbound art and be featured in our social media! You can submit your entry on Twitter, our Subreddit, or our Facebook. Submissions close on Friday at 2pm PDT. Can't wait to see your submisssions this week! Here is last weeks' Fan Art Friday winner - GURZY!
Penumbran Assassin and Vigil Keeper!
Patch Notes #40 - New Veil Shrieker art, Card tunings, and Pylon adjustments
New Art
+ Veil Shrieker now has art!
Card Changes
+ Spirit Binder
Faction changed to Blue from Neutral.
Cost has been increased to 5, up from 4.
+ Mind Melter
Faction changed to Neutral from Blue.
+ Grand Defender has been reworked.
Faction: Neutral
Stats: 2/10 Melee minion for 5 Mana.
Card Text: Adjacent enemy minions are Rooted.
+ Weavebreaker
Cost has been increased to 5, up from 3.
Attack increased to 4, up from 3.
Health increased to 5, up from 4.
+ Shield of Durant
Attack reduced to 3, down from 4.
+ Perfected Specimen
Attack increased to 10, up from 8.
Health increased to 10, up from 8.
+ Temporal Technician
Health increased to 6, up from 4.
+ Brave Scryer
Deathhowl now adds 2 Precognition cards, up from 1.
+ Astral Champion
Attack reduced to 2, down from 3.
Health reduced to 2, down from 3.
+ Outlaw Class Mech Upgrade (1)
Attack reduced to 2, down from 3.
Health increased to 4, up from 2.
+ Outlaw Class Mech Upgrade (2)
Health reduced to 7, down from 8.
+ Strict Packmaster now also grants target Primal Uncounterable.
Card Rarity Changes
Dev Note: Minor rarity changes were made to account for Spirit Binder’s faction change. + Alternate Timeline is now Rare, down from Epic.
+ Fork Existence is now Common, down from Rare.
+ Temporal Drifter is now Basic, down from Common.
+ Grand Defender is now Epic, up from Common (and has been reworked).
Shardfall Changes
+ The following pylon challenges no longer require winning the game to be completed:
Heavy Weapons
Small Arms
Conventional Weapon
Split The Arrow
+ The “Primal or Seedling Specialist” pylon has been updated to require a minimum number of cards of these types to exist in your deck and no longer requires you to play these minions in the game to get progress.
Achievements
+ The Recent Progress section of the UI has been changed to be Recent Achievements. This should reduce clutter as it no longer pulls in all achievements that track the same stat, such as wins.
Core Tech
+ If your opponent fails to connect to a game, you will now get an error message telling you that that’s what happened instead of just going back to the Overworld.
UI
+ Updated the achievement reward screen when unlocking cards to be more clear that you are getting two copies of the card.
Bug Fixes
+ Fix for player stats not displaying updated information after a game sometimes, including win count and rewards of Chroma, Boxes, and Cards.
+ Upgrade cards now display their rarity in game properly, instead of always appearing as basic cards.
+ The quest, “Tactical Genius” will now correctly count Charms, Fears, and Stuns on your own units.
+ Fixed a bug with Ghostblade’s tooltip in box opening.
+ The Pylon challenge requiring you to restore 10 or more Health to allies now correctly triggers even upon losing.
Shardbound Weekly Dev Update
Happy Monday, Rangers!
There’s a lot of activity in the studio this week! Almost everybody in the studio is involved with design and implementation for new features right now, and some exciting additions to Shardbound are on the horizon.
Full art for the Veil Shrieker, ready to chase down your foes and make your Hero suffer!
Adjustments to Pylons, including a sweep to adjust deckbuilding challenges to be less dependant on winning to trigger. Pylons requiring players to Play X of a type of Minion now simply require players to build decks containing them, making triggering the pylons less draw-dependent.
Small balance changes on some over (and under) tuned cards.
Spirit Binder moves to the Fatekeeper faction, and Mind Melter moves to Neutral.
We look forward to your feedback on all of the adjustments in this patch. Keep sending us feedback and we’ll keep listening!
Ranked Play is Coming Soon!
While not dropping in this Tuesday’s patch, we’ll be introducing Ranked Play very soon - in the next few weeks, in fact! You’ll be able to hit our ladder and measure your skill against players around the world, so start training and get ready to show that you’re one of the top Rangers in the Shardveil!
We will want a lot of your feedback on our ranking system, and we will certainly be making changes to it as we navigate a “Preseason” of sorts while we’re in Early Access. We’ll discuss all the details on our weekly stream!
Big Packrunner Content Drop is Coming Soon!
A huge batch of Packrunner cards and playstyle changes should be dropping in the next few weeks. We’ve been fleshing out content that triggers off of injured enemy minions and are testing a few more experimental pieces of content that may or may not make the cut. All in all, the Packrunner faction is becoming much more cohesive with greater flexibility in your deckbuilding options. We’ll preview some of this content on our Thursday stream!
Continuing to Improve the Game Client
Work to improve stability and low-end performance is ongoing. On the stability front, we have been investigating Device Hung crashes. Epic, the company that develops Unreal Engine, has also been looking into this issue and has released a tool in conjunction with NVidia to help us narrow down the cause. We are working this week to integrate the changes needed to use this tool and hope to release it next week.
For low-end performance, we have reduced the GPU load for Broken Mesa on Potato settings to get those machines up to a playable framerate. This has made a notable difference, as our minspec machine in the office has improved from 15 to 20 FPS. If this proves useful in the wild, we will make similar changes to Embassy Gardens and Reavers Mire as well. Of course, these changes come with a quality reduction, so we are looking at adding a new Low setting to provide players with more choice.
Fan Art Fridays!
A reminder that we’re holding “Fan Art Fridays” every week, and awarding boxes to the talented artist whose work we feature on our social media channels. We’ll sign off this week with last friday’s winning piece, this adorable Lightdancer from RabbitKun!
Shine on!
Shardbound Weekly Dev Update
Hello, Rangers!
Last week’s update to Shardbound saw significant changes to Shardfalls, Progression, and the addition of Achievements. While this week’s patch is smaller by design, there are still some key details we want you to have as you jump into the game this week. Read on … and then get back to unlocking those Achievements!
Remember to join us to discuss all of this and more at our weekly Dev Livestream on Thursday May 4th at 4pm PDT. https://www.twitch.tv/spiritwalkgames.
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Iterating on Progression
We try to give big patches like last week’s a little room to settle before reacting too much. However, one of the things that we heard loud and clear was that the reward for completing a Shardfall felt a bit thin. So we’ve bumped it up: first Vault of the day now drops five items (up from three) and all vaults after that now drop three (up from two).
Packrunner Revisions
Design continues on the Packrunner reworks, with none of the upcoming changes included in this patch due to the short cycle. Expect to see continued tuning and card reworks/revisions included in next week's patch.
What’s in Development: Ranked, Houses, Twitch Integrations
Design work is under way on Ranked Play, as well as bringing multiplayer back to Houses and making them meaningful and fun again. We’re also looking at Shardbound’s Twitch integration - we consider the system that we launched with to be a pretty basic v1 and are looking forward to iterating on this unique feature with you guys.
Community Tournaments
We wanted to spotlight the awesome grassroots efforts within the community around competitive play. It’s hard work to organize events like these, and everyone here at Spiritwalk is impressed with your passion! It’s also very validating to us, as it shows that Shardbound is already in a place that supports very high skill competition.
If you haven’t been following these events, the r/Shardbound subreddit is probably your best bet to find out about upcoming community tournaments.
And More…
Finally, Weavebreaker gets her due this week with a full art pass. Bring her with you as you head Shardbound this week and tax your opponents mercilessly!
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As always, keep in touch with us during the week through:
Patch Notes #38 - New Features, New Art, & Shardfall Changes
New Art
+ Splinterwing Primal (previously Eagle Primal) now has art!
+ Fixed bugs on Novice Knight and Rankbreaker, and they now display correctly in card Info page
+ New Lighting and updated materials on Broken Mesa map.
Card Renames
+ Eagle Primal -> Splinterwing Primal
Card Changes
+ Thundering Giant has been reworked.
Neutral 6/9 Legendary Melee minion for 7.
Warcry: Deal 2 damage to all enemies in adjacent lines.
+ Weavebreaker Attack reduced to 3 from 4.
+ Shockblade Smuggler Health reduced to 4 from 5.
+ Splinterwing Primal (previous Eagle Primal) has been reworked.
Yellow 1/3 Ranged minion for 2.
Deals double damage to injured minions.
+ Rites Reader now only draws based on injured enemy minions, not all injured enemies.
+ Rites Reader attack down to 2 from 3.
+ Growler Primal may now be cast on any injured enemy.
+ Roar: Strength cost increased to 3 from 2.
New Feature: Achievements
+ Various achievements have been added to the game. You can see the full list here: http://steamcommunity.com/stats/586030/achievements
+ Each achievement will grant in game rewards. Some will even grant additional rewards as you make progress. These rewards are listed in the Profile in game.
+ Players will not be granted retroactive progress on achievements to keep everyone on an even playing field, so you may be the first to claim one!
+ A portion of Basic cards are now unlocked by completing achievements. Players who started playing Shardbound before this patch are granted those cards automatically, so they do not need to be unlocked.
For new players, Simple decks have been adjusted to not include these locked cards.
+ The achievement rewards are intended to quickly provide new players with cards, so they are replacing the 30 Core Set Box grant for new players. Existing players will get to keep the 30 boxes because we like you :)
New Feature: Login Bonuses
+ Each day you log in will now grant you a reward.
+ There are 24 rewards available each month. Each daily login will claim one reward, and a new set of 24 will be given at the end of each month.
Note: We are combining April and May into a single set of 24 rewards so that April’s rewards are obtainable.
New Feature: Weekly Wins Bonuses
+ Every three wins will grant an additional Core Set Box.
+ This reward may be redeemed up to three times each week, resetting Sunday night at 1 AM PDT.
Shardfall Changes
Shardfalls have undergone significant revisions based on player feedback:
+ Shardfalls are now unique for each player, and as such other members of your house can no longer contribute to your Shardfall’s Vault Progress.
Note: The multiplayer component of Houses and the ability for House Members to help provide value to other members will be reintroduced in a new system in an upcoming patch.
+ Pylon Rarity no longer correlates to how much value they provide, but instead represents how difficult they are to complete.
+ Shardfalls now contain 3 Pylons, down from 5.
Two of these Pylons are guaranteed on every Shardfall, and are as follows:
"Play a game"
"Win a game"
The third Pylon on a Sharfall is random from a pool of different relatively difficult challenges.
+ Vaults are no longer opened based on a variable amount of power, and are instead opened by breaking 9 discrete seals.
+ Pylons no longer reward Vault power, and instead now will break 1 Vault seal when completed.
+ Base Vault rewards have been lowered to account for them being completable in a much lower number of games on average with the new system.
+ There is now a First Vault of the Day bonus, which will provide an additional reward for the first Vault you open that day.
Audio
+ The volume of the sound effect for opening a Vault has been reduced.
Core Tech
+ Installer: Windows prerequisites to run Shardbound (Visual Studio redistributables, universal CRT DLLs) are now distributed directly with the Shardbound client instead of relying on separate installers from Microsoft. This should help some users with older systems who previously ran into system “missing DLL” errors when launching the game (especially on Windows 7 or 8.1 systems that don’t run Windows Update regularly).
Bug Fixes
+ Fixed an issue where the client would freeze if a card was played from a full hand that bounced a minion back to the hand (e.g. playing Tease Fate with 10 cards in hand).
+ Fixed a bug where making an exact copy of a Lightspear Justicar would cause the new clone to gain 2 Lightspears after each attack.
+ Fixed a bug that could cause word wrapping to incorrectly move a word to the next line for certain fonts.
+ Pressing enter after typing your display name at new account creation now properly submits that name.
+ Fixed a bug where the wrong player name would appear on the Victory Screen when spectating a game from Player 2’s perspective.
+ The option to Spectate a friend is now disabled while you are an active player in a game.
+ Fixed a bug that would cause players to disconnect at the end of a match, missing the Victory/Defeat screen
Shardbound Weekly Dev Update
Hi, Everybody!
We’re kicking off a pretty big week at Spiritwalk - we’ve got some major changes coming to the game this week in our patch, which is tentatively scheduled to drop on Thursday instead of our typical Tuesday update. We’re working on a number of long term progression systems, so we wanted to secure a few days of extra testing to ensure a smooth rollout.
Incoming: Shardfall System Revisions
The changes to the Shardfall system we alluded to last week are expected to come in our upcoming patch. In order to address the problems we’ve heard from players around unlocking vaults, we’ve decided to detach the central progression system of the game (Unlocking Vaults) from the House System. Here’s what you can expect:
Your House affiliations will be unchanged.
All players will have their own Shardfalls.
Shards will have 3 Pylons, consisting of a Play Games Pylon, Win Games Pylon, and a Unique Pylon that will encourage unique strategies.
Pylons, if triggered, will unlock one of 9 seals on the vault. Three can be triggered by a single game. This replaces the percentage based completion system.
House play continues to be very important to us, and will be reintroduced in a future patch.
All in all, we are hoping this system addresses the very consistent feedback we’ve received on the existing system, particularly around the inconsistency in the rate of unlocking vaults, difficulty for new players, and situations where players were not being appropriately rewarded for their efforts.
For more context and information, please check out the VOD of our most recent Dev Stream.
Here’s a link for precisely when we dive into the details: April 20 Dev Stream @ 17:30
Incoming: Rewards System Enhancements
We’re introducing some new systems with this patch as well, also targeting the rate players are acquiring rewards and loot in the game. Expect to see these new systems in play:
An explicit reward for your First Win of the Day.
Bonus loot for your First Vault of the Day.
Three rewards that can be unlocked on a weekly basis by acquiring wins.
A suite of in-game achievements which drop rewards and unlock steam achievements.
Previously, we only had the notion of a First Win of the Day, which impacted your vault opening in inconsistent ways and could be wasted on nearly unlocked vaults. With its overhaul and the addition of these new systems, there should be a lot more loot to earn in Shardbound, and new players should have a much easier time building up their collections. Note that these systems will replace the initial grant of 30 boxes we are currently issuing upon completion of the tutorial, and should amount to much greater total rewards.
Will plan on adding additional achievements over time in our patches, so be sure to let us know which ones you enjoy the most!
Hunter will be firing up the Spiritwalk Dev Stream at 4pm on Thursday to chat, answer your questions, and possibly try to farm himself some achievements himself! Join us here!
Incoming: Packrunner Revisions (Part 2)
Juro and his Primal friends will continue to see some reworks and new content this week as well.
Exactly what’s coming with this week’s patch isn’t locked down as of the writing of this update, but you can certainly expect something to be dropping each week (from tuning to full reworks) for the foreseeable future.
In other news, the Eagle Primal has been redubbed the Splinterwing Primal, gaining its art treatment and new gameplay around dealing double damage to wounded minions.
Fan Art Friday
We’re huge fans of Shardbound Fan Art! We will be featuring our favorite piece that gets posted on Twitter this week with the hashtag #ShardboundFanArt, and its creator will receive 10 Card Boxes. Artists have until 10AM PDT on Friday to post and tag their submissions. Good luck!
And More…
While the team has been very focused for the most part on the Shardfall System and Reward updates, some additional things are in flight. The engineers are continuing to work on client stability, and will be ushering a host of backend changes to our next build. These include a fix to some installation issues keeping players from getting into the game, and some disconnects that are periodically causing trouble at the end of matches. Also, we’re excited to get some of the digital rewards out to our Kickstarter backers this week!
Remember to join us on social media, hop in our discord or subreddit, and catch our weekly dev streams. Have a great week, and hope to see you in Shardbound!
