Shardbound News

Hello Rangers!

Hope you’re having a lovely Monday, here’s another Dev Update!



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!



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!



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.





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

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

• Shockblade Smuggler now has art!
  

+ 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.
  

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.
  

• Bot games no longer count for wins in the user profile.
  

• 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.
  

Hello, Rangers! Welcome to another Weekly Development Update. A number of interesting topics to cover this week, so let’s dig right in!


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!


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!




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!


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.


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!

- Your Friends at Spiritwalk

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