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!