Warm greetings to the Steel Hunters community! We hope that the winter months were generous enough to give you some snow and create a festive atmosphere. The latter was also on our agenda, as we released Update 0.30 just in time for some holiday fun. The primary focus of our team was centered on the previous update, where we conducted a critical test of the new region and welcomed a surge of players eager to embrace the role of Hunters. Consequently, v0.30 was less about introducing new features and more about adding a bit of "soul". We'll try to keep this Retro short and sweet while reminiscing about the lessons learned. [h2]Flipping the pancake[/h2] Let's start with one of the most evident changes that you faced upon loading the game - we improved the Hangar interface and flipped it around. So, now you have all your social tabs on the right, and the Play Button is on the left. Why? Because the old way with all the tabs open actually obscured the Hunter in the hangar, which breaks several accepted UI rules and conventions. While changing the position itself, we have implemented several suggestions that have been drawn from your feedback: Online indication and Battle status. We hope that that came in handy during the test. The results from the survey tell us that it was an overall positive change. [h2]Elusive Fletcher[/h2] When you try to change multiple things at once from one session or update to another, sometimes chaos ensues. Exactly that happened with our newly-added Fletcher guy. First, we introduced our archer to 0.29 in a 'maxed-out' state for 2 playtest sessions, so we could gather feedback and data to plan future fine-tuning. We set out on a mission to explore the yet untested region of Latin America and see how many Hunters will pop up here. But Fletcher was too raw to be welcomed by a new audience, so we switched him off. All went well, we have been working on Fletcher's progression and systems to let this Hunter back to the roster and 0.30 came shortly. Guess what has happened? Some of the settings haven't been transferred correctly between the versions, so our 'Shooting star' caused technical issues for those who already got him before the 0.30 session. And veterans lacked the resources to unlock Fletcher at all. Things happen, lessons learned. [h2]Achievement unlocked[/h2] One of the deliverables we knew we wanted 100% was Holiday Skins. The choice fell on two Hunters that hadn't gotten their extra skins yet - Taurus and Heartbreaker. We started the preparation right after Halloween but wanted to utilize the new system that was due to be released in 0.30 - Achievements. The transaction seemed easy enough: you do some challenge - you get a skin. While the team was composing a mission the idea occurred to tie the target numbers to the year: 20 and 24. That's how the challenges were born. But who would have thought that the beautiful numbers would be hard to achieve? Obviously, not us. And while Heartbreaker's challenge has proven to be surprisingly hard, Taurus players found a way to cheat the system and got the required amount of matches by simply starting the Tutorial over and over. We are forever amazed by the bypasses you manage to discover to reach the goal. Moreover, while we still think 20 battles is achievable, it is a big ask over the holidays and also had ramifications for the matchmaker, which was full of angry bulls in the metaphorical chinashop. It's a constant learning curve for us and you. [h2]Warm welcome[/h2] The final touch to our plans came in the form of two videos that accompanied 0.30 release. The first one was all about the Christmas spirit and depicted our chosen duo, Heartbreaker and Taurus, bringing the holiday spirit to Maryland Heights while donning new skins. This one you can check at any time on all our Social media platforms. The second one belongs to Discord only and contains warm welcome from the team and fellow players alike, as well as some yearly statistics and small sneak peaks. So, if you want to dig deeper into what future holds, we highly recommend to join our community! As a conclusion, we'd like to say our sincere thanks to each and every player who had been with us throughout the journey as well as greet all the new faces we've met in 2023. Past year turned out to be very challenging for the team and, despite all trials and tribulations, Steel Hunters managed to come through and greet the New Year with the heads held high. We are very excited about the plans for this year and maintain our ambition to bring the project even closer to the 'D-day'. Stay tuned, participate in playtests and see you all in 0.31!