Hello again, Tamers! As we approach the launch date for patch 1.7, it’s time for us to share some of the content planned for it! As usual, remember this is just a preview, and we’ll go more in-depth over the features and changes in the 1.7 patch notes. [h2]A new Season: Neon Reverie[/h2] This new Season is special in so many ways. We’ve been through a lot of Seasons together, and explored a chunk of cultures, colors and themes hand in hand! Now, under sparkling neon lights, we reach Temtem’s last Season. It’s a moment filled with sadness, nostalgia, and tenderness towards all the Seasons we’ve discovered and enjoy! To close it off on the best note possible, this Season’s theme is pop culture, urban lifestyle and a tiny pinch of well-intentioned weebness. This wonderful mix of traditional and modern flowers in Cipanku, especially in Neoedo. Enjoy the latest trends or experience burning nostalgia in a vivid array of colors! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32878068/e09c1d5db4314f241efa6177ca7e64ea096e474e.jpg[/img] [h2]The Arcade Bar[/h2] The long-awaited Arcade Bar will open its doors to all of you on patch 1.7! Since it was announced with the launch of the Kickstarter project, it definitely has some history and underwent a lot of changes during the development of Temtem. When we initially thought about an Arcade Bar, and added it as an stretch goal to Kickstarter, we were thinking of a collection of arcade minigames which would grant tickets you could purchase some rewards with. After that, and during the EA phase, we tinkered with the idea of doing an internal game jam, forming two to three teams to create said minigames. But you know how game dev usually goes: you never get a full week or two to exclusively dedicate to this, and we didn’t want to sacrifice urgent matters that affected the game as it was, such as bugs to fix, or content to adjust. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32878068/bc66a086b97ca48e219241ffcd919f98ef91307c.jpg[/img] Right around the time where we said that the idea for the Arcade Bar had evolved and was different from the original vision, we had just expanded seasons to four months and delayed the Arcade Bar on 1.4 to 1.7. As we mentioned before, our idea for the Arcade Bar wasn’t for it to be endless, so we prioritized more urgent matters, and content with higher replayability. We explored a lot of different approaches in this extra time, but soon found out many of the new approaches created a lot of worries and complications with cheating, not to mention patch 1.6 ended up taking a lot of unexpected time. Thus, since time is a full circle, the idea we finally deemed best and most fun is the same as when it was born as a Kickstarter stretch goal: to make some arcade games with cool rewards to go with it. When we talk about arcade games, to avoid confusion, we’re thinking of the classic arcade games from the 80s (think Asteroids, Pacman, etc.), but tailored up to the Temtem style. To keep your expectations aligned with ours, it wasn’t designed to keep users entertained forever, but more as something fun you can either do during the campaign or after it to chill out a bit and get some nice, unique rewards along the way! The entire team took part in playtesting sessions to make sure it was fun and enjoyable, and that has created a lovely, unspoken competition of trying to beat each others’ scores on the machines (friendships were lost and bad words were uttered because of this). We hope you’ll find joy in challenging your friends and club mates! You’ll be able to enjoy Deniz Invaders, Innkball, Gharunner and Project Temcard (this was the real code name for Temtem: Swarm in the beginning!) by visiting the Arcade Bar. Surpass certain scores and you will receive rewards in turn! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32878068/326d3b65e256a18f65bcac95e18ff1614e9b0c7d.jpg[/img] Although we had originally settled on 3 minigames, there was a lot of buzz around [url=http://crm.gg/8ebc9]Temtem: Swarm[/url] being an arcade bar minigame at the time it was first announced. It’s not the case, but it did spark the idea to include it in the Arcade Bar, albeit in a veeeeery simplistic, watered-down way. You’ll be sure to love Temtem: Swarm if you like Project: Temcard, so stay tuned for more Swarm news in the future! [h2]Bye bye, Novas[/h2] As we mentioned in the past when talking about the direction Temtem is heading, monetization, and thus Novas, will be progressively removed from the game. As of patch 1.7, you won’t be able to purchase Novas anymore. All the loot pools that included Novas as a reward will have them swapped for Feathers. There are a lot of practical implications to this. Since we want to gradually remove Novas from Temtem, the game will prioritize using your available Novas over your existing Feathers. You won’t be able to combine both Novas and Feathers to make purchases, but we’re rounding up everyone’s Novas to a multiple of 50, to make sure any remaining amount is usable. This rounding will happen to the Novas on each platform (remember: you have a common stash of them, and the ones purchased in each platform. All the info [url=https://crema.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8744033834129-Are-Novas-multi-platform]here[/url]). If you don’t have enough Novas to purchase something, you’ll see its price in Feathers, and Feathers will be used to purchase it. Please pay attention to the currency displayed when making the purchase, as that’s the currency that will be employed. The Weekly Challenges of Tamer Passes will now reward Feathers instead of Novas, and the Premium Challenges will have added Pansuns to them. Tamer Passes will now be purchasable for 2000 Feathers. The Store will be adjusted and all references to purchasing Novas will be gone. Once you don’t have any Novas, the icon will disappear from the backpack and from the Store UI. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/32878068/ddbe9d0bccd0ff93384e0ef66aed01045dc3a487.png[/img] Stay reassured that there will be no rush to use your remaining Novas, and you’ll be able to extract all the benefit from them you normally would have. With this, we take a step in the direction [h2]Adjustment to Feathers[/h2] With this patch, and with the progressive change from Novas to Feathers, we’ve given all activities that provide Feathers a boost. The following activities have seen the Feather rewards triplicated: [list] [*] FreeTem! [*] Dojo Rematches [*] Postal service [*] Koish of the Week [*] Kudo completion [*] Ranked matches [*] Tournaments (top 4 participants, who received Feathers) [*] Dojo Wars [*] Mythical Lairs [*] Archtamers [*] Tamer’s Paradise’s Evershifting Tower, TemSafari, DraftArena, GritArena, and DigiLairs. [/list] With this, we hope to increase the procurement and availability of Feathers, which can now purchase a way wider array of usable and cosmetic items. [h2]New Gears and Techniques[/h2] In order to spice up the meta a bit beyond balance, we’re introducing three new Gears, a new Technique and a new Synergy in 1.7! Since we are not very good at waiting, we’ve already started teasing them! Take a peep at Fiery Ballad, a physical Fire technique that deals a good deal of damage. [previewyoutube=ollAO5eQsCs;full][/previewyoutube] Apart from these new Techniques, Gears and synergies, the balance team has worked hard on giving most Technique sets a review, and adjust most of them. Here are some words from the competitive team rep on what patch 1.7 will bring: [i]Over previous patch cycles, we have been reading a lot of feedback from the community and there are a number of specific points that kept coming up, which we wanted to act on: [list] [*] Too many dual-typed Temtem have access to efficient/powerful offensive techniques of both of their typings at 0 hold. [*] Too many 0 hold techniques have unconditional high priority. [*] Too many Temtem have access to both of the above at the same time. [/list] An example of this is Tulcan. With Wind Burst and Fiery Soul, it could use offensive techniques of both of its typings on any turn, and one of these techniques also burned the opponent at high priority. As a result, it was consistently at the top of tier lists as these qualities made it “always good”. Our goal of this patch is to cut down on these types of Temtem, while leaving just a few like this. We don’t want to remove these kinds of Temtem completely as we believe Temtem with strong 0 hold techniques are an important part of aggressive play, which makes up a key part of the competitive ecosystem. However, it should be a more rare quality for a Temtem to have, rather than the norm which defines the benchmark against which Temtem are compared and evaluated. For this reason, we have decided to aim for Temtem Technique sets, rather than apply a blanket nerf to “priority and priority techniques. This has been at the core of our approach to balance for Season 7.[/i] [h2]And more![/h2] As usual, this is just the core features of the upgrade, but there are plenty of smaller QoL changes, improvements, balance changes, bug fixes and spoilers that will be included in the 1.7 patch notes. We hope you’ll be joining us on the 3rd of June for that! Until then, Tamers, have fun and Temtem up!