Temtem News

Hello once more, Tamers, and welcome to the last day of the very exciting Golden Week, a week where we spoil content and changes coming to version 1.0 or close to it! We close the week on a sweet note, with a couple of changes made to improve your shopping activities, rewards finally coming to Kudos, and a new Breeder route, here to delight Water enthusiasts.

No disclaimer today, either, so let's dig in!


With the changes done in 0.9, and the inclusion of the Auction House and the Dojo Park, we believe that the economy for Pansuns is in an adequate place currently.

The inclusion of extra Feathers as a reward for each activity represents a general improvement in rewards for all activities, since you will now get both the RNG rewards, and the Feathers to purchase the non-RNG rewards. This should help mend the biggest issue that was causing dissatisfaction amongst our players. We don’t have plans for any additional changes there.

However, there are some changes coming to other specific areas that we felt needed improvement:

• First, we’re drastically reducing the price of cosmetic and housing items you can get in the regular Boutiques and Furniture Stores around the Archipelago. These items have always been expensive due to a handful of reasons, some of them being: we weren’t entirely sure of how the Pansun economy would develop up until 1.0 so we didn’t want to make such an important part of the game too cheap (it’s always easier to reduce the price instead of increasing it), and also we don’t want players spending too much during the campaign on cosmetic items (and not having enough Pansuns to purchase more needed items like Balms or Temcards). Now, after finally being able to grasp the whole Pansun economy and after reading a lot of feedback, we realized players don’t care about spending their money if they are going to look prettier. We decided to make this change.
  
• We’re also introducing more cosmetics and housing items as part of the current loot pools. We’re still reserving most of them for the Tamer’s Paradise shops and some for the future Cosmetic Pass, but we managed to include some more variety in the current pool.
  
  
  
  
• FreeTem! is also getting some changes. Our idea behind FreeTem! was never for it to become an activity on its own, but to exist as a bonus for people already choosing the path of capturing new Tems (mainly breeders). However, it has never been perceived as such. We are going to keep it, but we are basically cutting by half the time that is needed to receive item rewards. Currently, the cap for the last item is ~400-450 releases, and we’re turning the cap into ~200 and adjusting the rest accordingly. We are not increasing the Pansuns rewards to accommodate this change, but we are now adding Feathers as a reward for releases to compensate.
  
• Last but not least, we’re finally adding the rewards for completing Kudos. Most of the Kudos will grant Feathers and that’s why we weren’t able to grant rewards before. Some of them will also grant other more exclusive rewards like new cosmetics, housing items, or titles.

If you're new here, first of all, hi, welcome! Breeders were a Backer tier in our Kickstarter whose perks included designing one tem and one route each. We've slowly but surely been covering the process behind the creation of the Tems and routes, and today's the turn of Tutorxic's, the Breeder behind Pupoise and Loatle, route, the Sea-Queen's Aquarium. This new route will be added to the game with version 1.0!

Tutorxic's initial idea was to have an underwater tunnel, the sort you usually see in aquariums, with fish swimming over your head. One of the things he requested was to have the camera place itself behind the players, so that the tunnel's depth could be properly appreciated. We appraised the idea, but due to technical restrictions we had to throw away the original iteration of the tunnel, and explore other possibilities. Because the camera cannot be shifted in Temtem, the tunnel made little sense because you'd never see the upper part of it.
Tutorxic even went as far as to send us another sketch for a different route idea, but eventually, and after thinking it thoroughly, we found a way to make the tunnel work that was complacent with the game's limitations. The idea was that, instead of a round tunnel, we'd have one main pathway surrounded by gigantic tanks of water instead of walls. We also came up with the idea of adding an upper floor made of walkways, so you'd get two playable areas: one where the water surrounds you, like in an aquarium, and another one where water is below you, as if a fishing area. We, of course, wanted to have Tutorxic's approval, so we created an stylized sketch that captured our idea. Here it is:



Tutorxic really liked the idea, so we moved further with it. Since he liked our take a lot, we barely had to make adjustments to it and could just move forward with the initial design.



We chose Deniz as the site for the route because, although it's an island full of content already, it matched the aquarium theme to a T, and we liked the idea of having the new route be a secondary zone in Deniz. We decided to have it be it nestled between the mountains on the northeast of Deniz, connecting the route with the Sillaro river through some cabins.



Gameplay-wise, the route was conceived as something completely optional, that players could choose to explore once they obtained the Surfboard. To reinforce this idea, all NPC Tamers that battle in this route are also entirely optional: they will only battle you if you interact with them and ask them to battle. My, how the tables have turned.
Lore-wise this made sense because we could picture all these NPC Tamers as fishing folk who are trying to reel something in, and are completely oblivious to you, eyes on that line. Like you might've guessed from this, we decided to include all Water-type Temtem species underwater in the aquarium, thus creating a wild area that is unique in the whole game, accessible only after you obtain the Fishing Rod.



That's it on the new Breeder route! Say, how does a romantic date in the Sea-Queen Aquarium sound, Tamers?🐟


That’s a wrap on the general idea of 1.0 content! We are a bit out of our depth with sharing things so openly so early on, but we believe all these changes are really relevant to the final outlook of the game, and that it really shows the effect your constant stream of feedback during the Early Access have had on the game, as well as our compromise to listen to it. We hope these posts might have helped assuage worries, sparked some excitement, and maybe even rekindled lost hypes. Although there are still a lot of details and specifics to share, we hope you now have a clear understanding of what this huge patch should contain and what to expect from it.

We’re very eager to see you around Tamer’s Paradise on September 6th!

Let's close off this wonderful week by flexing a first look at what the world of Temtem might look like come version 1.0.
Talk to you soon

Hello, Tamers! Welcome to the fourth day of our Golden Week, a golden celebration of 1.0 content and improvement. As the week ends, we're ready to bring out the big guns: today we'll be talking about the very rumored, very expected Tamer's Paradise, as well as Feathers. This content is planned to arrive right with 1.0 launch, and today, for a change, I have no disclaimer to make.

Let's dig in!



Been spendin' most their lives livin' in the Tamer's Paradise... In the 1.0 patch, we’re introducing the last island in the Archipelago: Tamer's Paradise (also previously referred to as the endgame island). This man-made resort will be the delight of the most experienced Tamers, holding new activities and a whole new economy with more reliable rewards.



Your way into Tamer's Paradise will be tied up to a new quest you’ll start after the credits roll (if you have already progressed past the credits the quest will be right there automatically). The resort will feature six “weekly” (more on this later) new activities represented by six facilities. We still don’t have definitive names for the activities, so we’ll explain them with their “prototype” names.

• Archtamers: After completing the Archtamers' side quest, all four of them will move to a new facility and you’ll be able to rematch them on a weekly basis. This is pretty similar to the current Dojo Leaders Rematches… with a twist. In order to defeat the Archtamers, you’ll need to defeat all four of them consecutively, all while using the same competitive team. Your team will be healed in between matches, but you won’t be able to change any Tems or gears. Best of luck, Tamers!
  
• Draft: Forget about your current Tem squad. In this activity, you’ll need to create a new four-Tem squad from scratch and constantly adapt it! You’ll be presented with 4 Tem choices and 4 gear choices. Once you make your selection, you’ll be presented with another 4 Tem and gears… repeat this until you have four geared Tems in your squad and you’ll be ready to start battling rivals (which will also feature draft selected squads chosen by the AI). Each time you defeat a rival you’ll keep one of their Tems and replace them with one of yours, and then a new, stronger rival will appear. How many rivals will you be able to defeat?
  
• Tower: Similar to the Draft activity (in fact they share the same facility!), except in Tower you’ll be able to carry on with your own Tems, with a few exceptions. The Tower will feature a list of banned Tems which you won’t be able to use. This list will be changing on a weekly basis so you’ll need to constantly adapt your team. After your team is formed, the structure is pretty much the same as with the Draft activity: defeat an endless array of increasingly difficult rivals and get juicy rewards on the way.
  
• Wild: A similar infinite-increasing-difficulty-destroy-everything-you-can activity, but this time featuring untamed Tems. Instead of walking through the grass looking for encounters, Tems will constantly swarm you without letting you leave the battle. You will be able to enter with your squad, but you’ll only be able to use a certain amount of items in the activity. You’ll also have bonuses applied and these will change weekly.
  
• Roguelite: Explore an ever-changing dungeon that will be randomly generated each time you enter. Start from scratch by getting a starter Temtem and explore the dungeon, getting new Tems and items as you progress. Will you be able to reach the end?
  
• Lair: Last but not least, we’re introducing a new activity related to the current Lairs you know. Instead of requiring a 5-man party, this activity will require playing cooperatively between just two players. You start by choosing a “target” Temtem species, and completing the Lair will grant you an egg from that species. Any Tem but Anahir and the Mythicals can be selected! Also, players will be able to tweak several difficulty modifiers (how many gems will they need, how much healing the resting nodes recover, etc). All of these modifiers will change the prize egg, increasing its SVs, egg moves, and even luma odds. Bigger risk leads to better rewards. but try not to bite more than you can chew!

We’ve read a lot of feedback on how repeating activities infinitely can lead to too much grind and a bad overall sensation of the activity, but we know these activities are going to be fun and many of the most dedicated users will want to repeat them, so for Tamer’s Paradise we’re trying a different approach:

Each activity will require a token you’ll need to spend to access it. Every user will get 5 tokens freely each week (one for each activity, since the Archtamers one will be left out of the token system and will instead be a regular weekly-based activity like Dojo Rematches) which will let you run each activity for free once. Activities’ rewards are balanced towards only running them once per week, so that should be enough for most users. However, tokens will be up for purchase using Pansuns for those who are super dedicated and want to spend some extra time in Tamer’s Paradise and convert their Pansuns into new rewards. Tokens don't expire, so you can save yours to use in whichever way you please.

Speaking of rewards, Tamer’s Paradise will also hold a Shopping Center with new cosmetics, furniture, and useful items for all kinds of Tamers. However, your Pansuns aren't worth anything here. Instead, you’ll need to use a new currency that will be granted in all Tamer’s Paradise activities, and beyond. Its name? Feathers.






We’ve been wanting to include a companion or counterpart currency to Pansuns for a long time. We wanted this currency to be one that is more limited in quantity but that allows purchasing more exclusive items for the most dedicated tamers. And Feathers are that currency!

Starting on 1.0, players will be able to acquire Feathers in almost every activity, both new and old. Every activity in Tamer’s Paradise will grant a good chunk of Feathers depending on your performance, and every current activity in the game (say fishing, postal service, ranked matches…) will have a fixed amount of Feathers added to its reward pool.

Our goal with Feathers is to limit the RNG factors associated with getting rewards. Apart from getting them in a more predictable way, you’ll be able to spend them directly purchasing the reward you want to get. Which leads us to our next point: what can Feathers net you?

Aside from featuring previously unavailable cosmetics and housing items (like a new exterior look for your house), Tamer’s Paradise Shopping Center will feature some items that you will be able to purchase directly using Feathers:

• Radars: Instead of praying to the RNG gods for a lovely Kaku radar, you will be able to choose and purchase the radar you want. The species' appearance rate will impact the price of the radar, making the rarer Tems more expensive so we don’t devalue them too much. With this, we’re also reinstating the rare radars (aka 5% and 10% Tems). We know how much you’ve missed them.
  
• Telomere Hotfixes: Let's say you've run 20 lairs and you’ve gotten all of the possible hotfix types with the exception of an Attack one, which you'd need to perfect your precious Luma Temtem. What happens then? We’ve got you covered. Now, using Feathers, you will be able to purchase the hotfix you need!
  
• Telomere Hacks and Bugs: Less relevant than hotfixes, but still useful. You will be able to purchase Hacks directly, and we’re also introducing the concept of Telomere Bugs — a new Telomere item similar to Hotfixes, but instead of increasing an SV from a Temtem, it allows you to subtract it.
  
• Essences: You already know about candies, fruits, and smoothies, but now we’re introducing a new tier: essences! Fruit essences will add 100TVs to the stat of your choice.
  
• Learning Aid+: On top of all the changes already revealed on experience gain, we’re introducing a new, improved version of the Learning Aid which will be purchasable with Feathers. This new booster will give x3 the experience, as opposed to the x2 experience from the regular one, and it will also last 60 min instead of the 30 minutes that the regular Learning Aid lasts.
  
• Soulbinders: The already mentioned mysterious and expensive new item that allows you to soulbind a Temtem, making them untradeable but letting you apply hotfixes to it even if you're not the OT! You'll be able to obtain these through Feathers.

That's it for today, and we hope you're super excited to visit the Tamer's Paradise and experience all these new activities! We'll see you tomorrow for our last post of the week, talking about economic improvements, Kudo rewards, and the last Backer route!

Welcome to day 3 of our Golden Week of 1.0 spoilers, a week where we share spoilers on what’s coming with version 1.0 and shortly after!
Today we tackle the very delicate issue of microtransactions with as much honesty and transparency as we can.
But first, as it’s now tradition, a disclaimer:

As we’ve talked about multiple times in the past, Temtem is going to feature a season pass and a premium cosmetic store. These features are planned to release during the “launch window” just like the Competitive changes mentioned yesterday, so please don’t expect these on day one, but soon after that.

Before diving deeper into the features, we’d like to clarify one thing: every item that can be obtained from the Tamer Pass or the Premium Store is purely cosmetic. There won’t be any items that will give you an advantage in the game. None of the items will allow you to level up faster, train your Tems better, or anything like that. We’ve been pretty adamant about this since day one and we plan on keeping this same approach in the future of Temtem too. We want these cosmetics to be a choice for our players, and not an imposition needed in order to keep up with the game.

Now, onto the features!


[h2]Novas[/h2]
Firstly, we need to tell you about a new currency: Novas.

Novas are the premium/paid currency for Temtem, and the main way of obtaining them will be purchasing them via in-app purchases, but you will also be able to obtain some Novas for free just by playing the game. Novas are the currency that will allow you to purchase the premium Tamer Pass and most of the items located in the Premium Store.



[h2]The Tamer Pass[/h2]
This naturally leads us to the Tamer Pass. The Tamer Pass is strictly linked to Seasons, and it will feature two tracks of rewards: a free one, available for all players, and a premium one, which will be only available for players who purchase the Premium Tamer Pass using Novas. There will be 60 levels of rewards waiting for you with ~80 different rewards (~60 in the premium one, ~20 in the free one). As an important side note, none of these rewards will be tradable.

And how do you level up the Tamer Pass? Almost everything you can do in Temtem (completing activities, playing ranked battles, breeding, finishing a radar…) will grant you Tamer Pass XP. The idea behind this is to avoid forcing players into something they are not interested in. Instead, we want to allow all playstyles to thrive and be able to take advantage of the Tamer Pass rewards.

For the most dedicated players, the Tamer Pass will also feature a new set of Weekly Quests, which includes 4 free quests and an additional 4 more quests available to users who purchase the Premium Tamer Pass. These Weekly Quests can be different tasks, but they will challenge you to explore a the game a bit more and to try features that you might not be so comfortable with, but you may end up loving. When completed, the quests will give you a good chunk of Tamer Pass XP and also grant you a small amount of Novas.

One last thing to know for now about the Tamer Pass is that completing the Premium track will grant you enough Novas to purchase the next season’s pass without any additional cost. Even without the Premium Tamer Pass, the free track will also feature some Novas as rewards, which you will in turn be able to spend in the Store, or save to purchase the next Premium goodie you like. Novas do not expire, so you’ll be able to save them for as long as you’d like to.



[h2]The Premium Store[/h2]
The Premium Store, on the other hand, is much simpler, featuring cosmetic items that will rotate daily or weekly. Players will be able to purchase some items using Novas, while other items will be available with Feathers (remember them? You’ll learn all about them tomorrow). There will be two tiers of items:

• Featured items: A curated weekly list of three items that will usually match the season theme. These items are only purchasable with Novas and will only be available for a week, but in later seasons they will be included in the “regular items” pool.
  
• Regular items: These items come from a pool of items and four of them will be randomly selected each day. They are different for each user, so make sure to check them regularly so you can get your favorite ones! One of these four items will always be purchasable with Feathers, so you will always be able to get something in return for your dedicated gameplay time.
  

[h2]So what kind of items are these going to be?[/h2]
As for the cosmetic items that are going to be present in both the Tamer Pass and the Premium Store? Well, you already know a lot of them. Furniture, housing items, different hairs, hats and clothes for your character, and mounts (both Temtem and prop based ones, like the super secret 🛵) are among the ones you already know. However, we’re also working on some new cosmetic items that will arrive on 1.0 and that you’ll be able to get with these new features. It’s important that you know that none of the cosmetic items you’ll be able to purchase in the Premium Store are tradable. You won’t be able to trade any of these, nor any reward from the Tamer Pass.

Want a little snippet? Among these new items that we’re working on now there are Temcard Seals — an item that can be applied to any Temtem so that, when that Tem is called into battle, it pops out of the Temcard with a new visual effect.
Want more? Another new item is the Battle Outro Animations (just where could we have seen this recently?), which are some cool new effects played when you beat your opponent in a competitive match.
We’re feeling crazy talkative today, so let me tell you about the new Sprays, which are a new kind of emotes that will display some cool artworks in the world, for everyone to see, and that have been created just for the occasion! Better yet, let me show you:




That’s it for today! We know this post is shorter and less exciting than its predecessors, but we felt like talking about this honestly was needed, and fair. We hope you can now feel a bit more reassured about the upcoming premium cosmetics, and that you’re excited to read about Tamer’s Paradise tomorrow!

Welcome everyone to day two of us literally spoiling the full launch version of Temtem during an entire working week! Today we approach the Competitive and PvP scene of the game. But first, another disclaimer:

Day 1 post, as well as most of what we will be sharing in the upcoming days, is planned to launch right with 1.0, on September 6th. However, the competitive changes posted here today, as well as tomorrow's post, are likely to be released during the “launch window” instead. What does that mean? Well, even though we’re currently working on all these updates, it is possible that the new features described today and tomorrow will not be ready for the first day of 1.0. Instead, they might drop a couple (or more) of weeks later in an additional patch.

The 1.0 patch is going to need extra time in the last certification process before release, so we still aren’t sure how much we will be able to fit in there. We’re including them in this extraordinary week of news because we consider them part of the “1.0 content”, so to speak. What are a couple of weeks in the grand scheme of things, anyway?

Let's dig in!




For us, the competitive part of Temtem has always been one of its key components, and we want to expand and promote it further. We’ve been very conservative in terms of changes to the competitive landscape (both in terms of balance and in terms of features) during our Early Access phase because we wanted to have the majority of the team focused on finishing the content, and the complete roster of Tems included.
However, this all changes in 1.0, so let us explain the upcoming changes and how we are going to increase our focus on this aspect.


[h2]Temtem Showdown[/h2]

Temtem Showdown is an in-game battle “simulator” that allows you to participate in ranked battles without actually working towards building the teams (capturing the tems, breeding and training them, etc).

Having a battle simulator allows players to access the competitive ladder instantly and gives them more tools to freely explore and test new teams, builds or strategies. Ever since the inception of Temtem we’ve tried to facilitate access to competitive battles without going too far (like having the ranked ladder auto-escalate stats and levels), but it hasn't been enough. Our players have been demanding easier access to the competitive scene (or suggesting that we remove all barriers altogether), but we’ve been torn because of how that would impact the PvE progression.

We decided to create the Temtem Showdown game mode and release it with 1.0, or close to it (remember this will likely drop during the launch window!). Showdown will be included as part of the game and its usability will be fused with the ranked competitive ladder. With Showdown you will be able to “edit” your team to your preference without having to train your Tems. You will also be able to select the SVs and TVs you want, the move sets, etc. These Showdown squads will only be available for ranked and friendly competitive matches — you won’t be able to use them for other game content (Dojo rematches, in-game tournaments, Dojo Wars, etc). This will ensure that hard-trained Tems still have their place in the game while allowing for a much more dynamic experience in PvP.

Lastly, even though the ranked ladder will use Showdown teams, you will still be able to participate with your “regular” squad. Showcase squads and regular squads cannot be mixed together. You can still showcase and flex your Luma team and your hard-earned, traditionally-trained Tems.




[h2]Ranked v2[/h2]

When we talk about “Ranked v2” we talk about a series of improvements and changes planned for the ranked format, which will enhance the experience and make it more rewarding. These changes include:

• The ranked format will be divided into seasons (that will go along with the seasonal Tamer Pass, explained tomorrow!). These seasons will impact how ranked matches are played. Balance patches will arrive at the start of each season and the goal is to maintain the meta untouched during an ongoing season.
  
• Hiding the TMR in-game. We’ve seen complaints about how seeing your TMR fluctuate creates a lot of pressure, so we're considering hiding it. The TMR will still be visible while using the API, so the most dedicated users will still be able to check it using third-party tools.
  
• We want to make some tweaks to the TMR formula. One of the things we want to do is tweak the amount of TMR lost against a lower TMR player (you shouldn’t be matched against one in the first place, but that’s another problem). We also plan to increase the TMR gains so the difference between a good player and a regular one is higher.
  
• We’re also considering adding TMR decay, although we don’t know if it is going to be needed with the season format. At the end of the season, everyone will have their TMR reset to a new, lower value (which will depend a bit on their previous TMR).
  
• We’re adding ranks and subranks in order to “replace” the no-longer-visible TMR. Think of Gold I, Gold II, Silver I, etc. (we’re open to suggestions for cooler names!). These ranks will be distributed based on percentile population at the start of each season, so we will always try to keep the same distribution no matter how many players are playing.
  
• We’re also going to add a “Legend” rank (again, accepting suggestions for the name) which only the top percentile (1%) of players will reach. This rank will have an internal ladder in which you will see your relative place amongst other Legend players, so for example the third-best player (in terms of TMR) would be Legend #3.
  
• We’re adding Feathers (and what's that you might be wondering? You will know soon) as a reward for ranked wins, along with the current rewards for Pansuns. Since we’re going to try to increase the maximum possible TMR rank, the idea is that the Pansun rewards increase with it too. These rewards will now be based on your TMR, instead of your opponent’s TMR.
  
• We’re also adding seasonal rewards. At the end of the season, and depending on your performance during it, you will get some exclusive cosmetic rewards that won’t be obtainable any other way.
  
• And finally, we’re also adding two daily and two weekly competitive quests which will grant users extra Feathers and Pansuns when doing them.
  

We believe all these changes are going to improve ranked matches substantially, but we’ll be checking through the release window and adjusting accordingly.


[h2]Dedicated balance team[/h2]

Up until now, balance has been something that we’ve been doing and maintaining in-between tasks. Instead of having people focusing on it regularly, some of our current team members have been dedicating hours sporadically.

We need to have time to prepare seasonal patches, review matches data, analytics, feedback, etc, so continuing to manage those during our "free" time is unsustainable and a disservice to the competitive environment of the game. With the 1.0 release, we want to be able to have more robust balance changes.

We’ve also talked about including some key community members as “helpers” so the balance team has extra input on certain topics that they could consider more risky or delicate. We already have some names at the top of our minds, and we’ve made some early approaches to discuss it already, but there is a lot of bureaucracy involved so when the team has enough time we will be moving forward with it in a definitive manner. We just wanted to reassure you that this is still planned and a priority to us.


[h2]Crema-run tournaments[/h2]

We love seeing community tournaments thrive. We’ve decided it is time to support the tournament scene even further by creating and organizing our own.

Since we don’t have any real experience with this, we want to start slowly and see where it leads. To ensure we're off to a great start, we hired a dedicated member of the community as our Esports Manager – someone who has run several tournaments and has a good understanding of the Temtem competitive scene. We’re also going to allocate a budget in order to incentivize the tournaments with cash prizes and we are entertaining the possibility of doing on-site tournaments (in Spain for now).

We are still in the very early stages of designing this, but we have loads of ideas and we’re eager to start working on them. Once again, the competitive scene is very important for us and for the future of Temtem, so we want to expand and promote it as much as we are able to.




[h2]Other planned improvements[/h2]

Regardless of whether you consider these competitive improvements or just improvements to the grind in general, here's a couple more ideas we have right now and would like to implement at some point in the future:

First, a TV blender that will ease the process of giving enhancer fruits to Tems. The current process can be a tad tedious because you have to use each individual item one by one, and it can take a while to fully power up one single Tem, not to mention there's room for mistakes and accidents. This blender will let you choose and use a handful of fruits per try, and you'll get a preview of the resulting TVs of that blend. Even if the resulting concoction would just equal those fruits individually, it's sure to make everything much quicker! We are not sure whether this will make it into launch day, launch window, or even later. We're just sharing our brains early on.


Secondly, we're planning a system of sorts that will let you drop your Tems someplace, pay a fee and have them train automatically while they are there. Sort of a training alternative to the Breeding Center. There is a place in-game dedicated to this already, but it's very far from functional. Since this is a lot of work, we're not even considering the launch window for this. It will be added to the game at an indefinite point in the future. We'll tell you more as we progress with it!




That's it for day 2! See you tomorrow to share some insight on the Premium Store and the Tamer Pass. Have fun and Temtem up!

Hello, Tamers, and welcome to the celebrations of what we've come to call the Golden Week! As 1.0 approaches we've decided to progressively but decisively unveil the mystery of 1.0 early on, for those on the fence about the immediate future, and for old and new players alike.

Every working day of this week we will share a post covering one of the sectors of the game that are getting improved in 1.0, or part of the new content coming with it. We recommend reaaally reading them all!

But first, a disclaimer:


[h2]Coming out of our cage and we're a tad nervous about it[/h2]

We are not usually huge fans of talking about what’s coming up in future patches, and there are some good reasons for that:

• We want our players to experience surprises when they receive a new patch. We like to spoil some minor features here and there so there is some hype on what’s coming, but we believe that having surprises is important too.
  
• We usually iterate a lot internally — features get changed constantly until we are very close to the actual patch release. We also iterate on the planning too, pushing features to more distant patches and including things that weren’t planned for the current patch. Giving too much data publicly early on could lead to having incorrect information spread around, like what happened with our initial roadmap for Early Access.
  
• Getting feedback when we are not ready to receive it is usually counter-productive. Our team works best when we are either working on the patch ourselves, or dedicated exclusively to gathering and implementing your feedback. Mixing the two together doesn’t really work for us. Early feedback creates too much noise and too many things to be aware of, and could lead to even longer delays.
  

However, the 1.0 patch is arguably the most important patch ever for Temtem. Even taking into consideration the many reasons why we usually keep patches to ourselves, we've decided to give you a peek! You’ll get to see what's going on now, what’s coming, and how Temtem is going to change with it.

Please do keep in mind that the reasons we explained earlier still stand. That means that everything you’ll read during this week could potentially change before we actually get to the release point, and, despite our best attempts, we are most likely not going to be able to process and/or implement all of the feedback you may have about it. We truly appreciate our community: your ideas and opinions have been key in developing Temtem over the last few years, and we’re really grateful for your contribution all this time, but now we have to step on the gas and focus on carrying the game to its final step. We can't wait for you to be a part of this release, and all that’s coming after that, as well.

Also please do keep in mind that although much of these posts is written in the present tense, all these changes are planned to reach the game with version 1.0, on September 6th, at the earliest.

This said, onto the very first topic that has been revisited for 1.0:


[h2]Campaign progression[/h2]

One of the key components of Temtem is its campaign. Our goal was to create a campaign that requires thinking and preparation for the matches — not something ultra-hard for the most hardcore players out there only, but instead something that requires a certain amount of implication and strategy.

We’ve been tweaking the campaign and the progression during Early Access, mostly easing the way and simplifying it. We're currently at a point where we are pretty happy with the player experience through it. However, one of the most common complaints is the number of forced NPCs you need to beat, so we're making some changes to that.

Mandatory NPCs serve a good purpose in giving us control over how the player levels up through the campaign and balancing the game's difficulty; we don’t want to overshoot this change and generate new issues for players who skip all the optional encounters. We’ve ended up revisiting every area in the game and reducing the mandatory trainers by 20%. We believe that this number helps soften the oppressive feeling of having to battle with almost every trainer you see, while still allowing us to keep a good experience and difficulty curve.

Along with this change, we’re also tweaking the experience curve in order to compensate for this 20% reduction in trainers. This will effectively mean that a player who battles every single NPC (mandatory and optional) will have an easier path, since they will now get more overall experience. We still want people to battle as many trainers as possible, but we hope that, with this change, players will have a more enjoyable time doing so.



While we were tweaking the experience formula, there was another change we wanted to make. Maybe not many of our players know, but built into the XP formula there is a modifier that reduces the experience gained on an “over-leveled” Temtem. Temtem is designed around having a full team of Tems and leveling up all of them, instead of relying on two or three over-leveled Temtem. This is an important lesson that new players need to learn, and one of the ways to teach that was precisely this modifier. However, we felt like the modifier was a bit too oppressive, so we’ve decided to reduce it by 50%. This new value means that you are still not going to be able to complete the campaign using only one or two Tems, but it will represent an overall improvement and increase in the experience gained, especially if you complete every optional encounter.

Another change related to the experience formula is a new experience bonus for those who play in Co-op. While playing on Co-op, you only use half of your Temtem during the battles, so players felt that they were “missing out” on experience for the rest of their Tems. This was especially noticeable if, instead of playing the whole campaign in Co-op, you decided to break your Co-op party and continue solo. In order to compensate for this, we’re adding a new bonus for those Tems that are left out — they will now get a small amount of experience as if they had joined the battle too.

Talking about the endgame experience farming, we’re also going to tweak the defeated experience that is given by Temtem present in Tuwai’s shrines, which are the main place to farm for EXP. We’re increasing the amount of experience they grant by 50%. With this change and the previously talked ones, the total experience gained with these Tems should be around ~80% more than before.

Last but not least, we’re also reducing the amount of dialogue for a good amount of NPC Tamers. We’ve been revisiting the dialogue lines in the battle path and moving those lines to the dialogue path you enter when you speak to them again after beating them. This should also further help make the campaign more enjoyable, while also leaving the option to go through all the dialogue for people who enjoy it.


[h2]Upcoming changes to the Luma economy[/h2]

Lumas are one of the most important features in Temtem, especially for PvE players, and a huge patch like this couldn’t leave them untouched. But first, some background!

Ever since the beginning of Temtem's development, we envisioned Lumas as a rare and exceptional thing that should only be available for the most dedicated players. We’ve tweaked the values related to Lumas multiple times in order to maintain that vision and keep them as an “achievement” for dedication. Even with all these tweaks, Lumas aren’t really that rare, and our current data shows that, out of the players who have completed the campaign, almost 60% have at least one Luma Temtem.

On the other hand, Lumas have been one of the key components that have caused frustration among the player base because most players don’t share our vision for Lumas and believe they should be more widely available. Since one of the objectives for 1.0 is to increase our player's enjoyment and overall make things more available, we’ve decided to make some changes to Luma-related mechanics.

Firstly, we’re increasing the base rate for lumas from 1/10.000 to 1/7.500. This represents a 33% boost on Luma odds and should affect every Luma-related mechanic (radars, Saipark, etc). We’re also changing the stat distribution for Lumas, upping them from a minimum of 20 SVs to 25 SVs. We've also included the SPD in this minimum, effectively removing the “speed curse” for Lumas. With the inclusion of Telomere Bugs (the name is pretty telling, but you'll learn more about this later down the week!) we believe this will no longer be necessary.



One of the most accessible ways to obtain a Luma is using a radar. With 1.0 you will be able to obtain radars in a much more direct way, one we won't be spoiling today (see you on Thursday!). For now enjoy all these changes and tweaks we’re also doing to radars in order to improve the experience while using them:

• Radars will now always find unevolved forms. This way we can ensure you’ll get the whole line as Luma if you decide to evolve it later (if you want to).
  
• Every species of Temtem will now have the same spawn rate (100%) while using the radar. This effectively means radar-spawned Tems will now appear quickly and constantly, no matter the species. No more waiting for those 5% rare Tems!
  
• Radars will no longer have expiration dates — you will be able to keep them in your inventory forever and use them whenever you want.
  
• We’re reducing the number of encounters per radar from 400 to 300, effectively removing the first 100 encounters so you won’t need that many encounters before getting a Luma bonus. From now on, every encounter of a Radar will have a bonus of some sort.
  
• With this reduction, you will now be able to break the radar from the first encounter. You’ll have to keep this in mind!
  
• Last, since radars will be purchasable (like we said, you'll find out where on Thursday), we’re removing them from the Dojo Leaders loot.
  

There is another issue we are trying to solve for Temtem 1.0 regarding Lumas, specifically regarding non-OT Lumas (Lumas caught by one trainer and then traded to another). As you know, the Telomere Hotfixes that are used to perfect a Luma cannot be used on non-OT Lumas, so the value of non-perfected Lumas has been decaying over time.

We’re introducing a new item, called Soulbinder, which will “bind” a Temtem to its current owner, removing the ability to trade them anymore but allowing Telomere Hotfixes to be used on them. This item will be available for purchase on a new location we'll be talking about later down the week. After reading multiple suggestions from the community on how to tackle this issue, we believe this one is the most fitting for Temtem, and that it will both help the Luma market and better the player’s possibilities to obtain a perfect Luma.

We hope all these changes improve the overall experience of getting a Luma. We believe it will make a huge impact on the Luma availability, and while we are losing a bit of the exclusivity we originally envisioned for Lumas, we are not too worried about that… we'll always have Dark Lumas, right?



That's it for today, but we will be back tomorrow for a chat on the Competitive scene and what's coming to it! See you there!