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!
The Competitive Scene
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.
Temtem Showdown
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.
Ranked v2
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.
Dedicated balance team
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.
Crema-run tournaments
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.
Other planned improvements
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!