Temtem Game Director Pounces to Reddit to Defend Temtem Showdown | MMORPG.com

System · July 2023

Temtem Game Director Pounces to Reddit to Defend Temtem Showdown | MMORPG.com

Temtem has recently faced a bit of backlash from their community regarding the launch of their new battler Temtem Showdown. Here is their response.

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Greatness · July 2023

It is crazy early on I believe they stated they wouldn’t be adding any major new areas/big updates. The logic of publicly disclosing that makes no sense for profitability.

soulbladex14 · July 2023

they wanted all the mmo perks without putting in mmo work

Quizzical · July 2023

Sometimes a game is done and it's time for developers to move on to the next game. Or mostly done apart from bug fixes and so forth. It's unreasonable to expect unlimited, future content to be added for free after paying only a one-time fee.

Raagnarz · July 2023

Quizzical said:

Sometimes a game is done and it's time for developers to move on to the next game. Or mostly done apart from bug fixes and so forth. It's unreasonable to expect unlimited, future content to be added for free after paying only a one-time fee.

True but the game launched officially less than a year ago. And its in this state solely because they dev's act apathetic to their own player base/fans. Almost like it's an inconvenience to have to address them about wanting more content and things to do. Then instead of putting effort on new content for the game people already paid for, they release another standalone game no current player asked for, and no prospective player would want because to play this new game you have to understand the original game. The thought process on this new game is one of the most befuddling I've seen in recent years. This dev team wanted to make a game, then told players they wouldn't be adding to it, basically announcing maintenance mode, then act surprised when the playerbase dwindles to nothing and a new game within the same universe fails miserably.

cheyane · July 2023

Should they not be catering to the players they already have. This looks like the dog with the bone in it's mouth looking at its reflection and trying to get the other bone and losing both in the process. Silly developer.

Sandmanjw · July 2023

Quizzical said:

Sometimes a game is done and it's time for developers to move on to the next game. Or mostly done apart from bug fixes and so forth. It's unreasonable to expect unlimited, future content to be added for free after paying only a one-time fee.

Agree, but we need to get that message out to Hello Games. Sean Murray and crew. And for EVE, I guess. EVE, was not my cup of tea, but they did free updates and stuck to their way of doing their game.

Couple of companies one single player, and one MMO, that are shining stars in the industry, of value for your money.

Jakobmiller · July 2023

I think the guy's response on Reddit was kind of meh... I understand that you can become tired of a community when their expectations are never met as it was never meant to be what they wanted it to be in the first place.

I played it during the beta/ea and it was an enjoyable experience. Have tried it afterwards, but haven't been in the mood for it. From my understanding though, the main story is fairly long and there is plenty to do, so you will most likely get the values worth from buying it..?

Perhaps communicating things earlier would have prevented this kind of outrage from the community.

I also think it's rather unfortunate that they aren't expanding on the idea they have, but yeah... Creating new "Tems" seems to be a tedious process.

DigDuggy · July 2023

I never begrudge a game for a revenue stream. As unpopular as it is, they need to keep things running and paying it's people. This move for a game this new, does seem a bit out of place though. Better to focus on your core business than diverting to another, although similar project.

gameplayingmonkey · July 2023

Jakobmiller said:

Perhaps communicating things earlier would have prevented this kind of outrage from the community.

This has been their open stance since before the game fully released out of early access. Players complaining about it are simply ignoring the devs.

While a lot of players are frustrated with a lack of new tems/islands I think the situation is a bit more nuanced. Crema claims to be wanting to make more different/more sustainable content but the real issue here lies with their inability to deliver. Since release nearly every content patch has come broken and/or been pushed back.

Even their last content patch which pivots the game into PvP included SHOWDOWN disabled Dojo Battles (guild battles) for a month as they updated the system and wouldnt you know it, the first day its supposed to be back its broken and non-functioning. Other examples of missing content that was promised or came broken includes a third mythical temtem as well as its lair, most holiday events missing and/or broken, arcade bar pushed back in favor of temtem showdown, etc.

ACommonMugger · July 2023

I wouldn't care about the not-having-content post launch, but the problem is they have a box price AND micro-transactions in the game. It's a flippin' Battlepass in there.

They should have made it a coop RPG with just the box price, and none of this would have happened.

They could have added DLC down the line. People would have been happy.

That being said.. If they dropped those weird practices, this game would 100% be worth it. I almost feel sorry for the devs because it's obvious they put a lot of work and love into this game.

gameplayingmonkey · July 2023

Qbertq said:

I never begrudge a game for a revenue stream. As unpopular as it is, they need to keep things running and paying it's people. This move for a game this new, does seem a bit out of place though. Better to focus on your core business than diverting to another, although similar project.

Temtem Showdown isn't another similar project than Temtem as it's just a standalone version of the PvP mode thats already in Temtem and connects with users of the base game. If I understand correctly the idea was to release a free standalone version of it to supplement the PvP community with more/new players who aren't interested in PvE.

Aeander · July 2023

Yeah, I don't see the market for this. A PvP-only emulation tourney exists for Pokemon precisely because the games are loaded with bafflingly bad progression mechanics (EV's, IVs, natures) that people want to skip. No one actually wants to skip the creature collecting for its own sake. The creature collecting is more fun than the actual combat.

gameplayingmonkey · July 2023

Aeander said:

Yeah, I don't see the market for this. A PvP-only emulation tourney exists for Pokemon precisely because the games are loaded with bafflingly bad progression mechanics (EV's, IVs, natures) that people want to skip. No one actually wants to skip the creature collecting for its own sake. The creature collecting is more fun than the actual combat.

The same poor progression was present in Temtem PvP pre-Showdown, if not worse because of the exceptional grind present in Temtem. The Showdown mode definitely has its place in the game though its pretty clear by the standalone versions player count that there didn't need to be a standalone version of it.

Scot · July 2023

As a fan of hyping up my own thread titles ((I have even had complaints

)), I do like the way Stephen did his. In the article he says "The game director...has taken to Reddit to address these concerns."

But in the title that becomes: "Game Director Pounces to Reddit to Defend Temtem Showdown"

Much more dramatic.

DigDuggy · July 2023

gameplayingmonkey said:

Qbertq said:

I never begrudge a game for a revenue stream. As unpopular as it is, they need to keep things running and paying it's people. This move for a game this new, does seem a bit out of place though. Better to focus on your core business than diverting to another, although similar project.

Temtem Showdown isn't another similar project than Temtem as it's just a standalone version of the PvP mode thats already in Temtem and connects with users of the base game. If I understand correctly the idea was to release a free standalone version of it to supplement the PvP community with more/new players who aren't interested in PvE.

That's what I meant. I didn't say it clearly enough. I just meant that they should focus on one thing. Even a standalone version diverts resources. Once the game is more established,

ValdemarJ · July 2023

Scot said:

As a fan of hyping up my own thread titles ((I have even had complaints )), I do like the way Stephen did his. In the article he says "The game director...has taken to Reddit to address these concerns."

But in the title that becomes: "Game Director Pounces to Reddit to Defend Temtem Showdown"

Much more dramatic.

"Pounce on" "Leap to". One doesn't "pounce to" anything. It's poor grammar and word usage. I wasn't going to say anything because I'm a pedantic freak, but it's horribly grating.

gameplayingmonkey · July 2023

Qbertq said:

That's what I meant. I didn't say it clearly enough. I just meant that they should focus on one thing. Even a standalone version diverts resources. Once the game is more established,

Gotcha, I think mixed with other comments I was getting the vibe that the general understanding from (what I assume is non-players) is that Temtem and Temtem Showdown are two entirely separate games and felt the need to explain they aren't really. I think if Crema did a better job explaining this there'd be less confusion as even I, a Temtem player, was initially very confused on what a 'Temtem Showdown' is vs 'the showdown game mode in Temtem.'

Judging by the game directors reddit comments and the general game itself its pretty clear Crema are confused too, in regards to what exactly they want their game to be.

halfmystic said:
That being said.. If they dropped those weird practices, this game would 100% be worth it. I almost feel sorry for the devs because it's obvious they put a lot of work and love into this game.

What gets me is how weird and rude the devs seem to be to the community. Specifically I remember at one point they added new 'battle camera angles' and ubiquitously players wanted at least an option to turn if off - it was bad enough to make people motion sick and unable to play. For about a year their response was "just deal with it, we put a lot of work into those new camera angles!" before finally adding the option to turn them off.

I can understand refusal to give into the community in a lot of instances but for some reason Crema seems to pick very strange hills to die on and its continually fracturing their community maybe even moreso than a lack of new content.

ValdemarJ · July 2023

So, let me see if I understand this now. Players can access TemTem Showdown in TemTem, but players who just want to play TemTem Showdown and just access and play that mode itself without the pve.

If that's true, then how do people who just play TemTem Showdown get their monsters? Do they buy them? If they buy them, then how does that work for people who play the PvE game to acquire TemTems? It seems like buying them vs grinding for them would create a balance problem. Or can anyone buy their TemTems so the pay-to-win is "fair" since it's accessible to all.

I'm not seeing how any of this is going to work out for them. :shrug:

gameplayingmonkey · July 2023

ValdemarJ said:

So, let me see if I understand this now. Players can access TemTem Showdown in TemTem, but players who just want to play TemTem Showdown and just access and play that mode itself without the pve.

If that's true, then how do people who just play TemTem Showdown get their monsters? Do they buy them? If they buy them, then how does that work for people who play the PvE game to acquire TemTems? It seems like buying them vs grinding for them would create a balance problem. Or can anyone buy their TemTems so the pay-to-win is "fair" since it's accessible to all.

I'm not seeing how any of this is going to work out for them. :shrug:

'Showdown' is a PvP mode where all the monsters/items/attacks are automatically unlocked and equal leveled. You select your team composition and then go into a matchmaking queue to battle. There is no buying pets/items/breeding as it's all universally unlocked within that PvP mode.

Standalone 'Temtem Showdown' is exactly the same but allows new players to play for free.

While I own Temtem on my Nintendo Switch I'm still able to log into and play standalone 'Temtem Showdown' on my PC through the account that registered with the Nintendo Switch copy and rewards carry over to when I'm playing a 'full' copy of the game.

Much to my surprise, standalone 'Temtem Showdown' actually doesn't have microtransactions or the battlepass as nearly all of the cosmetics/battlepass are things inaccessable to Showdown mode. (been a couple months since I logged in, so this might've changed by now)

From my understanding the standalone release of 'Temtem Showdown' was meant to increase game longevity as well as bring down queue times for PvP players.

There are other non-Showdown PvP options in the game but Showdown offers it grindless and fair.

IMO - standalone 'Temtem Showdown' doesn't retain players because it takes hundreds of hours to remember monsters, types, items, strategies, etc, as well as being a new IP so its not like Pokemon where the average gamer has at least a baseline understanding of pets/mechanics. I think a comparison here is sort of like how people say leveling 1-60 in WoW is the tutorial - the 100 hour PvE campaign in Temtem is the 'tutorial' into an endgame activity like showdown pvp.

ValdemarJ · July 2023

That is informative. Good news people can't buy their way. It's a strange game mode for sure.

LTBK · August 2023

Quizzical said:

Sometimes a game is done and it's time for developers to move on to the next game. Or mostly done apart from bug fixes and so forth. It's unreasonable to expect unlimited, future content to be added for free after paying only a one-time fee.

The game has a battlepass. And microtransactions. And were added at launch (1.0). So, I'm not surprised to see that the people that weren't watching everything that the devs said expected the game to get more content down the road, as those are usually used to support post launch content (even if in most cases the quantity/quality is ridiculously low). In other words, technically it wouldn't be "free" or after a one-time fee. And I understand people expecting more, since the devs expect them to pay for the battlepasses and keep playing to progress them (I guess? heh). I mean, how long do they expect people to pay them to play the same content over and over?

Anyway, as soon as I saw the battlepass announced for a game that was supposed to be done after 1.0 I knew that the drama would eventually happen, but I'm not surprised considering how many "naive" (*cough*greedy*cough*) developers there are out there. I'm also not surprised that these are one of them, though, taking into account some of their interactions in the Steam forums during the early days. It makes sense that they did that cashgrab and then put their surprised Pikachu faces (pun absolutely intended) when the players got mad about where they put their resources.

gameplayingmonkey · August 2023

LTBK said:

Quizzical said:

Sometimes a game is done and it's time for developers to move on to the next game. Or mostly done apart from bug fixes and so forth. It's unreasonable to expect unlimited, future content to be added for free after paying only a one-time fee.

The game has a battlepass. And microtransactions. And were added at launch (1.0). So, I'm not surprised to see that the people that weren't watching everything that the devs said expected the game to get more content down the road, as those are usually used to support post launch content (even if in most cases the quantity/quality is ridiculously low).

Regardless of monetization I think the expectation of further content stems from it being advertised as a live service game and MMO - from its Kickstarter page all the way to its current store page on Steam. They are clearly comfortable using 'MMO' to generate marketing hype but when met with criticism about its lack of MMO features (like generating additional content) does the community get met with backpedalled responses such as "we didn't mean it like that," or "no, we always planned the game to be small scope and co-op not a live service mmorpg."

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