Hello Voyagers! It’s Stephanie / Stephiroth, here with an update on our Tend, Build, Thrive patch. The patch is right around the corner, so we’ll walk through each of the major features coming in the patch and explain what they’re all about! First though, let’s talk a little bit about the goals of the Tend, Build, Thrive patch.
In Voyagers, we wanted it to feel like players were building bustling Spirit Sanctuaries that would feel alive, meaningful and provide a safe haven for players and Spirits. Some of these elements were already working well: Players love their Spirits, and many players love building the base itself. However, we felt that there were ways we could better deliver this fantasy, amping up the things that players love and adding in new features based off of feedback. We wanted to make Spirits more present in the base, make base building more rewarding, and expand what types of activities and management that can be done within the base.
Farming
Weather
Sanctuary Points and Sanctuary Benefits
Rest
Spirit Anchor updates
Functional Spirit Amenities and More Spirits in the Base
Fuel
Farming has been one of our top requested features from players on our Feature Upvote Board, and we're so excited to finally add it to the game! Voyagers has a heavy focus on exploration and base building, and Farming does a great job of adding more interaction with the resources you’re discovering in the world, while also creating new ways to build, customize and manage the base. We hope you’ll enjoy creating a beautiful Sanctuary while reaping the hard-fought rewards of a day’s adventure.
While exploring and gathering in the world, any plant collected will have a chance to drop a seed. Bring this seed home, plant it, water and tend to it, and over time it’ll grow into a harvestable plant. Plants do not die when unwatered, but will stop growing until you water them again. Sometimes you’ll be lucky enough to receive a golden seed, which will grow a special version of the plant with a better yield!
Every farmer needs a trusty Watering Can. The base watering can is a simple vessel with lower durability and water capacity, and it certainly gets the job done. Players can unlock and craft new types of watering cans with improved water capacity, higher durability, and even higher spray radius to water more plants at once. These are fresh-water plants, so you can’t just fill your watering can from the ocean. Fresh water sources, found near the base of waterfalls, have been added to each biome. Go up to any fresh water source and fill the watering can; then you’ll be ready to water your plants! As you progress in the game, you’ll unlock new buildables that will help with water production:
Desalinator: When placed on salt water, it will gradually filter fresh water for Farming, as well as produce salt as a by-product for cooking.
Spirit Well: Powered by magical spirits, this buildable can be placed within any Sanctuary, and produces endless fresh water!
You’ll be able to farm nearly any type of plant you can think of – vegetables, fruits and even biome-specific trees!
Weather was also one of our most highly requested features. We’ve always wanted the world of Nera to feel alive and different - weather and environmental effects have a huge impact on this. One day it could be smooth sailing and exploring under clear skies, the next day you might be exploring through the fog, not quite sure where exactly you left those Construct Cores..
Fully clear day
Blue skies, sometimes some cloud cover; this is the typical weather that you experience in Nera today
Overcast
Full cloud cover, bright
Foggy
Sometimes this could be heavy or light; reduced visibility
Rainy
This can be heavy or light; perfect ambiance for a mana tea while watching the rain water your farming plots!
Thunderstorm
This is a heavy storm; careful though, lightning can strike at any time!
The world will cycle between those states, tracking which weathers you’ve had and trying to make sure you have a good balance and that you aren’t stuck in a perpetual rainstorm! There will also be a server toggle to disable weather in the Server Settings; so if you want only clear skies, you’ll be able to have that - but you will miss out on any special gameplay mechanics from weather.
All cosmetic items now have a Sanctuary Point value – we call these Comfort Buildables. As you build more Comfort Buildables and Spirit Amenities, your Sanctuary points increase; and when they hit certain point thresholds, you will unlock special buffs for your base known as Sanctuary Benefits.
As you increase your Sanctuary Points, you’ll unlock more buffs. Along the Sanctuary Points track there are both Sanctuary benefits, and improved Rest buffs. Sanctuary Buffs are global effects within the Sanctuary Radius, such as removing Stamina costs while in the Sanctuary radius. Rest buffs are effects gained after resting in a bed or sleeping over night; you’ll be fully healed, and gain buffs like increased stamina regeneration and food effect duration. We hope between the Sanctuary benefits and the Rest Mechanics, this will make it feel more motivating to build out a base and have base building directly tie into the exploration gameplay.
While working on the Sanctuary mechanics, we wanted to also make improvements to how the Spirit Anchor works. We have gotten a lot of player feedback about the power mechanic feeling confusing, as well as the amount of Spirit Anchors feeling restrictive. We have simplified the power requirement mechanics by linking them directly to the Empowerment Level. Now when you level up the Spirit Anchor, you will immediately be able to use a station that requires that power level. Additionally, we’ve increased the amount of Spirit Anchors you can build - now you’ll get +2 to your Spirit Anchor limit when leveling it, which will allow you to build more bases across Nera!
Previously, Spirit Amenities were purely cosmetic, decorative stations that were built to attract Spirits to the base – they looked special but didn’t really follow through in any significant way. We wanted to give more impact to the amenities - after all, if the Spirits think they’re so great, you should too! Now each Spirit Amenity has a gameplay purpose, such as: Spirit Tree
Increases growth rate of farm plots placed near it
Spirit Hot Spring
Interact with this to receive a potent healing buff
We believe this will offer more interesting choices as you’re building out your base, as well as make the Spirit Amenities feel more unique and magical. Spirits will be showing up more in the base! Now Spirits can show up at almost any of the comfort buildables and stations to hang out. They’ll spawn in and out, and hopefully show up in some surprising and delightful places. You’ll also notice that it's not just Guide Spirits (the lil blue guys) showing up, but now Spirit Companions (Tideray, Cindertail, etc) can show up in some places as well! This is just one small step towards integrating Spirits more into the base, and we hope to add even more Spirit features to the base and game overall!
Fuel is back on the menu! Some of our OG players may remember our previous fuel mechanic. We have decided to bring this back to add another layer of progression and improvement into the crafting and refinement process. You’ll start out with mundane types of fuel, such as wood and charcoal - and as you progress, you’ll be able to craft more potent magical fuel types. Some stations, like the Campfire or the Kiln, will require fuel to operate; they should also light up when they are refining items, and their fire will go out when they are not refining. We hope this will add a bit more interest to base management and more satisfaction as you progress and become more efficient at refining.
This was just a preview of the big features; there will be full patch notes coming soon! The Tend, Build, Thrive patch is coming out on March 30th, and we will have Twitch Drops active with a new reward available: an Infused Watering Can skin! Is there a feature you’re most excited for? Let us know in the comments or join our Discord and talk directly with us in our ask-the-devs channel!