Asphalt 9 Dev Chat (January 2022 - Festive Season)

The January 2022 Dev Chat was the 12th Dev-Chat and was done on January 21, 2022. It was centered in talking about the Electric Season, Plans for the next update and future plans for next year.
== Full #Dev-Chat-Answer ==
Chris718:
Hello everyone and welcome to the 1st DevChat of 2022. I hope everyone had a pleasant festive season and your year has started off well.
==== This Update ====
As the Festive Season is currently wrapping up we have 1 last event kicking off next week to celebrate both the end of the Festive season but also the Lunar New Year. As we enter the year of the Tiger a new Unleashed event will be running to celebrate this.
To give you a bit a sneak peek the cars for this event will be: McLaren Senna, Ferrari F8 Tributo, Porsche Carrera GT. 
as this event caps the end of the Festive season we are going to beginning a new season shortly afterwards. This new season will be introducing a new schedule format to shake up the season experience
==== Next Season ====
The next season is a Tour season, specifically it is a British Tour season which will have you racing in locations around the world in new cars from British manufacturers (check the patch notes coming soon to see which cars specifically)
So let me talk some more about the new format of the season. Firstly I'm sure many of you will be happy to hear the Multiplayer series for the next season are going back to how they were (same format).
We will also have the usual set of Car hunts during the season and in addition to these we are introducing a new type of Car hunt format: Weekend Hunt. The Weekend Hunt is focused on a single car and will repeat each weekend during the season. This means you have all season to unlock and star up this car.
Now what about special events (SE) and Gran Prix (GP)? This is where the format of the season comes in. This season is going to split into 4 stages (or stops on the tour). The 1st 3 stages will all use the same format and build up to the final stage.
Each of the stages is focused around 1 car and the events in that stage are about that car to give the maximum amount of opportunity to not just unlock the car but star it up.
As you progress through each stage the car from the previous stage will be used in the next one so playing consistently throughout the season will give you the maximum chance to progress at unlocking the 4 cars of the tour.
Stage 1 to 3 all follow the same format and will consist of: 
* Star hunt a new SE that is aimed at unlocking and starring up the car of the stage 
* A GP focused on the car of the stage 
* A Passport event were you will use the car of the stage to further get BP and star it up 
* And finish off with an Epic Hunt for this car to let you collect epic parts.
at the end of these 3 stages the 4th stop on the tour kicks off in a Finale Special event that will require cars gained throughout the season to unlock the final car.
Each stage lasts roughly around 17 days (there is some overlap between stages). and before it gets asked none of these cars are locked behind the legend pass. Pass owners will have benefits per normal but everyone who races will have a chance to unlock these new cars
So what else is new in the next update? Well we are launching the first feature that was voted on by the community via the Asphalt Board and will be launching a new tool that lets you filter your garage to make finding cars easiers. You will be able to filter your garage by the cars you own, brands and order them by rank and stars. This should help you find that one car you are looking for but can't remember the class or name when you want to use it.
Another thing we are launching next update is Closed Beta for the new club vs. club mode. As this is a huge mode which has taken us a long time to develop we will be doing an invitational Beta to active clubs and running live tests with these players to make sure it works as we want and catch any final bugs before it goes fully live for everyone.
As part of this we will be publishing an article around the mode so even those whose clubs don't get a chance to participate will still be able to see more about it and start planning their strategies, ok let me take a look at some of the questions in the other channel and answer them.
==== Question and Answers ====
Q Do you plan to launch on steam? 
At this point in time it's not something I have an answer to, steam deck while a cool option is not something we have factored in for us it will depend on overall priorities and the work involved to introduce a new PC platform.
Q Are there any plans to support portrait mode on the club chat. 
Not at this point in time, it is not something we have thought about.
Q I feel like car hunts have beomce more relevant, after adding new season cars that are required for events 
Yes car hunts have become more relevant, for the past few seasons we have been trying to link things a bit closer
Q Add more re-run events like the Chiron SE 
The Chiron event before Christmas worked really well and it is something we will look at doing again in upcoming seasons. To expand a bit on this we are also looking at introducing a new SE format that will occur with every update and allow you to slowly work on maxing out a set of cars that will be used to get a final car. This event will be targeted at newer player initially and since it will repeat you will be able to keep working away at the car requirements outside of the event.
Q Adding a quick race mode like Switch did 
Currently we don't plan to add a quick race mode for the mobile/PC/Xbox version. It is something we have talked about but not something in our roadmap for this year
Q Can we get a Santiago de Chile track (top speed focused) 
The answer for this is neither yes or no, we are in planning at the moment for our 2nd track of the year (the 1st track is being worked on by Art right now) so not sure exactly where it will be. We do look at the track feedback and comments and each track we try to make it as different as we can from the previous one. Small hint for the next one, since Buenos Aires is in a city with tight curves and fewer straights what do you think the next one would be like 
Q Updating the legend store or giving LP holders their own store 
Bit of a round about way to answer this, for those who came to Devchat last year you might remember I mentioned we wanted to do an update to the store? Well it's on the roadmap for the 1st 1/2 of this year and as part of this we will be updating not just visuals but also content.
Q Make rewards in MP worth the time spent. 
We have updated these a few times and will keep adjusting them they won't change in the next update but we can relook at them for future ones
Q Add Buenos Aires track to MP 
Yes this is something we can and will be doing there are a ton of tracks in the game so over time we try and move some in and some out of MP (editado)
Q More Career seasons 
We skipped adding a season in the Festive update but are back on track and there is a new season added for the next update
Q Reruns of old GP will they happen 
As with the reruns of old events we will bring these back as they fit into the relevant update.
Q Will older cars be associated with stops in the tour next season 
Yes some old cars are associated with stops
Q Garage update with cars >3500 rating 
This is a tough one to answer as it depends a bunch on the manufacturers car specs and how that then converts to rating. I will say we are working on our car evolution feature this year and part of that feature is boost to car rating (goes with stat increases) as well as new visuals and gameplay enhancements to the cars that are evolved.
I'll talk more about this again as we get closer to the launch of it.
Q What happened with 1vs1 mode 
We haven't run it for a bit as not many people were playing it and the overall experience was not what we wanted for those playing.
Q When is DS5 
Later this year, no firm date as yet but we will have it the story does go on
Ok before we end the Devchat thankyou all for attending and your questions. I want to wrap up by saying I hope you all enjoy the Unleashed Year of the Tiger event that will launch next week. And for the next season remember playing in each stage of the tour will help you maximize the cars you unlock in each stop.
Category:Asphalt 9 Dev Chats