Updated, from in game mail:

Attention Commander, Over the past few weeks, we have been working on multiple fixes, improvements, and features to enhance XCOM experience. Let's talk about what we have for you.

GAME

• First, let's go over the biggest addition, Starting with this version, the new Event system will be available for everyone. All event-related interactions will live in the Event Center, which is accessible from Geoscape. Participate in Event Challenge, Alliance Boss Tournaments, and selected Archway Assaults to earn Event Crystals. Use this new currency to get unique rewards from the Event Exchange. Listening to your feedback, we have extended Hero Filter system to include roles, classes and factions. You can now easily create hero and skill synergies with these advanced interface elements at the pre-Battle screen.
• We have enhanced the Campaign Rewards system by distributing resources throughout various sections of the Campaigns. Battle your way through the campaign to get them.
• To avoid confusion inside the company (also inside the community) we decided to rename multiple game modes and currencies, Missions are now called Quests, Event Milestones are Challenges. And the Alliance Boss Tournament has a new fitting name as well. Almost all resources have been renamed to reflect the function. All usable resources fall into one of the particular categories; Chips, Points, Fragments, Tickets, Stockpiles, and Cores.
• Always in iteration, the formula for valor calculation in Shadow Arena has been updated again! Attacker and defender valor gains and losses are now determined dynamically in relation to the combat power difference between attacker and defender.
• This one has been a topic for a while now; We have shortened the introduction sequence at game start for immediate transition to the gameplay. Since we have managed to ship major features at the previous versions, it's time for more polishing. We have taken it upon ourselves to improve multiple visual effects of characters and in game effects, notably our latest release; Minx.
• As part of the Task feature rebalancing, some Weekly and Monthly tasks would be in a state where they would not be completed for the new players. To prevent any impediment to the player progress we have removed them; Weekly and Monthly tasks will be readded to the game as time limited quests in the next version, 0.21.

BALANCE

• Since our players share our love for Strategic Battles; we have added two additional ones for every chapter after 7 and rebalanced the existing ones for the purposes of faster and more tactical gameplay.
• Always helpful throughout the game, our shop keeper at Black Market restocked inventory. Check out the market for new goodies and prices.
• To make it fairer for everybody, the reward milestones in Alliance Boss Tournaments are now based on the amount of attacks instead of points/damage.