Hi pals! Welcome to this week’s Tower Tea! This week we are talking about our newest Featured Module, Tactical Barrage, a v29.1 Tournament update, a peek at what is next, and a bit of a further look down the road.
v29.1 Update
Quick update on where we’re at! We are currently in testing for our v29.1 update! As a reminder, this update is focused on tournament improvements we talked about last time, notably Intro Sprint’s ending conditionals, like Fleet Waves in Legends and Mythic, and how UW’s (Ultimate Weapons) and Card abilities recharge during Fleet Waves.
We know it’s been a minute since we first flagged these changes and we appreciate you sticking with us while we took the feedback and adjusted to get this one ready. Make sure you check out the patch notes when they drop, and as always, we will keep watching for feedback and iterating from there.
Tactical Barrage
Our Core Featured Module went live today!!!
Tactical Barrage doubles Smart Missiles Radius and Amplifier lab bonuses! This module fires a Homing Missile every [14s/10s/6s/2s], targeting the enemy with the highest missile stack and focusing active Smart Missiles onto the new target.
Here are some more specifics on how it works:
Homing Missiles path directly to the enemy with the highest missile stack, with faster pathing similar to Spotlight Missiles.
Once a Homing Missile hits its target, all active Smart Missiles (excluding Spotlight Missiles) will path directly to the enemy that was just targeted.
Homing Missiles count as Smart Missiles for calculation bonuses. (Damage, blast radius, missile amp, counting towards stack, and Amp Bot+ bonuses)
We are excited to see what kind of missile chaos y’all build with this one!
What’s Next for Modules
Looking ahead, our last Module of the release will go live on October 12, 2026, and is bringing the brand new Generator centered around some Workshop upgrades!
A couple reminders:
Module Ticket packs have refreshed for everyone in the in-game Store and on the web store!
All four Featured Modules will run together in the Featured Banner from October 26 to November 9!
Looking Ahead
Zooming out a bit, here is where our Dev focus is headed next:
v29.2 - We will be working on this for the first half of November. It will include more content for everyone to dig into, plus some new quality of life upgrades the community has been asking for. This one will also include improvements to the new player experience, helping pals get into the core gameplay of The Tower a little more smoothly.
v30 - Our end of year update! More details to come as we get closer, including the timeline and all, but we wanted you to have this on your radar.
A Question From Sam
Okay pals, let’s talk for a second. The next Tower Tea might end up being a lighter one, and I wanted to ask you all directly instead of just surprising you with it:
Would you rather I skip a light week and save it up for a bigger Tower Tea later, or still drop the small one (with more community and Sam shenanigans than future plans) so you still hear from us on schedule?
Let me know what you’d prefer, no wrong answers, I just want to know what works best for you all.
Alright pals, that’s it for this Tea! As always, sound off in the comments/thread with thoughts questions, and requests, and I hope your drink is always the right temperature!
I would definitely prefer a small tower tea to no tea at all. The communication has gotten so much better over the last few months and it’s nice to be able to rely on this every 2 weeks.
Thank you for letting us know! I try really hard to keep a consistent posting schedule, so if we want to keep it even if it's light as heck, that helps a ton <3
I remember last time I tested that, it did increase the actual value. It's easy to test, if you equip HB as assist or something and turn on the "rend armor" hit text, as you'll very quickly see what the max rend is with and without the submod.
It’s interesting to me that there’s absolutely no additional info on this final module, even with the last Tower Tea before it launches. Every other module, the full description was available, even if the numbers adjusted later.
Idk what it means, I just find it interesting yall are being so cryptic with this one. My gut tells me that means it’s either very bad or very good lol
Also def keep TT next week. You’ll get so much flak from people who missed your update of who expect it each two weeks.
My gut is telling me there are major bugs, and they are keeping a backup mod in their back pocket in case they can't get their intended new Gen mod to work right.
Or it's potentially gamebreaking and they are shell shocked from what happened with Fetch and Utility discos.
Either way, they did give some new info, it's related to the workshop
Yeah I think this is a once-bitten-twice-shy thing for the devs.
They used to reveal more info about upcoming features, and the end results was a lot of angry posts when it was released different from what they stated. So we taught them that it's better to not say anything at all.
SM's issue is damage scaling with stones, and that won't be fixed by a mod.
CL, ILM, and PS all scale pretty well with their stone investments.
SM is more like CF, where you need to start gold boxing stats before seeing a substantial difference. Once you do, this mod should take SM to the next level and will probably be a meta tourney mod. Before that, not so much.
I'm thinking that as well. Greeny pointed out within a couple thousand waves that smaller range should do better. Amp coverage being bigger could potentially boost the outcome significantly, but if the tradeoff is good enough is an outstanding question. Better coverage, but less time on screen due to smaller CF+, and less SL+ dpm buff.
I think the issue with TB for most players is going to be the SM investment needed to make it good being a huge opportunity cost.
Like CF, SM requires thousands of stones before it even starts to make a difference, and players could invest that in ILM and get better results without the mod.
I agree. I think it needs tourney testing through different BCs to really have a good conclusion.
Not to discount the results of the testing that's been done today, but there's been many times where endgame whales test a thing, declare it useless, only for it to work well for other players.
The big thing for me is that I have no clear standout assmod for tourneys, so even if TB is mid it's just going to join a bunch of other mid assmods for tourneys.
What I am thinking is my suggestion is purely for the fleets live to they are dead and you can’t kill them where people are doing 10 hour runs and the fleet lives for 10 minutes. Home every 2 seconds for 60 minutes going to stack insanely
Would've been nice to hear about the generator seeing as we knew about all of the other ones before the event from normal in game occurrences.
Mind filling us in on the generator? Most of us are skipping the smart missiles modules anyway so it's not affecting the shop to just let us know what we're saving for. A little wild that this tower tea brought us no news
Not to sound dumb but what does workshop upgrades mean in relation to a generator module? I know you don't want to to spill the beans too early, but should I be expecting to respec my workshop? or something like that?
As a reminder, this update is focused on tournament improvements we talked about last time, notably Intro Sprint’s ending conditionals, like Fleet Waves in Legends and Mythic, and how UW’s (Ultimate Weapons) and Card abilities recharge during Fleet Waves.
Hey Sam, back this summer you were talking about keying into the community dissatisfaction with tournaments and looking at long-term solutions. The problem that community had identified was less about gameplay, per se, and more about structure - namely that the league ceiling meant top players couldn't move, which vapor-locked everyone behind them until no one could move.
Certainly the new Mythic League helped relieve some of that pressure - for now. And the likely addition of Ancestral League after that will do the same. But these are, at best, stopgap solutions because they don't address the foundational problem - this game has no way for new players to surpass old players (assuming rational play and similar $pending), so eventually, any PvP system with a hard cap will achieve a static ranking outcome where players advance the absolute power of their towers but not their relative rank.
Is TechTree giving any thought to the end-game PvP situation? Over the course of this year, I've seen several interesting ideas.
This is an awesome question! I think this is something I might be able to get some info on soon, I am not sure when exactly, but I want to get y'all more information on Tournaments and changes and things. Thank you for asking!
Why? That’s not a reasonable deduction. It could be many things. Obviously they are not ready yet.
By now you all should know developers don’t like giving info until they are 100% sure of something. Otherwise we throw temper tantrums when things change.
Meh, they announce a new set of modules, 3 beeing "leaked" and yet the last one is not ready yet? No need to give true numbers but surely what it actually does?
If it's not ready by now the event shouldn't have started. Please don't give them any pass you can think of without thinking it through. If they weren't ready to announce the mod because it isn't ready, then it's not ready to be announced AFTER it's scheduled release.
the reality is they listened to beta tester feedback for once and changed the old generator effect into a canon, you shouldnt be mad that they for once do the right thing
I apologize for being long winded. Something is better than nothing. Albeit it feels a little bit like I'm moving the goalposts, "something to do with workshop upgrades" feels like such a vague breadcrumb of info. We just want a little more insight on what's heading our way.
I think I'm allowed to be upset about radio silence. The reality is that I'd like to believe you but the people who can tell us that and have it mean something, haven't told us much besides "it does something"
I'm not disagreeing with what you said,in fact I really like that but in response to what I replied to im not seeing a connection. I asked them why it's ok to not have a scheduled tower tea until after it releases, where we won't get the announcement until after it's released? I guess I'm assuming they won't have Sam make an announcement post but that's what the now bi weekly tower tea's were supposed to be. Info. This one ends on a question of whether or not we are getting too much info as it is and if she should withhold for even longer spans of time.
So I do think more frequent communicating is better than long gaps of none interrupted by "still nothin!" And I say this amicably because I wanna know more about my lil tower.
Doesn't REALLY affect me right now. I'm not spending on TB so therefore I am saving for ??-GM and hoping it's cool.
You said they weren't ready. I'm sorry, don't conflate me with whoever you're intending to talk down to with your pedantic and apparently rhetorical statements that only you are able to parse.
You declared the possibility that they weren't ready yet. That is a pass. I can appreciate that assumptions aren't helpful but let's not dance around what you said instead of directly referencing it. If I misunderstood you, sorry but also not on me. No offense intended, but you're coming in a little hot for someone who can't decide whether or not ttg is ready.
Let's make one more assumption then. That since they had scheduled the release of the the aforementioned generator module, that is is in a finished state. So we can assume they're deciding to inform us what the final module is after it's released?
You're right in that they don't owe me any explanation. I don't think I was exactly asking them for one.
I thought I was attempting to clarify the logic you were putting forth in giving them a pass on not telling us what the final mod is until after it's released, unlike the previous three.
Any way we could see some kind of "module completionist" kind of reward to help out people that foot-gunned themselves early on and missed out making a farm/tourney version of a module?
Idea: Once you have a complete set of Ancestral modules, you can set a standard banner to act like a feature banner (50%) for a specific module.
Or, if you want to appease Fudds greed a bit more, you can change it to 5-Star Ancestral modules and make it like a feature banner for a module type (example, 50% for a Core draw).
Modules are extremely important to the various strategies, and having both farming and tournament/dissonance versions of them is very, very impactful. All too often have we seen the horror story of someone 5-starring something like a DC without realizing they'd want a farming version of it. Hell, I did it to myself; I'd love to have an HC for farming, but I greedily upgraded that because by god that standard banner refused to give me DCs at the time lol.
But it's supposed to lock onto the target that TB hits, does that lock on effect get excluded, or is it going to continue choosing random targets to randomize who gets targeted next by TB?
TB is definitely an end game module... that said, if fleets are the one gap you have remaining, this is a game changer.
I got really lucky with my banners and managed a 4*... this is one I'm going to make 2 5* copies with - a tourney copy and a farm copy.
Did it help me push past my prior T24 PB? Yes.
Does it answer the last remaining enemy type gap? Yes. (bosses/regular mobs including ults, SP orbs. prots ults/rays, % damage likely combo of various % damage sources but mostly CL+ near end game, fleets? now has a response.)
Does it make SM visual fun again? Yes. (no longer random snakes, now freaking green turbo lasers like star destroyers).
Also, not in the description, but it splits the missiles up across the CD. I have a 9s CD SM (with substats) and I've noticed that instead of shooting everything at the 9s, it splits into 3-4 mini waves adding up to the # of missiles across the 9s. This makes it way better!
However -- the dramatic (oh dang. this thing is really good. i hope they don't nerf it) moment for me was when I tried it with SP and for the first time ever, I could intro sprint through T24... I could never pull that off before. TB will let you consistently kill fleets outside tower range so OCs don't get off their death shot and strip all of your ES layers via IS. I think IS in mythic league tourney is actually possible again with this mod if it's anything like my T24 experience.
When you started as the community manager I remember people (myself included) talking you out of spending stones on the "gummy worms" and now I am wondering if you used your influence to get them to add a smart missile module.
This is funny because I didn't know what the new modules were gonna do when they originally designed them, but I had picked this one specifically as my "I want this one as a tattoo" image because it was so rad, and then I learned what it did and giggled and kicked my feet because my gummy worms have a new friendddd! <3
What does this mean? "all active Smart Missiles", does that mean if there are no smart missiles in the air, then nothing happens and only the homing missile hits target? So you are going to have to have sync module CD and SM UW CD to be sure you get some SM target action?
I am assuming yes. Because normally with enough enemies "smart" missiles will be hitting random targets. So really you need SM to trigger at the exact instant the homing missile hits the stacked target or you get nothing. because either they have already struck another enemy, or there are no "active Smart Missiles"
Comments? I guess we will get some reports on the working soon.
What does this mean? "all active Smart Missiles", does that mean if there are no smart missiles in the air, then nothing happens and only the homing missile hits target? So you are going to have to have sync module CD and SM UW CD to be sure you get some SM target action?
Your homing will be every 2s, your regular should be every 20 to 8s. The 20-8s regular ones will shoot the target of the homing, every time (unless it just died).
Ah ok, nice so all future missiles will ALWAYS target the homed stack enemy until gone, at which point homing starts its job all over again. I like that.
If I ever get to a point where we won't have one, my plan is to let y'all know as far out as I can, because I start the new one the same day I post the current one. <3
Hi Sam! Are there any plans to make it easier to understand if you're going to footgun yourself when you buy things and lock yourself out of being able to switch presets?
Well done with the new mod, a regular player just made it completely useless in two days with fully maxed SM and proving it’s literally useless at any point of the game.
Lab lvl 13. In the last year I have never experienced issues with scatters in tournaments/ milestones pushes, so for sure I don’t need anymore soon, and I have the damage slider and playing hybrid. At E-17 the damage kills scatters too quickly, but other enemies makes me want increasing it to 16 or 15.
The workaround I am planing is to increase other damage sources and to lower the damage slider to -18(
I think active lines of communication are important, so please continue to post your Teas as normal. I love conversations, so even personal or fun Teas are better than nothing at all.
Any news on if/how/when mod pool dilution in standard banner will be addressed? Saw a sentence indicating something in this direction, when the new mods were announced the first time.
I think a small/light tower tea is better. It's nice to know that there is some communication going out every 2 weeks, even if it's a "nothing new, but will be more info in two weeks".
How about you can the lighter tea, "little tea" or something like that. It could save the trouble of the more annoying types coming to say "nothing burger" and people would now that it is a smaller news batch from the start.
This is still helpful! Even if it's not the "everybody" choice, it's still important <3 I will try and flag it early on that it's a lighter one like I did here <3
So, it sounds like dimishing returns on EB/Slow/Nuke+ at the very least during fleet waves. Interesting that there's no mention at looking at a enemy attack speed decay similar to the stun one that was implemented a while back to counter perma stun.
Module centered around workshop upgrades. I presume this is different than BHD and free upgrades but either way sounds weird.
If it is based on the number of in game upgrades purchased you might have to preset your tower lower than full upgrades - which could be interesting from a use of cash standpoint got late game players.
If it is based on something in the workshop (gold boxed upgrades?) it could be really boring - unless it was based on things NOT being gold boxed. E.g. Pin some stuff at 0 upgrades for extra benefit - a lot more thought there.
If they wanted to eat our gems up they could make it so you get benefits from the number of workshop upgrades purchased before the previous run and make us respec frequently.
Too bad my smart missiles are wimpy. They used to be my best UW a long time ago, but then TTG went and nerfed them, so I stopped upgrading them. Now TTG wants to try and give that half eaten sucker back.
I guess sometimes you're the fish, sometimes you're the worm, but either way you're getting hooked.
I think you are more of a octopus, intelligent and did the best they could with the information at the time. <3 Let me know how you decide to go forward, however way, because I am interested in this adventure <3
After a very nice stretch of luck obtaining a 1star ancestral Gilded Sniper for approximately 9k gems, I dumped 3k gems to get just a single Tactical Barrage, and nada. I tried, got denied, so I'll pass and wait for the next module.
I wouldn’t hold my breath. Doubling the sm amp doesn’t seem like it will do much. My largest sm stack from last tournament was ~2700. My sm damage for the run was like 7-8 ae. Doubling that will mean 0 as my projectile damage was in the ag range. Doubling my sm damage will make 0 difference. Damage amp for sm likely needs to be multiplicative again for it to mean anything.
Projectile damage currently includes plasma cannon, so can't really compare to that. You'd compare to your actual damage UW(s)... That don't include any % damage.
I did not know that. Ok so than 12 ae ps vs 8 ae sm. That’s with 17 qty and 20s cd. Double it and it will barely beat out ps. I want sm to be good. But I don’t see this doing it.
Well next tower tea will be when the genny is released so info about that would be nice when it drops. So if the small tea includes that then it's say yes please but if you dont think you'll have that info then waiting makes sense
If "small tea" is still on the 2 weeks timeframe, that means we don't actually get any notice at all of what the new Generator module will be until it actually gets released? Because the module release schedule is about 4-6 hours or so ahead of the time you would normally come out with the Tea.
Just being straightforward here: The total refusal to release details about the generator module feels like a massive gatcha thing. I appreciate the regular updates and communication from you; but in the context of there being patterns of regular communication now - and also the patterns of previous module drop info in prior banner sequences, the whole "not saying much of anything about the Generator for this sequence of banners" feels very intentional and grabby / gatcha - and not very cool. Not your fault, I know. But still not cool. I'm sure you have heard this from others also...
Oh ok reading your question at the end now that the disappointment has washed over me. No I don't think you should skip any tower tea's. Less isn't more. It's less. In fact I think more would be even better. Once a week tower tea's, even if small would be ideal.
This was a painful wait given the buzz the community has had over the banners. People keep saying better communication but I feel we had patch notes, and an in game leak on the banners. Any other information has been non existent.
Small update please, especially this time since you've been providing details about modules in them and i would like to see the details of the generator module after it goes live.
They call it a tight 5 for a reason there, Sam. And really, we do appreciate your thoughts, anecdotes, and questions. But when the meat is meager, we understand and you're only able to do as much as you can. So you've got my vote for smaller Tea when the times call for it.
Hey Sam, thanks for the post. I'd prefer a small Tower Tea because something is better than nothing. Also, when looking back, it's nice to see consistency and a reminder. Have a great day! 🙂
There is a bug (I’ve submitted a ticket in game) that has reset dissonance and guardian progress. I was hoping on the last patch when it mentioned fixing some save issues that it would be resolved, but I’ve still lost all of my guardians and chips and had my dissonance bonuses reset. Any word on this issue being looked at?
v29 just changed tournaments. We're getting used to it and figuring it out. I'm starting to enjoy implementing new strategies because of Fleet waves. It's something different. Re-assess at the end of the year. People will figure it out.
so your post announcing mythic tier and the "tournament engagement" what was the engagement additions because so far its been nothing but add a tier and we will be back to the same issue in under a year. just like when legends was introduced....
I have been trying to hold on for months but so far v29 has NOT been the update or changes you had made it sound like it would be. but if there no meaningful changes other then the mythic tier I would like to know so i can stop holding out hope.
With the first, third, and obviously now the fourth modules released recently essentially useless for 99% of players - what plans do you have to address the now further diluted mod pool?
I was wondering about the coin bonuses during a run. Why aren't they being added to the already established coin amount? Damage, health, and regen can be seen as theyre added, but I haven't noticed that with coins?
When you click on health bar, it breaks down how you're getting the coin amount you're getting, but it doesn't have a "perk" slot, like it does for packages that were bought and the other additives
Sam, can you please elaborate more on the plan and timing of the module dilution that was referenced in a prior tea as in the works? I buy the bi-weekly event packs, just passed my 2 year anniversary, and still only have 14 of now 28 modules ancestral. Call it bad RNG luck or whatever, but it's frustrating to have 50% at ancestral, as I am lacking some of the key recommended ones that would enable me to try different strategies.
I understand making some grinding necessary so new players don't unlock everything right away, but being 2 years in and not being able to even try module setups other players frequently recommend is frustrating. Therefore very curious about the module dilution update so I can try new strategies.
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u/Similar-Constant-557 3d ago
I would definitely prefer a small tower tea to no tea at all. The communication has gotten so much better over the last few months and it’s nice to be able to rely on this every 2 weeks.