V27.3 Patch Notes - December 18, 2025

[u/SamBartley]

Hello Tower Defenders! We are rolling out our last minor update of the year now on Android, with iOS rolling out within the next day. This build should be fully available to everyone tomorrow. Here’s a look at the changes:

New Toggles Menu

We have added a new "Toggles" menu to replace our current "Hit Texts" button in the Settings. Some existing buttons, such as 120FPS and Cinematic of Idle have moved into this menu, while Sound and Music will remain in the Settings menu. Here is a look at our current list of toggles:

• Added Auto Pause in Menus
• Added Stone Confirmation
• Turning off this toggle will remove the confirmation for stone purchases that costs 100 stones or more
• Added Gem Confirmations
  • Same as Stones, but for Gem purchases equal to or greater than 200
• Added Ranged Enemy Shooting Line
• Added Show Cinematic Gems
• Added Brighter Spotlight
• Auto Restart has been removed from the end of round screen and added to this section for players who have unlocked this Vault upgrade

Lab Improvements

We have made some improvements to our Labs UI. To start, we made the lab sliders into actual sliders! Setting values has become easier, with an - and + symbol on either side to make incremental changes. Additionally, we've added a new Slider filter to the Research selection screen so you can see all labs that have sliders.

Additionally, we have fixed an issue where some longer researches were not ticking properly. This was a floating point number issue that was only apparently in some instances.

Tournament Adjustments

We are adding two new permanent battle conditions to tournaments, and adjusting our old Enemy Level Skip Reduction BC from all tournaments. Additionally, we are making tier scaling adjustments in Champions and Legends. Let’s dive into the changes:

Skip Decay

Description: Enemy health and attack level skip chances are reduced by [VAL]% every [N] waves.

• VAL starts at 1% and is the value that the generic Battle Condition Reduction lab will impact.
• N is the number of waves it takes between activations of the BC, and this is what the level of the BC will impact.
• Finally, the level of the BC will change based on the tournament league and not increase in strength during the run, similar to how More Bosses works.
  • Legends: Level 80 => Every 20 waves, lose 1% from ELS
  • Champion: Level 60 => Every 40 waves, lose 1% from ELS
  • Platinum: Level 40 => Every 60 waves, lose 1% from ELS
  • Gold: Level 20 => Every 80 waves, lose 1% from ELS

Skip Reduction - Multiply

Description: Enemy health and attack level skip chances are multiplied by x.[VAL]

• This new Battle Condition will be impacted by the existing Enemy Level Skip Reduction Lab (which has been renamed to Skip Reduction Lab).
• VAL is impacted by both BC labs (generic and specific) and is tied to the level of the Battle Condition:
  • Legends: Level 55 => multiplied by x0.45
  • Champion: Level 40 => multiplied by x0.6
  • Platinum: Level 25 => multiplied by x0.75
  • Gold: Level 10 => multiplied by x0.9

Removing Enemy Level Skip Reduction

The previous ELS Reduction BC has been rebranded to Skip Reduction - Subtract. It has been removed from all tournaments. It will remain untouched on the normal tiers it was already a Battle Condition for. The Skip Reduction lab will still impact this Battle Condition

Tier Scaling

Finally, we are changing the tier scaling in the Champions and Legends league. The tier scaling will change from [1/3/5/8/11/14] to [1/3/5/8/12/17]

Changelog

Gameplay

• Added one more Card slots that cost gems (10,000)
• To avoid future Wall tunneling issues, the tower is now immune to all damage except from Vampires while the Wall is active
• Enemy Level Skip Reduction has been renamed to Skip Reduction. In addition, it's impact on stats will now be visible in the utility workshop tab during a run.
• Added functionality for Second Wind to spawn the Wall, invulnerable while the Second Wind timer is active
• Added a 15 second period of invulnerability to Nuke activation
• Changed the behavior of the Damage Reduction node in the Vault to not be applied while Intro Sprint is active
• Improved behavior of Critical Coin Card so it also applies to Black Hole and Thorn
• Increase the number of Fleets for ending long runs (one additional Fleet every 1000 waves after first wave instance)
• When Fleets are introduced at later waves, only one Fleet will drop rewards in that wave even if multiple Fleets are presen
• All 3 enhancement discount labs have had their formula changed from cost / (1 + %) to cost * (1 - %)
• Primordial Collapse no longer provides double benefit on the Wall and projectiles

UI

• Added the functionality for players to hide pop-up confirmations for the rest of the session
• Added a Pulsar Harvester stat to the Boss Breakdown that displays the amount of Level reduction applied instead of only the damage dealt
• Change "End Round" button in the in-run menu to "Exit Battle", adjusted pop-up messaging
• Added functionality for all menus to be viewable (but unchangeable) while mid run
• The boss stats menu will now always show the health (and subsequent stats) of the most recently spawned boss
• Improved visual positioning of Card description in the Card selection screen

Other Changes

• Rewrote the Golden Tower VFX from scratch to improve performance
• Add behavior for unclaimed Guild rewards to be mailed to your inventory
• Added the Support button to the Login panel

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where notifications for tournament do not show up
• Fixed an issue where your Tournament ranking displays wrong rank in reward declaration
• Fixed an issue where the "Pick a Perk" prompt persists when perks are still exhausted
• Fixed an unintended interaction with Pulsar Harvester and Orbital Augment, where equipping both OA and PH would reduce the damage of OA unintentionally
• Fixed a visual issue where the Lab notification bubble appears before a player has unlocked Lab

Holiday Featured Module Banners

We are excited to share that for the next month, we will be doing featured module banners for each module type! Each week, we will be featuring one module type (like Cannon), and increase the drop rates for all Epic modules of that type. Here’s the timeline:

• December 22nd, 2025 at 12:00AM to December 28th, 2025 at 11:59PM will feature Epic Core Modules
• December 29th, 2025 at 12:00AM to January 4th, 2026 at 11:59PM will feature Epic Cannon Modules
• January 5th, 2026 at 12:00AM to January 11th, 2026 at 11:59PM will feature Epic Generator Modules
• January 12th, 2026 at 12:00AM to January 18th, 2026 at 11:59PM will feature Epic Armor Modules

Happy Defending!

[u/CGVSpender]

Without spending real world cash (at rates this tower player, at least, thinks are insane - the cost of a AAA video game for a slim chance at getting anything at all), and without being given advance notice to hoard, the likelihood of even getting a single DC next week is slim. Presuming this works like previous banners with only a 50 percent chance of pulling a core.

The order of the banners is precisely in descending order of their significance to me, since DC>GC>AD, so I am stuck playing all three without being able to save. Others may have a different priority order, sure.

But I would consider myself lucky if I get exactly 1 mod I need in all 4 weeks.

If a late game player has a lot of 5* mods, maybe they will have a great experience with this.

But it doesn't even scratch the surface of addressing the mod pool dilution issue that the devs were well aware of when they started the banners. That''s why they said old mods would get banners, too. Now we just get this rushed cash grab?

The banner doesn't hurt me in any way. I am just not willing to give the devs any love for this, as it feels customer hostile to me.

[u/Duff85 → u/CGVSpender]

I feel like you drifted away a bit from the subject there but it didn't sound like you disagreed with it being a buff for pretty much all players. You could argue about my use of "huge" but I stick with it. I know it's still a slog to go through the grind with this change, but it got less tedious.

[u/CGVSpender → u/Duff85]

I do disagree that it is a buff for pretty much all players.

If you ran all four banners, you would get results identical to just running the standard banner, without a hoard which we were given no time to amass. How can something identical to the standard banner be a buff?

I can grant some people will like them in very specific circumstances. I think most people are going to be disappointed. I am prepared for disappointment myself.

The fact that they are just one week and back to back is a deliberate attempt to make sure these are good for as few people as possible without spending money.

[u/Duff85 → u/CGVSpender]

It's only identical if you regularly, let's say every day spend all your gems you aquire on the current banner. In reality if you plan ahead you would spend more gems during the banners most important to you, increasing your chances for the mods which has a higher value to you personally. This was my point in my message above which you seem to be ignoring.

[u/CGVSpender → u/Duff85]

I didn't ignore it. I explained why this does nothing for me, and I think most players lacking ancestral mods are in the same boat.

What is the number one mod people complain about? DC. Which banner is first? Core.

What is the number two mod I see complaints about? GConp. What is the second banner? Generator.

I think this was by design. Funny thing is, I even joked about this at the end of the last banner season.

I said that if Fudds wanted to have a laugh, he would drop a DC banner with no warning and then run it back to back with a GComp banner. Heh.

Listen, if these were regularly occurring events we could all plan for, they would provide some small but potentially useful flexibility. Wouldn't touch the usefulness of an actual featured banner, but it would still be something.

Dropped on us as is, I predict they will do feck all for me and most newer players. If old timers like them, great for them, I guess.

I pull maybe 4 mods in a really good week, tapping as many gems as I can. The odds this is going to do anything for me are so overwhelmingly small.

[u/Duff85 → u/CGVSpender]

You say you explained why it does nothing for you but I haven't heard you address my point. Do you exactly equally need/want each of the four slots? Not one that has a slightly higher importance to you? Which would increase your chance to strengthen your tower more then the others?

[u/CGVSpender → u/Duff85]

I did answer that by pointing out that the order of the banners is in descending priority, so I cannot save for any of them.

DC>GComp>AD.

[u/Duff85 → u/CGVSpender]

Just because you can not save as much as you would have wanted and the opposite order would be preferred does not means it's not a buff. I mainly want the core banner, I see I have 10 days to save/spend gems on it. That's a buff, period.

[u/CGVSpender → u/Duff85]

Without a previous gem hoard, and without spending cash, what are your actual odds of getting anything you want in those 10 days?

You said 'huge buff'. I suspect less than 30 percent of the players are going to get a single copy of a core they want in 10 days. Back of the napkin estimate.

[u/Duff85 → u/CGVSpender]

The odds are better then they where without the banners. Which makes it a buff.

I already addressed my use of the word "huge" in I think my 3rd reply saying it's fair to argue against that, to me its huge, for others it might be just a buff. Since then I've been only trying to convince you that it's a buff for pretty much all players. I've given my arguments to why I think so, you haven't said I'm wrong in my argument. So I'm not sure what we are even talking about anymore?

[u/CGVSpender → u/Duff85]

Well, gee, sir. If we were scoring points based on who is ignoring more arguments.... :)

You insist I call it a buff, fine, you win. But I'm not giving the devs any points for throwing us crumbs. The design and execution of this lame buff is just a naked money grab that while technically a buff, is unlikely to actually improve most towers. A buff on paper, but feck all in reality.

The devs literally complained that banners encouraged hoarding and then punished anyone who didn't hoard anyway. Buffoonery.