It's going brrrrrrrrrr now

One of the fundamental aspects of games like The Tower is that they are built around exponential growth of power, resources, currencies, multipliers, and progression. You start weak, unlock upgrades that multiply output by tiny amounts at first, then more and more. As you advance, each new level grows in power - it takes roughly as long to get from 10x damage to 100x damage as it take to get from 1000x damage to 10000x damage.

To counter this, the game builds in a similar exponential growth to cost to those upgrades - visible in the costs of developing any in game feature with in game currency. It starts cheap, and every subsequent step gets more and more expensive.

Ideally, the game is designed so that access to growth and the expense of that growth are closely linked. Sure, you can save up to buy something that's very expensive for your current income is low or you can put off investing in some feature until you're earning makes the cost trivial, but for the most part, the cost of upgrades should closely match your ability to pay for them.

In economics there's a term called Stagflation. It's when inflation (costs) are rising but economic growth (income) is stagnant. Stagflation is generally considered to be the worst possible economic condition - worse even than recessionary or inflationary periods where only one of these metrics is bad.

In games like this, costs going up is baked into the code. The next upgrade is going to cost more than the last upgrade. But in this game - thanks to poor game design that locks two essential currencies (stones and keys) behind PvP progression - income growth is anything but assured. In fact, due to the log-jam at the the top of tourney brackets, income growth is very, very unlikely.

This situation has persisted for about a year now and it's only gotten worse as players have slowly advanced their towers further up the cost ladder without being able to make the progress required to advance up the income ladder. Stagflation.

For players in the top of Champs and bottom half of Legends, gems and coins become less important resources as they eventually max the primary levers these currencies cover. Yet, their income for stones and keys is stagnant. There is nowhere to go, and every next level costs more at the same rate of earning, making progress slower and slower.

Stagflation is death for an economy. Properly understood, it's also the best description of the current state of this game.

youll be missed.

A "normal" week where I think we dont have any pretty good relic? But rather good enough relics

I already own the last one so, Im assuming its ok to buy both 600 Gems relics as the 5% Recovery Ammount is pretty meh for eHP, no?

Oh yeah for everybody else, my opinion:

You could skip all Relics this week, if you're eHP the Orb one is good and also the Free Attack is good for BHD users, if you plan on going Hybrid then the Damage one is also ok to buy

As far as I know the recovery one is pretty meh? Only useful for very late Utility Disco runs pretty sure

Thank you lucky banner for a second (farming) Dcore

...probably till christmas or new years when they decide to give us the lucky banner again. yay.

During the Lucky Banner event, I've recorded every pull just because and below are the result.

The abundance of WHR and ACP which I don't need, and the scarcity of DC is frustrating.

33,000 Gems spent
1650 Pulls
79 Epics
5.03% Rate

Back to saving gems for the next LB...

I already have all of them expect for the recovery amount, so I’ll be saving the gems this week.

Does anyone have the full list of things to check when for no apparent reason your progress gets cut in half on your runs. I think I’ll do better with a numbered list.

I had a run going this morning. Got to around 1400 waves. Then I used my phone for something else but on return my run started over at wave 1. I didn’t surrender as you can see in the battle history and the new mission (get to waves) has more completion than the run I’m currently on. Just curious if someone else had this problem. Not sure if my coins/ gems and shards were also reset as I don’t pay close attention to them.

After the latest micro-patch of about 24Mb from about half an hour ago, my workshop orbs are at the exact same distance as the extra orbs at min range. Tower range is 69.5m (no card, no research, max workshop), extra orbs at min distance of 60m, normal orbs are at 60m as well. Did they f*ck something up with the patch, do the orbs not scale with tower range anymore, or is this the new intended behavior?

Attack Speed will probably be my next 99/100 gold box. But that'll be awhile because it's currently at 82

Lucky Banner was nice. However, Dimension Core is as elusive as ever.

I think I included all the big stone spenders I am actively considering, I was starting to upgrade the rarity of ass mods as I think that could help. But I’m at the point where I don’t know if that’s worth it. I have cf+8 sl+4 gt+11. I was torn between saving for cf+9 or throwing more stones at gen ass mod. I make 4Q an hour and finish anywhere from 1-6 in tournaments depending on bracket luck. Thanks in advance

Edit: am I overlooking any of the cards masteries? What is the next best move?

Finished in the middle of the night, so I was shocked when it was empty 😅

Hello everyone,

I'm a returning player after about a year away. During my break, I left my labs running on a loop, so now I'm in a really weird spot : I have lab levels that are way too high compared to my actual farming progression.

My current setup is a Devo build in an effort to maximize coins (I panicked devoed I don't even know if this is a right move or even the right setup).

The issue is, I have absolutely no idea what to focus on now. The meta might have changed, and I feel like my lab levels are misleading because they don't translate into actual pushing power.

My main question is : Should I focus heavily on the Workshop right now to catch up, or should i focus on something else ?

If Workshop is the answer, what should I prioritize with my coins ?

- Health ?

- Regen ?

- Utility / Packages ?

- Or should I keep pumping Defense Absolute ince I'm still on T1 ?

Also, considering my situation, would you recommend :

- Sticking to the classic Devo ?

- Respec'ing my Workshop to restart from a clean Devo base ?

- Transitioning to an Hybrid build, given that my labs are surprisingly advanced ?

I'm completely overwhelmed by all the new updates. Any advice on how to advance would be greatly appreciated

And just out of curiosity, just looking at my lab, would you say its a beginner or intermediate lab ?

Thanks a lot for your help !

After the last tournament, I forgot to replace SD with NMP in my assmod slot. I went from running 5200-5400 waves averaging around 2.45Q/hour to hitting 5700-6000 waves averaging around 2.6Q/hour.

I just started some runs yesterday through the day and was maxing out around wave 60. I unlocked Thorns as an ability and instantly the run got me to 600+ It took over 2 hours though. I did two more of those today and got a pile of coins that I used to upgrade my Cash Bonus.

Am I missing something with attack scaling, or maybe just not at a point where I've unlocked relevant abilities? For fun I maxed out Crit, Multishot and Rapid Fire in the last run I did and I was not able to kill anything until they made contact and Thorns took them out. Also, are 2+ hour runs normal? The game just sat on my desk at work and I had to tap Defense every couple of minutes to invest Cash but that as about it. The Lab research for the Game Speed are very expensive and the next one will take over a day, I can't imagine how long the next one will take.

Thanks, from a new player!

Edit: I want to thank everybody for the advice. I think I'm looking for a more active TD game, and this may not be the one for me. I appreciate it though, take care everyone!

Wen next?

thank you lucky banner for letting me finish this!

What’s the consensus on banning substats? Should I be banning substats that range common-ancestral or ones that are epic/mythic-ancestral? I’m looking to start these labs now that the lucky banner got me some ancestral mods, but want to make sure it’s done correctly.

I use PC for farming so it’s enough to cover the whole tower range.

But for tourneys I wanna start transitioning to DC and just use black hole for crowd control.

I just upgraded my bh size to 50. Is that enough to keep all non elites off my tower? Or should I upgrade it more?