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Bloons TD 6 v34.0 - Update Notes!

Available now for iOS, Android and Steam. Please restart your storefront or be patient if it does not appear for you, these updates can take some time to be rolled out to every region due to how the storefronts are set up.
Update video: https://youtu.be/xtwJ9rcP-9M

Key New Features
New Boss Bloon: Dreadbloon!From the dark underground depths to the skies above, Dreadbloon brings its signature connection to the subterranean to combat even the toughest of Monkey defenses. Destroy Dreadbloon’s earthen armor only to find a lead interior with new special properties - complete immunity to different Monkey Tower categories each time the armor reforms. Even Paragons in those categories are rendered temporarily harmless. As if that’s not enough, Dreadbloon also spawns resilient Rock Bloons each time a skull is reached and until its stone armor is destroyed, and these Rock Bloons are so fearsome that any Monkey set to strong targeting will feel taunted to attack the Rock Bloon before anything else. Watch out for Dreadbloon in upcoming weekly Boss events and win those prestigious Dreadbloon badges!
New Awesome
New Beginner Map: One Two Tree!A fun seasonal beginner map with an interesting twist! At certain rounds the trees are taken away to decorate Monkey homes leaving more space in which to build defenses. A bit like an automated Cornfield, but these plots also confer a handful of special properties to the Monkeys placed there. Pay attention to the colors and shapes on the billboard legend to help understand which Monkeys will benefit from each plot. This was a fun system to enable for use in maps, so we’ll plan to do more of this in the future and we also expect this will be heaps of fun for custom challenges - we look forward to seeing your ideas!New Hero Skin: Sleigh Churchill skinInspired by the work done in Bloons Pop, Churchill’s combat ready sleigh was an easy pick for a seasonal hero skin. We had heaps of fun with this voiceover recording; Kevin Orlando did an amazing job as always, and we promise we only made a couple of sleigh homonym puns!New Achievement: InvigorationNew Trophy Store ItemsGame & UI: Avatar 66 - Avatar of Wrath, Avatar 68 - Absolute ZeroCompetition Winning itemsBanner 24 - Boomerang Glaives by u/ReconScoutTeemoBanner 25 - Glyphs by u/PvtMagnuSLimited Time onlyCo-op - Fullscreen Sleighbells emoteBanana farm - Presents projectile swapNinja Monkey - Snowflake shuriken projectile swapDart Monkey - Snowballs projectile swapTack Shooter - Icicles and Snowflakes projectile swapAvatar 65 - Christmas wreath avatar (Obyn Wolf)Avatar 67 - Happy Holidays avatar (Etienne)Banner 23 - Seasons GreetingsNew CT Team Store itemsBuilding Props: Christmas Tree propTeam Banners: Team Banner 9 - Delicate Snowflake, Team Banner 10 - Roast BananaIcons: Alien Icon, Crown IconFrames: Bloon Frame, Military Frame
What’s Not Here - Yet!
Context and Reality Check2022 was a big year for the BTD6 team and Ninja Kiwi overall. Getting out of lockdowns and back to work in person was a huge gift and we were excited to build big and exciting updates. Both Geraldo and Contested Territory pushed the game into new design and technical areas, but also required additional post-launch work.From a team perspective, getting out of lockdowns and the return of travel also meant long overdue family reunions and we supported extended time off for those purposes without hesitation. In parallel, we also saw more sick leave this year as unsurprisingly cold and flu season hit us particularly hard in Auckland this year, causing significantly more time off for ill health during September and October. While we did plan more time and did one fewer update this year than last in order to make room for a huge end of year update, this important leave time did impact us more than expected and planned.Rather than delay the entire update, we decided to delay two elements so we could still bring the Dreadbloon, the One Two Tree map, Sleigh Churchill, and new Trophy and Team Store items out for holiday.Dark Dungeon Expert MapWe’ve been excited to respond to community requests for another difficult Expert map, especially with this excellent and inspiring community design. We implemented as designed and then iterated the room areas and path splits, in particular MOAB-class entering from two paths to prevent single path clustering. We riffed on the secret statue tower and included secrets and traps to match the dungeon theme and balance difficulty across modes and late game. These changes were producing a fantastic quality map but the nuances of the statue tower design, art, code, and QA made it compete for attention with the Beast Handler. At the point where we felt Beast Handler could still be delivered, we had to push Dark Dungeon to update 35 in the new year.Beast HandlerThis tower is very unique. The Beasts were completely different from any other mechanic in the game, and they of course required 15 new models and animation sets completely separate from the normal tower model and animations. Sharing more about the tower functionality than we have before, the Beasts were also designed to synergize, so several Handlers together would combine their Beasts in order to enable higher tier Beasts. Amazing art and animations were built, signature code was written and optimized, and design was iterated. In many ways, the Beast Handler was completed, bug tested, and nearly ready to release - nearly. Up until last week, we thought the changes were making progress, but ultimately during the last playtests of the week at both Auckland and Dundee offices, we agreed there was too much confusion with the combination system and how Beasts would interact with other Handlers. Ninja Kiwi has always cared about quality and providing our players with the best possible experience and the tower just didn’t feel like it was there. It wasn’t up to the standard we set ourselves and the standard we hold the game to. While we are extremely disappointed that we won’t be able to release a new tower this year, the team felt it was the right call to make as the Beast Handler was just not quite ready to be unleashed. This was a very difficult call after all the incredibly hard teamwork that was put in to get this done - for us to simply say that it is not yet ready to play. We can and will make this better but with the amount of revision needed, we are moving the Beast Handler out at least two updates to update 36 at the earliest. This is not a set date for the release, however. We are giving ourselves a few months to go back to the fundamental design and make sure we can make good on our commitment to quality. We will be working hard to get the Beast Handlers into your hands but we want to release a tower you all find enjoyable, challenging (in a good way!) and, most importantly, fun! We really appreciate the love and support you have all provided us with this year and we hope you will understand the decision we've made and why.
Game Changes / Additions
A number of localization fixes, especially centered around the newer Polish language option, thank you to everyone who offered their feedback on that.Advanced challenges & Time Attack tiles in CT will no longer earn XPFailed CT score submissions due to internet problems are now able to attempt to resubmitBoss Events now support multipliers to Boss Speed & Boss HP as an event ruleBoss Events now support paragon count limits as an event ruleCT Events now support splitting up tile degradation rules based on the tile typeCT Events rules now support the option of tiles going ‘stale’, not awarding any more points but still remaining captured - we’ve built out some systems to address issues players are having with how CT works currently and will be trying some things out in future now that the systems are in placeThe Trophy Store icon on the main menu will now display a notification when there are limited time items available that you don’t yet own
Bug Fixes & General Changes
Resolved an issue with placing certain towers near the top of the map preventing their model from loadingResolved a game crash on boost upgrading a hero that has already leveled past 10Save icon on maps should no longer interact with clicks as if it is it’s own separate buttonResolved a crash that could occur when exiting a custom input mode for a towerResolved an issue preventing first game launch without internet for no reasonResolved a number of map specific placement issuesResolved a crash that could occur when quickly entering and exiting from CTResolved an edge case with host re-joining lobby causing games to run in different modes for each playerResolved an issue where focus markers could remain on CT map after new event startResolved a noticeable lag spike on game saving the player profileResolved an issue with stacking model assets on CT island menuResolved an issue with store purchased relics & their regular counterparts sometimes not stacking togetherResolved an issue with CT King item restarting its full animation on every interactionResolved an issue that could occur with the pre-game prep knowledge spikes being removed if not hitting any BloonsResolved an issue with remaining Race Passes sometimes being unable to update display to the correct amount that you haveAdded ‘Teams’ icons to available player banners that are available from their TeamsResolved an issue where creating a paragon from the middle path T5 tower would recover cooldown instantlyResolved an issue where default hero skins were not initially displayed as a selectable hero skin choiceAll CT Team Store notification Pips should now be clearable by clicking on the itemsResolved an issue with the ‘Go to Trophy Store’ button instead saying ‘remove’ on banners you don't haveRemoved Hidden T-Posing Monkeys in the background easter egg that could occur when a menu is opened over the top of the Main Menu.Resolved some language filtering issuesOptimizations made to the Team Search / Quick Join search resultsResolved some low framerate issues on specific pixel devicesResolved an issue with Monkey Team rewards not visually displaying for all players in co-opResolved a crash that could occur when purchasing race passes on the pause menuResolved a crash that could occur when loading a save with a necromancer in an odysseyResolved some menu UI situations that displayed a blackened out backgroundPotentially fixed that old crooked medal visual bug that still gets reported a lotA number of behind the scenes optimizations
Dart Monkey
Resolved niche cases in which Juggernaut’s projectiles would not properly be able to hit targets again after rebounds
Boomerang Monkey
5xx Glaive Lord DoT can no longer be applied to DDTs from a camo village without being able to deal damage to lead
Tack Shooter
Inferno Ring should now swap to 'first' target on upgrade purchase
Monkey Ace
Resolved an issue with Goliath doomship degree 100 end trail fx were being culled from the simulation incorrectly
Heli Pilot
Comanche xx4 upgrade damage should no longer incorrectly change with crosspathing
Super Monkey
5xx True Sun God resolved a potential Co-op error on purchasing upgrade4xx & 5xx Super Monkeys should no longer attack during upgrade animation
Captain Churchill
Captain Churchill's Tank Drop Trophy Store item's animation now works correctly again
Adora
Resolved an issue with Vengeful Adora projectile assets not correctly displaying
Etienne
Resolved an error where Etienne would not record all stats correctly to your profileLv3 Drone Swarm ability now has a forced expiration after the drone swarm duration +10s to prevent them getting stuckETn beam down animation should now play correctly on loading a save
Platform Specific fixes
Windows Store: Resolved a crash that could occur on saveEpic version: Webview now supports Linking CodesApple Arcade: Monkey Names trophy item is no longer available for Child AccountsApple Arcade: Resolved an infinite loading screen some users could come acrossApple Arcade: Resolved an issue with Save Slot 3 not saving to iCloud when using multiple devices logged into the same iCloud accountApple Arcade: Resolved an issue with fresh local saves not conflicting with remote savesApple Arcade: New UI to notify players of their iCloud account's enabled/disabled stateMacOS: can no longer set game resolution to smaller than 800 x 600 since it cannot properly support a resolution that smallMacOS: Resolved a game softlock on initial loading screen after selecting new cloud data on older version of the gameResolved a crash that could occur on certain iOS devicesResolved a map compression issue for the Alpine Run map on Android devices.

Balance Changes

For a full breakdown of the balance changes in update 34.0, please check out the update notes on Reddit


Looking Forward

While we need to look at our planning overall and learn from the places where we bit off more than we could chew, we’re still planning on incredible updates for next year!
Console: we’ve made great progress on the Xbox and Playstation versions of BTD6, and we will have these released as early next year as possible given the approval process on these platforms; we’ll update on this as we have meaningful news but we can tell you that 4 player couch co-op is truly awesomer!Update 35: we need these first updates of the year to be smaller so the team can rest and relax over the holidays, but we will have Dark Dungeon and as much extra as we can squeeze inUpdate 36: we’ll be pushing to have Beast Handler ready for this update but we’ll continue to hold it until it’s ready; there will be extra awesome here as well but still juggling whether that would be a Paragon or BossKey Goals: we’re still brainstorming and pitching ideas for next year so there will be more than the list below but these are areas where we are excited to build new awesomeQuests: both as events and as a player-paced progression system, we’re already underway with a system to support multiple linked games with short narratives and special rewardsNew Heroes, Paragons, and Bosses: with particular focus on new mechanics, challenge variety, and exciting visualsNew Team Events and Features: more ways for Teams to play, compete, and have fun together, focusing on skill rather than grind, as well as new Team tools to help find like-minded players and safely communicateCreators: improved coordination around releases, creator events, and expanding the creator code programMap Editor and Player Creators: a fully functional in-game map creation tool with a curation pipeline is a huge goal; we’ll attempt to build this in stages so we can get more frequent community feedback about what should come next2023 and Beyond: we’ll start working on these pieces in 2023 but we’re not sure whether they will land in 2023 or afterMod support: whether via direct support or 3rd party tools, we’ll be developing better ways for modders to have fun with the game while improving the tracking and compartmentalizing of mod-based play to alleviate friction with accounts, main game progress, and fair competitive playTower & Bloon Editor: potentially overlapping with mod support, we’ll continue working on ways to play and have fun tweaking existing Monkey Towers and Bloons, and ultimately create a safely curated pipeline for new Tower and Bloon ideasPlayer Creator payback: a challenge on the technical, legal, and financial fronts, we still think that it’s important to share back with player creators if they help create valuable content for others. We love the idea that someone might get into game design and development because of the work they started in BTD6 or that others might be able to make a little bit of extra money and make their lives better by playfully working on a game they already enjoy. This is a massive challenge but we like the old wisdom that rising tides should lift all boats, and we know Admiral Brickell agrees.
And finally, Happy Holidays! We absolutely love this game and working together as a team on it. We are so thankful to our players, our community, the content creators and the added entertainment they create, the player creators who push gameplay even further, and the amazing fan art, ideas, and questions that inspire us to do our best. We have huge plans for where to take Bloons TD 6 and we hope you all will keep playing and have fun helping us get there. Let’s all plan on having a very happy 2023 together as we look for more ways to involve the community in our vision and plans for where we go next, and until then please know that everyone at Ninja Kiwi wishes you the absolute best for a restful and playful holiday season!