Bloons TD 6 — Bloons TD 6 - Version 44.0 Update Notes! release notes

Update: Bloons TD 6 v44.0 - Update Notes!

Available now 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/cb22AG0JIVw

Key New Features

New Tower, fresh out of MONKLANTIS, the Mermonkey!
Smash them with abyssal tentacly creatures, freeze and wash them away with enchanted waves, and lead them astray with mystical melodies! The Bloons will tremble at the might of the Sea, even on land!
Players have been asking about new towers and the community has suggested the existence of a Mermonkey since BTD5, so yes we’ve done it! We are committed to adding new towers to the game when we see genuine spaces for unique tower design and gaps in existing tower synergies, especially in different game modes and Events. Mermonkey adds a valuable water tower outside of the Military category, and the designs relating to range from target, buffs, and ice synergy are intended to spark new placement strategies, fun combos, and interesting tier list discussions
Mermonkey starts as a low range amphibious tower with a large vision increase when placed in water. They throw a single trident that pierces twice and can damage up to 3 Bloons each time it does, making it effective during earlier dense rounds where this can overlap. Crosspathing choices include Attack & Projectile Speed, AoE & Freezing, or Seeking & Vision
Top path Mermonkey fights side by side with a mysterious sea creature that attacks in all directions, slows Bloons down with inky tridents, and enhances all towers within a radius with a percentage pierce increase
Middle path attacks with freezing waves that grow larger and more powerful the further they travel, with the wave eventually crashing to form a unique T-shaped attack! They deal increased damage to any Frozen targets, and with the Ice Jet ability, fire a quick barrage of bouncing ice projectiles
Bottom Path lures Bloons off track with an irresistible melody to dance around the Mermonkey for a short time while also detonating any damage-over-time effects on those Bloons to deal all the remaining DoT immediately
Final note for PC players; We plan to continue working on new towers after Mermonkey, and as we grow closer to maxing out standard keyboard space for reasonable hotkeys we realize it’s not going to be viable to start shuffling these around every time to maintain anymore. So we have decided not to assign any default hotkey for new towers going forward, however we have added the space for a hotkey to be assigned manually within the hotkeys menu.

New Awesome

New Hero Skin, Dreamstate Psi
Drift off into pleasant Bloon-popping dreams with the adorable new Dreamstate Psi skin. Cozy gameplay guaranteed!
New Intermediate Map, Luminous Cove
A mysterious cove with deep connections to Mermonkey kind. Help defend this ancient refuge against a two-path Bloon assault to uncover the secrets of these mystical, melodious Monkeys.
New Trial Quests! Both of these quests will allow players use of the towers even before unlocking them
Mermonkeys, Not Mere Monkeys - Learn about and trial the Mermonkey tower
Super Dartling Bros - Learn about and trial the Dartling Gunner tower
New Trophy Store Items
Monkeys: Safety Mole mortar pet, with a tip of the helmet to our new friends and colleagues from Legion TD 2
Bloons: Clown Wigs Bloons
Co-op: I’m The Problem text emote
Game & UI: Rosalia avatar
New CT Team Store items
Water Props: Adventure Whale

Game Changes / Additions

The Alternate Bloon Rounds round set has increased from 100 to 140 preset rounds, putting more All in Alternate
Tower Unlock System
We recognize that we have been inconsistent with how “new” Monkey Towers become available and want to streamline this going forward. Dartling Gunner’s more passive unlock giftbox has been reworked into a proper Tower unlock system, where all “new” Towers can be accessed in each player’s preferred order via pop count thresholds.
So that we can stop putting air quotes around “new”, we mean all Monkey Towers added after the Engineer: Dartling Gunner, Beast Handler, and Mermonkey…
All unlocked towers through older methods will stay unlocked, so there is no need to worry about having to unlock towers again.
Any Trial quests for Monkey Towers will now be optional tutorials and will allow you to play with the Tower before accessing it, but they will not permanently access the tower for you
Each of the 3 new Monkey Towers also comes with their own optional IAP available for players who want to start using the new Towers straight away or who like custom items. Each IAP immediately accesses the Tower, unlocks all upgrades through tier 5, and also comes with valuable exclusive items: a tier 5 insta for each path (5xx, x5x, and xx5), a custom profile banner, and a custom avatar themed around the related Tower
Map Unlock System
Our launch map unlock system became a constraint on design and players with requirements trickling down from the number of Beginner maps, so this system has been replaced with a much simpler ‘Full Category Unlocks’ system.
Each category (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert) of maps will now require a total number of map wins from any other category in order to be permanently unlocked for all current and future maps within that category.
Intermediate: Unlocked after 5 unique map wins
Advanced: Unlocked after 12 unique map wins
Expert: Unlocked after 20 unique map wins
Unfortunately, we were not able to implement Retry Last Round for Co-op CHIMPS for this update. We have been trying to get this in for 44 but have run into unexpected problems that cannot be resolved in time, so we hope to have this ready for update 45.

Mod Users

Many players forget to remove mods when swapping back to their main account or otherwise intentionally use mods on their main accounts. This often leaves behind invisible data traces that can build up and cause conflicts and/or even brick accounts.

Previously, we attempted to prevent this account damage by turning off account saving whenever mods were detected, but as the mods themselves disable this feature anyway we’ve changed this to a warning prompt with the options: Close Game, Continue (at your own risk), or Logout.
Please create an alternate account if you wish to try out any mods. If you come across this warning when you are not intending to use any, then immediately close the game and confirm that you have disabled them.

Bug Fixes & General Changes

Track arrows now get destroyed immediately when the round starts
Resolved a crash that could occur when loading into a co-op game
Cleaned up the hitbox size of the ‘Named Monkeys’ section of player profiles
Resolved a crash that could occur when attempting to load remote data
Resolved a number of aspect ratio related UI issues
Added a scrolling indicator to the Heroes menu
Team Banner sizes adjusted to remove stretching
Resolved a number of edge case crashes
Development fixes, just for us, nothing behind the curtain

Event changes

Improved visuals of Dreadbloon’s ‘dash’ in Boss Rush
Resolved an issue where immediately entering the Social menu after launching the game could fail to load the CT Event and Co-op Daily Challenge
Odysseys should no longer break when the same map is set multiple islands in a row
Time Attack tiles in CT no longer reward Monkey Money unless the tile is captured
Resolved a number of visual issues with Boss Shields/Damage states in Boss Rush
Resolved an issue where CT could display some relics as available for teams that don’t actually have access to them
Bosses should no longer display bugged visuals when spawning the same tier again after being destroyed
Resolved Boss Rush sometimes showing incorrect error messages when failing to load
Boss Events may now have different scoring types set for normal compared to elite
Teams menu should now only show a boss in the background if Boss Rush is active
Lych’s healing should no longer be able to overflow
Improved art in Dreadblon & Lych’s 3D boss menus
Improved water ripple visuals in the Teams menu

Map Specific changes

Fixed some incorrect blocking on Glacial Trail
Resolved an issue where Ravine's Sword could be refreshed
Castle Revenge default music track changed to 'Jazz Theme'
Sulfur Springs default music track changed to 'Tribes and Tribulations'
Changes made to tower height level on Flooded Valley after flooding the valley

Tower Specific Fixes

Tack Shooter

5xx meteor explosion no longer hits camo without detection

Ice Monkey

Bloons Frozen by Snowstorm or Absolute Zero should now function correctly when distracted or knocked back

Sniper Monkey

5xx Cripple Moab explosion no longer hits camo without detection

Monkey Sub

5xx Energizer should now correctly display a buff icon on x4x Beast Handlers

Monkey Buccaneer

5xx Carrier Flagship planes should no longer occasionally pause attacks for no reason
xx4 Favoured Trades now has a buff icon for its Sellback Rate discount

Heli Pilot

013 MOAB Shove should again correctly increase pushback amount

Druid

4xx Ball Lightning can no longer freeze White Bloons

Spike Factory

042 Spike Storm should now react to the current track on Workshop, rather than the one that was active when its last upgrade was purchased

Engineer

Placing a Master Builder turret at the very bottom of the screen should no longer crash

Hero Specific Fixes

Adora

Adora can no longer Blood Sacrifice an Arctic Wind that is supporting her on water

Sauda

Lv3 Leaping Sword should no longer fail to target when intended target is popped early

Geraldo

Changing ownership in co-op after a player has left the game should no longer prevent Geraldo from placing Rabbits
Resolved a number of issues with buffs not being correctly removed when upgrading Dart Monkeys with a Worn Hero’s Cape

Rosalia

Lv3 Scatter Missile should no longer target the workshop base if the intended target is completely destroyed at the same time as the ability is fired
Price buff icons should no longer disappear without enough cash to buy an upgrade
Lv7 Ace/Heli Flight Speed buff now correctly expires
Lv10 Kinetic Charge should no longer sometimes immediately explode when activated

Platform Specific fixes

The ‘Reset Cooldowns’ sandbox button should now correctly restore Geraldo’s item stock when activated from the hotkey
Fixes to a softlock that could occur for some on players launching the game
Resolved issues with displaying correct Game Center player name
Resolved a blank screen appearing before the Netflix splash screen on launch
Game title should no longer fail to localize when device language changes to a non-English supported language

Balance Changes

This update we have kept to a sweep of only simpler balance changes in order to focus more directly on the development of other big features including Mermonkey and content coming in future updates, and although simple we still have quite a lot to go through. We are slowly dialing back some of the more excessive power creep while keeping a mix of mostly positive feeling changes as well, in order to pull back the top end of power while raising up the lower end as well over time.

Tower Balance

Dart Monkey

Spike-o-pult’s piercing power in the extreme conditions is too cost effective compared to the Juggernaut so we’re tweaking these slightly to keep Juggernaut as a proper upgrade in Races. Crossbow Master is shuffling around to a higher damage point that should work more effectively with top path’s pierce

3xx Spike-o-pult pierce decreased from 22 > 18
4xx Juggernaut pierce increased from 50 > 60
xx5 Crossbow Master attack cooldown increased from 0.16 > 0.24
xx5 Crossbow Master damage increased from 6 > 8
xx5 Crossbow Master crit damage increased from 50 > 80
105 Crossbow Master pierce increased from 14 > 16
205 Crossbow Master pierce increased from 21 > 24

Boomerang Monkey

The MOAB Press top crosspath is the ‘better’ crosspath for most cases due to having more than double the pierce as well as a stronger knockback amount on a tower that most effectively uses high pierce, as this is one of the better support towers in the game we are reducing that superior crosspath without nerfing the lesser one to even this more.

104 MOAB Press crosspath pierce benefit reduced from 100 > 60
204 MOAB Press crosspath pierce benefit reduced from 220 > 120
Carries up to higher tiers

Bomb Shooter

Base bomb price is now also lowering to allow more starting combinations to utilize it, this reduced price is moving up only into MOAB Assassin. MOAB Eliminator has solidified itself quite a strong position so price is increasing here, however as it still appears lacking Bomb Blitz which still is swapping with that cheaper price point. For a crosspathing trial we’re removing the limits on Frags buffability & also giving more of a range boost to Extra Range.

Bomb Shooter price reduced from $525 > 375
1xx Bigger Bombs price reduced from $350 > 250
3xx Really Big Bombs pierce increased from 60 > 80
x4x MOAB Assassin price increased from $3100 > 3350
x5x MOAB Eliminator price increased from $25,500 > $28,000
xx1 Extra Range bonus range increased from 7 > 12
xx2 Frag Bombs damage is now uncapped
xx2 Frag Bombs pierce is now uncapped
xx5 Bomb Blitz price reduced from $28,000 > $25,500

Tack Shooter

For a tower that functions best close-up anyway increasing range has questionable viability, Tack Shooter’s middle crosspath has always struggled due to this so we’ve decided to try out a more considerable pierce increase.

x2x Super Range Tacks now increases pierce by 1 > 3
x3x Blade Shooter pierce unchanged
420 Ring of Fire pierce unchanged

Ice Monkey

Adding a lesser MOAB-Benefit to Icicles, leading into the stronger T5 Anti-MOAB capability

xx4 Icicles deals bonus damage to MOABs +8

Glue Gunner

Majority of Glue Gunner projectile eject points have been moved around to improve accuracy of their attacks. As the 20s active window for Glue Storm was a very important breakpoint for it to hit in the higher rounds; we've restored this duration but instead increased the ability cooldown by a larger amount as more gameplay strategy and synergies can be used to counter long durations. Small price increase for Relentless Glue as it’s just actually good now lol.

Glue Gunner projectile eject points moved for most upgrades
x5x Glue Storm ability duration increased from 15 > 20s
x5x Glue Storm ability cooldown increased from 30 > 40s
xx4 Relentless Glue price increased from $3400 > $4000

Sniper Monkey

Geraldo was the main power carry for Bouncing Bullet so performance has continued to drop with Geraldo synergies being less powerful now, but the save-up window from shrapnel into bouncing bullet has always been an annoying one so we’re happy to lower the price further to make this easier. Supply Drop’s crate value is staying matched to the total cost of the upgrade so it benefits from this small price buff as well.

x3x Bouncing Bullet price reduced from $2400 > $2100
x4x Supply Drop cash per crate reduced from $1200 > $1100

Monkey Sub

Given the long cooldown we want it to feel impactful in freeplay for longer, so all of the Nautic Siege Core’s ability boss damage is being converted to basic damage & bonuses to MOAB.

Sub Paragon ability explosion damage increased 50,000 > 60,000
Sub Paragon ability explosion boss damage reduced 10,000 > 0
Sub Paragon ability aftershock damage increased 10,000 > 15,000
Sub Paragon ability aftershock boss damage reduced 5000 > 0
Sub Paragon ability fallout damage to MOABs increased 60 > 90
Sub Paragon ability fallout boss damage reduced 30 > 0

Monkey Buccaneer

Aircraft Carrier has been performing well above its price point so this is being increased, though it is also worth noting due to a bug fix in Flagship’s AI also in this update we expect it may overall still be improved. Middle Buccaneer has had mixed feedback with much disappointment that the focus of its balance changes haven’t been improvements for the ability, given this path has again lost considerable power we want to look more on both of those aspects this time.

4xx Aircraft carrier price increased from $6900 > $8000
x3x Cannonship grape damage increased from 2 > 3
x3x Cannonship cannonball damage increased from 1 > 2
x4x Monkey Pirates grape damage increased from 3 > 5
x4x Monkey Pirates ability cooldown reduced from 50 > 45s
x5x Pirate Lord ability number of hooks increased from 3 > 6
x5x Pirate Lord ability hooks required for ZOMG increased from 2 > 3

Monkey Ace

Even with the higher cost Goliath Doomship continues to pull too far ahead of other paragons, given that this is mostly an ability based paragon we’ve decided to nerf this ability greatly but also somewhat counterbalance this change for standard freeplay by converting all of the boss bonus on the ability into basic damage similar to our changes for the Sub Paragon.

Carpet Bomb cooldown increased from 50 > 60s
Carpet Bomb regular damage increased from 20,000 > 30,000
Carpet Bomb bonus damage to bosses reduced from 20,000 > 0

Heli Pilot

Players have noticed the life crate has more collection radius than the cash crate, and that this causes problems for some strategies / challenges as you don’t always want to increase lives, so these radius have been matched. Special Poperations struggles to fit into competitive strategies due to it serving a different purpose than the T4, so the cooldown of the Support Chinook ability at T5 is now being greatly reduced in order to continue building on what is good about the T4 even for strategies that may not need the Marine specifically.

x4x Support Chinook lives crate collection radius from 100 > 50
x5x Special Poperations, Redeploy ability cooldown reduced from 45 > 15s

Mortar Monkey

We’ve been happily taking our time on this since it's about time Mortar gets some spotlight, but the middle path has been overperforming far too much for a while now so it is about time to start pushing it up to a more reasonable price range for the power it brings.

x4x Artillery Battery price increased from $5,900 > $6500
x5x Pop and Awe price increased from $32,000 > 38,000

Dartling Gunner

402’s pierce increase is extremely hard to jus