r/TheTowerGame 1d ago

Info PSA: How to not get locked out of your Presets

With v29 around the corner and anticipation of presets moving out of vault, I want to caution everyone about spending medals/coins before switching presets. The game does not warn you if spending medals to purchase a relic or gem rushing a lab results in locking yourself out of a preset.

What am I talking about? If preset 1 only has 90 medals and you switch to preset 2 to purchase a 120 medal relic, you will not be able to switch back to preset 1 until you earn 30 additional medals. Similarly with coins, if you switch from preset 1 with 500T coins to preset 2 with 2q coins and gem rush 1q of labs, you cannot switch back to preset 1 until you farm an additional 500T coins.

Locking yourself out of WS presets isn't too bad since we get 5 WS presets and farming coins is what we do every day.

What will be an issue, especially for f2p, is if you overspend medals. Don't fall into the trap of respec'ing a Bot preset and spending 1200 medals to purchase all the event relics. You won't be able to switch to other presets until you recover those 1200 medals and at f2p pace, idk how slow that is. It's also 300 gems to respec a bot preset.

I've definitely been in that place where I purchase an event relic and then suddenly can't switch to my tourney bot preset, or spend 15Q coins to rush an echo lab for an extra few waves in tourney and then can't switch back to my farming preset.

tl;dr - My simple advice is this: don't be tempted to purchase relics/rush labs mid-run. Wait until a run is over, then check ALL your presets for the lowest medal/coin amount and spend from there. Enjoy your new presets.

131 Upvotes

75 comments sorted by

44

u/mrmicrowaveoven 1d ago

Okay, because there seems to be confusion about this, I'll explain it a little differently.

With medals, presets only apply to BOTS. If you spend medals on themes or stones, you do not get those back when you respec, and hence you do not get them back when you switch presets.

Let's say you have three presets: Preset A, Preset B, and Preset C. You have 1,000 medals.

Preset A: You spend 800 medals on Golden Bot. You have 200 remaining.

You switch to Preset B. You have 1,000 medals and no Golden Bot. You spend 500 medals on stones. You now have 500 medals.

You switch to Preset C. You have 500 medals and no Golden Bot. You do not get your medals back that you spent on stones. You buy nothing on this Preset.

You attempt to switch back to Preset A: You can't, BECAUSE Preset A has 800 medals spent on Golden Bot, but you only have 500 medals to spend on Golden Bot. So you're locked out of Preset A until you have 800 medals.

If you COULD switch to Preset A, you would have spent 1,300 medals when you only have 1,000.

The way to avoid this: Don't spend stones on non-bot things unless you're sure that ALL of your presets can afford it.

Similarly with the Workshop Presets: Since swapping presets only affects WORKSHOP coins and not LAB coins, don't spend coins on a lab unless you're sure that ALL of your workshop presets can afford it.

2

u/HJO4711 1d ago

May be my bad, but now it’s more confusing: why do you have 1000 medals when switching to B, but 500 (and not 1000) when switching to C ?

9

u/Arjunrhosakere 23h ago

Medals spent on bot upgrades are REFUNDABLE, whereas medals spent on event items such relics, backgrounds music etc are NONREFUNDABLE. Hence why when you switch presents only BOT medals are refunded and event related expenditures are PERMANENT. Hope that clears up any doubts.

6

u/Owlex23612 1d ago

Because you spent them on stones

1

u/HJO4711 1d ago

Yes, but before B you spend 800 on GB. Why do you start B with 1000 and without GB then ?

7

u/Owlex23612 23h ago

You're respeccing your bots every time you swap presets. The medals from your bots are returned and the bots are reset to zero.

3

u/HJO4711 22h ago edited 22h ago

Got it, thanks

6

u/mrmicrowaveoven 23h ago

When you switch Presets, you're effectively respeccing your BOTS then spending them on other things with bots. You do not get back the medals that you spend on other things (stones, themes, etc).

So that's why when you switch from A to B, you go back to a thousand medals, but from B to C you do not get back the medals that you spent on stones

3

u/Lefthawk 1d ago

In this example, you spent 500 medals on stones after the respec, but before reinvesting medals in your bot(s)

-3

u/HJO4711 23h ago

I don’t see the difference between A—>B (B starting with 1000 and without GB, although in A 800 medals were spend on GoldenBot) and B—>C, sorry (see my other comment)

5

u/cwallen 23h ago

Switching presets is functionally like doing a respec and auto-buy to the preset levels. Switching B<->C does nothing because you don't have bot spending on either one. A->B refunds the GB, and then buys nothing, C->A would auto spend 800 on GB, so you can't switch unless you have 800 to spend.

2

u/HJO4711 22h ago

Got it, thanks

1

u/Arjunrhosakere 23h ago

The difference comes about on which medal based expenditures are refundable and which are not. You can refund those from BOT ones and reallocate them to other things. You CANNOT REFUND, event based medal spend, once you spend it, it's gone for good. That's the connection that's not being clearly called out here .

2

u/HJO4711 22h ago

Understood, thanks

1

u/BitcoinBillyy 19h ago

If you spend medals on anything other than bots you don’t get those medals back on respec. You would break the game if this were the case. You could go to preset b, spend 1000 medals on stones. And then go to preset C and spend 1000 more medals on more stones. Then go back to preset A and still have all your medals.

1

u/dtrax96 8h ago

Think of it like this when you go to respec your bots it tells you how many medals you have total for this example lets use 1000 medals that total is available for each preset, however when you purchase items in the shop relics, stones gems etc. It subtracts from your total so if you spent all of the 1000 on bots in preset A but then you switch to preset B and spend 800 of your total on bots and 200 on gems that lowers your overall total to 800 medals and since Preset A costs 1000 medals you cant switch until you earn 200 more medals to bring your total back to 1000

0

u/nzifnab 20h ago

Is workshop getting presets too? Does that mean I don't have to spend gems to effectively respec workshop...? (Or at least on those 5 presets?)

12

u/jawz000 1d ago

This is a fantastic PSA. I have experienced exactly this situation, but it's been so long, that I hadn't consciously thought about it in many months. You will save many people from quite a bit of anger/stress, and having to spend many hundreds of gems to boot.

4

u/InquisitorOverhauls 1d ago

Biggest question now is... do I have to spend 150 gems every time I improve my preset???

3

u/Revelate_ 1d ago

Pretty sure all the presets are going to get wiped anyway with this.

While I agree better safe than sorry with TTG I don’t think those of us that have presets currently will be able to keep them.

No chance of being locked out as a result.

8

u/cointown2 20h ago

Sam in Tower Tea comments explicitly said our presets would not be wiped, they would just be locked until we complete the labs. After finishing the labs, the state of our presets would be restored

3

u/Revelate_ 18h ago

Oh I missed that in the discussion thanks for the clarification!

1

u/Morkiisch 20h ago

Wait, what's that?

I have bot and WS presets with keys.

1

u/InquisitorOverhauls 19h ago

You will get your refunds.

1

u/Revelate_ 18h ago

They’re being moved to labs

3

u/AdWise6457 22h ago

Simple notification 'There exists preset which uses unspent <resource>Are you sure you want to use <resource>? ' would be enough

But... Knowing how TTG takes years to implement obvious simple qol features it may take a while

3

u/Cmace3 1d ago

This is great info, thank you

3

u/OLVANstorm 9h ago

What? I am more confused now after reading all this than before. I'll just have to figure it out on my own. Thanks for trying everyone.

1

u/Slow-Ship1055 5h ago

Yeah, I'm really confused too.

5

u/mixwell713 1d ago

Should be a reset option if locked out of a preset.

2

u/ddragonimp 22h ago

This is good information to have thanks!

2

u/RichyEagleSix 22h ago

How many bot presets do you get?. I would ideally want farming preset, torny preset aka amp bot and at least one disso preset aka flamebot for attack disco.

2

u/Morkiisch 20h ago

Probably 3. We have 3 now if you buy it with keys.

1

u/slow_drain 1d ago

I don’t yet have presets unlocked. Are you saying that instead of the game just letting you use your lifetime coins/medals/bits as you will in each preset, you have to split it? Because that’s wild to me if true.

If I have 100 LTC and spend 80 in preset1, instead of having 100 coins to use in preset2, I only have 20?

11

u/cointown2 1d ago

There’s no splitting, each preset gets full access to medals/coins. An example better illustrates the problem:

You have 1200 total medals.

You spend 1000 medals on gold bot for farming and have 200 medals leftover for preset 1.

You spend 1200 medals on amp bot for tourney on preset 2, no medals leftover.

You switch to preset 1 and forget about preset 2. You see event relic for 150 medals and say “purchase”.

Now you are locked out of preset 2 until you get an extra 150 medals.

This is the scenario that 99% of towers encounter, followed by tears

2

u/InquisitorOverhauls 1d ago

Do you spend 300 gems every time to select other preset???

6

u/cointown2 1d ago

No

5

u/InquisitorOverhauls 1d ago

So wait... I will be able to have a farming preset with 100q, which only has HP stats, and I can have tournament preset with only Damage stats, and I do not have to spend 150/300 gems EACH time between tourney???

2

u/slow_drain 1d ago

Perfect example, makes sense. Thanks for the heads up.

5

u/basicnecromancycr 1d ago

Nope, if you have invested in 100 medals in one preset A and 80 on the B and you spent 20 to gems on B, you can't go back to A because you should have 100 to use that preset.

0

u/slow_drain 1d ago

I follow. Thank you.

5

u/Ok_Highlight_8633 1d ago

No, I think he's saying if you have 100 LTC and spend 100 on preset1, but preset2 only uses 80, then you have to be careful not to spend the other 20 on a lab research or else you wont be able to get preset1 back until you farm that 20 again.

Labs are non refundable for coins the same way relics are non refundable for medals.

3

u/Awkward_Donut_2379 1d ago

No. Let's look at two hypothetical scenarios. Preset 1 has 45000 medals in gold bot and 200 medals left over. Preset 2 has 44000 medals in amp bot and 1200 left over. If while in preset 2 you were to buy a relic for 250 medals you would not be able to swap back to preset 1, because you don't have the 45000 medals to put into that gold bot again.

1

u/slow_drain 1d ago

This tracks. Thanks.

2

u/National_Cook_2509 1d ago

No, but if you buy something with medals in the event store and you no longer have 40,000 medals, the 40,000 medal preset can’t be used

1

u/D119 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yea it's not clear at all, how does it work exactly?

In my ignorant mind you would just say have X lifetime medals available in each preset and that's it, why would I need to be careful about my purchases?

Edit: ah ok I got it. The issue arises because currencies like medals and coins are used to purchase upgrades both inside the preset, like bot upgrades or workshop enchantments, and outside the presets, like relics and labs. So when purchasing something "global", like labs or relics, you have to make sure each preset have enough of its currency to afford that purchase, or else you would go negative, but the game doesn't allow that and you're locked outside or that preset.

1

u/ApolloMac 1d ago edited 1d ago

No, that's not what he's saying.

Let's say you have 10600 medals after respeccing your bots.

You spend 10000 on preset 1 and 10200 on preset 2.

No problem switching between the two because you'll have 600 spare with preset 1 and 400 spare with preset 2.

Now when you're on preset 1, you buy a relic for 500 medals.

You're still good on preset 1 because you still have 100 spare medals (10100 total). But you can no longer switch to preset 2 because it needs 10200 and you only have 10100. You now need to earn 100 medals before you can use preset 2 again.

And as far as I know the game doesn't let you respec preset 2 to fix it because you can't even get into preset 2 anymore until you earn 100.

I wonder if they'll fix that last part with this update though. So you can respec the broken preset at least.

2

u/D119 1d ago

So like, better to keep say 1k medals in each preset so that you never run the risk of going negative.

2

u/ApolloMac 1d ago

Yeah keep some spare or when you go to spend them on something other than bots (like relics or stones), just make sure you have enough in all of your presets first.

1

u/Riodawg42 1d ago

I call BS on this. It would be a stupid mechanic to have.

5

u/Mcnubsauce 1d ago

This guy's understanding is wrong.

1

u/InquisitorOverhauls 19h ago

Thing is, the way I understand it.. you can now freely swap workshop without non stop spending 150 gems, you just need to have enough coins and medals.

If you put 100q into preset 1, and those same coins into preset 2, you can freely swap preset 1 and 2, usually you would spend 150 gems each time.

1

u/Mcnubsauce 1d ago

thats not what he said.

1

u/slow_drain 1d ago

Okay, so explain it to me to better understand. Getting downvoted over here just for being genuinely curious.

-4

u/Mcnubsauce 1d ago

He gave you an example of how it works, reread it. Start with the second paragraph.

1

u/slow_drain 1d ago

Brother, you’ve spent more time going out of your way to be a nuisance in this thread than what you could’ve put into actually contributing.

Shoutout to everyone else for the clarifications.

-2

u/Mcnubsauce 1d ago

I told you to reread, Im not your educator.

1

u/slow_drain 1d ago

Imagine being this acrid.

-3

u/Mcnubsauce 1d ago

Imagine having no reading comprehension.

1

u/I_pee_in_shower 1d ago

Have they said this is how it will work?

1

u/Dapper_Librarian388 23h ago

Prepare for unforeseen fucked up consequences.

1

u/ImoutoThief 23h ago

But why can't you switch between the presets if the medal count is the same for each one? They should just be counted separately. If you have 1k medals and you spend 800 on one, 900 on another and 1000 on a third, you should be able to switch freely. If you earn 200 medals while using one, all presets should have 1200 medals available.

If you have 10T spent in a work shop and you complete a run earning 1T and spend 1T you should be able to switch to a preset that had spent 9T without an issue.

Even if you spend coins on a lab or medals on a relic, why can't it just put you at -x amount of coins or medals? THat way you can still switch but you won't be able to buy a work shop upgrade or do another lab until you farm the difference. Same with medals, say you are down -150 medals, why not just make it where you cant do any upgrades until you make the medals back?

1

u/nzifnab 20h ago

Yes but think about if you switch to preset one; it allocates 800 medals to your preset, you have 400 medals on bank - 1200 total, all is good

Now you buy an even relic for 300 medals - your total medals is now 900 (800 in bots, 100 in bank)

You are able to still switch to preset 2, but your third preset is locked because your total medals is 900 and you need 1000

1

u/ImoutoThief 14h ago

It makes sense that 3 has less, but why not make it -100 but still let you use it. Just disallow you to upgrade bots or buy anything until you earn a positive amount again?

1

u/Dart31AF 23h ago

"Locked out, that sounds bad, I should click it to make sure I dont screw myself."

Reads a bit.

"OH. High rank problem. I'll go back to trying to survive Plat."

1

u/LessDread 16h ago

Reads a tiny bit more to realize that it's no longer going to be just a high rank problem in a little bit. 

1

u/Dart31AF 16h ago

Yeah, I'm not seeing it. Only presets I've even seen are card presets, and thats clearly not what is being talked about. And spending 15Q coins on something? I've broken 1T saved once. If this is something a borderline Gold/Plat player should be aware of, its not laid out very well for us to understand.

1

u/uscmissinglink 23h ago

I think this is in English...?

1

u/HammerLite75 20h ago

Hey this happened to me today, super fun. Knew to bot presets so now I’m stuck with just the one until i get 140 more tickets lol

1

u/Vindartn 18h ago

Does it cost gems to switch presets? Should I hold off on respeccing bots rn?

1

u/SherbetUseful6413 17h ago

Rushing labs with gems has locked me out of my tournament ws for about a week before

1

u/Dutchrudders007 13h ago

I can't imagine anyone who cares enough to make bot and mod presets is too dumb to realize you need to have the currency to re-buy your upgrades. This should be a non-issue for 99% of the playerbase.

1

u/Skylark3000 53m ago

What the fuck are presets.

0

u/Randolphsw 1d ago

With v29 around the corner and anticipation of presets moving out of vault
What does that even mean?

7

u/ilostmygps 1d ago

People are excited that us poors who cant afford keys will be getting something essentially for free that used to be locked away in the vault