Update 9.3 Patch Notes

Gems-of-War · July 12, 2026, 10:41pm

We have expanded the Kingdom Explore Mode with new difficulties, a new boss type, an updated menu, and added optional Side Quests.

The core Explore battle mechanics remains unchanged.

We have updated the Explore menu to use the Kingdom Map, matching the layout used by Quests. All Explore encounters will now appear as nodes on the Kingdom Quest Map.

The right-hand panel is now always visible at the start of an Explore Run, so players can interact with encounters immediately without first clicking a map location. Also, the number of clicks to complete an Explore battle remains unchanged.

The Wandering Merchant system has been changed so it will only trigger once per Explore Run. This is to improve the flow of battles in the run, reducing the interruptions between battles.

We have also made some changes to how the Explore opponent teams are generated to try to improve enemy variety.

Numbers shown in screenshots are from active development and may not be the same as when the update goes live.

We have added 4 new Explore difficulties – Difficulty 13, 14, 15, and 16. These difficulties are designed for players who have progressed through Astral Spire and Kingdom Prestige and are ready for tougher fights.

Difficulty 13: Enemy Level 175
- Gold Multiplier x9
- Mythstones 88–92
- Boss Chest Rewards – 1 Badge + 2 Shiny Dust.
 Difficulty 14: Enemy Level 200
- Gold Multiplier x10
- Mythstones 106–110
- Boss Chest Rewards – 1–2 Badges + 4 Shiny Dust.
 Difficulty 15: Enemy Level 250
- Gold Multiplier x11
- Mythstones 128–132
- Boss Chest Rewards – 1–3 Badges + 6 Shiny Dust.
 Difficulty 16: Enemy Level 300
- Gold Multiplier x12
- Mythstones 150–154
- Boss Chest Rewards – 2–3 Badges + 8 Shiny Dust.

On Difficulties 13–16, the final boss changes from a Mythic Boss to an Eternal Dragon Boss.

Players earn Badges rather than Medal Tokens for defeating an Eternal Dragon. Reaching an Eternal Dragon Battle costs 250 Mythstones. This cost reflects the higher Mythstone yields available at the new difficulty levels.

Mythstones are now also rewarded from Side Quests, more on that later.

Defeating the Eternal Dragon Boss will still reward a Boss Chest.

For a full list of Eternal Dragons, check out the the blog here.

Side Quests are a new optional feature that may appear during an Explore Run. Which you can also chose to bypass.

An Explore Run can contain 0–3 Side Quests, and the chance to encounter a Side Quest increases as you play higher difficulties.

Note: Difficulty 1 has no Side Quests, and Difficulty 16 will always have 3

Each Side Quest consists of a single battle, and the enemy teams follow the same construction rules as Explore Mini-Boss battles.

A Side Quest will appear on the map after the preceding map location has been defeated.

Once you start the next Explore battle after a Side Quest has been revealed, the Side Quest is no longer available. So, once you pass it on the map if you have not completed it, you cannot go back to it.

As you can see in the example above, the Side Quest path will show you what reward is available for completing the Side Quest battle. Each Side Quest will always reward Mythstones, as well as one of the following:

10,000 Gold
200 Souls
100 Glory
3 Minor Traitstones (matching Kingdom Colour)
2 Arcane Traitstones (matching Kingdom Colour)
4 White Pet Food

In Explore difficulties E1-E12, we have increased the existing Gold modifiers.
We have added a 40% Mythstone bonus to the Ring of Wonder subscription.
- Players with an active Ring of Wonder subscription will immediately start earning 40% more Mythstones from Explores.
- This bonus is added to any other Mythstone bonuses active in the Kingdom.
We have added an animation to battles that will appear when a Capstone triggers.
- Currently, if more than 1 Capstone trigger, it will display that multiple Capstones have triggered. Feedback has already been shared to change this to list the specific Capstones that are triggering
If the Player still has a Class Quest available to complete, an icon will appear on the Quest tab button in the Kingdom menu. Which is currently a known issue that it’s not appearing

We have added a new Constellation Board to Astral Spire – The Jester!

The Jester’s Capstone ability is Prankster: a 20% chance (plus 1% per level) to transform the Enemy Hero Weapon into a different Weapon, of similar colors.
- If the Weapon is a single mana color, it will be the same color. But if it has 2 or more colors, it will randomly select a Weapon that matches one of the colors.
Gold Nodes:
- Dodge: +5% to the Agile Trait
- Thievery: +20 Starting Gold
  - Affected Traits will have an icon appear next to the Trait name that matches the Constellation node.
Bronze and Silver Nodes: Skill Point bonuses to Rogue Troops

There Can Be Only 11: Defeat 11 Eternal Dragons Bosses.
Easily Distracted: Complete 50 Side Quests in Explore.
No Pain, No Gain: Defeat an Eternal Dragon Boss on Difficulty 16.

“Complete Class Quest” message does not appear once a Kingdom Quest is completed.
- The Class Quest now also needs to be completed before Trials is available in that Kingdom
Blighted Change and Withered Gems Capstone trigger animation is not displayed when activated
Explore Map path does not reflect the actual Explore progress
- This can be resolved by exiting to the World Map and returning to the Kingdom
In battles where the enemy matches 4+ Gems, triggering the Time Warp Capstone, the enemy inconsistently does not lose their extra turn.
Expel Blessing Capstone is only applying to one opponent and not the entire enemy team

Note: The last two in the list above were reported in the beta and later confirmed as working by the team. I am leaving them in the list, just in case they pop up again once live or something happens between now and when 9.3 releases, and they are not actually resolved.

Players were seeing a blank screen at the end of an Explore battle.
A visual issue where some of the Kingdom Level up previews in the Crystal Exchange menu were displaying a flat Mythstone bonus and not the bonus as a percentage
Astral Spire bonuses were not appearing in intended game modes, or were appearing where they should not.
A visual issue where the Enemy Hero’s Stats would change in a battle between the numbers displayed within the puzzle board and the troop card when affected by the Hero’s Bane capstone.
Explore was unlocked before a player had completed the Kingdom’s questline.
The Pause icon in auto-play mode was becoming supersized.
Gold and Souls earned by new players were not always applied to their respective Shrines until later nodes in Broken Spire.

A note from Jeto: As always, in the background, I am chasing up a long list of bugs and QOLs, so if it’s not mentioned above, then it has not yet been resolved. Expecting more information in 9.4 about the notification issue as well.

NerdieBirdie · July 12, 2026, 11:22pm

The wide-open swath of map in kingdom menus makes so much more sense now! Another promising update making significant changes to grinding both medals and, for the first time, shiny dust!

Darkborne · July 12, 2026, 11:50pm

Update 9.3 is probably delayed for Switch, but we are used to it. This week is already going to be busy enough with Guild Wars. It looks like grinding for shiny dust is going to be the new Endgame activity, which looks promising. Hopefully getting all troops to shiny level 2 will not be too much of a hassle, and then we can start to see players making nice progress with their kingdoms.

As a patient man who observes and researches almost everything related to this game, hopefully what I think is going to happen will come into focus…bugs be damned.

Jeto · July 12, 2026, 11:51pm

At the moment it is looking like it may release for Switch at the same time, but as always, that is out of our hands. We always have to wait for Nintendo to process the submission.

Zuul-Emo · July 12, 2026, 11:57pm

Just the merchant? That’s one of the ones many players actually want, along with the angel. It’s the genie and demon that need reducing. They should only appear at the start of a run, then not appear beyond that.
I get wanting to improve the flow, but I’m not sure this was the best way.

Seems steep, but with the side quests, I guess that’s probably about right.

Is that info displayed in-game when choosing explore level? If not, it would be better to have it.

Is there some kind of “are you sure you want to skip the side quest?” pop-up if we select the next battle instead? It would be useful to have that so people don’t accidentally miss them.

I’m… not seeing it.
Just me? I see the totals for the run, not seeing any of the rewards listed anywhere, so I guess it’s not shown.

Farmable glory and pet food. That’s good.
And the fact we can farm shiny dust is also a great addition.

Glad we’ll get to see what capstones are triggering. Hopefully it won’t slow the game down.
Dunno why you thought having a pop-up say multiple capstones have triggered was a good idea, as that doesn’t seem very useful, but glad that feedback has already been given and hope it gets improved soon.

Are you saying the hero will be transformed? Or just their spell will change?
And when does this trigger? Because if we randomly transform an enemy during a battle when they’re already weakened, and they suddenly return to full strength, that would SUCK. Look at weapons like essense of evil, and how many complaints there are regarding that, for an example why we don’t want that.

Dodge seems weaker than other gold nodes. Only affecting a handful of troops, and not by much. Thievery seems OK, not exciting, but worth grabbing to farm gold faster.

I guess future boards will focus on less troops. Hopefully that means the skill bonuses will be higher.

Great(!) So we still can’t pause during enemy turns, an entire game mode (treasure hunt) is broken and only works 50% of the time, and about a million other things that should be a priority, but shrines now work. Never used them in my life, and I doubt most players do, but I could be wrong.
Once again, can we have a patch that is just bug fixes? Maybe a few of them? We REALLY need it.

Jeto · July 13, 2026, 12:10am

There is the White pet food icon here

Because of the increase and different rewards, these higher difficulties with the Eternal Dragons are intentionally harder to reach, and thus have a higher Mythstone cost

No there isn’t, but you have to manually toggle to select the Side Quest and it’s written real clear that you have an Explore or Side Quest battle selected

Like all the other Astral Spire descriptions, it’s literal. The Weapon equipped in the opponent team (if they have one) will be changed to a totally different weapon. So the weapon changes, and thus as does the spell and everything that comes with having that new weapon.

It triggers at the start of the battle.

As for feedback like this, or requesting just QOL fixes etc. This is something kinda above our studio’s choice/ability etc. As much as I see the benefit in spending time to do just a bug or just a qol update, there are more factors involved that affect what is or isn’t in every update.
It’s something I have mentioned to the team, and it was very clear in the community survey, so IP2 is aware.

That being said, 9.4 has a few QOLs being addressed, and I am always chasing up bugs where I can.

Jeto · July 13, 2026, 12:14am

ALSO! I did also ask for the team to consider an increased chance to encounter Explore Mimics in the new higher difficulties. Nothing is changing so far, but I have put forward that suggestion.

And you do still need to start a battle if you want to change difficulty, I have also passed on the QOL to have the ability to change difficulties without needing to do that. Again, nothing planned or changing so far, but the team is aware.

TheIdleOne · July 13, 2026, 1:00am

I hope they can fix the not being able to quit on the opponent’s turn thing soon. It’s not even a feature being asked. It became a bug at some point and it heavily impacts explore…

Zuul-Emo · July 13, 2026, 1:05am

Ah, yep, I’m just being blind, lol. Sorry.

I assume it defaults to the side quest, not the option that skips side quest, then?
Otherwise that just adds to the problem, where it’s easy to skip side quests by mistakes.

Ah, cool. So, it won’t matter if the enemy was transformed or not, hopefully.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing this. Wish you guys had more control, or that those higher ups understood why bug fixes need to be a priority, at least for a while.

Much appreciated. It’s just frustrating how many bugs get either ignored or acknowledged and then not fixed. Look forward to seeing what else is coming.

Thanks for the reply.

Kezef · July 13, 2026, 1:15am

Now that Deeds/Writs no longer exist, how many things remain in the Merchant’s inventory that are even worth purchasing? Or might be worth purchasing if the costs were a little more tolerable? (For example, I won’t purchase Dragonite from the Merchant although I will grab it from the Angel.)

Yeah, I’d like to see this change reverted. But I’m also starting to get to the point where a healthy percentage of Merchant/Angel offers are stuff I simply ignore because it’s not offering me anything that I want/need.

Nagflar_dv · July 13, 2026, 1:28am

Can we also get a loottable for a badges with % per rarity?

Namour · July 13, 2026, 2:34am

Could you elaborate on what has been tweaked?

For example, will all enemies continue to be only from the kingdom being explored (except Eternal Dragons)?

What other tweaks have been made?