Defenders,

This update is available on Steam! Consoles are in the process of going through certification and will be released once finished. This update contains King’s Game, a recreation of the DD1 map, Player Titles and an overhaul to how special enemies spawn in the wave.

While this update is a on the smaller side, our goal is to continue to break up large chunk updates into more bitesize updates that constantly improve player experience instead of having long periods between updates.

New Map - King's Game

This was a very popular DD1 map and has been highly requested to return to DDA. We’ve brought back the Dice pet as a map's pet reward. This pet will offer a lot of similar features to the original but with some slight changes to fit DDA’s design.

We've seen feedback from players about bringing back some of the weapons from Kings Game and this is something we will continue to investigate, as well as potentially look into some new runes to populate the map rewards a bit more. 

Player Titles

Player Titles were a reward offered during our Kickstarter, BackerKit and Xsolla pre-order days. Adding this will allow players to display a title below their nameplate for other players to see when playing in multiplayer. We will be looking into distributing the special player titles in the near future, and will let players know once those have started going out.

There are also a handful of player titles that are tied to achievements. That way if you didn’t get any of those rewards you will still be able to have access to titles. 

New Schedule System

A new schedule system to help evenly spread-out the special enemies throughout the wave, without the many flaws of the current system causing enemies to come out too quickly or delay the wave waiting to spawn. This should help with the issue players were seeing with having to wait for ogres or sirens at the end of the wave to spawn.

Balance & Changes

• Guardian
  • Owl Perch
    • Disabled attack rate overflow which was causing damage values to go higher than intended as the Owl Perch doesn't have a traditional attack rate and more of a reset time.
• Fixed issue with Texture Streaming setting not enabling properly, this should hopefully help with some of the textures not loading properly.
  • This will be a monitored changed for any issues that may arise.
• Fixed issue with Holy Cannon rune killing Rift Portals.
• Giraffe now gives 20% Cast Rate.
• Mista Mine now gives 30% Cast Rate.

Tavern Storage (Postponed)

While Tavern Storage was one of the features we had hoped to include in the update, during the PTR there were a couple of reported issues that needed more time to be investigated and as such we’ll be giving this feature a little more time to cook as we look into those. That said we are hopeful it shouldn’t be too far behind and our goal is to get it in the game when possible.

What’s Next?

We’ll be working on investigating the remaining issues with Tavern Storage and look at releasing that once ready. After that we’ll be continuing to make progress on our road map features. The goal being to release another smaller update hopefully by the end of June.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

Defenders,

This update is open for PTR testing! The update is centered around bringing some long requested features and quality of life to the game. The addition of Tavern Storage for players to more effectively store items, and Player Titles for various Kickstarter tier rewards and Gameplay wise we are also bringing back King's game from DD1 and testing a new enemy schedule system for Survival and Mixed mode.

How to Join

We want you to join the PTR! If you own Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on PC/Steam, check out our forum post that shows you exactly how to join!

PTR Reward

Given this is a smaller PTR test and the different nature of it we won’t be offering a new reward, but you are able to earn any of the previous PTR rewards if you are missing any.

We’ll be offering a smaller choice of rewards in the survey as we'll be rotating the different rewards in the PTR as offering tons of different rewards complicates sending out the rewards.

This includes the following rewards:

• Egyptian Eagle Wings
• Crystalline Corgi
• RGB Pumpkin Mask
• A Giveaway entry for a Pizza Wings Transmog (3x Winners)

New Map - King's Game

This was a very popular DD1 map and has been highly requested to return to DDA. We'll be bringing this map back as closely as possible to the original including the Dice Pet that was an iconic reward from the map. The PTR Survey specifically will ask about what you would like to see the Dice Pet do as well as ask if you would like to see the special tiles return.

Tavern Storage

Tavern Storage gives players a way to store items outside of their inventory. This increases quality of life by allowing you to have cleaner inventories when going into gameplay maps and additionally greatly reduces load times for multiplayer. Players will start with a set amount of storage space of 999, and will be able to unlock more by acquiring rare consumables throughout the game. Though those consumables are not part of the PTR.

With this change, we will be reducing the size of the normal inventory as we want players to be utilizing the extra tavern storage available while benefiting from increased load times for multiplayer.

Player Titles

Player Titles were a reward offered during our Kickstarter, BackerKit and Xsolla pre-order days. Adding this will allow players to display a title below their nameplate for other players to see when playing in multiplayer.

There are also a handful of player titles that are tied to achievements. That way if you didn’t get any of those rewards you will still be able to have access to titles. That said, in the PTR you won’t have access to Kickstarter, BackerKit and Xsolla titles.

New Special Enemy Schedule System

Currently only available in Survival and Mixed Mode, but this is a new schedule system to help evenly spread-out the special enemies throughout the wave, ideally without the many flaws of the current system causing enemies to come out too quickly or delay the wave waiting to spawn. This should help with the issue players were seeing with having to wait for ogres or sirens at the end of the wave to spawn.

What’s Next?

Due to the update being a relatively small update, the PTR will run through Tuesday as we collect data and make any adjustments needed before doing a full release. The goal is to release this prior to the DDA anniversary release on May 28th.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

The winners of DD2's Fanart Contest and the corresponding rewards are as follows:

First Place - ghostlybunni

Socials - InstaGram: ghostlybunni Twitter: ghostlybunnix 

Rewards - Implementation of your design in-game on Dungeon Defenders 2, 12,500 Gems for Dungeon Defenders 2, Free copy of the design when implemented (ARV: $120)

Second Place - ArchfiendGato

Rewards - 12,500 Gems for Dungeon Defenders 2, Free copy of the winning design when implemented (ARV: $120) 

Third Place - Palo Z'fogs

Rewards - 12,500 Gems for Dungeon Defenders 2 (ARV: $100.00) 

Judges’ Choice Awards - Azkni & tona swag 

Azkni Socials - Twitter - @JoJix_AR20

Rewards - 12,500 Gems for Dungeon Defenders 2 (ARV: $100.00 each) 

Thank you to all artists who participated! This was an awesome turnout and we are super glad to see all the talent within our community!

Cheers,

CG Paimon

DEFENDERS,

A couple weeks ago we started a DDA Community Survey to gather feedback from the community about various topics. We received over 1,200 responses and so this post will go over various elements from that survey and talk about the results and what our thoughts are.

Quality of Life Section

Question: Do you think accessing the inventory during combat phase should be allowed without the ability to swap gear?

• Results: 66% Yes | 21% In-Different | 13% No
• Thoughts: With a large amount of people voting yes I think this is enough to implement into the game. That said, looking through the feedback in this section, it’s clear that the major concern is that host’s don’t want their players to be managing inventory in combat if their build needs support. With that in mind we’ll be implementing a gameplay option that allows the host to disable inventory management during combat for the session.

Question: Do you think swapping heroes should be allowed during combat phase?

• Results: 36% Yes | 17% In-Different | 47% No
• Thoughts: With the mixed results and the majority saying no, I think this is something we will avoid adding.

Question: Would you be in favor of being able to swap ONE time during the wave?

• Results: 63% Yes | 17% In-Different | 20% No
• Thoughts: With the majority saying Yes, This is something we’ll be looking into adding. That said, reading through the feedback it was commonly suggested that instead of allowing one swap, we allow players to swap freely within X Seconds of the combat wave starting. I think this is a better solution as it prevents accidental swapping to the wrong hero and then being locked to that hero.

Question: Do you think upgrade costs should be refunded on towers built in the same build phase.

• Results: 79% Yes | 15% In-Different | 6% No
• Thoughts: With an overwhelming majority saying Yes, this is something we’ll be adding to the game.

Question: What are your opinions on the Hybrid System?

• Results:
  

• Thoughts: In general this is definitely still a divided topic even among the different sections of players, and there are many good pros and cons for both sides of the argument. Overall this question was mainly just to gauge where the player base stands, with the results there’s probably not going to be any major changes at this time, but something to keep in mind for long term goals.

Arcanist Armor Set

Of all the ideas, the Power Crystal idea was the clear winner out of the group. With 75% saying Yes, 19% saying In-Different and then 6% saying no.

That said there was a lot of good feedback provided by you guys. One of the main concerns would be inventory space and management. While Tavern Storage would help with this, we’ll be keeping in mind this when we go to implement the system. Hopefully doing some kind of dedicated storage UI for power crystals that can be utilized when applying them to equipment and also making sorting and management easier.

Now that we know the direction of Arcanist we’ll begin the process into implementing, that said we don’t have any kind of estimate on when this will be finished but we’ll update as things progress. 

Features and Improvements

This section had a ton of feedback to go through, too much to really summarize in this post. A lot of the responses to this section were things already on the roadmap or generally things like more difficult content, more variety. 

A couple notable suggestions that stuck out to us were:

• Adding a way to see what killed the core and from where instead of it only having to guess.
• This has been requested before but having items that get dropped off the map be teleported somewhere on the map instead of being sold.

Maps and Heroes

For this section we won’t be showing the results as we want to keep some mystery when it comes to future heroes and maps, but that said we’ll mention the top ones for each section displayed in the order they showed in the survey.

• Heroes: The top 4 heroes by very close margins were Barbarian, Jester, Lavamancer and Gunwitch. 
• Maps: The top 3 maps were Aquanos, King’s Game and Tavern Defense.

With that said, We don’t have any idea if or when specific heroes or maps will be added but it’s good to know which ones players would most look forward to seeing return. That said, we’ll be revealing one of those maps today (5/12/2023) so tune in for a sneak peek.

Monetization 

This topic was really good information to have, as monetization is an important topic for both players and developers. The results were as follows:

With the following results in mind, we’ll look into how we can expand into the various cosmetic categories. We've been working on a new cosmetic emporium shop UI similar to DD2 as this gives the ability to add more cosmetics without bloating the amount of DLC’s. Additionally it allows us to make cosmetics purchasable on console platforms easier and quicker.

As for Heroes, Maps and Quality of Life Enhancements, we’ll remain cautious on if and how we expand into those categories, but ultimately at the end of the day depends on other factors as more revenue for DDA directly correlates to how long we can continue to develop and improve the game.

What’s Next?

We’ve been hard at finishing up the next update that we hope to have out by the end of the month. We’ll likely be starting a small PTR test for some of these features & content as soon as potentially next Friday. This test would include Tavern Storage, In-Game Titles, A New Schedule System, A new returning map which will be revealed on stream today (5/12/2023).

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

DDA Community Feedback Survey 

With the Episode 2 Part 2 update live we wanted to take some time to gather feedback as we plan and prepare for future DDA updates this year. As such we’ve created a Survey for players to fill out to steer the direction of things and ask some questions about various game related topics.

Survey Link: https://forms.gle/zenPttoDaA8LdHA86

If you fill out the survey and you can enter in for a chance to win one of the following rewards:

• Golden Corgi Pet Transmog (All Platforms)
• Pizza Wings Transmog   (All Platforms)
• Rifted Corgi Cover Transmog   (All Platforms)
• Golden Fish Sword Transmog   (PC, Xbox and PlayStation)
• DDA DLC Item of your choice (Has to be available on your platform)

The Survey will run for 2 weeks, after which the survey will be closed and we'll pick a winner for each of the prizes above! Winners will be reached out on the platform selected in the survey.

Updated Roadmap

Additionally we’ve taken some time to update the road map with some of the upcoming features we are working on. A lot of these have been features that are long overdue or have been highly requested.

Can check out the full site at: https://app.loopedin.io/dungeon-defenders-awakened

The goal moving forward is to try to release smaller more focused updates containing individual groups of features or maps instead of doing large bundled episode updates. As for a team our size trying to make, test and release multiple maps, a hero, new features, bosses, etc can often lead to some things being forgotten about and we want to limit that as much as possible.

That said, let's talk about some of the items listed.

Tavern Storage

As the title says, Tavern storage will be an additional inventory space that players can transfer items from their inventory into the Tavern Storage, This feature will be a nice QoL for many players, as it solves a handful of problems and frustrations. Such as the following:

• Having cleaner inventory by moving long term items into the stash, and making new items easier to identify and keep track of.
• It will mean reduced load times when joining games in multiplayer as there’s less profile data needed to be transferred to other players.
• Generally just means players can store more items too.

Crystal Core Transmog

This feature doesn’t need much introduction. As in DD1 players will be able to swap the Crystal Core model to one of their liking and show it off to other players when hosting a game. These will be earned through gameplay as well as we’ll likely have some specific ones available through Supporter Bundles like how we do with Hero Costumes.

In-Game Titles

While this isn't a very exciting feature, it’s one that is long overdue. For those that supported us through Kickstarter, Backer-Kit or Xsolla will receive their In-Game Titles according to their reward tiers. Outside of that we plan to also add additional titles that can be earned through gameplay or other means.

Cross-Saves

This is something that we are still actively wanting to include into the game to allow players to transfer saves from PC to consoles or vice versa. There’s a lot of work that has already been done here but there are still things we need to figure out without it working per platform. Once we know more we will post info but this is high on the priority list now.

Player Shops, Tavern Keep Shop and Marketplace Map

These features all tie into one another but with the addition of trading, a lot of players have been requesting the ability to run player shops similar to how they were handled in DD1. We agree and want to further that idea by creating a dedicated marketplace map where players can join and find multiple players shops at the same time, Hopefully with increased player count to further make the experience more enjoyable.

The Tavern Keep shop is also just another no-brainer addition to the game and will help early game players, but we also want to take a look at how we can innovate the concept to allow end-game players to take advantage of the system too. More information will be provided as the features are developed.

New Maps & Heroes

As we stated previously we don’t plan on doing huge episodes like updates, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any new content in the form of Maps & Heroes. We got 2 maps in the works that we will be releasing as individual bonus maps hopefully in the near future. As for heroes we’ve got something in the works but that will be longer term and will be added the roadmap once things are moving along.

More Quality of Life

Quality of life is one of the main strengths that DDA has to offer and we want to continue improving that as much as we can. As such we are exploring some ideas such as the following:

• Public / Private Multiplayer Match Toggle
• Rune Level Selection
• Inventory Management Mid Combat Phase (Vote in the survey above)

Split-Screen

Our goal here is to finish up the other remaining Kickstarter tasks like Cross-Saves and Player Titles before doing more investigation on the remaining work here. Unfortunately this is a large task and there will be a mountain of work to do here so we want to tackle the easier tasks first to improve the overall experience for players.

What’s Next?

Well really this whole post is what’s next. That said our goal is to try and release smaller updates or in-game events about one a month starting in late May. Though there may be skip months here and there depending on how development goes or if we want to group things together.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

The Episode 2 Part 2 update is live on PC, Xbox and PlayStation! This update brings a brand new hero to the Dungeon Defenders Universe, The Guardian! As well as 2 new maps, one of which will be the Boss Map, and lastly more Runes. This will wrap up the Episode 2 update as a whole as we prepare to look at what’s next for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened!

Rifted Guardian Costume Login Reward!

Starting today if you login between now and May 2nd at 1 PM EST you'll unlock the Rifted Guardian Costume.

This can be accessed in the Transmog UI by talking with the blacksmith.

Egyptian Costume Bundle!

We are excited to announce the release of our newest DLC cosmetic bundle! Players have been asking for costumes that actually change the look of their heroes and so we’ve done just that!

This egyptian bundle is for Huntress, Warden, EV and Summoner. These bundles go a long way to help fund us to continue making updates for the game and not have to charge for gameplay related features. With that said, Let's move onto the actual content of the update!

New Hero, The Guardian!

The Guardian is a protector of many ancient tombs around the world of Etheria. With the Old One’s army rising up across Etheria, the Guardian has decided to join the heroes in their battle!

General Features

The Guardian is a melee hero that will use a Sword and Shield in combat. She will offer both defensive and support capabilities with her kit. With that said let's get into the abilities.

Abilities

Primary - Basic Attack

• Her primary attack is a melee attack with her sword similar to that of the Squire.

Secondary - Shield Slam

• This attack can be charged up by holding the input and released at any point. The longer the ability is held the more damage that will be dealt up to a limit. Once released the ability will release a cone of damage in front of the guardian hitting all enemies within range.

Active Ability - Divine Judgement

• Divine Judgement is a powerful ability that will summon energy from above and come crashing down onto enemies dealing massive damage.

Buff Ability - Divine Protection

• While active nearby heroes will receive additional armor. Additionally increasing her movement speed as well as a portion of any damage the Guardian will be used to heal all nearby heroes inside the radius.

Defenses

Defense 1 - Holy Bulwark (2 DU): 

• Description: The Holy Bulwark is a unique blockade that protects nearby defenses by taking any damage they receive instead of the tower being hit taking damage. The Holy Bulwark cannot protect other Holy Bulwark’s.
• Fused: Gaines 30% Rift Armor.

Defense 2 - Empowering Shrine (3 DU): 

• Description: This special shrine will offer nearby heroes additional damage and increased mana regeneration.
• Fused: Decreases affected hero ability cooldown by 25%.

Defense 3 - Owl Perch (3 DU): 

• Description: The owl perch is the most trustworthy ally to the guardian, and will fly around the battlefield going from target to target dealing damage to all in its path. The Owl will not stay on one target and will not hit the same target until it returns to the perch.
• Fused: Becomes fusion element.

Defense 4 - Holy Cannon (4 DU): 

• Description: The Holy cannon will shoot flaming cannonballs at targets dealing damage to a small AoE around the target but most importantly applying a stacking damage over time effect. 
• Fused: Becomes fusion element.

Defense 5 - The Obelisk (4 DU): 

• Description: The Obelisk is the support defense of the Guardian’s kit, when an enemy is within range it will apply a AoE Debuff around the target slowing targets within range, additionally the primary target will take damage over time.
• Fused: Becomes fusion element.

New Act 5 Maps!

The Forsaken Temple

This long abandoned underground city was once a great shrine to the Night Owl. The Heroes should be wary of what secrets and evil lies ahead.

This will be the new Act 5 Boss map, but be warned rumors say The Dune Eater lurks below the liquid gold. This map will also drop a new pet named Zephyr which will shoot tornados at enemies that stop when they hit an enemy and linger for a couple seconds.

Castle Armory

The Old One's forces have breached the Castle Armory, the Heroes must defend this area in order to keep the weapons from falling into the wrong hands!

This is a recreation of the original Dungeon Defenders map and will serve as the encore map for Act 5. This map will drop the Mini-Ogre which is a minified version of the normal ogre. The Mini-Ogre will melee and throw snotballs at enemies with large AoE.

More Golden Pet Unlocks!

There are also now Wave 100 Golden Pets for Bazaar, Forsaken Temple and Castle Armory. Lost Metropolis will get one once the pet has been finalized and added.

Level 110 & New Loot Tier Supreme!

This update allows players to go up to level 110! Alongside that with a new Boss comes better loot, and as such we've added a new loot tier called Supreme! Any item above 4550 quality (Shown in the top right of the tooltip) will become Supreme and require level 110. These items will also drop with 3 item effects, allowing you to further tune your builds.

Additionally we've changed how item tier is determined. Tier is now based off the quality of an item instead of IPWR. This will provide a even playing field for all items as IPWR was not a equal across different types of items. This means that some of your items may shift up or down in item tiers, but should remain the exact same power level as they were before.

12 More Runes!

We've added a handful of new runes for players to collect. Here’s the new ones and where to find them.

Guardian Runes:
Paralyzing Smite - Guardian Divine Judgement (Drops on Forsaken Temple): This rune will make enemies hit by Divine Judgement stunned for X Seconds.

Retribution Aura - Guardian Divine Protection (Drops on The Outpost): This rune will make enemies reflect X% of the damage dealt to the Guardian back to themselves.

Divine Absorption - Guardian Holy Bulwark (Drops on Foundries and Forges): This rune will make the Holy Bulwark heal X% of the damage it receives from protecting other defenses. It will not heal itself from direct damage.

Empowering Friendship - Guardian Empowering Shrine (Drops on Royal Gardens): This rune will increase the hero damage the defense gives by X% for each player inside.

Flaming Owl - Guardian Owl Perch (Drops on Tornado Valley): This rune will give the Owl a fire DoT to apply to enemies dealing X% Tower Damage every second for Y Seconds.

Radiant Outbreak - Guardian Holy Cannon (Drops on Glitterhelm Caverns): The Holy Cannon has a X% chance to transfer its DoT Stacks to another enemy upon the enemies death.

Deadly Gaze - Guardian Obelisk (Drops on Castle Armory): This rune will make The Obelisk apply a DoT to all enemies within the obelisk's debuff range dealing a % of tower damage per second.

Other New Runes:
Reflective Screech - Siren Rune (Drops on The Forsaken Temple): This rune increases the range of the siren’s armor buff range per rank, additionally it adds a protective shield that will reflect projectiles from ranged enemies similar to reflect field.

Immobilizing Ray - EV Proton Beam (Drops on Castle Armory): This rune will apply a slow to enemies hit by the proton beam, each hit applies a new stack onto the enemy.

Empowering Ring - Warden Mushroom Circle (Drops on Castle Armory): This rune give heroes that walk into the mushroom circle a lingering damage and movement speed buff.

Raging Shrooms - Warden Shroomy Geyser (Drops on Lost Metropolis): This rune will give the shroomy projectile a chance to enrage enemies upon being hit.

Exploding Aura - Monk Strength Drain (Drops on Forsaken Temple): This rune will make The Strength Drain aura cause enemies killed within the aura to explode doing X% of their max HP as damage.

Bugfixes / Changes

• Fixed issue with Sirens being able to attack cores on Endless Spires from the staircases.
• Fixed issue with Ancient Dragon being able to be slowed and CC'd.
• Fixed Entangling Roots Rune from stacking the debuff multiple times with itself.
• Spider & Shroomy projectiles should be more accurate and not hit ceilings as much. 
• Adjusted Shroomy Pit Targeting location to be a bit higher so it can see over ledges easier.
• Fixed issue with Flash heal not working on clients and gamepad.
• "Add to Trade" option no longer shows unless you are trading.
• Fixed issue with returning players who skipped Summit Campaign on Easy, Medium or Hard having to replay the map to resume progression.
• 105 Item Level gear has been reduced to level 100 instead.

What’s Next?

With Episode 2 wrapped up, it’s time to start looking at what’s next for DDA. We’ve already got a few things in the works, one of which being Tavern Storage which we’ve teased in the discord. We are excited to reveal the other features in due time. That said we will be taking a step back from releasing large updates and releasing more bite sized updates as things become ready.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

New Pets

• Chainsaw Corgi - Premium Pet
  • Unique Pet Ability - Chained Saw - Fires a flying saw blade that deals 1500% hero damage and returns to the player dealing damage on the way back. Cooldown 30s.
• Cyborgie - Premium Pet
  • Unique Pet Ability - Whirlwind - Increases speed by 50% and attacks deal 155% bonus electric Hero Damage for 6s. Cooldown 45s.

New Skins

• Anime Adept Skin
• Anime Countess Skin
• Anime Mystic Skin
• S.T.R.E.A.M.E.R. 1000 Engineer Skin

New Flairs

• Otherworldly Drakin Wings
• Otherworldly Drakin Head
• Otherworldly Drakin Tail

Emporium

• Anime Bundle
  • Anime Adept, Anime Countess, Anime Gunwitch, Anime Huntress, and Anime Mystic costumes. This bundle also includes the Chainsaw Corgi and the Gundam Corgi Pets.

Balance

• Engineer can now use Steam Blast and Orbital Cannon while running and jumping.
• Reduced Drill Hold (Engineer right-click) damage scalar from 3.5 to 2.
• Reduced the Range increase of the Enhanced Throw Shard by 15% and Damage by 50%.
• Reduced the base and scaling of the damage increase from Kinetic Energy Shard by 40%.
• Reduced the base damage increase from Broad Head Arrows by 35%.
• Reduced the damage of the Magnetic Knight Tower by 25%, and fixed its upgrade scalar.
• Magnetic Knight Tower now deals 5% decreased damage after every hit maxing at 50% damage reduction.
• Increased the damage scalar of the Sentry Turret by 10%.
• Made nimbus electric corruption attack now target more than 1 enemy.
• Slime Pit changes:
• Increased Damage scalar on slimes form 13.6 to 15
• Now oils enemies by default
• Corrupted slimes now gain 350 move speed in addition to increased damage.
• Fixed the scaling of Earth Guardian’s Dagger.
• Reduced the maximum power of the Overload mod from 60% to 35%.
• Orc Chieftain can no longer be slowed.

Bug Fixes 

• Fixed an issue where the wildest west map last wave wasn't working properly for C10.
• Adjusted aim offset of the ballista, poison dart, and harpy towers.
• Removed left over quest from the collection UI.
• Removed phoenix sound from the turtle pet ability projectile.
• Removed the ability for the turtle pet to roll tormented thoughts.
• Removed loud Drakenlord sound effects.
• Fixed targeting issues for Wind/Cyclone Shapers.
• Fixed Minibosses on Chaos X Tornado Valley.
• Fixed Boss Wave for Chaos IX and X Onslaught schedules.
• Fixed Mod Transfer for gloves.
• Fixed Ranged Pylon Not dropping.
• Removed Mods on all Halloween weapons.
• Fixed Sentry Turret petrifying with only poison attacks.
• Fixed a potential issue where sorting could desync the inventory.
• Potentially fixed an issue where the magnetic knight’s attack animation was desynced.
• Fixed an issue where Overlord wasn't exploding on dead targets, and prevented it from attacking the same target.
• Increased particle boundary box for railgun vfx to prevent culling (hopefully fixes ghost shot problem).
• Fixed Ranged Frost Goblin slow not being tagged properly.
• Steam Blast is now unlocked at level 1.
• Fixed Earth Ring not being tagged as a stun.
• Adjust vfx bounds for the rail gun to hopefully prevent some ghost shots.
• Fixed a potential issue where controllers can sometimes navigate to the buff icons or hero icons on the main player UI.
• Fixed several pathing issues on Hidden Caverns maps.
• Attempted update/fix for getting wonky ghost items and dupes with stash sorting and moving items around.
• Fixed an issue where the Cyberdragon required gato materials to upgrade
• Fixed Dead Road Subcore spawners on Chaos X.
• Combat Prep and Heroic Presence now show up on buff bar
• Cleaned up Tamer’s Gambit Shard values for the ungilded variant.
• Removed core health requirement from spectral assault daily and changed description.
• Fixed an issue where the Jester’s Revenge daily quest showed up more than intended.
• Fixed black text on mods for Bling King Bow and Lunar Portal Staff.
• Fixed an issue where the Lunar Portal Staff and Haunted Halberd right clicks weren’t working correctly.
• Fixed Ranged Pylon, Double Eruption, and Steel hurricane not dropping.

QOL

• Increased the game’s bandwidth allocation.
• Increased tick rate to 30 from 20.
• Onslaught now rewards defender medals like expeditions for previously beaten floors.
• Increased incursion medals to what expeditions have.
• Added new Caverns Projectile VFX for all weapons but canister.
• Remade fire and electric tower vfx on the magnetic knight tower to properly disappear during firing.
• Added idle vfx to the magnetic knight tower and sentry turret.
• Added idle sfx to magnetic knight tower, sentry turret, and rail gun tower.
• Removed VFX on Electric Discharge.
• Adjusted sound radius and volume of the magnetic knight tower.
• Added Duration to Anti Heal Chip and Servo descriptions.
• Changed the camera position of the mercenary to better view flairs
   

A small hotfix update to fix some things in the 9.1.1 and 9.1.0 releases along with some balance changes.

Features :
- Added accomplishment and trophies on the tavern for Arcane Lib, Dread Dungeon, Emerald City, Flames of Rebirth, Pirate Invasion, Spring Valley and Temple of Polybius, all on Nightmare only
- Added some new tables on the third floor of the tavern
- The tavern's item recovery should not affect items inside the tavern anymore
- You can now have 240 items on your tavern floor
- You can now trigger having tables on the empty center on the second floor of the tavern on the new Bucket and Mop on the basement

Balance :
- Made supreme and under eyes get more damage per upgrade
- Made bow of hearts unable to damage enemy cores - Moved pet rock back to wave 30
Spooktacular Bay :
- Moved west flight nodes closer to the map to avoid the volume djinns were getting stuck on
- Changed collision for last kraken
- Moved killzone so third kraken cant be killed with it

Buccaneer Bay :
- Added a box inside the opening closest to spawn to prevent the building camera to go inside the wall
- Moved all windows on main building a bit up
- Added a hanging shelf on top of the entrance closes to spawn
- Moved hay stacks down on the wall to let minions be built there again
- Made the ceiling collision prevent the building camera from going up

Lover's Paradise :
- Added killzone under forge to kill stuck mobs
- Made Boss Mech Gentleman take tower damage
- Made Boss Mech Gentleman target priority have towers at -1
- Made Boss Mech Gentleman force untargetable targets
- Fixed Lover's Paradise achievement typo

Bug Fixes :
- Swapped back Eye Patch to old archetype with coloring
- Fixed custom chest drops not always dropping
- Tentatively fixed an issue where a phoenix spawns when going into build phase on the Flames of Rebirth challenge
- Clamped tower range to max projectile distance, also made towers not target enemies that ignored tower damage
- Fixed slippery core and projectiles on Spring Valley
- Fixed issue with workshop maps that forced difficulty defaulting to easy
- Removed duplicate TI trophy on the tavern

Foolish Defenders,

Today marks the largest update we’ve done to Dungeon Defenders in history. We’ve got massive changes coming to the franchise! Just in time for the Etherian Humor Festival. This is gonna be a long post so let's get into it!

DDA Login Reward

To start things off, the Jester has prepared something special for the heroes of Etheria. Login to Dungeon Defenders Awakened between April 1 - April 8 for a giant surprise. 

There’s 4 weapons for you to transmog, A Sword, Staff, Bow and Polearm. Make sure to login to unlock these transmogs before it’s too late!

Changes to Dungeon Defender Games

We’ve got so many changes to the Dungeon Defenders Franchise that we actually lost track of which changes go to which game, so best of luck.

Squire

• The Squire's Blockade has been replaced with a banana peel. Enemies who step on it will slip and fall, taking damage in the process.

• The Squire's Cannonball towers have been replaced with giant whoopee cushions. When enemies step on them, they'll be momentarily stunned by the sound of a loud fart.

• The Squire's Sword attacks have been given a new combo ability: "Disco Inferno." When players perform a specific sequence of attacks, they will unleash a disco ball that appears above them and temporarily stuns enemies with its groovy light show.

• The Squire's Boost aura has been replaced with a "Snack Break" aura. While in the aura, players will receive periodic snacks like cookies or chips that temporarily increase their stats. The snacks are randomly generated and may have unusual effects like turning players into chickens or making them randomly shout out phrases like "I love pickles!"

• The Squire's ultimate ability has been replaced with "Summon the Squid." When activated, a giant squid will appear and flail around on the battlefield, causing chaos and confusion among enemies. It doesn't do any damage, but it's definitely entertaining to watch.

Apprentice

• The Apprentice's Magic Missile towers have been replaced with "Rubber Chickens of Doom." These giant chickens can bounce around the battlefield and cause damage to enemies upon impact. Their clucking can also distract enemies and make them easier to hit.

• The Apprentice's Fireball towers have been replaced with "Ice Cream Cannons." These towers shootout streams of delicious ice cream that slow down enemies and cover them in sprinkles. The ice cream is sticky, so it also makes enemies easier to hit.

• The Apprentice's Lightning towers have been replaced with "Karaoke Machines." These towers play loud music that temporarily stuns enemies with their terrible singing. The Apprentice can choose from a variety of songs to play, including classics like "I Will Survive" and "Bohemian Rhapsody."

• The Apprentice's Arcane Barrier ability has been replaced with "Bubble Wrap Barrier." When activated, the Apprentice will be surrounded by a barrier made of bubble wrap. This barrier can absorb damage, but it will pop after a certain amount of hits. Enemies will also be distracted by the popping sounds and may stop attacking to join in the fun.

• The Apprentice's ultimate ability has been replaced with "Summon the Unicorn." When activated, a majestic unicorn will appear on the battlefield and prance around, distracting enemies with its beauty. The unicorn is invincible and doesn't do any damage, but it's definitely a sight to behold.

Huntress

• The Huntress's Explosive Traps have been replaced with "Pie Traps." These devious traps will blast enemies with a face full of whipped cream and pie filling. The pies are surprisingly effective at slowing down enemies and making them easier to hit.

• The Huntress's Geyser Traps have been replaced with "Soda Pop Fountains." These fountains shoot out streams of fizzy soda pop that drench enemies and make them sticky. The soda also makes enemies burp loudly, revealing their location and making them vulnerable to attacks.

• The Huntress's Gas Traps have been replaced with "Stink Bombs." These foul-smelling bombs emit a cloud of stinky gas that repels enemies and makes them dizzy. The stench is so bad that it can also make players gag, temporarily lowering their accuracy.

• The Huntress's Piercing Shot ability has been replaced with "Love Arrows." These arrows have been enchanted with a love spell that causes enemies to become enamored with each other. They'll start dancing and singing together, completely ignoring players until the spell wears off.

• The Huntress's ultimate ability has been replaced with "Summon the Dragon." When activated, a giant dragon will swoop down and scorch enemies with its fiery breath. The dragon is also surprisingly agile and can perform aerial acrobatics that distract enemies.

Monk

• The Monk's Lightning Auras have been replaced with "Disco Balls." These funky balls will emit groovy music and bright, flashing lights that temporarily stun enemies with their disco fever.

• The Monk's Boost Auras have been replaced with "Pizza Party Auras." While in the aura, players will receive periodic slices of pizza that temporarily increase their stats. The pizza toppings are randomly generated and may have unusual effects like turning players into zombies or making them randomly shout out phrases like "I love broccoli!"

• The Monk's Sky Guard Towers have been replaced with "Flying Monkeys." These winged primates can fly around and attack enemies with their banana bombs. They can also steal weapons from enemies and use them against their former owners.

• The Monk's Hero Boost ability has been replaced with "Super Saiyan Boost." When activated, the Monk will temporarily transform into a Super Saiyan, increasing their speed, power, and hair volume. Enemies will be too stunned by the transformation to attack.

• The Monk's ultimate ability has been replaced with "Summon the Unicorn Ninja." When activated, a mystical unicorn ninja will appear on the battlefield and strike enemies with its deadly horn. It can also vanish into thin air and reappear elsewhere, making it difficult for enemies to track.

EV

• The series EV's proton beam has been replaced with a laser pointer. It doesn't do any damage, but it's great for playing with cats.

Jester

• Removed from the game

Summoner

• Now has the ability to equip unlimited pets, but the pets don’t do anything.

Maps

• Aquanos and Kings Game have been removed from the game to make the other maps feel better.

Miscellaneous Changes

• All enemies have been given party hats. It doesn't make them any less dangerous, but it does make them look a little silly.

• We have heard your cries for more cosmetics! Considering the fan favoritism towards the pizza wings we have replaced every texture in the game with the pizza texture in hopes to make the game more aesthetically pleasing.

• The final boss of the game has been replaced with a giant, inflatable chicken. Defeating it will be a little anticlimactic, but it's definitely more amusing.

• Removed Kart Racing Gamemode.

Welcome our newest team member!

We’d like to welcome our newest team member to the studio, Chat Gpt! In fact they are the ones that help make this update possible and wrote the patch notes! 

We hope you enjoy these legitimate and well thought out changes to Dungeon Defenders! Just remember, these are 100% REAL permanent additions to the game in hopes of achieving “true balance” so all complaints will be filed in the Corgi Paper Shredding Department. Happy defending!

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

The Episode 2 Part 2 update is ready for PTR testing! This update brings a brand new hero to the Dungeon Defenders Universe, The Guardian! As well as 2 new maps, one of which will be the Boss Map, and lastly more Runes. This will wrap up the Episode 2 update as a whole as we prepare to look at what’s next for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened!

How to Join

We want you to join the PTR! If you own Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on PC/Steam, check out our forum post that shows you exactly how to join!

PTR Reward

You’ll be given the choice of reward in the survey including a new set of wings!. This includes the following rewards:

• [New!] Egyptian Eagle Wings
• Forest Ally’s Wings
• Eagle’s Wings
• Crystalline Corgi
• RGB Pumpkin Mask
• A Giveaway entry for a Golden Corgi Pet Transmog

New Hero, The Guardian!

The Guardian is a protector of many ancient tombs and temples around the world of Etheria. With the Old One’s army rising up across Etheria, the Guardian has decided to join the heroes in their battle!

General Features

The Guardian is a melee hero that will use a Sword and Shield in combat. She will offer both defensive and support capabilities with her kit. With that said let's get into the abilities.

Abilities

Primary - Basic Attack

• Her primary attack is a melee attack with her sword similar to that of the Squire.

Secondary - Shield Slam

• This attack can be charged up by holding the input and released at any point. The longer the ability is held the more damage that will be dealt up to a limit. Once released the ability will release a cone of damage in front the guardian hitting all enemies within range.

Active Ability - Divine Judgement

• Divine Judgement is a powerful ability that will summon energy from above and come crashing down onto enemies dealing massive damage.

Buff Ability - Divine Protection

• While active nearby heroes will receive additional armor. Additionally increases the guardian's movement speed and a portion of any damage the Guardian deals to enemies will be used to heal all nearby heroes inside the radius.

Defenses

• Defense 1 - Holy Bulwark (2 DU): The Holy Bulwark is still a WIP, as such in the PTR will be just a simple blockade for now. That said, our goal here is to allow the Holy Bulwark to protect nearby defenses by taking any damage they receive instead of the tower being hit taking damage.
• Defense 2 - Empowering Shrine (3 DU): This special shrine will offer nearby heroes additional damage and increased mana regeneration.
• Defense 3 - Owl Perch (3 DU): The owl perch is the most trustworthy ally to the guardian, and will fly around the battlefield going from target to target dealing damage to all in its path. The Owl will not stay on one target and will not hit the same target until it returns to the perch.
• Defense 4 - Holy Cannon (4 DU): The Holy cannon will shoot flaming cannonballs at targets dealing damage to a small AoE around the target but most importantly applying a stacking damage over time effect. 
• Defense 5 - The Obelisk (4 DU): The Obelisk is the support defense of the Guardian’s kit, when an enemy is within range it will apply a AoE Debuff around the target slowing targets within range, additionally the primary target will take damage over time.

New Act 5 Maps!

The Forsaken Temple

This long abandoned underground city was once a great shrine to the Night Owl.The Heroes should be wary of what secrets and evil lies ahead.

This will be the new Act 5 Boss map, during the PTR there will not be a boss at the end of the map. We want to leave something for surprise for the full release.

Castle Armory

The Old One's forces have breached the Castle Armory, the Heroes must defend this area in order to keep the weapons from falling into the wrong hands!

This is a recreation of the original Dungeon Defenders map and will serve as the encore map for Act 5.

More Runes!

We are still in the process of making some of the new guardian runes but there are some additional runes that have been added for other defenses. Here’s the new ones and where to find them.

Reflective Screech - Siren Rune (Drops on The Forsaken Temple): This rune increases the range of the siren’s armor buff range per rank, additionally it adds a protective shield that will reflect projectiles from ranged enemies similar to reflect field.

Static Shock - EV Energy Cannon (Drops on Castle Armory): This rune will apply a slow to enemies hit by the Energy Cannon, each hit applies a new stack onto the enemy.

Empowering Ring - Warden Mushroom Circle (Drops on Castle Armory): This rune give heroes that walk into the mushroom circle a lingering damage and movement speed buff.

Raging Shrooms - Warden Shroomy Geyser (Drops on Lost Metropolis): This rune will give the shroomy projectile a chance to enrage enemies upon being hit.

Paralyzing Smite - Guardian Divine Judgement (Drops on Forsaken Temple): This rune will make enemies hit by Divine Judgement stunned for a limited duration.

Deadly Gaze - Guardian Obelisk (Drops on Castle Armory): This rune will make The Obelisk apply a DoT to all enemies within the obelisk's debuff range dealing a % of tower damage per second.

Known Issues / Missing Features:

Hopefully our goal is to add most of these into the PTR as we release various patches during the playtest.

• The Guardian’s Balance is very much work in progress
• Defense Tooltips
• Lots of placeholder images for Guardian, Items, etc
• More Guardian Runes
• New map pets
• Boss Weapons drop but don’t do anything special currently
• The Holy Bulwark currently doesn’t have a special ability and is just a blockade currently

Hotfix Note Location:

EPISODE 2 PART 2 PTR HOTFIXES

What’s Next?

The PTR will run for about a week or two as we collect data and make any adjustments needed before doing a full release. After this update is live we will likely be handling future updates differently, moving towards a smaller consistent update releasing features and content as ready.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

Today we have an exciting new update which includes some huge changes we have been working hard on! There are two main features to highlight: Loadouts to customize heroes with new abilities and Map Choice which gives players the choice of which map and mode to go to next. In addition to these we have also made changes to game flow, balance, health, runes, weapons, and UI polish. Read on for the details or jump in the game and check them out right away!

Loadouts
Each hero now has at least 4 new abilities that are unlocked through a variety of quests and challenges. These new abilities are not intended to be complete replacements for the default ones but to enhance and give additional options to each hero. In addition to Abilities there are also two other types of Loadouts: Runes and Offhands.

Abilities
These are alternate abilities for the Skill (Right-Click), Ability One (F), Ability Two (C), and Movement (Shift). Each hero has at least four new abilities but some have more.

Equipment
These are two slots which allow players to choose some of their starting equipment and are also unlocked through quests like Abilities.

Starting Rune
Before this update each hero would unlock and automatically equip a new Rune with each Hero Level. This was called Hero Mastery but it didn’t provide the kind of customization that we were hoping for. Now each Hero Level will unlock a new rune and players can choose one to start with.

Starting Offhand
Offhands will no longer drop from chests in-game but instead are something players unlock and choose to begin the game. They can still be upgraded at the Void Shop’s Blacksmith or purchased at the Void Shop’s Shopkeeper.

Each now also has a unique base effect which gives it a specific purpose and allows for more control over the role of the hero.

Unlocking
All of the new loadouts need to be unlocked. Some are simple quests like “Complete 5 Runs on the Squire”. Others are more of a challenge like in the above screenshot of “Defeating any boss on Hard by only using Defenses”.

Map Choice
One of the major goals for this update is to give players a choice of which map to go to next and if they want something that’s more challenging but also more rewarding or to just pick their favorite map. 

Portals
With this players now must choose a portal to go through after each map victory. In Multiplayer the portal is chosen by the Game Host after all players are ready.

New Game Modes
Moving Core
A twist on the old challenge from DD1 and DDA. In DDGR it is different in that the Core will move between different stopping points where it is blocked by some inconveniently placed barrels. Luckily those barrels can be destroyed once the Core gets there. Unluckily the enemy is very attached to those barrels and will start attacking in order to defend them. Once all of the barrels have been cleared the core will continue on until it reaches the next stopping point or the end goal.

Warping Core
At the start of each wave and in between waves on Hard difficulty the Core will teleport to a new location. Chase it around and get there before the enemies do!

Arena
This is a brand new game mode to test out gameplay that isn’t centered on the Core. Navigate your way through three new maps avoiding traps, enemies, and then defeating a Mini-Boss at the end. These maps will only be found as a choice before the Boss map in each Act.

Rewards
Each of these new game modes provides an increase in challenge and with it an additional reward!

General
While the Loadouts and Map Choice were the biggest focus in this update there are also a lot of other changes we have made to help bring the game closer to what we originally envisioned for it. These include changes to the basic game mechanics but also tweaks to balance and items.

Gameflow
One of the biggest changes previous players will notice is that there are no longer downtimes in between waves. The map will start after a countdown and then waves of enemies will come until it’s over with a final chest rewarded at the end.

With this we have also added a Pause function when the Escape Menu is open in single player.

In addition to the changes to waves there has also been a large amount of polish to everything from boss introductions to death cameras. We hope it provides a more polished and rewarding experience overall!

Health
Another big change that players will notice is that Health will no longer regenerate after each map but persists between map transitions. There have also been various tweaks to Runes, Item Effects, Talents, and Health Drop rates in order to hopefully accomplish our goal of making Health feel more like a resource that must be managed.

Runes and Weapons
There are way too many various changes to list here but there have been changes to the balance of Runes and Weapons. Updates to the base effects on Weapons to make them all feel more unique and powerful.

We have also added some new Runes into the drop pool so look out for those!

One of the biggest changes that should be noticeable is that there will be more Runes and Weapons in the drop pool by default. Previously these would be unlocked through Hero and Account Levels but we didn’t feel like the default experience provided enough choices in Runes and Weapons. So with the addition of Loadouts into the Progression system we have made it so that most Runes and Weapons can drop.

UI Updates
We have also done an overhaul throughout the game on many different aspects of the UI in order for it to be more user friendly and generally polished. We hope that this provides a better overall experience but know there is still room for improvement so please let us know what else you’d like to see there!

Social Defenders
To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• Forums

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

Today we have a small game update and a handful of other events to talk about! This update contains the Early Game changes to make things harder. As well as Twitch Integration which will allow streamers to connect their twitch account to the game and let viewers vote on events to take place in game!

Free Steam Weekend

Have you been curious to try the game before buying? Got a friend you want to convince to play? Well now is their chance! We’ll be running a free weekend for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on Steam! There will also be a sale for the game so if you decide to buy the game after giving it a try you can continue right where you left off in progression.

The Free Weekend will start March 9th at 10AM Pacific / 1PM EST and will run until March 13th at 10AM Pacific / 1PM EST.

Twitch Drops

What better time to offer some free cosmetic rewards than during a free weekend. We’ll be running our first ever Twitch drop campaign. All you have to do is connect your twitch account on our website - https://drops.dungeondefenders.com/ then watch any twitch channel streaming Dungeon Defenders: Awakened with drops enabled.

The following rewards will become available at specific times:

• Starting Mar 9th - Mar 30 Watch for 1 hour and claim the reward Squire Guardian Pet
• Mar 10th - Mar 30 · Watch for 1 hour and claim the reward Huntress Guardian Pet
• Mar 11th - Mar 30 · Watch for 1 hour and claim the reward Monk Guardian Pet
• Mar 12th - Mar 30 · Watch for 1 hour and claim the reward Apprentice Guardian Pet
• Mar 13th - Mar 30 · Watch for 1 hour and claim the reward Crystalline Pizza Wings

Note: You will have to redeem the rewards in order and watch the required hours per reward.

Galaxy Costume Bundle

Store Link: Steam Galaxy Bundle

The Galaxy Costume Bundle will be releasing alongside the free weekend on March 9th at 10AM PST / 1PM EST! Explore the world of Etheria with these new cosmic themed hero costumes cosmetics. This DLC Bundle unlocks the above costumes through the Transmog UI accessible in the tavern through the Blacksmith or Escape Menu.

The Galaxy Costume Bundle applies to the following heroes:

• Squire
• Apprentice
• Huntress
• Monk
• EV
• Warden
• Rogue
• The Outcast Summoner
• Guardian (once released in-game)

The bundle will cost $6.99 with a 15% launch discount bringing it down to $5.95 for the first week!

Game Update Patchnotes - Released 3/8/2023

Available on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation (Expect for Twitch Integration on consoles)

Twitch Integration

As many games have added, Twitch integration will allow streamers to link their Twitch account and have their chat vote on randomly chosen events to happen in-game. Events can be both negative and positive for the streamer and only happen in the combat phase.

Streamers will also be able to configure the amount of voting time, time between events, number of events per wave and whether they want to disable positive events entirely.

To use this feature, go to the Twitch tab on the options UI and link your Twitch account.

Early Game Changes

We've heard a lot of player feedback about the early game and so one of the main goals for these changes is to increase the difficulty of the early game to help better match the power level of players and entertain players who want a harder experience. At the same time our goal is also not to make the early game too difficult as some players do want an easier experience.

That said here are the following changes:

• Hard is now unlocked from the beginning.
  • We’ve shifted all the difficulties down from Easy to Insane, What this means is the following:
    • Easy - The difficulty of what Medium used to be.
    • Medium - The difficulty of what Hard used to be.
    • Hard - The Difficulty of what Insane used to be and slightly harder.
    • Insane - Is what Insane used to be but with higher scaling to be a new middle ground between Hard and Nightmare.
  • We’ve changed how progression unlocks work, the way it works now is the following:
    • If a map is unlocked on any difficulty, you can play that map on a higher difficulty without having to play it on lower difficulties first.
      • Example: If you’ve beaten The Throne Room on medium, you can play Endless Spires on any difficulty you have unlocked (Insane, Nightmare or Massacre) assuming you meet the requirements.
• Removed gear level requirements until nightmare to allow players to equip the gear they are getting as they progress.
• Insane is now unlocked after beating Easy, Medium or Hard on Campaign Summit.
• Decreased Nightmare Level requirement to 60 from 70
• Decreased Massacre Level requirement to 80 from 83.
• Added some new difficulty explanation popup for when you open the map select for the first time.
• Maps are now hidden on the map select if you don’t have the difficulty unlocked and it explains why the difficulty is locked.
• Increased IPWR on Swords and Polearms to help bring them in more in line with Staffs and Crossbows.
• Greatly Reduced the amount of stats that item effects provide in the early game 
• Ex: Armor giving +50 Fortify on a piece that only gives +10 Fortify.

What’s Next?

This is just the tip of what’s to come for the Dungeon Defenders franchise as a whole! We got updates for all the games around the corner. In regards to Dungeon Defenders: Awakened we have Episode 2 Part 2 coming which will feature the Guardian a new hero, 2 new maps, one of which is a boss map. Our goal is to get this into PTR playtesting the week of March 20th.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

This is another update that we had planned for February, but came out a bit later than expected, but it has a wide variety of new content, QOL, and fixes.

New Maps :
Lovers Paradise
-  Rewards: Bow of Hearts, Spear of Hearts, Heart Fragment (campaign only), a random Temple of Love accessory, and a chance for a Shield of Hearts
- Survival Pets: Cupid at Wave 25, New Hamster at Wave 30, Fluffy Dragon at map completion 
Crystal Escort: Wandering Heart
- Rewards: Staff of Hearts, Sword of Hearts, Heart Fragment, a random Temple of Love accessory and guaranteed a Shield of Hearts

New Items :
You can use 88 Heart Fragments on the new forge on the Tavern’s second floor to spawn a Crystal Heart
The new Hearts weapons do Love Damage. It’s generic damage that has pink damage numbers
The staff of Hearts, Spear of Hearts, and Sword of Hearts have a 10% movement speed increase 
The staff of Hearts right-click heals allies instead of doing AoE damage
Shield of Hearts heals a percentage of your health on successfully blocking damage
New Hamster, Steam Robot, and Cupid

Quality of Life :
- Removed the ship from Striking Tree and moved the spawn to the center of the map
- Gas and Darkness traps now reset when entering a build phase
- Healing pets no longer try to heal you when they can’t
-  You can now see the lab assault EV bosses on the minimap
- Added hysteresis to trip wire towers (buff beam, reflection beam, etc), which can be toggled with “Control + B”. This means they snap to the max length for each DU option
- Added more Ultimate++ armor seeds
- Staff left + right click charges to 70%
- Made most events unsellable. The only exceptions are Admiral Djinn, Blu, and Aladdin’s Wish
- Made the practice dummy more accurate the longer you attack it for
- Tentatively made all the skins that unlock on only Insane difficulty or under also unlock on Nightmare
- Made Summoner’s Overlord Mode ability not get canceled/prevented from use on map completion, letting people use it to pick up items that drop on the last wave
- Made it possible for weapons from this patch onward to have a fire rate higher than 10 shots per second
- Split screen status ( Hidden / Shown ) doesn’t get changed on in-game cinematics
 - True Boss Rush now has a working timer
- The upgrade tower ability now prioritizes towers that you have enough mana to upgrade
- Prioritisation of towers in the upgrade tower ability is now customizable from UDKCDTSettings.ini
- Added config option to bring back old upgrade tower behavior
- Shift/Ctrl upgrading a hero stat on cats now upgrades boost/range/number of players for you
- You now get an experience orb as a one-time reward upon getting the Ultimate Defender achievement
- Minimum lobby level requirement is now saved
- Level rewards are no longer automatically locked when they get added to your inventory
- Added unequip all button to hero info UI
- Call of arms now has an indicator when activated, similar to hero and tower boost
- Made unearned achievement appear first when inspecting the crystal

Bug Fixes :
- Added collision volumes where Boss Ev's usually get stuck on Lab Assault
- Removed collision from rocks under the map on Lab Assault so Boss EVs don’t get stuck
- Fixed kill volume on Spooktacular Bay killing auras and Krakens
- Fixed a bunch of miscellaneous collisions on Spooktacular Bay
- Expanded Overlord bounds on Spooktacular Bay
- Fixed roof collisions on Spooktacular Bay
- Added collision where ogres get stuck under the bay on Spooktacular Bay
- Potentially fixed copter ogres getting stuck in the air on Spooktacular Bay
- Fixed getting stuck when going to the roof on Spooktacular Bay
-  Made Mushroom and trees collisions smaller on Striking Tree
- Fixed invisible mushrooms on Striking Tree
- Fixed a bunch of minor collision issues on Striking Tree
- Added back the missing triggers for steam achievements from update 7
- Fixed a typo in one of the names for a Staff of Flowers core drop
- Fixed the old one not shooting fireballs
- Fixed bug where tower boosters would not always affect aura attack rates
- Fixed the broken report bug button to link on the pause menu
- All Update 9.0 weapons now have size randomization similar to Update 8.7’s weapons
- Melee pets now properly hit Kraken, Spider Queen, and Goblin Mech bosses
- Fixed Jade Serpent being white when dropped on the ground
- Pets that look identical can now both contribute to familiar related achievements (ex: robot from tinkers lab and alc lab)
- Fixed bug where pets that did the line of sight checks could never target the cruiser ship boss core
- Fixed broken links on the welcome screen
- Fixed issue where “toggle other players towers sellable” was impossible to select on a controller
- Fix for copter ogres getting stuck on one spot outside the map on Winter Wonderland
- Remade collision for trees on Striking Tree, stuck mobs and drops should be less frequent
- Possible fix for Jester Fool skin call-out animation with guns
- Made Pumpkin Snowman boss drop mana on Spooktacular Bay and Halloween Invasion

Balance Changes :
- Mini Kraken, Mini Genie King, Mr. Owl, Dice, Christmas Elephant, Mega Chicken, Forge Robot, and Tiger had their melee range increased
- Increased range for Wasp Pet and decreased melee range
- Removed ranged attack from Mega Chicken
- Limited upgrading Mega Chicken’s shots per second to 4, to avoid using upgrades when that wouldn’t do anything 
- Made Ult rates for Ember Pony and Fenix better
- Buffed Ember Pony damage multiplier
- Tentatively made Ember Pony float higher when equipped
- Karathiti Monkey buffed to be on the same level as Akatiti Monkeys
- Removed movement speed from Final Patch
- Made all characters and skins, with the exception of Jester, move 10% faster by default
- Decreased mana cost scaling of Squire’s Blood Rage ability
- Decreased the movement speed multiplier on Squire’s Blood Rage ability
- Increased damage scaling of Countess’ Call to Arms ability 
- Decreased mana cost of Countess’ Call to Arms ability
- Added a flat 20% speed multiplier to other heroes in Countess’ Call to Arms ability range
- Made base Series EV and Bounty Hunter EV skin have better-cast rate scaling than a jester
- Added Joust fire trail from Redux, it now scales with ability 2.
- Talay Mining Complex survival now has 35 waves. Added a Steam Bot pet to wave 25
- Made Hashat's Recurve max projectile speed upgrade be 75000
- Made Hashat's Recurve elemental damage type roll between only fire and lightning
- Buffed ember shield to be in line with other shields
- Added Black Knight and Black Bishop weapons to King’s Game
- King’s Game Survival now gives the Campaign weapon rewards
- Coastal Bazaar now has in-game trophies 
- Chests now drop more items when open after the first wave on maps
- Made Pirate Patch from Challenge: Pirate Invasion drop with colors
- Added Turkey Bracers to Challenge: Greater Turkey Hunt
- Buffed the following accessories to be in line with other end-game accessories: Pirate Hat, Pirate Patch, Defender's Cornucopia, Defender's Headdress, Gobbler Shield, Turkey Mask, Santa Hat, Santa Beard, Top Hat, and Bow
- Added for weapon rewards  Halloween Spooktacular on Nightmare
- Staff charge rate can now be upgraded to 128
- Made all Mr. Owl pets 30% bigger
- Reduced Coastal Bazaar survival difficulty
- Old generic Dragon Bracers now are part of the Spooky Accessory Set
- Armguards of Love now are part Pink Temple of Love Accessory Set
- Made Ember Crescent always spawn with 1 extra projectile
- Buffed mage towers drop chance to 15%
- Buffed siege mech drop chance to 80% and drops to 6
- Made Outlander Ranger flight time the same as EV 1.75 skin
- Removed movement speed from Calamity Blade
 - Changed type sort to consider armor set bonus types (pristine, mail..) before the actual slot type (helmet, gloves..)
 - Changed type sort to separate accessory types (hats, masks, shields..)
- Reduced Apprentice’s Fireball Tower attack rate, boosted tower damage, and gave it 25% extra projectile speed
 

DEFENDERS,

This is going to be a bit of a different PTR, Instead of testing new features this PTR is aimed at testing out early game changes. What that means is that going into the PTR you will be given a new profile and not a copy of your live game. Obviously this PTR is not going to be for everyone and this is really aimed at people who enjoy providing feedback to try and help improve the game.

How to Join

We want you to join the PTR! If you own Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on PC/Steam, check out our forum post that shows you exactly how to join!

PTR Reward

Given this is a smaller PTR test and the different nature of it we won’t be offering a new reward, but you are able to earn any of the previous PTR rewards if you are missing any. To get a reward you must play the PTR and fill out the survey located on the pause menu.

You’ll be given the choice of reward in the survey. This includes the following rewards:

• Forest Ally’s Wings
• Eagle’s Wings
• Crystalline Corgi
• RGB Pumpkin Mask
• A Giveaway entry for a Golden Corgi Pet Transmog

Early Game Changes

We've heard a lot of player feedback about the early game and so one of the main goals for these changes is to increase the difficulty of the early game to help better match the power level of players and entertain players who want a harder experience. At the same time our goal is also not to make the early game too difficult as some players do want a easier experience.

That said here are the following changes

• Hard is now unlocked from the beginning.
• We’ve shifted all the difficulties down from Easy to Insane, What this means is the following:
  • Easy - The difficulty of what Medium used to be.
  • Medium - The difficulty of what Hard used to be.
  • Hard - The difficulty of what Insane used to be and slightly harder.
  • Insane - Is what Insane used to be but with higher enemy scaling to be a new middle ground between Hard and Nightmare.
• Insane is now unlocked after beating Easy, Medium or Hard on Campaign Summit.
• We’ve changed how progression unlocks work, the way it works now is the following:
  • If a map is unlocked on any difficulty, you can play that map on a higher difficulty without having to play it on lower difficulties first.  This should allow more freedom to play maps at the difficulty you want to without having to go back.
    • Example: If you’ve beaten The Throne Room on medium, you can play Endless Spires on any difficulty you have unlocked (Insane, Nightmare or Massacre) assuming you meet the requirements.
• Removed gear level requirements until nightmare to allow players to equip the gear they are getting as they progress.
• Decreased Nightmare Level requirement to 60 from 70
• Decreased Massacre Level requirement to 80 from 83.
• Added some new difficulty explanation popup for when you open the map select for the first time.
• Maps are now hidden on the map select if you don’t have the difficulty unlocked and it explains why the difficulty is locked.
• Increased IPWR on Swords and Polearms to help bring them in more in line with Staffs and Crossbows.
• Greatly Reduced the amount of stats that item effects provide in the early game 
  • Ex: Armor was giving +50 Fortify on a piece that only gave +10 Fortify.

Known Issues:

• Rift Bosses haven't received health or increased difficulty changes.

What’s Next?
The PTR will run for over the weekend as this is a short playtest and doesn’t need long playtimes to test. After this we’ll look at the survey data and make any adjustments needed.

Social Defenders
To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

The holiday season is upon us and as such it’s time for some holiday fun! This update brings a brand new map to the Dungeon Defenders universe as well as some QoL features that have been requested. This update is live on Steam, Xbox and Playstation.

Santa Hat Login Reward
Starting between now and January 5th, 2023 if you login in on any platform you’ll be rewarded a Santa Hat transmog to help you celebrate the season! Go talk with the blacksmith to get your festive spirit going!

Yuletide Village
It wouldn’t be the holidays without a festive new map to play. As such we’ve gone through and made a brand new never seen before map called Yuletide Village. This winter map should feel right at home for the holidays. 

It can be played in Campaign, Survival and Mixed mode with Rifted & Bonus Difficulties if you want an additional challenge. It also features a festive pet reward when played on Survival or Mixed, and does have a fusion variant to go along with it. The map will be unlocked if you have completed Throne Room on campaign.

Hero Selection Filtering
Are you someone who likes to have lots of different heroes? Do you have issues finding the right hero in the hero list? Well now you have the ability to filter to a specific hero type. This should help players more quickly find the hero they want and should serve as a nice little QoL.

Tower Targeting Priority Presets

One big feature request we’ve gotten over the years is being able to select what kind of targeting priorities your towers have. That said we’ve added the ability for users to switch what kind of targeting towers have. This is done in the spellbook by selecting the defense that you wish to change. 

Currently we only offer the user the ability to switch between Fodder, Special, Air and Strong. Fodder and Special should work how they currently do in the game. Air works how the Plasma Defense System works and targets Air enemies first then follows a special priority. Strong works by targeting enemies that have larger health pools first, Such as Ogres, Sirens, Lycans, Djinn, etc.

Our end goal is to expand this system to allow users to eventually make their own presets so they can really fine tune things to their liking, but this will come at a later date as it requires more UI and backend work.
 

Miscellaneous

• Fusion gear and the Arcanist helmet no longer have guaranteed stats.
• Electric, Ensnare, Healing, and Strength Drain can all be overlapped with each other but provide no benefit for doing so. This should be a small QoL for smaller maps with high defense stats.
• Summoner Minions now unlock at proper levels (1, 2, 7, 11, and 15)

Bugfixes

• Fixed issue with Bonus Difficulty display not showing on clients on the pause menu.
• Fixed issue with EV Rune damage applying to the hero and not just the decoy.
• Fixed issue with movement speed item effects not stacking properly.

What’s Next?
Well with this update out, this wraps up all the updates we’ll be doing in 2022. It’s now time to look towards the new year in which we have some great stuff planned. We are continuing to work on Episode 2 Part 2 which will have the Boss Map & Boss, a bonus encore map and a new hero. Besides that update we plan to continue to be more frequent in our updating providing smaller content updates along the way to keep things fresh.

Lastly I’ll leave you with the first look at the new hero The Guardian, coming to the game next year!

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

Winter Wonderland Event

The Dragonfall Winter Spectacular is now back with the decorated tavern/town with everyone's favorite Christmas tree. Sadly the Santoliches didn’t come back this year, but some new pets have migrated to Dragonfall during the holidays for you to collect as well as a new Chaos 10 Shard.

The Winter Town  and tavern has returned to dragonfall and hopefully not as long as last time!

'

The winter tree has returned to give some winter themed goodies and pets through the daily present. 

Revamp Daily and Weekly Quests

The UI got a refresh that better matches other UI's in the game

• Added New Daily Missions for Tornado Valley Region, The Wild West Region, The High Seas Region, DrakenFrost Region, and Lost Dungeon Region
• Created new Weekly Challenges - Gobu Destroyer, Treasure Hunter, Incursioner, Big Game Hunter, Onslaught, Mad Scientist, Explorer, Civil Engineer
• Moved all old Weekly Incursion challenges to Daily
• Created new Daily Challenges for Griblok’s Horde, Return of Maldonis, Dark Awakening, Revenge of the Yeti, Dawn of the Blood Moon, Wyvern’s Den, Harbinger’s Warship, and Jester’s Revenge
• Created new Daily Challenges - Gobu kills, Orc kills, Mage kills, General kills, Miniboss kills
• Increased the amount of Defender Medal's weekly challenges given from 600 to 1200, and increased the requirements of some of the old weekly challenges

NUE Quest Line

This patch introduces a new quest line for new and old players that guides them through the different game modes of the game and has rewards throughout including Gold, Defender, Medals, Shards, a free bag, and a bank slot. This questline is an excellent example of new quest lines we want to do in the future. The quest line begins where the campaign ends, with the Dragonfall Savior quest kicking it off.

Emporium

• Added Winter WonderLand Skin Bundle IncludesReaper of Future Winters, Nymph of Yesteryear, Mournful Moorley, and Lord of Winter’s Bounty Skins
• Added Winter Wonderland Flair Bundle includes Krampus Hat, Krampus Tail, Krampus Wings, Snowflake Wings, and Candy Cane Wings
• Added Silver Dragonfall banknote to the emporium that gives 1,350,000 gold
• Added Gold Dragonfall banknote to the emporium that gives 4,500,000 gold
• Added Winter Wonderland Accessory Bundle including Elf Hat, Festive Antlers, and Gingerbread Mask
• Added Winter Pet Bundle including Penguin Commander Egg, King Nutcracker Egg, and Snow Mage Egg
• Added Individual Winter Pets to Tree
• Added individual gold Winter Pets to Black Market Dealer
• Added New Gold Ground Flair to Black Market Dealer

Balance

• Changed the AI behavior of the pawn-based tower
• Added linger to home time to offset some speed-based balance issues
• Fixed an issue with pawn target updating for spawner towers
• Fixed an issue where if flying pawns from the spawner tower used to look at target functionality it wouldn't reset to its original rotation on the idle state
• Fixed elemental trait of the nimbus tower not being water
• Changed nimbus to do water damage by default
• Increased nimbus AoE range by 50%
• Increase Flamethrower Damage by 25%
• Increase Ramster Damage by 25%
• Change max enemy count on The Lost Temple from 130 to 80
• Freeze now has DR like all other stuns
• Added a 40% slow for 2 seconds after the end of the freeze stun
• Added a 40% slow for 2 seconds after the end of the shatter stun
• Increased Mystic Dark Torment self Damage Multiplier from 1.5 to 1.75
• Dark Torment Damage multiplier now works on Mystic Towers

QOL

• Split the Head and face slot flairs allowing for more flair variations.
• The end game loot chest now automatically opens.
• Added timers and icons for Swap Damage, Swap Ability power, Swap Crit, Swap Crit Damage and Swap, Mana Gain Chip, and Mana Growth Chip.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed corrupted Polearm’s Projectile not procing on-hit effects 
• Changed description of Explosive Blades
• Fixed Physical Crushing Damage types dealing 0 damage to frozen enemies 
• Fixed an issue where Poison Dagger throw Talent did not work
• Fixed an issue where the navigation mesh was broken on Tornado Highlands
• Fixed an issue where Cyclone Shaper wasn't dropping miniboss loot
• Fixed an issue where the mercenary noble / default skin didn't have a dropped art from defender packs
• Fixed an issue where the new initiate tower wasn't in new purchases of the Hypno bundles
• Fixed an issue where the line of sight on the nether archers was too low
• Fixed oil sometimes not affecting enemies with 100% tenacity
• Fixed oil slow not being removed when ignite is triggered 
• Fixed Mystic Speed Buff
• Fixed Homing projectiles targeting blocking volumes on tornado valley
• Fixed flight path on Saloon 
• Fixed Double Lane pathing on The lost Temple where enemies could go out the wrong lane
• Removed double loot drops on embermount 
• Fixed Sand Storm, Cyclone, and Poisonous Tips would scale with Tamer’s Gambit
• Fixed Sand Storm, Cyclone, and Poisonous Tips would double scale with Antis and Crits
• Fixed an issue where Barbarian Lightning stance weekend enemies 10x more than intended 
• Fixed an issue where Echoing shout would only scale turtle stance shout duration
• Fixed an issue where Echoing shout would multiply duration by shard amount not add

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

Greetings Defenders!

Today is a small update adding controller support and fixing high priority bugs such as enemies not spawning in multiplayer. There is much more to come and we are very excited about the future of the game next year but instead of releasing things too early we have decided to hold the large update until Q1 2023. We very much appreciate all of your feedback, bug reports, and patience!

Controller Support
The game is now fully playable with your favorite controller! There are a few minor exceptions such as the profile conflict pop-up and not being able to invite other players in the lobby but otherwise you can now play from Main Menu to Victory (or Defeat). If you run into any bugs or have feedback for us on the inputs please let us know in our Discord.

Shared Settings
Going Rogue no longer shares game settings with Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. This was an issue where players that swapped between games would find themselves having to reset settings and controls each time. This is now fixed.

Please note that if you are an Offline only player you may need to move your save files to the new config location.
Step 1: Locate old save file (Named: DDGR_Player_1234567_SECURE.esv): C:\Users\%Username%\AppData\Local\DDS\Saved\SaveGames.
Step 2: Move save file to the new location: C:\Steam\steamapps\common\DDGR\DDS\DDGR\Saved\SaveGames.

Bug Fixes

• Going Rogue no longer shares game settings with Dungeon Defenders: Awakened.
  • New Location: \Steam\steamapps\common\DDGR\DDS\DDGR\Saved
• Enemies would often stop spawning, especially in multiplayer.
• Ogre’s ground slam attack was doing much more damage than intended.
• Players were crashing on map change due to invalid stats.
• Monk’s Hero Boost was instantly ending for clients in multiplayer.
• Attempted to fix an issue where players are crashing in multiplayer on map change.
• Tower Nameplates will now also work on clients.

Other Changes

• Defeat Conditions: The game will now end when all players are dead or a core has been destroyed instead of only after a core is destroyed.
• Added controller vibrations to various abilities and events.
• Added option to turn off controller vibrations.
• Volume will now start at 50% instead of 100%.
• The movement ability Dash can now be used while standing still.
• Tooltips for items now show the input required to pick them up.
• First pass at UI changes to fix readability and the new user experience.

Social Defenders
To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Twitch
• Forums

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

The long awaited Episode 2 Part 1 update has finally arrived! This update features a ton of new features and content such as The Summoner, Runes, Trading, New Defense Changes, 2 New Maps and more! Get ready as this is gonna be a long post! This update is currently out on PC Steam, Xbox and PlayStation! Unfortunately Switch will lag behind quite a bit until a later date.

The Outcast Summoner

The Outcast Summoner, One of the most iconic heroes joins the battle for etheria! You’ll be able to create and try out the new hero along with all their abilities and minions for free.

General Features

Before we cover Hero Abilities, let's talk about some of the general features that the hero has first. The hero doesn’t have weapon slots and as such doesn’t have an actual attack. Instead the hero will be allowed to equip 2 pets at once. Additionally the Summoner will be able to equip Tomes and will be able to complete a weapon set using a single tome.

Regarding Minions we also have opted to not have Minion Units but instead use DU for the defenses. This solves 2 issues, the first being that players felt that they were missing out if they didn’t take advantage of having double the “DU” and additionally it would require we balance every map both past and present around having this feature. As such we’ve made sure that the DU of the minions is very light so that you can have more of them and fit them better into existing builds.

Finally the Summoner has the ability to hover by pressing and holding the jump key at any point while the hero is falling. They will still be able to take advantage of the double jump as any hero can.

Abilities

Primary - Minion Select

• Since the hero doesn’t attack, his primary will be used to select his minions. You are able to do single selection by pressing once or you can do a multi select by holding the input and dragging around the ground reticle to select multiple minions. Additionally if you click and hold when telling them to move you can tell them to evenly space out on a line between 2 points.

Secondary - Overlord Mode

• A big feature of the Summoner was his ability to go into overlord mode and have a more top down RTS style camera. This ability will allow the Outcast Summoner to pan around the map and place minions remotely as well as move them as necessary.

Active Ability - Flash Heal

• Flash heal offers the ability to heal nearby heroes, Minions and defenses by a percentage of their max health, scaling off the hero's Ability stat.

Buff Ability - Pet Boost

• While active the hero's pets will be buffed increasing attack damage and attack speed, scaling off the hero's Ability stat. This was a redux addition that we felt added a lot of potential to the hero being used as a DPS and playing off the ability for the hero to equip 2 pets.

Minions

Minion 1 - Archer (2 DU): Summons a Crystalline Dark Elf Archer. Shoots non-piercing arrows at enemies. 

Minion 2 - Spider (3 DU): Summons a Crystalline Spider to the battlefield. Flings webs at nearby enemies, slowing them down and doubling all damage they receive.

Minion 3 - Siren (4 DU): Summons a Crystalline Siren to the battlefield. She casts protective shields around defenses reducing incoming damage and also attacks offensively with her ranged attack.

Minion 4 - Dark Elf Mage (4 DU): Summons a Crystalline Dark Elf Mage to the battlefield. Casts fireballs and periodically heals themselves and other nearby minions, as well as heroes.  

Minion 5 - Ogre (5 DU): Summons a Crystalline Ogre to the battlefield. Crushes enemies within melee range and occasionally fires poison snot balls from a distance.

Runes

Runes are a new feature that allow players to augment their defenses in new ways! These can range from simple additions to completely different abilities. Runes can drop from normal enemies at all levels of play as well as from victory chests. Each act has its own pool of which runes drop from enemies, and each map has a smaller subset of that act pool that drop in the form of a guaranteed drop from the victory chest. You can view where a rune drops on the rune UI itself, displayed as “Favored Map”

Since the Episode 2 Part 1 post we have since changed our minds about having generic runes in the game. This is mainly because we want players to feel like they can use the special runes designed for each tower without feeling punished for not using a generic rune that just gives them more power. We just think this provides a more fun opportunity to players and lets us continue to create more unique runes rather than balance the battle between unique and generic runes.

Currently there are about 53 runes in the game to playtest, some heroes and defenses are missing runes and we will be working on getting those in over time in smaller updates.

Trading

The long awaited feature is here. As described in the Episode preview post, players are able to send trade requests with one another using the party bar in the top right of the pause menu. Once a player accepts a trade request, the two players may offer up items and gold between each other and then confirm the trade once they feel like they are happy with the trade.

Act 5 - 2 New Maps

With the first part of Episode 2 comes 2 new maps to kick off Act 5. After defeating the Lycan King, the heroes traverse a great desert uncovering forgotten locations along the way. The first 2 maps are available and can be played. However they drop the same quality of items that would be seen on the keep, as the increased item quality of act 5 will come with Act 5 boss map. 

The Bazaar (100 DU)

You’ll have to fight your way through the Bazaar in order to progress deeper into the secrets this desert holds! As a reward for completing this map on Survival, you’ll be able to obtain a pet version of Hammel!

The Lost Metropolis (130 DU)

Defend your core from threats old and new in the shadow of structures from a forgotten civilization. This map doesn’t yet have a pet reward but will be added in the near future so stay tuned!

Wave Progression Updates

We’ve seen a lot of feedback about how waves feel like they sorta just trickle out and don’t feel very lively. As such we’ve done some investigating and made changes to the way waves come out of their spawners. Players should see more enemies coming out of the spawners at a faster pace. Additionally because of this we’ve increased the total mob counts for the maps to ensure a balance with wave times.

Defense Changes

Squire - Sniper Tower

The Sniper tower offers the squire a new single target defense that will be very strong at defeating tanky enemies. It will use a special enemy targeting priority. This tower will replace the Bouncer Blockade as we felt the blockade was often overshadowed by the other blockades in the game.

Huntress - Poison Dart Tower

The Poison Dart Tower is the first addition of a defense to the Huntress’s kit. The PDT will shoot 3 individual projectiles. These projectiles are fanned out so that they spread out and hit multiple enemies down the path. It will use a fodder targeting priority. This tower will replace the Darkness Trap, as it was the most unused defense in the game, the alternative was the Thunder Spike Trap which we felt could have more use cases.

EV - Heat Cannon

The Heat Cannon provides a unique defense to the game. It’s a short ranged flamethrower defense that hits all enemies within its range arc. While this defense is limited in range it will more than make up in defense power. This defense will have a fodder targeting priority. It will replace the new empty slot where Reflect Field was.

EV - Plasma Defense System

The Plasma Defense System or PDS is an omni-directional sentry that can target and attack up to 3 separate targets at once. The defense does have one major flaw in the form of a deadzone. The dead zone prevents the tower from attacking enemies that are too close to the tower. This defense will have a modified version of the special enemy targeting but instead prioritizes Djinns, Copters, and Wyverns before targeting other special enemies. This defense will replace the Shock beam, as we felt that the crowd control it provided was just outclassed by other crowd control oriented defenses regardless of balance.

Auto Loot 2.0

Make sure to take a look at your Auto Loot filters as they will have been reset. You’ll want to take some time to play around with the new system and make auto loot profiles for the different kinds of items you want to be picked up. As long as an item matches 1 of the filters in the list it will be picked up. Do note you can only have 8 filters currently.

Auto Loot Filters also determine what Items get shown on your tactical map. We’ve even added a special icon for Runes, and a purple glow for any Fusion items. So make sure to be on the lookout for those.

Pet Balance

• Pets
  • Monkey King
    • Damage stat scalar increased from 100 to 150.
    • Damage base increased from 25 to 50.
  • Mista Mine
    • Slow reduced from 50% to 40%

Hero Balance

• General
  • Hero Abilities
    • Due to implementations for Runes and how those interact with abilities most abilities will have updated scaling which should be equivalent or a slight buff in power.
  • Stat Scalar Changes
    • Squire, Huntress, Monk, EV and Rogue all have a increased tower attack Rate stat scalar match Apprentice and Warden, The following towers should be buffed because of this change, some more than others:
      • Harpoon, Bowling Ball and Slice N’ Dice, Explosive Trap, Thunder Spike Trap, Electric Aura, Healing Aura, Proton Beam, Overclock beam.
• Squire
  • Slice N’ Dice
    • Can now attack Sirens.
• Apprentice
  • Flameburst
    • Starting damage increased from 192 to 250.
    • DU Reduced from 5 to 4.
• Warden
  • Sludge Launcher
    • Base Damage reduced from 450 to 425
    • Tower Damage Stat Scalar reduced from 1.6 to 1.45
    • No longer slows by default, which can be reintroduced as a rune.

Map Balance

• All Maps
  • All maps now have the same enemy caps as The Keep of 55, which is determined mainly by performance. This should decrease wave times on earlier maps that were being limited
• The Keep
  • Added tower prevention volumes to the top of the walls as these were often used as safe spots and provided line of sight that was unbalanced for the intended map design
• Alchemical Labs
  • Reduced amount of fodder enemies and spiders
• Ramparts
  • Reduced amount of spiders on Ramparts 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue with Halloween Copter Ogres spawning.
• Fixed issue with Upgrade / Repair item effects weren’t stacking duration properly.
• Fixed potential crash with damaging emitters.
• Fixed issue with aiming past dead enemies would cause projectiles to shoot up into the sky.
• Fixed issue with Loot not showing on the tactical map.
• Fixed issue with Decoy not showing nameplates.
• Fixed issue with Rift portals having 0 HP in mixed mode.

Misc.

• Training Dummies have more health.
• Training Dummies now can display DPS values above 2B without going negative.
• Siren drops were dropping at much higher than expected levels.
• Skeletons now take 1 second to respawn instead of 3.
• Tavern difficulty scaling should line up with gameplay maps more closely now.

What’s Next?

Well now that Episode 2 Part 1 is out, the next focus is on getting the remaining Part 2 additions done. Currently looking at releasing that sometime early next year as with all the holidays coming up it will limit work capacity. Besides the remaining Episode 2 work, we may look at doing a smaller Winter Holiday update / event but let you know as that progresses.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

The long awaited Episode 2 Part 1 PTR is here! Players who own a copy on steam can access the steam beta branch and play the PTR to help us gather feedback and find bugs before release.

How to Join

We want you to join the PTR! If you own Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on PC/Steam, check out our forum post that shows you exactly how to join!

PTR Reward

Given the Halloween nature, the PTR reward will be a RGB Pumpkin Mask Transmog, as what’s more spooky than a bit of RGB.

If RGB is not your flavor, We’ll be allowing people to collect any of the previous PTR rewards in the past. You’ll be given the choice of reward in the survey. This includes the following rewards:

• Forest Ally’s Wings
• Eagle’s Wings
• Crystalline Corgi

Episode 2 Part 1

So we already did a long winded reveal of the vast majority of the features coming in this update, so this post won’t be going into details but will serve as a quick overview of the contents with any changes.

Click here to read the full post to get a better understanding.

The Outcast Summoner

The Outcast Summoner, One of the most iconic heroes joins the battle! In this PTR you’ll be able to create and try out the new hero along with all their abilities and minions. We are looking for feedback on the functionality and balance, as we are in the process of still getting Art, Animations, SFX and VFX all hooked up still.

Runes

Runes are a new feature that allow players to augment their defenses in new ways! These can range from simple additions to completely different abilities. Runes can drop from normal enemies at all levels of play as well as from victory chests. Each act has its own pool of which runes drop from enemies, and each map has a smaller subset of that act pool that drop in the form of a guaranteed drop from the victory chest. You can view where a rune drops on the rune UI itself, displayed as “Favored Map”

Since the Episode 2 Part 1 post we have since changed our minds about having generic runes in the game. This is mainly because we want players to feel like they can use the special runes designed for each tower without feeling punished for not using a generic rune that just gives them more power. We just think this provides a more fun opportunity to players and lets us continue to create more unique runes rather than balance the battle between unique and generic runes.

Currently there are about 54 runes in the game to playtest, some heroes and defenses are missing runes and we will be working on getting those in as time permits or before release of the update.

Trading

The long awaited feature is here. As described in the Episode preview post, players are able to send trade requests with one another using the party bar in the top right of the pause menu. Once a player accepts a trade request, the two players may offer up items and gold between each other and then confirm the trade once they feel like they are happy with the trade. 

Act 5 - 2 New Maps

With the first part of Episode 2 comes 2 new maps to kick off Act 5. After defeating the Lycan King, the heroes traverse a great desert uncovering forgotten locations along the way. The first 2 maps will be in the PTR and can be played. However they drop the same quality of items that would be seen on the keep, as we are still deciding if a quality increase before the boss / bonus difficulty is worth it currently.

The Bazaar

You’ll have to fight your way through the Bazaar in order to progress deeper into the secrets this desert holds!

The Lost Metropolis

Defend your core from threats old and new in the shadow of structures from a forgotten civilization.

Defense Changes

As outlined in the original post, there are 5 defense changes. The only difference between the post and the PTR is that we decided after reading feedback and playtesting that the combined Reflect field was causing more issues being the default EV defense, and as such we’ve made the original reflect field the default EV slot 2 defense. There is a rune to convert the reflect field into a blockade should you want to have that functionality back.

Auto Loot 2.0

In the PTR your Auto Loot filters will have been reset. You’ll want to take some time to play around with the new system and make auto loot profiles for the different kinds of items you want to be picked up. As long as an item matches 1 of the filters in the list it will be picked up. Do note you can only have 8 filters currently.

Auto Loot Filters also determine what Items get shown on your tactical map. We’ve even added a special icon for Runes, and a purple glow for any Fusion items. So make sure to be on the lookout for those.

Balance

This update is gonna bring a lot of balance changes to the game in the form of runes and other forms of balance tweaks. Due to the sake of time writing this post, There won’t be specific numbers, but will have those for the final post. Once the survey is out, there will also be questions for how you feel about those.

That said most defenses and abilities for Squire, Huntress, Monk, EV and Rogue got some kind of buff. So play around with those heroes and their defenses.

What’s Next?

The PTR will run for about 2 weeks, during this time we’ll see how the playtest goes, make adjustments, fix bugs and continue to polish up the features. After the PTR is over we expect to take about a week or so to finalize any remaining changes and then look at releasing the update.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

Defenders,

This post will provide an update on development in general, the next update for Dungeon Defenders 2, and the upcoming in-game Halloween event.  The event will start this Friday, October 14th, and the event will go until November 4th.

Halloween Event

The spooktacular theme is now back to DragonFall with all the spookiness you know and love.

Ol Peeper's Daily Gift

Ol Peepers is now selling a spooktacular crate along with a green defender pack every day during the spooktacular event.

The spooktacular crate contains :

• New Chaos 10 Shard

• Festive Carnival Fireworks

•  Dragonfall Popcorn Machine

• Trust me Disguise

• Lucky Bunny Mask

• Rainbow ‘fro

• Snow Liger

• Imperial Grin

• Hastening Salve

• Strongman Salve

• Enduring Salve

• Spellcasting Salve

• Tower of Power Salve

• Enduring Salve

• Impactful Tower Salve

• Impactful Hero Salve 

• Lucky Tower Salve

• Lucky Hero Salve 

Spooky Pumpkin Head - One-time reward cosmetic Flair.

Black Market Dealer

The Black Market Vendor now has another limited-time Flair: The Golden Spooky Pumpkin Head!

Emporium

The mask factory was over stocked with old masks from a previous spooktacular event so we decided to bring them back for everyone to enjoy.

Development Update

I wanted to give a general update on all things DD2 development. It has been a pretty hectic few weeks with leadership changes, random back-end issues, internal build issues, and more recently the Xbox login issues that affected some of the development of the new patch. These hurdles also have impacted some of the transparency the game needs and hopefully, it can now change for the better. As all these hurdles have now been pretty much gotten over, the development effort for the next patch will start ramping up again to get it out as soon as feasibly possible.

What’s Next?

So as the title suggests, what is exactly next for dragonfall? It exactly hasn’t been a secret that Chaos 10 is coming toward the next update so how about we show / say some stuff that has been a secret. The next update is named “Mines of Etheria.”

Chaos 10

Chaos 10 is going to take a different direction this time compared to the other chaos tiers. While Assassins will be absent this time around, there will be three new enemies to take on instead of just one. We won’t be going into much detail about chaos 10 for now as it will be explained further at a later date. 

Hidden Caverns Region

Along with C10 this next update will be introducing a new region to the game with 2 new maps.

New Map : Crystal Mines

Inside the mountains of Dragonfall, there is a long-abandoned mine full of precious crystals and gemstones waiting to be excavated.

New Map : Lava Caverns

Deep below the ground lies a treacherous ancient lava cavern with mysterious crystals and signs of ancient magic.

???

A strange new individual has come out of hiding to aid in the heroes’ defense against the enemies of Dragonfall.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

For the first time ever in DDA’s history we are doing an in-game Halloween event. This event will feature some new cosmetics for both login rewards and in-game rewards from the new Halloween version of Ramparts. In addition to this every enemy across the game will receive a special Halloween theme for the duration of the event. This Halloween Update is live now on PC, Xbox and PlayStation and will go until November 4th, 2022.

Login Event

If you login between the dates listed above, you’ll unlock the following transmogs:

• Hallow's Evil Grin Mask
• Fish in a Jar Mask

Halloween Spooktacular Map

With the introduction of the in-game Halloween event we have remade Halloween Spooktacular from the original game. This map will feature the new Halloween variants of the enemies permanently even after the Halloween event is over. It also has new lanes and an additional core to defend.

Map Rewards

Completing the map will give you a Brain in a Jar Mask Accessory as a guaranteed drop, but for those out there that prefer a bit of gold to their look there will be a very low drop chance version that allows you to unlock the golden transmog variant of the Fish in a Jar, Brain in a Jar and the Hallow's Evil Grin Mask. The golden variants will only drop on Massacre though, be warned it can be very challenging for those just breaking into to Massacre.

Halloween Enemy Skins

This Halloween event brings spooky variants of each of the enemies in the realm of Etheria. All across the game these enemies will spawn for the duration of the Halloween Event. Afterwards the enemy skins will only be present on the Halloween Map which will stay once the event ends.

What’s Next?

Well with the Halloween Event now released, our next stop is the Episode 2 Part 1 PTR which will begin on October 28th. This will feature the Outcast Summoner Hero, 2 new maps, Runes, trading and more! Check out the full post talking about these features. Additionally if you are looking for DD2 news, check out the DD2 Halloween Event and Development Update Post coming out later today.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

This patch intends on fixing some issues in the game. 


PATCH NOTES

FEATURE 

- Added the ability to privately drop mana (default hotkey control + m)

BUG FIX 
- Fixed a typo in Evil Eye's description
- Fixed an issue where swapping weapons doesn't cancel the cast of the previous one causing weird projectile interactions
- Added new description to Devil Spine level drop variant
 

DEFENDERS,

 A patch was pushed this morning to address some issues in the 9.0.0 release . 


PATCH NOTES

FEATURE 

- Added controller support for the emulator that allows the player use a controller to control all emulated characters (Keyboard key binds still apply for spawning) 

BUG FIX 

- Fix for accessories being able to spawn with more upgrades than intended
- Fixed Spooktacular Bay not giving random rewards to players besides host
- Fixed an issue where the anti cheat was kicking people with certain colors on character skins
- Fixed some emulator would break some key bind commands
- Fixed an issue where the map selection UI would update client UI's
- Fixed an issue where the map selection wouldn't recover from adding players 
- Fixed an issue where the gargoyle accessories were rolling lower than intended
- Fixed an issue where the elf accessories wouldn't show the number of upgrades when on inventory
- Fixed an issue where the elf crown icon was too large
- Fixed an issue where the core drops were not correct on then new maps

DEFENDERS,

This post will provide an update on Episode 2 Part 1 work as well as announce the details about the upcoming In-game Halloween Event and Episode 2 Part 1 PTR. With that said let's get into it as this will be a long post!

Halloween Event

For the first time ever in DDA’s history we are doing an in-game Halloween event. This event will feature some new cosmetics for both login rewards and in-game rewards. In addition to this every enemy across the game will receive a special Halloween theme for the duration of the event. This Halloween Update will be released on October 14th, 2022 and the event will go until November 4th, 2022.

Login Event

If you login between the dates listed above, you’ll unlock the following transmogs:

• Hallow's Evil Grin Mask
• Fish in a Jar Mask

Halloween Spooktacular Map

With the introduction of the in-game Halloween event we have remade Halloween Spooktacular from the original game. This map will feature the new Halloween variants of the enemies permanently even after the Halloween event is over. It also has new lanes and an additional core to defend.

Completing the map will give you a Brain in a Jar Mask Accessory as a guaranteed drop, but for those out there that prefer a bit of gold or Neon to their look there will be a very low drop chance version that allows you to unlock the golden transmog variant.

Episode 2 Part 1 Progress Update

The Outcast Summoner

As many of you know, the summoner from the original Dungeon Defenders game will be returning to DDA as The Outcast Summoner. This iconic hero has been one of the most requested heroes to return to DDA and as such we wanted to try our best to stay true to the original as best as we could, while also making adjustments to better fit DDA.

With that in mind, one of the things we felt strongly about was that the original model shown previously didn’t reflect what users expected for a remake of the Summoner. As such we’ve gone through reconcepted and made a new model that fits the theme better.

Here is a first look at the new model!

Next up let’s talk about how the hero itself will work. After going through all the data from the Summoner Survey we have come to the following abilities, defenses and changes to the summoner.

General Features

Before we cover Hero Abilities, let's talk about some of the general features that the hero has first. The hero doesn’t have weapon slots and as such doesn’t have an actual attack. Instead, the hero will be allowed to equip 2 pets at once. Additionally, the Summoner will be able to equip Tomes and will be able to complete a weapon set using a single tome.

Regarding Minions we also have opted to not have Minion Units but instead use DU for the defenses. This solves 2 issues, the first being that players felt that they were missing out if they didn’t take advantage of having double the “DU” and additionally it would require we balance every map both past and present around having this feature.

Finally, the Summoner has the ability to hover by pressing and holding the jump key at any point while the hero is falling. They will still be able to take advantage of the double jump as any hero can.

Abilities

Primary - Minion Select

• Since the hero doesn’t attack, his primary will be used to select his minions. Currently we only allow single unit selection but will continue to iterate on this as feedback is received.

Secondary - Overlord Mode

• A big feature of the Summoner was his ability to go into overlord mode and have a more top down RTS style camera. This ability will allow the Outcast Summoner to pan around the map and place minions remotely as well as move them as necessary.

Active Ability - Flash Heal

• Flash heal offers the ability to heal nearby heroes, Minions and defenses by a percentage of their max health, scaling off the hero's Ability stat.

Buff Ability - Pet Boost

• While active the hero's pets will be buffed increasing attack damage and attack speed, scaling off the hero's Ability stat. This was a redux addition that we felt added a lot of potential to the hero being used as a DPS and playing off the ability for the hero to equip 2 pets.

Minions

Before we get started all the minions are still going through active balancing so these values might not represent what goes live for the PTR as well as adjusting balance as we receive PTR feedback.

Minion 1 - Archer (2 DU):

• Summons a Crystalline Dark Elf Archer. Shoots non-piercing arrows at enemies. 

Minion 2 - Spider (3 DU):

• Summons a Crystalline Spider to the battlefield. Flings webs at nearby enemies, slowing them down and doubling all damage they receive.

Minion 3 - Siren (4 DU):

• Summons a Crystalline Siren to the battlefield. She casts protective shields around defenses reducing incoming damage and also attacks offensively with her ranged attack.

Minion 4 - Dark Elf Mage (4 DU):

• Summons a Crystalline Dark Elf Mage to the battlefield. Casts fireballs and periodically heals themselves and other nearby minions, as well as heroes.  

Minion 5 - Ogre (5 DU):

• Summons a Crystalline Ogre to the battlefield. Crushes enemies within melee range and occasionally fires poison snot balls from a distance.

Runes

This will mostly be a recap of the full runes introduction post as a lot of it remains unchanged from the original design but figured it was important to give a recap and fill in any blanks as needed.

Runes are broken down into two different categories they work in the following ways:

• Hero Runes - Runes that affect your hero’s stats, attacks, and abilities.
• Tower Runes - Runes that affect your tower stats and activation (whether that’s damage or utility).

Additionally, there are 2 types of Runes, General Runes and Class Runes and can be used in different situations.

• General Runes - Runes that can be applied to any hero. These are typically flat stat increasing runes, with some slight variations.
• Class Runes - Runes that are applied to a specific hero, or specific list of heroes.

Unlocking runes is a 2-step process. First you must obtain a rune which can be found by playing various gamemodes, maps and difficulties. Some runes will have specific drop locations while others will have random drop locations. Secondly you will need to pay a gold cost to consume the rune and permanently unlock the rank of rune.

Once you’ve unlocked a rune you can choose to use that rune in any of your available slots. Each hero has 2 Hero runes and 4 Defense Runes slots. Those rune slots can be set on each individual hero. Allowing you to add more customization to the way that hero builds.

With all that recapped, let's talk about some examples of runes we can expect to see in DDA.

Squire

• Explosive Shield - Shield Throw explodes on hit, dealing 100% of its normal damage to all nearby enemies and increases number of Bounces by X.
• Spear Trap - Every X Seconds when the Spike Blockade is attacked it shoots out 8 piercing projectiles damaging enemies for X% Tower Health.

Apprentice

• Arcane Blast - Arcane Surge becomes a ranged piercing projectile which deals X% of secondary attack damage.
• Bouncing Magic - Magic Missile Projectiles deal X% damage and bounces up to Y additional targets.

Huntress

• Chance Grenade - Grenade Toss has a X% chance to spawn another grenade upon killing an enemy.
• Shell Shocked - Enemies hit are slowed by X% and deal Y% reduced damage for Z seconds.

Monk

• Mystical Repair - Tower Boost slowly repairs defenses for X% of tower health over Y Seconds.
• Lightning Strikes - Every X Seconds, the Lightning Aura deals Y% tower damage to a single enemy within range.

EV

• Decoy-GR - Decoy now shoots along with the hero at the same direction dealing X% of hero damage.
• Electric Shock - Proton Beam has a X% chance to shock and stun enemies for Y seconds.

Warden

• Yum Yum Seed - Sprout Seeds on-pickup restore X% HP and gives a Healing over time for Y% Max HP over Z seconds.
• Focus Blossom - Beaming Blossom does additional X% damage for each attack made against the same enemy, stacking up to Y times.

Rogue

• Multiple Marks - Increases max number of Marked targets by X.
• Spin-To-Win - Carnage consumes -50% mana and does Y% of the original damage.

Outcast Summoner

• Flash Buff - Defenses within Flash Heal gain Attack rate and Power for X Seconds.
• Healing Master - The Dark Elf Mage Minion can also heal nearby defenses for X% of the normal minion healing.

Trading

Now with all this talk about runes, there is another way to acquire them that wasn’t mentioned above which would be through trading. Trading will allow 2 players to exchange items and gold between one another.

Players can request to open a trade and then add items and offer gold. Not every item is tradable, specifically any kind of entitlement reward like from the Kickstarter. Outside of that you are free to trade Armor, Weapons, Pets, Offhands, Accessories, and now Runes.

Additionally, we also added a new gameplay setting to auto reject trade requests for the popular few that don’t wish to be overwhelmed with trade requests. You can still send trade requests while this setting is enabled but any attempts for others to trade with you will be rejected without notification.

Finally, since we know players will want better ways to find other traders, we’ve added a way to host a public tavern with custom session names. While this isn’t a perfect solution, we hope we can improve this in the future and potentially look at new ways to host trading lobbies.

Act 5 - 2 New Maps

With the first part of Episode 2 comes 2 new maps to kick off Act 5. After defeating the Lycan King, the heroes traverse a great desert uncovering forgotten locations along the way.

The Bazaar

You’ll have to fight your way through the Bazaar in order to progress deeper into the secrets this desert holds!

The Lost Metropolis

Defend your core from threats old and new in the shadow of structures from a forgotten civilization.

Defense Changes

As we hinted at in one of our live streams there will be 5 changes to the defense roster. These changes are based on metrics, survey data and general community discussions. That said if the feedback from these changes is not well received we will look at making changes as needed.

Squire - Sniper Tower

The Sniper tower offers the squire a new single target defense that will be very strong at defeating tanky enemies. It will use a special enemy targeting priority. This tower will replace the Bouncer Blockade as we felt the blockade was often overshadowed by the other blockades in the game.

Defense Rune - Piercing Upgrade:

• Pierces an additional enemy and scales damage of the attack by X%.

Huntress - Poison Dart Tower

The Poison Dart Tower is the first addition of a defense to the Huntress’s kit. The PDT will shoot 3 individual projectiles. These projectiles are fanned out so that they spread out and hit multiple enemies down the path. It will use a fodder targeting priority. This tower will replace the Darkness Trap, as it was the most unused defense in the game, the alternative was the Thunder Spike Trap which we felt could have more use cases.

Defense Rune - Blinding Darts:

• Enemies hit by the Poison Dart Tower have a X% to become blinded for Y seconds.

EV - Combined Blocking + Reflect Field

In order to make room for the upcoming defense changes, we’ve decided to merge the Blocking Field and Reflect field. This means the defense will be able to serve as a wall or a reflect field and will have the same DU scaling of the original reflect field so that they continue to be used as they have in the past.

Defense Rune - Electric Fence:

• Blocking Field deals X% of Tower Health back to all attackers as electric damage.

EV - Heat Cannon

The Heat Cannon provides a unique defense to the game. It’s a short ranged flamethrower defense that hits all enemies within its range arc. While this defense is limited in range it will more than make up in defense power. This defense will have a fodder targeting priority. It will replace the new empty slot where Reflect Field was.

Defense Rune - Immolation:

• Heat Cannon applies a fire DoT onto enemies dealing X% of tower damage over Y seconds.

EV - Plasma Defense System

The Plasma Defense System or PDS is an omni-directional sentry that can target and attack up to 3 separate targets at once. The defense does have one major flaw in the form of a dead zone. The dead zone prevents the tower from attacking enemies that are too close to the tower. This defense will have a modified version of the special enemy targeting but instead prioritizes Djinns, Copters, and Wyverns before targeting other special enemies. This defense will replace the Shock beam, as we felt that the crowd control it provided was just outclassed by other crowd control oriented defenses regardless of balance.

Defense Rune - Full Coverage:

• Increases the Plasma Defense System’s defense range by X% but also increases the dead zone by Y%.

Auto Loot 2.0

This has been a highly requested quality of life for endgame players. Auto Loot 2.0 will allow players to have multiple loot filters using the existing setup. This allows players to have filters tied to specific types of items, for example having a Auto Loot Filter specifically for picking up Accessories or a filter to pick up only swords. As long as an item matches 1 of the filters in your list it will get picked up when Auto Loot happens.

This UI will allow you to create and manage the multiple filter profiles. Each one can have a name and Icon associated to help associate them. You will be limited to 8 filters at any point.

Public Test Realm (PTR)

So now that we’ve talked about all the amazing things coming in episode 2, I know you all are dying to know when the PTR will go live. On that note I can say we are aiming for the PTR to go live on October 28th, 2022 pending any major setbacks. While we had initially planned for it to start early October we felt the extra time was needed, and with the Halloween event it would be odd to have those launch at nearly the same time.

What’s Next?

After the Halloween event is over and the PTR is finished we’ll look at releasing the update live after we’ve made any necessary changes based on player feedback. Once that is live we’ll begin work on the remaining Episode Part 2 work and keep you all updated as that is developed. Though it is too early to say what the timeline will be like at this moment.

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

DEFENDERS,

With great anticipation the new Dungeon Defenders 1 patch 9.0.0 update is now live! We are excited to hear about what the community thinks of this new development and the patch itself. A special thanks to the community member that helped make this new Development possible : Thales, Escev, Jeol, Tbolt, Moose, bee, Harry, Gigazelle, Alhanalem, Sam, and all previous CDT efforts in the past. A huge thank you to the community testers and anyone that participated in the beta!

WARNING -  

This update has changes in the save file format and upon loading this update your save file will no longer be compatible with older game versions.

Patch Notes : 

New Maps

All new maps have trophies that you can unlock for your tavern, with a second trophy for completing on Nightmare.

The Striking Tree

• Campaign Rewards - Staff of Flowers, Forest Rifle, Turtle Shell Polearm, Leaf Blade and Elf accessory set

• Survival Rewards - Jade Serpent, Fairy and Jade Island. 

• Generic versions of all of this map’s weapons drop on survival for the map, the same way as Eternia Shard maps

Spooky Buccaneer Bay

• Campaign Rewards - Demon Sword, Devil’s Spine and new Spooky accessory set

• Survival Rewards - Little Wizard, Evil Eye and Pumpkin Skeleton on a Treadmill

• Generic versions of all of this map’s weapons drop on survival for the map, the same way as Eternia Shard maps

Challenge: Halloween Invasion

• Rewards - Moon Staff, Witch’s Broom and 2 accessories from the new Spooky accessory set. 1 set of rewards per account

Challenge: Tavern Incursion

• 6 Player map in the style of Temple of Polybius.

• One extra life per player on Hardcore up to 3 lives, with a button at the start to remove the lives for an extra reward

• Rewards - Jeweled Bident and Calamity Blade. 1 set of rewards per account

Balance

Akatiti

• Added a new mask drop to the map rewards

Arcane Library

• Added Fedora accessory

• New accessory set bonus for Fedora and Librarian Glasses

City in the cliffs

• Changed survival quality to Aquanos quality

Challenge: Temple of Polybius

• Polybius pets drop at map completion. They work like guardians but can be upgraded to boost up to 6 towers

Crystalline Dimension

• Buffed accessories to max accessory quality to be on par with other maps

• Made accessories drop twice for everyone, even split screens

• Made shields drop like on Omenak, where they are a random additional drop

Crystalline Resurgence 1-3

• Changed survival quality to Infested Ruins quality

Embermount Volcano

• Buffed accessories to max accessory quality

• Changed survival quality to Infested Ruins quality

Emerald City

• Added Emerald accessories with it’s own set effect

• Sandstorm effects now are disabled on ultra low and low graphics qualities 

Flames of Rebirth

• Buffed accessories to max accessory quality

• Added Sword of Embers to challenge reward

Infested Ruin

• Removed melee attack from Mini Wasp Queen Pet

Karathiki Jungle

• Changed survival quality to Infested Ruins quality

Magus Citadel

• Buffed accessories to max accessory quality

Talay Mining Complex

• Changed survival quality to Infested Ruins quality

Tavern Defense

• Added Party Horn with the same quality as Librarian Glasses from Arcane Library

• Buffed Party Hats to be on par with Fedora acc from Arcane Library

• Confetti set bonus now needs party horn and party hat

The Tinkerer’s Lab

• Changed survival quality to Infested Ruins quality

Tomb of Etheria

• Added missing 10% bonus movement speed to Spear of the New Kingdom

Winter Mire

• Made Ban Hammer give a 10% movement speed bonus

• Made Candy Cane give a 10% movement speed bonus

• Made Winter Flame give a 10% movement speed bonus

Huntress, Apprentice, Squire and Monk Guardians can now be upgraded to boost up to 6 towers.

QoL

• Added Inventory Quality Sorting button

• Ultimate Crystalline Defender and Experience Orbs are now both tradeable and droppable.

• Added a Damage Number Size Slider

• Improved Graphic Settings 

  • Native support up to 4k (3840 by 2160)

  • Support for changing graphic settings in-game (Low, Medium and High)

  • Option to disable outlines

  • Ability to change the size of damage numbers across the entire game

• Added item recovery on all maps

• Players can send much longer messages now, up from 64 characters to 320

• Added a built-in emulator to the game. Old emulators still work, so you can just keep using your current input settings.

• New assignable bindings for controlling the built-in emulator. By default, they are:

  • Bindings=(Name="F2",Command="ControlEmulatorPlayer1")

  • Bindings=(Name="F3",Command="ControlEmulatorPlayer2")

  • Bindings=(Name="F4",Command="ControlEmulatorPlayer3")

  • Bindings=(Name="F5",Command="ControlEmulatorPlayer4")

  • Bindings=(Name="F6",Command="QuickAddSplits")

  • Bindings=(Name="F7",Command="KickAllSplits")

  • Bindings=(Name="F8",Command="ToggleSplitScreen")

• Added dropped armor Icons to minimap

• Added difficulty based coloration to the Harbinger mob

• Added item censoring feature. It can be turned on or off in the options menu or with the default binding while in your item box / item info screen:

  • Control + C

• Added boss timer skip feature. It can be used with the default binding:

  • Bindings=(Name="V",Command="BossTimerSkip")

• The game now unpauses all emulator characters if anyone resumes while an emulator character is present to avoid getting stuck at the pause screen.

• Reduced save frequency for redundant data, such as scores causing a save whenever an enemy is killed during a wave.

• Added simple damage numbers feature

• Overall game engine upgrade that should improve performance

• Changed Siege Mech (Omenak) enemies to have four equipment drop chances

• Changed Magic Missile enemies (Magus Citadel) enemies to have two equipment drop chances

• Guardians now won't try to boost an already boosted tower (unless their boost is better)

• Ability cooldowns reset on entering build phase

• Added keybinds to select heroes on the main menu hero selection screen (0-9)

• Lowered poly teleporting trigger volume's retrigger delay

Bug Fixes

• Fixed issues with Wasp pet, Spear of the New Kingdom and Winter Flame on certain bosses

• Fixed some spots that mobs end up stuck on infested ruins

• Improved default network bandwidth and lowered network update intervals

• Made Enchanted Bishop colorable

• Removed double dropped equipment circle color on Spare Christmas Lights, Rudolph’s Spare Nose and Rudolph’s Spare Antlers 

• Fixed a bunch of invalid enemy entries in the player stats UI

• Fixed an issue where the map list snaps to another location

• Fixed Crystalline Dimension only dropping 1 accessory for host

• Control + T no longer adds untradeable items to trade

• Fixed Wasp enemies taking more damage than intended from Lightning Towers

• Placed Crystalline Dimension back on Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards

• Fixed black screen issue on poly

• Fixed Ogres spawning slowly at the end of wave in Wintermire survival.

• Fixed an issue where the omenak brooch showed up as bracers

Misc Changes

• Removed Discord integration to improve game stability

• Changed the ranked home screen to have more useful links

Social Defenders

To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

• Discord

• Twitter

• Facebook

• Instagram

• TikTok

• YouTube

• Twitch

• Forums