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[CG] Andrew

DEFENDERS,

If you follow our social media channels (and you should be by now) you may have noticed that I have been streaming a little more frequently during the week on our Twitch channel. I like to do this so that I can better acquaint myself with our streaming community, and have some fun while doing so. Live streaming is how I originally broke into the gaming industry, and is still something that I am still very passionate about. As such, I have been wanting to start a program to say thanks to our streamers, and today I am doing just that!

Here is a link to a very short form to fill out to sign up. That's it. Just fill in your Twitch channel and current email address (yes, you will actually need to check it) and stream any Dungeon Defenders game for a total of at least 20 hours every 2 weeks (Update: 40 hours every month) and I send you a few codes. These codes will usually be for in-game cosmetics that we are featuring in our games. You can use these codes for yourself, or to giveaway to your own communities however you see fit! The amount of codes received may vary each period, and each streamer in the program will receive the same amount.

This program is our way of saying thanks to you who already stream our games, as well as hopefully encourage a few new faces out there to begin. My hope is that this just the start of a program that will continue to evolve alongside our players and games! 

The first 2-week block starts today and runs through 3/28. Codes should be in your email within a day or two of the end of each 2-week period. 

Thanks, and have a good stream!

 

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:

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

[CG] Philip

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

image.png

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.png

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:

For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

[CG] Andrew

DEFENDERS,

Today we are putting out a small, but very impactful, update where we are happy to welcome back the Session Browser on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox! (that feels reallllly good to finally type out btw) In addition to bringing back the browser, we are also enabling the DDGR hero costumes, changing the Dark Elf Warrior, and fixing some frustrating bugs!


Session Browser is back!

This feature is back, you’re once again able to find other Defenders to play with. We’re sorry it was gone for a while, but it was out of our hands and took a lot of work to get back up and running. This is currently live for Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox with Switch coming at a later date.

DDS_2022-05-25_15-08-53.png

Dungeon Defenders Going Rogue Costumes!

As promised in our release of Dungeon Defenders Going Rogue, we’ve provided five free costumes that were released in DDGR for DDA! You should be able to select them through transmog once you have the update.

image (14).png

Misc.

  • Removed the Rifted Dark Elf Warrior Cloaking mechanic
    • This means that towers will be able to target and attack rifted warriors without needing to be a fusion tower.
  • Greatly increased the transparency of the Reflect Field’s texture to be less distracting.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a bug where Aim Assist was targeting defeated enemies
  • Fixed a bug where Inventory Stats points would mess up when you swap heroes on the stat page
  • Fixed a bug where XP/Radial Bars were not properly showing values
  • Fixed a bug where applying stat points changes in some cases would get rejected and return to the unspent pool
  • Fixed a bug where heroes would sometimes display -1 health
    • Let us know if you see this in game. We believe we fixed this, but it’s hard to reproduce on our end.
  • Fixed a bug where the secret room stairs didn't have collision, causing you to fall through

 

What's Next?

We’re currently working on getting these patches for Switch. Because of the changes we had to make to multiplayer, the Session Browser requires custom setup on each platform with their own requirements. We’ll keep you posted as to when those are coming out. We are continuing to work on DDA, using your feedback to greatly influence the things we work on, with more surveys on the way to get more of your feedback. We’re wanting to get more small patches out between now and Episode 2 that address some issues that have been outlined as we continue our work. There’s also more updates for DD2 and DDGR on the way, there’s so much we’re doing that we can’t wait to get out to all of you!

 

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:

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

1aydan

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

Screenshot 2023-04-13 152709.png

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


Emporium

Screenshot 2023-04-13 152506.png

 

  • 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
     

 

 

[CG] Philip
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
 
1aydan

FUTURE DD1 Development

By 1aydan,


News
DEFENDERS,
It has been a while since the last Dungeon Defenders 1 update from the Community Development Team, which after years of high-quality content and features being developed for the game unfortunately came to an end. However, enthusiasm within Chromatic Games surrounding DD1 extends to this day, and we are super excited to announce that the game will be receiving a new light. A handful of developers have decided to return to working on a new update for the live version of the game with the help of the community again. This includes some members of the CDT returning as well as some new faces.
What you can expect from this update is similar to what you have seen previously from the Community Development Team. This will include new maps, items, bosses, and features. We are planning to add some of the content and features present or previously worked on for Redux.
We will be monitoring community feedback on the changes we make, as well as looking for new features that you all want to see added to the game.


REDUX -
In the past, Redux was meant to be this new light, but it didn’t pan out the way we wanted due to the major split in communities and other issues. Redux is not going away with this new development, but the development will be paused for the time being.


WHAT THIS WON'T BE -
As mentioned earlier this project is not a full company effort and is just a tiny subset of the company that is working on this purely on our time with help from some community members. This effort at first will also be on an our time basis approach to order to not effect development in other areas if possible.


WHEN? -
So if all of this sounds enticing, you might want to know “when?!”. We don’t typically announce dates for things like this, but in full transparency, the plan is to have an update out by sometime in October with select items and features from Redux as well as some new stuff.


WHAT'S NEXT?-
If this update goes well with the community we will look at expanding the scope of our future updates with new content.. We would like to keep Dungeon Defenders 1 updates happening for as long as possible, but it depends on how the community feels about these new developments.
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  
[CG] Mary
DEFENDERS

Today the “Activating the Goblin Mech Update” went live for Steam Early Access! Alongside it is our release announcement trailer, which if you haven’t seen it yet, click here to check it out! Dungeon Defenders: Awakened releases May 28th on Steam, and noted later in this post are details for the other platforms. With the update coming next month, this is the final major update to Early Access, with the Steam launch having all of our 1.0 content. In this update you’ll be fighting the magically powered Goblin Mech, gain access to the Endless Spires map, and get the first look at our first arted up UIs — let’s get into it!
Activating the Goblin Mech Update
You can smell the exhaust coming from the Goblin Mech’s mechanical monstrosity, but where is the smell coming from? The only way to find out is to hop into Throne Room on Campaign and survive to the end!
The Goblin Mech Plows Through

The second boss that you’ll fight is the destructive Goblin Mech! Piloting the pinnacle of goblin engineering, he bursts into Throne Room (Campaign). You’ll need to stop him from plowing through your defenses and destroying the Crystal Cores in the middle. Find his weakness, drain the power of the mech, and stop him in his tracks!
The Goblin Mech is available for all difficulties on The Throne Room (Campaign).
UI Updates

One of the biggest focuses of this entire project has been to get UIs into a functionally better state compared to previous Dungeon Defenders games. As a lot of the UIs are wrapped up and getting their final touches on the functional side, we’re able to finally start arting them up. In this update, the first UIs to get this treatment are our Map Select UIs. There’s more to come across the entire game, but this is our first real showing at giving the UIs that Dungeon Defenders feel!
New Bonus Map — Endless Spires

Locking away some of Etheria’s most heinous criminals, the Endless Spires is going to be coming back as the bonus map for Act II. A fan favorite, Endless Spires is available to play on Campaign as well as Survival. Conquer the spires —  doing so in Survival rewards you an all new pet!
New Pet — The Monkey King
Climbing the Spires and fighting off the hordes of enemies that encroach upon the great prison rewards you with primate royalty, The Monkey King. Using his legendary bo staff, this pet attacks fast, gaining strength with each hit, all from the comfort of his floating cloud.
Delays
One of our goals regarding the development of this project is to be as transparent as possible about this project. We’ve had delays from initial releases and have tried to communicate why, ultimately being that we want Dungeon Defenders: Awakened to be a great game and set the standard when fully released as the first game for Chromatic Games. We sat down, made a road map that was realistic for the work we’re able to provide, and got to work. Everything was going smooth in development land, and then COVID-19 hit. This has been an unprecedented event, and as we’ve previously stated, our first priority was (and still is) making sure everyone of our employees was safe and healthy. This has affected development in multiple ways, and we’re doing our best to be responsive and ensure a quality game. Here’s how it’s affected multiple areas and where we’re at as a studio.
Nintendo Switch
Developing for a Nintendo platform is something new that we were excited to take on. The Nintendo Switch has a lot of awesome tech crammed into their console. Dungeon Defenders: Awakened can be a bit of a resource hog, so it’s important to make sure we do everything we can to make sure it runs smoothly, especially when playing 4 player split screen Wave 25 Survival. What happens on the Switch also sets the precedence for all of the other platforms we release on. There’s a ton of work that goes into making all of this happen.
Working in the studio with our Switch development kits allowed us to be quick with testing. One of the biggest hurdles with a game like ours is making sure that what other players are doing, including host and client connections, provides proper replication to everyone playing. You start local to make sure connections work, and slowly start playing over networks and doing larger network tests. Having to change to an entirely remote setup has caused a bit of trouble doing this. We are currently working through various solutions to emulate the process we planned to follow, but it comes at the cost of time. If we were in the studio, this would be moving along faster and we’d be in a much better position. Unfortunately that’s not where we’re at.
Ultimately this means that we’re going to have to delay our Nintendo Switch release to Q3 of this year. The above is not our only requirement, as there is a certification process that we must go through with Nintendo that takes some time to make sure it will work perfectly across their networks and platform. As a studio we believe you deserve the best experience. If we were to force something through, it would be incredibly rushed, not perform properly, and be a flawed product.
We’re going to keep working as hard as we can and keep you updated on our progress.
Pure Strategy and Challenge Maps
These were originally slated for our Activating the Goblin Mech update, but were pushed off to our release on May 28th. While we’re working on progression throughout the game, we wanted to make sure the additional mode and challenge maps (Act II introduces a brand new challenge map) provided a great experience. A lot of that is related to our Massacre work, so we held onto it for the moment so you don’t receive a lackluster experience that is going to be changed when everything is said and done. With these two changes to our schedule, the goal is consistently to not curb quality in order to meet deadlines.
Balance
Enemies Spider Increased the Spider’s web projectile speed by 50%.  
General Changes
Maps The Tavern The Blacksmith has been added, but currently ignores you because you haven’t slain a dragon yet. He’s got some high standards that we’re looking to nerf in a later update. Throne Room Updated the carpet in Throne Room to be Blue on one side to help give a sense of which side of the map a player is on. Alchemical Labs Updated the nameplates on the Electric Generators that activate during the Demon Lord fight. UI Updated the descriptions for game modes and maps on the Map Select UI. New Map Select UI with new art assets! New Map Cards have been added to Map Select. Fire Rate now shows for melee weapons and staves. Matchmaking Players are able to join their friends' private/public games after Wave 3.
Public games do not show on the Session Browser past Wave 3.
Tower Range Viewer Pressing “SHIFT” will turn on Tower Range Viewer, showing the range of towers. Gear Added an accessory drop to every Boss victory chest in Campaign. Added set bonuses to the tooltips. Cinematics Added several new storied cinematics in Act II. Performance Optimizations AI behavior / content, as well as map content has been greatly optimized and players should see a noticeable improvement in later stage gameplay. More optimizations to come!  Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that was causing several crashes. Fixed an issue when enabling FPS Limiter not saving properly. Fixed an issue where pets were not able to be dropped from the inventory. Fixed an issue where hero footsteps were not playing correctly. Fixed an issue where the Summary Screen and Tac Map could overlap and not allow you to properly interact with the Summary Screen. Fixed an issue where Primary Bindings showed in the Secondary Binding if there was not a Secondary Binding already set. Fixed setup issue with several explosion VFX that were causing a noticeable stutter on lower spec machines. Fixed an issue where hitting “Escape” was not cancelling inputs. Fixed an issue where pets could be upgraded too high. Fixed an issue where tower rate stats on older gear was not showing. Fixed an issue where free pet upgrades still took gold. Fixed an issue where the Huntress’s projectiles would pass through targets when moving too fast. Adjusted the chat box so it now scrolls when a new message is sent. Fixed an issue with damaged towers not updating properly on the Tac Map when repaired or upgraded. Fixed an issue for not being able to upgrade certain stats properly, specifically Fire Rate. Fixed an issue when clicking the portrait of your currently selected hero wasn’t confirming the creation for that hero. Fixed an issue with upgrade arrows on items in the inventory not updating correctly. Fixed an issue where Facemelter was doing 1 damage. Fixed an issue where Lightning Aura wasn’t playing it’s VFX when damaging an enemy. Fixed an issue where Medium Difficulty completion was unlocking Insane Difficulty. Fixed an issue that caused an inconsistency with aura previews and spawn sizes. Known Issues
Replaying/Restarting Endless Spires causes Wyverns and Sharkens to have pathing issues.
Maps being randomly locked and not unlocking properly.
Gear quality not being reflected properly compared to the item power.
What’s Next
There’s a lot of hard work that has gone into this update, and we’re working with all our might to provide an amazing experience at the end of next month when Dungeon Defenders: Awakened FINALLY Releases! Thank you for all your support, there've been a lot of ups and downs, but through it all we’re going to have a game to you that we’re very proud of. We’re almost there!
Social Defenders
To get reliable updates on the future of DDA make sure to follow us on all our social media platforms:
Discord Twitter Facebook Instagram Twitch Forums Keep an eye out for more info!
For Etheria!
Chromatic Games
[CG] HiggsBosonic
Defenders,
Lots of things happening this week across the entire Dungeon Defenders franchise so let's just jump into the details.

DD:A Console Update
This year has been a wild ride, as humans and as a studio we have been presented with unforeseen challenges across the board. A ton of progress has been made on our console ports, and we’re nearing the finish line. Our initial focus for consoles was to get the game running on the Nintendo Switch, pouring months of engineering effort into optimizing the Switch and console experience. After incredible improvements, we are not satisfied with the overall experience on the Switch and have decided to change our focus in order to get a console version of DD:A into your hands as quickly as possible.
DD:A on the Xbox
Recently we changed our focus in terms of console work over to the Xbox One. Immediately we saw increased performanced and a better overall experience, which was really exciting. All of the hard work that we poured into the Switch version carries over into the Xbox version, and also later the Playstation version, so none of our work was wasted. 
When?
We are working with Microsoft to target a Q1 2021 launch for the Xbox. As we progress through the certification process we will update the community on a more exact month or date. We need to get through “cert” first, then we can work with Microsoft to set an exact launch date.
What about the other platforms?
Once we are through the certification process for Xbox, we begin that same process with Playstation & Switch. So Xbox will be released first, followed by Playstation & Switch.
What about the new consoles?
We will be releasing DD:A on both Microsoft and Sony’s new consoles as hardware test kits become available. We’re waiting for the opportunity to jump quickly on getting into certification and releasing DD:A on this new hardware.
 
1.2 Update Check In
We are working on Update 1.2 polish, bug fixes, and entering our final phase of testing. We will have a launch date for this update for the community soon. While we have had quite a few people working on this update over the last few months, our primary focus as a studio has been on the consoles. We do not want to rush this update out, so are taking the necessary time to polish the systems and test it before release.  Rift Mode, Transmog, new accessories, and more are coming your way, as well as Trading, Reforge and the remaining in-game Kickstarter rewards in a follow-up patch!
 
Franchise Steam Sale
All of our Dungeon Defenders Games on Steam are on sale
Dungeon Defenders 1 
75% off across the board, base game, DLCs, Collection, and 4-Packs
If you have not had a chance to experience this classic, now is a great time to pick it up.
Dungeon Defenders 2
50% off of Steam packs
50% off in-game Gem costs of Heroes, Costumes, Shards & more!
With XP & Gold Event going on for the next 5 days, it is a great time to get back into DD2 and pick up some wares on the cheap!
Dungeon Defenders: Awakened
30% off the base game
With 1.2 Update around the corner, which adds rift mode and new progression, now is the time to pick up DD:A and get to the end game before all the rifty goodness hits.
 
Dungeon Defenders 2 Events!
From now through the end of the year we have some in-game events lined up. We wanted to provide our loyal DD2 players with some holiday treats. Beyond the 50% off in game sale that will run through the second week of January here is a schedule of events coming this year.
Nov 25th-30th: 4x Base XP & Gold December 5th: Double Defender Medal Saturday Dec 11th-13th: 4x Base XP  Dec 18th-21st: 4x Base Gold  Dec 24th-27th: Holiday Extravaganza: 4x Base XP & Gold, 2x Defender Medals
  Social Defenders
To get reliable updates on the future of DDA make sure to follow us on all our social media platforms:
Discord Twitter Facebook Instagram Twitch Forums Keep an eye out for more info!
For Etheria!
Chromatic Games
[CG] HiggsBosonic
DEFENDERS!
Today we released the PRIME INCURSIONS update on all platforms! We wanted to provide a challenge to our tested Defenders that was separate from Onslaught, and Prime Incursions are just that. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s get into it!
PRIME INCURSIONS

What are they?
They are the highest and newest tier of incursions, selectable from the Incursions tab on the War Table. There are six different groups of incursions to play through that are releasing over time. You are able to play them as they are unleashed, the only thing that can hold you back is your own skill!
What are the rewards?
Prime Incursions have three different rewards associated with them.
Chaos VIII Ampoules
Each Prime Incursion has the chance to drop a Chaos VIII Ampoule. As you continuously progress, the Incursions get more and more difficult. As such, we wanted to increase the drop rate of Chaos VIII Ampoules to match that increase in difficulty. These Incursions can get pretty tough, which led us to making the hardest of these challenges have the highest drop chance for Chaos VIII Ampoules.
Chaos VIII Weapons
We’ve added a whole new slew of weapons with new weapon models that are only available through Prime Incursions. There’s over 25 new weapons to collect, sure to scratch that collector’s itch!

That’s not all there is to these weapons. Each weapon is upgraded to Chaos VIII, at the full 5/5 upgrade quality! That means they are perfectly upgraded, letting you focus on using Chaos VIII Amps to upgrade your relics and armor instead. Alongside these upgrades, we’ve curated these weapons to be what you really want. They have some of the most alluring shot and swing types many of you enjoy. ALONGSIDE THAT, included are curated mods specific to these weapons that really ensure these drops feel good and pack a punch!
Hyper Shards
Hyper Shards are something every player wants to boost up their arsenal. Previously, they were only acquired through Mastery completion, requiring a specific amount of Mastery Stars. Now, in Prime Incursions, you earn a Hyper Shard for every group you complete. There are six groups total, so if you complete all six of the groupings, you earn the seventh Hyper Shard as a capstone reward! This means you can now have up to TWO of each Hyper Shard in your ranks, pushing back the Old Ones forces more hyper-er than before.
When Do They Release?

Today we released the first two groups of Prime Incursions, Prime I and Prime II. Each of these groups contains 3 incursions, for a total of 6 to conquer. Every week, on Wednesday @ 9AM ET, we are releasing a new incursion. This is going until early November, giving you content to come back each week to enjoy. Here’s the schedule
Prime I & II:  TODAY!
Prime III Malthius:  September 4th
Prime III Power Surge:  September 11th
Prime IV Dark Awakening:  September 18th
Prime IV Return to Maldonis:  September 25th
Prime IV Bastille Master:  October 2nd
Prime V Altar of the Athame:  October 9th
Prime V Revenge of the Yetis:  October 16th
Prime V Spectral Assault:  October 23rd
Prime VI Dawn of the Blood Moon:  October 30th
Prime VI BETSY:  November 5th

New Costume
The Ascended Initiate is now available for purchase in-game at 800 Gems!

Social Defenders
To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:

Twitter
Facebook
Discord
Twitch

The team had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games
[CG] Philip
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
 
 
[CG] Brittani
DEFENDERS,
In less than ONE WEEK Dungeon Defenders: Awakened will be released on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One!! We are so pumped for that release and we wanted to add to that excitement by sharing other big news from the studio — we’re also rolling out the release of Update 1.3 soon! We’re currently getting this update certified for Xbox, with our goal being to release the update for both PC and Xbox players on March 17, DDA’s Xbox launch date. Check out what’s to come...
What’s New
Tutorial

One addition to the game we’re really proud to introduce is the new tutorial! We felt the old tutorial had room for improvement, so we’re adding more explanations on essential game-play features (like the hero deck) and giving new DDA players a chance to experiment with different heroes and defenses. This is just the first of many tutorial revisions and additions we’ll be adding to the game to help our newest defenders learn all they need to know to defend Etheria!
PLUS, everyone who completes the new tutorial will receive a sweet reward in their inventory. We’ll share more about that at the time of the patch release ;)
Massacre Mixed Mode and Pure Strategy
At long last, we’re adding the Massacre difficulty to Pure Strategy and Mixed Mode game modes! Pure Strategy tests players’ defense-building strategies by removing hero combat from battle. With the addition of Massacre difficulty to this game mode, players will have to account for the Siren, an immunity-granting enemy. This will force players to figure out how to handle the Siren using only defenses before she’s able to boost the rest of the enemy field. In Mixed Mode, players will also see the Siren added to the enemy list, and will be rewarded appropriately with better loot drops than even Survival mode. Prepare those defenses, Defenders!
Nameplate and Damage Numbers
Like we mentioned during the dev stream last Friday, we’re making some big changes to the displays for nameplates and enemy damage numbers. These changes will add in some missing player and enemy nameplates, as well as increase the quality of the displays, including making the text and numbers clearer while dealing damage. Critical hits will feel more rewarding, with larger numbers to let you know when you’re doing that extra bit of damage. These numbers will be even bigger when you manage to snipe a weak point, so it's time to show off those skills!
Check out how those in-game differences will look after the update:
Before

After

Enemy Amount Changes
Game performance is an area we’ve been tinkering with for a while. To help boost performance, we decided that decreasing the amount of enemies on screen at once would be a great way to do that without impacting game-play too drastically. Most of the enemy reductions will come from weaker enemies, so you’ll see significantly fewer goblins and wyverns, for example. To compensate for the lower number of enemies on maps, all enemy strengths will be increased. Players will have a slightly different challenge with fewer targets, but this should hold the difficulty level.
This enemy count update will impact game play on all maps and difficulties in Campaign, Survival, Mixed Mode, and Pure Strategy, meaning every player can go back and re-experience a brand new DDA!
Optimizations and Performance
With the decreased enemy counts and changes to displays while in battle, players should experience a cleaner battle, and especially so on the larger maps (e.g. Summit). Wave lengths will be reduced, and these changes will stem from adjustments to enemy release schedules and the reduced total enemy counts. Basically, we want to make sure every player feels they are being challenged, while also making sure the game runs smoothly and looks great all at the same time.
Still To Come
There are still many highly-anticipated features we’re working on and will add in future updates, including trading, cross-saves, and more. Once DDA Xbox release goes off, we’ll be able to spend more time prioritizing these features, while also working on our Nintendo Switch and PlayStation ports. We’ve shared some of the updates on these during our Friday Funday streams, but we want to get this down in writing for you all, too.
We are just as excited as you to add trading to DDA, but we needed to step away from this project for a bit to focus on passing Xbox certification. After the Xbox launch, we’ll get back to work on making sure any trade system we add to the game is fair and safe for all players. Ensuring fair trades between players is a big task, but one we want to make sure is part of players’ experiences. Once we feel the system can’t be easily exploited, we’ll work toward adding support to setup sessions specifically for trading, buying, and selling items between players.
We’re nearing the completion of the cross-save feature. It does require another separate Microsoft certification process, though, so the timing on that will depend on those outside factors. For the much sought-after split-screen feature, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to make the UI and UX work well for all players during a split-screen session. When we add additional screens, the game has to work a lot harder to give each player their own unique area of play and we haven’t been satisfied with the way it’s all working together (or not working together…). When we’re happy with the way multiplayer functions AND looks, you’ll know!!
Bug Fixes
This patch will include a whole bunch of bug fixes too! We all know players’ favorite space to place DSTs is on top of the Glitterhelm doors, but you’ll have to come up with a new strategy now. We are fixing this bug and other similar placement-related issues on other maps. Lots of previously-stuck enemies will be given new legs, so they’ll make their way down the purple path once again. Along with these fixes, we’re addressing some exploits and inaccurate damage number displays.
This is just a small preview of all of the revisions, additions, and bug fixes we’re planning in this next update, so stay tuned!
Social Defenders
To make sure you’re in the loop on all things Dungeon Defenders and to know as soon this new update drops, follow us on all of our social channels:
Discord Twitter Facebook Instagram Twitch Forums Smooches,
Chrome Game
Elandrian
From: Colin “Elandrian” Fisher, Creative Director
What’s up, Defenders!  Welcome to our first post as Chromatic Games!  If you’re new to the community, an extra helping of “welcome” is in store for you.  If you’re a veteran Defender, then welcome back. Let’s get right to it!
It’s been a wild ride these past couple months, but the cat’s out of the bag now!  There’s been a lot of news about our rebranding, new Kickstarter campaign, and what all of it means for you as a player.  I want to just take a brief moment to provide a little extra context about what’s going on. We’re #indieAF now, so it’s time to get the info straight from the horse’s mouth!  (Or maybe it’s beans time? Company beans? Who knows. Let’s do this.)
So What Happened To Trendy Entertainment?
For the more official take, you can check out the press release here.
For the realest take, keep reading!
In December of this past year, Augi Lye, one of the original founders of Trendy, came back as CEO to help return Trendy to its indie roots.  
The development team and I worked with him to figure out how we can have a good plan to move forward and start creating Dungeon Defenders games in the way they were meant to be made: for our players.  One of the things we wanted to make clear was that Trendy was no longer really Trendy.  There’s brand-new leadership, a new creative direction, and new energy at the studio that was just waiting to be released.  So we decided that we’re not really Trendy anymore.
Chromatic Games is our final form.  We’re over power level 9000 now, and we’re ready to rock.
We’re not answering to external people anymore.  We’re in control of our own destiny. We were able to keep the majority of the development team around, but we had some people move on to newer pastures. We’re so grateful for their years of service.  We love and respect all of our previous Trendy family, but now the Chromatic team is focused on the future — and that future is to keep improving DD2 and crafting Dungeon Defenders: Awakened.
What Does This Mean For Dungeon Defenders II?
Dungeon Defenders II will keep going!  Development is going to slow down, but we still plan on maintaining limited updates and content.  What do I mean by limited updates? We’re going to be focused on smaller quality of life updates, bug fixes, improvements and some occasional new cosmetics.  When I say smaller QoL, I mean in the development time aspect — we still plan on our quality of life features to be super impactful for players.  
We’re going to be releasing an update soon on all platforms that will have a vendor where you can get the Shards you’ve been looking for or looking to gild — a highly requested player feature!
There’s some extra morsels of dopeness in that update as well.  Most of the changes are gameplay related. We’re trying to make the fixes and improvements that everyone has been asking for.
Supporting Dungeon Defenders II will still continue to support the team at Chromatic and support our ability to continue to patch and grow DD2.  Our team is dedicated to figuring out how we can keep evolving the game in the right direction.
We’re going to keep making Dungeon Defenders II better and better, just as we’ve been committed to doing in the past.
So Why Dungeon Defenders: Awakened?
I’m just going to begin by addressing the elephant in the room:
“Elan, Dungeon Defenders: Eternity already happened.  Isn’t this just the same thing?!?”
The short answer is no. The long answer is HELL no.  DD:E was a different product entirely. We have no plans to repeat history when it comes to that.
We came up with Dungeon Defenders: Awakened as our first smaller-scope project as a new team. If we want to remain employee-owned/controlled (which is the dream!), we needed to prove that we’re the capable stewards and re-earn that trust before diving right into Dungeon Defenders III (which we have SO many slick plans for).
Dungeon Defenders: Awakened started as a plan to do a modern remake of the original Dungeon Defenders for the Nintendo Switch, but then it evolved from there.  We didn’t want the game to feel like some sort of weird attempt at Dungeon Defenders: Eternity again. We wanted to make a new game, a new experience, a new story.
As we began looking into what we could build with Unreal Engine 4, we found that we’ll need to rebuild a lot of the systems and code that supported the Dungeon Defenders games.  Fortunately, our engineers are rockstars. We’re taking a lot of the hard lessons we learned about building games over the years from DD1 and DD2 and now have the freedom to make these systems in newer, more optimized and scalable ways for DD:A.
We don’t just want the game to look better in UE4 — we want it to run and feel better.
We want controlling your character to feel “crispy.”  For some context on what that means, you should check out Ben Brode’s PAX Keynote from last year.  We love to draw inspiration from other games and developers, and that is one of my personal favorite talks that describes some of these key aspects of making games have that polished and responsive feel.
Then when it comes to content, we’re exploring ways of using and importing some of our existing content in new ways that we can use as a springboard to accelerate development.  
This is one of the things we show off in the Kickstarter.  Deeper Well is definitely still the same map effectively, but it has a completely new look and will play a little differently.  It will still be a familiar and recognizable location, but there are new things going on in these familiar spots and new gameplay that comes with it.
This is what will allow us to make our aggressive October timeline.  By using the content and assets that we’ve been developing over the years, the content team can go CRAZY and make the game look and run amazingly well while our design team focuses on bringing the gameplay into 2019.
Our goal is to bring Dungeon Defenders: Awakened to as many platforms and players as possible.  We want to make a game that everyone can enjoy, and enjoy together. It just takes additional support to get there, and that’s why we have our Kickstarter campaign.
Why Go To Kickstarter?
We JUST became fully independent again.  We want to build the game in a way that we can fully be in control of.  Obviously going to a publisher is an option that we can explore to get additional funding, but there’s always a bit of “loss” associated with that.  We’re really trying to move forward and make new games. We don’t want to have a publisher — we want to make Dungeon Defenders games that are fun, weird, engaging, meme-tacular, challenging, charming and magical.
By going to Kickstarter, we can maintain FULL control over development and the future of the Dungeon Defenders franchise.  Your support here is VITAL.
The “dream” is to add as much content to this game as possible and to make a game that you can enjoy as a solo player or as a co-op player, strategizing against new challenges, maps, defenses, and gameplay.  We love it when people make interesting builds that even baffle our internal designers. We love when people find cool ways to make defenses and heroes more powerful than we ever could have imagined. We want to give you more of that.
So we need your help.
In Conclusion
We’re here to make a game that communicates our passion for Dungeon Defenders. We want to fulfill the expectations of our followers both new and old.  At this moment, we’ve had about a month of focused pre-production development time so far, and look how much progress we’ve has been made already!
We can’t wait to give people more news and updates about Dungeon Defenders: Awakened as we make more progress. We’re focusing on having a player-first mentality be our driving force at Chromatic.  
We’re here for you, if you’ll be here for us.
Support our Kickstarter, spread the word, help us make the dopest Dungeon Defenders game of all time.
 
As always, feel free to hit me up on Twitter:  @LordElandrian
Welcome to our community.  Stay a while.
1aydan

DD1 Update 9.0.0

By 1aydan,


News
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
1aydan

DD1 Update 9.1.2

By 1aydan,


DD1 Update
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
 
iamisom

Ascension Patch Notes

By iamisom,

One week until Open Alpha. One week until you can run around and tell your friends about that cool game you’ve been playing. And once you stop telling them about Rocket League, could you maybe throw in the good word about Dungeon Defenders II being available for anyone to download for free, yeah? That’d be awesome.
All jokes aside, until that beautiful moment comes next week on October 13th, here’s an update full of delicious new features and balance! There are some things in this update that are experimental. You can find these things with our super-subtle EXPERIMENTAL marking. There’s also some things in this update that are AWESOME. We didn’t tag those, but we should have.
Also remember, this patch comes in two parts! Part II [AWESOME] will be releasing October 27th and launch with two new Spooky maps, Incursions, new minibosses, new build items and other awesomeness.

Features

New Stat Points System!
This is an early-game system to improve investment, choice and progression for early-game players. We’ll be looking into ways of improving the system for endgame players in a future update.
When you level up, you’ll get points to invest into stats! The stat screen opens up whenever you level up. Clicking the plus button next to a stat adds 1 point, shift-click adds 5 points and ctrl-click adds 50 points!
Clicking feels good, right?
Added Defense Speed and Defense Range as stats you can invest in when you level up.
You can respec your stats for a flat gold cost.
You can close the window and choose to invest your stat points at a later time.

EXPERIMENTAL:  Larger Blockades, Ranged Towers and Auras
Blockades and Towers take up more space. Size increased by about 30-40%. Collision increases vary between 10-20%.
The defense footprint was increased by about 3x what it used to be, cutting the amount of defenses you can place alongside one another by about half in a 2-3 blockade lane. Damage was increased as a result (you can find these changes in the Balance section).
Adding a note to make sure you saw that damage was increased with those changes. [[7012,hashtags]]
Auras are just visually bigger. Kappa.
Traps were not affected by these changes (trap changes were reverted based on playtest feedback).

Melee Weapon Modifications for Squire & Monk
Newly dropped melee weapons can now roll as 3 stances - light, medium, and heavy.  Some weapons can roll as an either/or (ex. Light or Medium)
Each stance has a different ground attack pattern. The monk still has his same Chi shot, though. He’s been studying kung fu films -- not ninja anime about becoming a hokage or anything.
There are now random rolls for attack speed on most melee weapons in the game. Two medium swords may not have the same attack rate. Two heavy polearms may have wildly different attack rates.  
Air attacks are unaffected by stance.
New tooltip added to compare melee weapons.

Ranged Weapon Modifications for Apprentice & Huntress
Newly dropped ranged weapons now have vastly different behaviors!
Burst Fire - multiple shots per click, straight line.
For those sweet MLG noscopez.
Spread Fire - multiple shots per click, spread fire.
Can vary wildly.
Landing the entire spread will deal higher damage than normal, but harder to headshot.
Shotgun Fire - a LOT of shots in a click, low distance, low accuracy.
We don’t need to tell you how to use this. Go look up Evil Dead clips or something.
Homing Fire - Will gravitate towards your crosshair. Never miss a flying kobold suiciding on your core again!
Arc Fire - Rains death over an arc. Some may have Area of Effect impacts.
Not new, but slow firing single shot weapons now deal a LOT of damage...
Certain legendary weapons have unique behaviors. Find them!
Fixed attack rates will now roll on new weapons. We’ve balanced it such that you can find the weapon you want and succeed more than likely. So take that 40 projectiles a second weapon and go have fun, or the 1 projectile rifle and be precise for big damage.

New Passives and Skill Spheres
PDT Health (Passive):  X% extra Poison Dart Tower health based on your Defense Health stat.
PDT Speed (Passive):  Increases the Defense Speed of the Poison Dart Tower by +X.
PDT Explode (Passive):  When a target affected by the Poison Dart Tower’s poison dies, it explodes, dealing X% of your Defense Health as damage in an area around it. Also adds a stack of the PDT poison to targets hit by the explosion.
PDT Range (Sphere):  Poison Dart Tower’s range is increased by X%.
PDT Stack Increase (Sphere):  The Poison Dart Tower’s poison can stack X more times on a target.

Partial Controller Support
Partial Controller (Gamepad) support is in!
Use Controller must be manually enabled with the new checkbox at the Options -> Controls screen (scroll down and look right).
For the time being, enabling Use Controller will reset your keybinds. There’s a warning for this, and a future update will remove this limitation.
Note that many screens still do not support the Controller (yet). You’ll still have to keep your mouse handy for the cursor!
Future updates will allow for alternate control schemes and changing of stick sensitivity.

Daily Mission Changes
Daily Missions are now introduced after Dragonfall Sewers in the campaign. Some new, introduction-type missions accompany this earlier introduction, at least until you have a hero high enough to tackle the core daily mission set.
Added a new quest where the Knight Commander introduces missions between Dragonfall Sewers and Forgotten Ruins.
Monthly missions are still introduced in their old place after players complete the campaign.


Content

Little-Horn Valley Updates
Little-Horn Valley has received an overhaul!
Realizing having 3 entrances to the pub is bad for security, they’ve removed one on the lower level. No bouncers’ jobs were compromised in the process.
A couple of the neighbors have renovated and are allowing you to build towers on their new lawn space. This means new defense opportunities! Just don’t stomp on the grass with your heavy toes, people.
Spring cleaning happened to the primary overpass, so tipsy patrons can now see through the level a little clearer/not like they’re drunk.

New Costume:  Valhalla Knight!
1200 Gems
3 Mythic Accessories
3 custom animations:
New Heal Animation
New Spawn-In Animation
New Death Animation

New Premium Pet:  The Headless Horseman!
400 Gems
He comes with 1 “Fiery Pumpkin Head,” 1 “Shiny Axe” and 1 “Evil Laugh”...can you handle the spookiness?
Can come with the unique ability skin: Tormented Thoughts
What is “Tormented Thoughts” one might ask?
Fire your fiery pumpkin head at your foes causing them to panic and move faster while taking damage over time, if you kill your target within the DoT, they will explode doing AoE damage to nearby foes!

New Monthly Quest for October! Teddy Bear Nightmare!
Conditions
Kill 75 Skeleton Special Enemies!
Kill events for monthly quests are now shared across the party meaning no more last hitting for credit.
Triggers on all people in match when either Plaguing Hulk or Skeleton are killed.
Find 75 Legendary Items!
Win 25 Incursions!
Rewards
Monthly Pet: Bearkira
40 Wyvern Tokens
30,000 Gold
Hero Title: “The Awakened”

Miscellaneous
Added tooltips to Daily Missions, Monthly Missions and Quests so you can now see how much of a reward you’ll receive!
Made changes to damage numbers. Damage numbers are now more readable since they linger longer and the magic damage color has changed to a more bright purple rather than a dark purple because dark purple was very difficult to read.
Rearranged interaction icons to sit to the right of the reticle
Increased interaction icon display time for towers to 2 seconds while in Combat Phase
The Eggs you’re protecting in Liferoot Forest and during the Betsy fight have changed slightly.  Foreshadowing?!
Lightning Rod Uber has been renamed to “Concentrated Cyclone Uber.”
Swapped currency and premium currency positions on the UI; expanded the Add Currency button to say “Add.”
Implemented Alienware FX lights support.
Removed the “Take Damage” section of the tutorial level.  We’re pretty sure you’ll figure that out.
Made improvements on camera fade-in/fade-out when objects get between the hero and the camera.


Balance

Enemy Rollouts
After reading many fantastic threads about enemy rollouts, we have made some updates to the way enemies will come down the lane. We updated the lanes so that players will be letting towers do a bulk of the work while players are taking down specific support enemies. To do this, we divided our enemies into different groups.
Standard Group
The standard group will be composed of Goblins (Melee and Bomb Lobbers), T1 Orcs, as well as T1 Warboars. These guys are going to be present in just about every lane. However, they should be taken down quite easily with a decent tower setup.
Support Group
These guys are gunna be the ones you as the player will need to take down. We have updated their minimap icons so they stand out and let players know where they need to go. Sometimes there will be more than one lane that has some of these support enemies in them, so player movement is going to be really the key to victory. The support group is made up of:
Kobolds
Witherbeasts
Lady Orcs
Javelin Throwers
Drakin
Dark Mages
Air Group
The air group remains the same enemies as before. Players will have more time to take down air enemies as well due to not needing to hold off an entire lane of Drakins.

Enemy Balance Changes
The health of most melee enemies has been noticeably reduced. This includes Goblins, Warboars, and Orcs. Bomb Goblins too, even though they’re not melee.
Meanwhile, Kobolds have gained both health and damage. Get ready for the era of boom-shaka-laka!
Dark Mages and Witherbeasts, annoyed at the Kobold, have been working out and have gained some health as well.

Small Skill Spheres
With the new Stat Points System in place, we’ve made changes to the Small Skill Spheres. The goal here is to make Small Spheres about specific specialization on a tower. For right now, we’re starting off with Defense Range. We also left in some of the old quest sphere rewards for funsies. Here is the new list:
Defense Crit Damage I
Defense Crit Damage II
Defense Crit Damage III
Hero Crit Damage I
Hero Crit Damage II
Hero Crit Damage III
Defense Crit Chance I
Defense Crit Chance II
Hero Crit Chance I
Hero Crit Chance II
Defense Power I
Hero Damage I
Defense Health III
Hero Health III
Hero Damage V
Defense Health V
Defense Power V
Defense Attack Rate V
Cannonball Range I
Heavy Cannonball Range I
Heavy Cannonball Range II
Harpoon Range I
Harpoon Range II
Flameburst Range I
Flamethrower Range I
Flamethrower Range II
Earthshatter Tower Range I
Earthshatter Tower Range II
Frostbite Tower Range I
Frostbite Tower Range II
Lightning Aura Range I
Serenity Aura Range I
Lightning Strikes Aura Range I
Lightning Strikes Aura Range II
Boost Aura Range I
Skyguard Tower Range I
Explosive Trap Damage Range I
Blaze Balloon Damage Range I
Poison Dart Tower Range I
Elemental Chaos Trap Range I

Defense Balance Changes
Defenses that fire projectiles have had their damage substantially increased to accommodate for larger size. In addition to this base increase due to the size changes, we’ve also made the following additional base damage increases:
Flamethrower Tower base damage increased substantially
Cannonball Tower base damage increased substantially
Earthshatter Tower base damage increased substantially
Poison Dart Tower poison damage increased drastically
Heavy Cannonball Tower damage increased substantially
Ballista base damage increased substantially
Arcane Barrier health brought up to match base Spike Blockade.
Training Dummy:
Damage is now based off of Defense Health rather than Defense Power
Health values adjusted ever so slightly
Range is doubled
Mesh/Collision increased in size but not height so 3 dummies can cover what 2 blockades cover
[[5924,hashtags]]
Increased the Heavy Cannonball Tower's projectile movement speed by 50%
Note:  We will be taking another pass at trap/aura balance in the future. This update mainly focused on ranged tower balance.

Defense Range Changes
Players can now increase Defense Range by investing in Defense Range using the Stat Point System and equipping Small Skill Spheres that increase a specific defense’s range. All towers should have a larger max range than before through these changes.

Hero Balance Changes
Hero base health, base damage, and base ability power was reduced as now the majority of your progression should come from SAS points. You should hit a higher max than before this system, but this is still a work-in-progress.
Hero Health Stat Point System scaling varies based on the hero. Melee heroes scale substantially better than ranged heroes.
Apprentice's Mana Bomb damage mitigation buffed - when you are channeling you now only take 10% damage instead of the old 30%.
Reduced mark increase from Apprentice’s Arcane Mark Skill Spheres from 2.0 / 5.0 -> 1.0 / 2.0.

General Balance Changes
Removed resistances from miniboss lanes in Onslaught and Incursions

Bug Fixes
Improved performance on high-end machines based on community feedback by defaulting bSmoothFrameRate to false. Be smooth, framerate. Be smooth.
Potentially fixed a server crash.
Fixed an issue with nervousness for next week’s Open Alpha by purchasing a gigantic bottle of...of root beer. Yeah, root beer. Totally clams the nerves.
We meant calms the nerves, but clams sounds so much cooler.
Fixed an issue where pet stats can reroll their current stat value as both options.
Fixed an issue where the timing of Ogre spawns was causing infinite waves in Incursions. Because Incursions are hard enough, amirite?
Fixed an issue where, while playing in Windowed Mode, the Steam Overlay would not resize correctly if the user maximized or minimized the window.
Fixed an issue where enemy kill events weren’t triggered when a player’s pet killed the enemy.
Clammed down the map music on Campaign Gates so it no longer plays behind the introduction cutscene.
Fixed an issue where Betsy would immediately fly away after one egg volley attack from her nest. She will now stick around for a bit and attack any players in her vicinity. After a number of attacks from her nest, she will fly off to do her next air attack.
Fixed an issue where the Incubate button would incorrectly disappear.
Fixed a collision issue with a tree on Forgotten Ruins.
Fixed a bug where Daily Missions were not filtering in correctly.
Fixed an issue where the Dragonfall Tourist Daily Mission was causing the Victory Chest to generate more gold than intended.
Fixed an issue where wave completed experience was not sometimes given to the hero.
Fixed an issue where the player’s gem total wouldn’t update after purchasing an item with gems.
Fixed an issue with collision near the subobjective area in Forgotten Ruins that was stopping enemy pathing.
Fixed an issue with a spawn point in Nimbus Reach.
Fixed a bug where the Daily Mission icons would move when the progression was updated. Now it's perfectly aligned.
Implemented a potential fix for the dark towers bug.
Fixed an issue where the pet evolution popup would display the wrong color.
Implemented a potential fix for a Blaze Balloon decal issue.
Fixed an issue where the Monk’s Onslaught polearm was missing its stats on the tooltip.
Fixed an issue where players couldn’t click on the purchase button for the first item under the Featured section without first clicking on a different item.
Fixed an issue where some Squire Shields had a graybox texture within the tooltip.
Fixed bugs with incorrect Skill Spheres being rewarded from a Gran’Masta quest.
Fixed an issue with an Oil Flask decal.
Fixed an issue where objects wouldn’t fade in properly.
Fixed an issue where intro matinees were not adhering to custom audio settings.
Fixed an issue where the Forge icon was rendering incorrectly on the minimap.
Fixed an issue where Orcs were not appearing properly on the minimap.
Fixed a texture issue in the Social Tavern.
Fixed a bug where the Purge Evil updated passive was referencing the old passive.
Fixed an issue where the pet egg given for the “Visit the Stable Boy” quest would go to the Scavenger and be automatically destroyed 30 minutes later.
[CG] Andrew

DDA PlayStation Update

By [CG] Andrew,


News
DEFENDERS,
We’re currently in certification for our PlayStation 4 and 5 release of Dungeon Defenders Awakened. The intention of this message is to outline where we’re currently at and to get your input on what you’d prefer regarding the release of this port. We’re sending a survey out directly to people who have pre-ordered this to make sure that their voices are heard directly about the following matters.

Multiplayer
At the end of November, we were notified that the systems we use through PlayFab would no longer be supported March 1st, as they had updated their systems and would not be supporting our legacy version past that date. As a result, we’re currently working on overhauling our entire multiplayer setup for Dungeon Defenders Awakened across all platforms, doing everything we can to make sure we’re transferred off the legacy version before that deadline (otherwise multiplayer systems just stop working). After weeks of working with PlayFab support, we were not able to get an extended window to use our current systems. We weren’t expecting to have to overhaul to the degree that we are, but if we don’t, multiplayer just stops working.
 
What does this mean for PlayStation?
Currently we are in the certification process for how the game currently runs. Part of this process is how multiplayer functions on PlayStation, making sure connections work, and that there’s not any kind of major issues. When we update our multiplayer systems, we’re going to have to go through the certification process again to get this newer multiplayer system approved. This can take a considerable amount of time. We’re reaching out to players to get their preference on what we do moving forward. We have two options available to us right now (though things can change drastically as we do this work that may shorten or lengthen the timelines):
Option 1: Delay the release of PlayStation until Q2 (May/June), releasing it with our updated Multiplayer Systems. Option 2: Release on PlayStation potentially sooner without Multiplayer Systems in Q1 (March), and release an update that enables Multiplayer Systems as we get the work finished and approved through the certification process. This is not something guaranteed that we can do, we’re just wanting to get feedback if it’s something players would want before we investigate it even further. We may be able to release with a Day 1 patch that includes multiplayer. It’s all dependent on the certification timing. Our goal will be to get multiplayer running as soon as possible. Kickstarter/BackerKit/Xsolla Rewards come with the multiplayer/online systems patch. The survey that our PlayStation players will be completing is going to be a major factor into which route we go with. We might hit some great momentum and get everything we want out within the timeline we had planned, but we would rather be transparent about this now and potentially pivot if it’s what our players want.
Summary
We’re a small team and are focused on providing everything we can to our players. With something of this nature, it’s important to make sure that what players receive is something they agree on. The surveys should be going out via email with the listed addresses through Kickstarter/BackerKit (this includes updated email addresses if you contacted support to have that information updated). Once we get the results, we’ll let everyone know the direction we’ll be taking to keep you informed.
For Etheria!
 
[CG] Andrew
Defenders,
We know it has been a while since we have had any new information to bring you on the Dungeon Defenders Awakened PlayStation release. Today we happily end that drought — DDA will be released on PlayStation 4 and 5 on May 3, 2022!
 
We’ll keep you posted on any news as we get closer to our release!
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
 
[CG] Mary
DEFENDERS,
Today we posted our release announcement trailer for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. If you haven’t seen it yet, click here to check it out! To celebrate the release of this trailer, and to check in with all of you, we’re going to give a preview for our next update as well as talk about new release information and where we are as a studio. Let’s get into it!
Activating the Goblin Mech Update
This update is coming so close, you can smell the exhaust coming from the Goblin Mech’s mechanical monstrosity. This is the update preview, there’s going to be more information provided on the post that goes live with our update.
Goblin Mech Plows Through
The second boss that you’ll fight is the destructive Goblin Mech! Piloting the pinnacle of goblin engineering, he bursts through the doors on Throne Room (Campaign). You’ll need to stop him from plowing through your defenses and destroying the Crystal Cores in the middle. He’s available for all difficulties.
UI Updates
One of the biggest focuses of this entire project has been to get UIs into a functionally better state compared to previous Dungeon Defenders games. As a lot of the UIs are wrapped up and getting their final touches, we’re able to finally start arting up the UIs. In this update, the first UIs to get this treatment are our Map Select UIs. There’s more to come across the entire game!
New Bonus Map — Endless Spires
Locking away from of Etheria’s most heinous criminals, the Endless Spires is going to be coming back as the bonus map for Act II. A fan favorite, Endless Spires is available to play on Campaign as well as Survival. Conquer the spires to receive an all new pet!
New Pet — The Monkey King
Climbing the Spires and fighting off the hordes of enemies that encroach upon the great prison rewards you with primate royalty, The Monkey King. Using his legendary bo staff, this pet attacks fast, gaining strength with each hit, all from the comfort of his floating cloud.
Delays
One of our goals regarding the development of this project is to be as transparent as possible about this project. We’ve had delays from initial releases and have tried to communicate why, ultimately being that we want Dungeon Defenders: Awakened to be a great game and set the standard when fully released as the first game for Chromatic Games. We sat down, made a road map that was realistic for the work we’re able to provide, and got to work. Everything was going smooth in development land, and then COVID-19 hit. This has been an unprecedented event, and as we’ve previously stated, our first priority was (and still is) making sure everyone of our employees was safe and healthy. This has affected development in multiple ways, and we’re doing our best to be responsive and ensure a quality game. Here’s how it’s affected multiple areas and where we’re at as a studio.
Nintendo Switch
Developing for a Nintendo platform is something new that we were excited to take on. The Nintendo Switch has a lot of awesome tech crammed into their console. Dungeon Defenders: Awakened can be a bit of a resource hog, so it’s important to make sure we do everything we can to make sure it runs smoothly, especially when playing 4 player split screen Wave 25 Survival. What happens on the Switch also sets the precedence for all of the other platforms we release on. There’s a ton of work that goes into making all of this happen.
Working in the studio with our Switch development kits allowed us to be quick with testing. One of the biggest hurdles with a game like ours is making sure that what other players are doing, including host and client connections, provides proper replication to everyone playing. You start local to make sure connections work, and slowly start playing over networks and doing larger network tests. Having to change to an entirely remote setup has caused a bit of trouble doing this. We are currently working through various solutions to emulate the process we planned to follow, but it comes at the cost of time. If we were in the studio, this would be moving along faster and we’d be in a much better position. Unfortunately that’s not where we’re at.
Ultimately this means that we’re going to have to delay our Nintendo Switch release to Q3 of this year. The above is not our only requirement, as there is a certification process that we must go through with Nintendo that takes some time to make sure it will work perfectly across their networks and platform. As a studio we believe you deserve the best experience. If we were to force something through, it would be incredibly rushed, not perform properly, and be a flawed product.
We’re going to keep working as hard as we can and keep you updated on our progress.
Pure Strategy and Challenge Maps
These were originally slated for our Activating the Goblin Mech update, but were pushed off to our release on May 28th. While we’re working on progression throughout the game, we wanted to make sure the additional mode and challenge maps (Act II introduces a brand new challenge map) provided a great experience. A lot of that is going related to our Massacre work, so we held on it for the moment so you don’t receive a lackluster experience that is going to be changed when everything is said and done. With these two changes to our schedule, the goal is consistently to not curb quality in order to meet deadlines.
What’s Next
The update is coming out VERY soon. There’s a lot of hard work that has gone into this update, and we’re working with all our might to provide an amazing experience at the end of next month when Dungeon Defenders: Awakened FINALLY Releases! Thank you for all your support, there've been a lot of ups and downs, but through it all we’re going to have a game to you that we’re very proud of. We’re almost there!
Social Defenders
To get reliable updates on the future of DDA make sure to follow us on all our social media platforms:
Discord Twitter Facebook Instagram Twitch Forums Keep an eye out for more info!
For Etheria!
Chromatic Games
[CG] Mary
DEFENDERS,
We’re all so excited for the Steam Early Access release of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on Feb 21st! We wanted to share some of the awesome work the team’s been working so hard on to get ready for the Early Access at the end of this week. This Dev Log will have some sneak peaks from different departments here at Chromatic: Art, Design, and Engineering! Also, if you haven’t and wanted any of the goodies that come with the preorder editions of DD:A, make sure to get them ASAP since they’ll be gone at 11:59PM EST 2/20! 
Some of The Team
Mary — Community Manager
Hi there! I’m Mary, the new Community Manager and I’ve been working for Chromatic for a little over a month now. I worked at Artix Entertainment previously for almost five years before coming over here. It’s been super fun and I had a blast at PAX South talking to everyone there about DD:A. I’ve been really enjoying reading all of your feedback and suggestions regarding DD:A, and making sure that your voices are heard by the team. I’ve also been working on ways to revamp some of our social media platforms like Discord and hopefully you’ll see those changes soon. I’ve also been getting together some little gif teasers together and getting feedback from the Discord community. Here’s some examples:



I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts on the Steam Early Access of DD:A! It’s only 2 days away!
 
Brent Caulfield — Jr Designer
Hello, my name is Brent Caulfield and I am a Jr. Designer at Chromatic Games. I first started game development about 6 years ago when a friend and I started making a FPS game with wizards and magic instead of guns and ammo. That eventually evolved into a commercial project called Grimoire: Manastorm which was released on Steam in late 2017. After that I started a design internship at Chromatic and then accepted a full time design position shortly afterwards!
There have been a lot of interesting tasks, but my favorite would have to be the final implementation of gameplay elements for all the maps. Placing the final parts to make the gameplay work and then being the first person to playtest it was really exciting. Seeing the waves of enemies all come out on the maps full of beautiful art was a great experience and one I’ll remember for a very long time. There were so many talented peoples’ work that went into making it all happen and to be one of the first people to see it all come together into a full gameplay experience was very special and was definitely my favorite thing I’ve worked on!
Reverse engineering and breaking down DD1 code to find out exactly how and why different systems work was definitely the hardest stuff I’ve had to work on. In order to create an authentic DD1 style experience the Engineering and Design teams spent a lot of time going back into the DD1 code to see how it all functions. One of our major goals with the project is to bring back that awesome gameplay experience that so many people love and while we have extremely experienced people on the team that know how it all works there were still some surprises along the way that we never would have figured out without digging into the source code. This was very challenging at times, but extremely rewarding at the same time.
After the initial hazing (Javahawk told me it was possible to beat DD1 Insane Deeper Well on a fresh character) things have been great! Gainesville is my hometown and game development is my dream job so I feel extremely fortunate that I was able to find a place at such a welcoming studio that is working on a game I genuinely enjoy playing! There are so many amazing people on the team and it's a great feeling to wake up every day and be excited to go into work. I am really excited about everything we are working on and think the community is going to love all the awesome content we’ll be putting out in the future!
 
Jade — Jr 3D Artist
I go by Jadeite in the art world and I have a slight obsession with video games and all things nerdy! So much so that I decided to make some kind of a career out of it through the art side of things. I've been practicing 3D art since my junior year of high school, and it's my favorite medium to date. My life basically revolves around games, whether I'm at work making them, or at home playing them! I'm also a big fan of tabletop games like King of New York, Boss Monster, D&D, and Necromonda just to name a few.
I've had a lot of fun working on the many assets I've been tasked with, but if I had to pin down my favorite it would probably be the pets! I'd say I had the most fun when making these little guys, they're just so cute! I wouldn't really say I'm a character artist, but working on them gave me a chance to essentially be one for a small time and I learned a lot from it. Besides that I also really did like making weapons and shields, super fun especially when I got to make my own spin on old weapons or even just remake them from the ground up. 


I haven't had to make anything that frustrated me to the point of thinking it wasn't fun in the slightest. But for the hardest thing I’ve worked on I guess I would have the pick the new version of Ancient Aegis. From the start I just had no idea where to go with the new concept, and then actually carrying that out in 3D form was a bit of a challenge. I've also had a few issues come up with this particular model, having to add more or fix things in regards to texture, smoothing issues, etc. It was still a very interesting take on a "sword" and I learned quite a bit from it.
My time here has been nothing but enjoyable! I was more than thankful when I first got my internship position here just a few months after graduating, and it's been a blast ever since. One thing my university always said was that you never fully learn this art form until you land your first job, and man were they right! I've been practicing this art form for about 5 years now and I definitely struggled my first week here. I kid you not, I took an entire week making a bench haha. But I've learned a great deal of information, new techniques, and even made some friends along the way! I'd say this is an experience I'll never forget :D
(Also here's some more of my work)


 
Derek Stroud — Sr Programmer
One of my favorite things that I’ve worked on was setting up our abilities using Epic’s own AbilitySystem, which is a very neat and robust system to work with. Abilities are such a key component to the game as they include everything from placing towers to the Genie pet giving you mana. Setting up our core flow for this and making some of the base abilities was very satisfying and fun as it is one of the very direct means of adding fun interactions to the game. In previous development on the original Dungeon Defenders and Dungeon Defenders II, this was a lot more difficult. Swapping to Unreal Engine 4 is like a dream come true when it comes to setting up abilities and being able to do a lot more in a shorter amount of time.
With any project, there’s always going to be that mountain to climb, and it’s usually the hardest thing you work on. For Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, we needed to mimic the original Dungeon Defenders stats on every piece of gear and balance for gear, enemies, difficulties, you name it! Due to Dungeon Defenders evolving beyond its original scope (especially post release) there were a lot of tacked on additions to various formulas that became very hard to translate into an easy to work with system for DDA designers. Tracking down all the various additions and small stat tweaks that could happen in DD1 and making sure we incorporated them into DDA but also trying to keep the new systems intuitive and manageable was quite an undertaking... not quite sure we hit intuitive but I think we got manageable down. 

My favorite thing that has been added to Dungeon Defenders: Awakened that wasn’t in Dungeon Defenders (2012) is double jump! Anything that makes navigation feel better, also every game should have it cause it is the best. As someone who worked on both games, you should take this as a fact — double jump is best jump.
What’s Next?
Everyone has been working so hard on polishing things up for the Steam Early Access release of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on February 21st and working on getting it ready for the full launch in Q2! A few of us are also getting ready to head out to PAX East at the end of the month, will we see any of you there? If you go, make sure to stop by and visit us, we love to hang out with some of our brave Defenders whenever we get the chance!
Social Defenders
To keep up with us and get the latest news on both Dungeon Defenders and us folks here at Chromatic Games, make sure to follow us on our social media:
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For Etheria!
Chromatic Games
Ice
Greetings Defenders,
Welcome to the new forums! There's quite a bit of changes that had to happen in order to facilitate this move so please read everything to hopefully answer any questions you may have.
Logging In Email/Password Login: Your password did not carry over from the old forums and must be reset by going here: https://forums.dungeondefenders.com/lostpassword/ . Make sure to check your email junk/spam folders in case the reset email goes there. Steam Login: You must login with email first and re-link your Steam account to your forum account. Post Counts Since the new forum had to re-index everything during the migration, post count numbers will be to what posts you do have and not include any deleted posts, non-copied over old forum posts, or forum restore numbers. Messages Messages between members on the old forums were not moved to the new one. Sorry 😞 Threads with pages that show "There are no posts to show" Older threads that had deleted/bad spam bot posts in them were cleaned up which may cause the error message above. Once new posts are added or you go to an earlier page instead of last post should work fine. New forum posts started on the new forums will not have this issue. Reporting forum issues You can report new forum issues here: Forum Bug Reports. Titles/Ranks We're working on bringing back some custom groups and post count promotion fully. Right now after you make a post you should see yourself get the correct rank updated on your account. Thank you!
[CG] Andrew

DDA Multiplayer Patch

By [CG] Andrew,


News
DEFENDERS,
As of March 1 we will be ending the use of PlayFab's multiplayer features, and as such we have just released an update for our DDA players:
Multiplayer updated to no longer utilize PlayFab
We're utilizing each platform's multiplayer capabilities, and we are working towards restoring the session browser in the future
Multiplayer Session Browser temporarily removed
Healing Aura and Heal Abilitiy icons updated to match certification requirements.
Players will still be able to play with friends, but will do so by using friend invites. We will continue to post updates for all of our players as we have them.
 
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:
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Chromatic Games
iamisom

Devstream 9

By iamisom,

Phil and Jay talk about the new Hard Mode and ability rebalance. Then, Phil and Jeff talk more about Hard Mode and answer your questions! Throughout the stream, watch Dan Pingston create a new NPC for the pet shop!





iamisom
Dungeon Defenders II is launching on Xbox One, PC & PS4 on June 20th!
For more than two years, we’ve delivered 60+ updates during Early Access. We’re finally ready to tell the world that Dungeon Defenders II is officially here. And we’re excited to tell people that, yes, we’re bringing our game to the Xbox One!
On June 20th, Dungeon Defenders II will be free-to-play on ALL platforms. If you’ve been waiting for F2P to jump into the PS4 version, or if you’ve been waiting for the Steam version to leave Early Access, that day is your day.
When the Xbox One version launches, it'll come with an exclusive pet, an exclusive weapon and a limited-time exclusive map. The new map will make its way to the other versions shortly after the release of the Xbox One version! What is that new map? Perhaps the trailer above offers some clues.

We know you have plenty of questions. We’ve tried to anticipate and answer the more popular ones below, but if you have another question, ask us in the comments!

Your Anticipated Questions
First of all, how hard was it to keep the Xbox One version a secret?
SO DAMN HARD. You have no idea how many times we wanted to tell people. Yes, we love our Xbox fans, and we can’t wait for you to experience Dungeon Defenders II three weeks from now!

Is Xbox One free-to-play?
Yes! From the very first day, the Xbox One version is free-to-play.

Is the Xbox One version up-to-date with the PC & PS4 versions?
We’re working right now to get the Xbox One version as close to the PC & PS4 versions as possible. If it’s not at parity with the other versions on launch day, we’ll get the Xbox One version on parity shortly thereafter.

Will the Xbox One version always be up-to-date with the PC & PS4 versions?
On the Xbox One, we need to put our updates through a more stringent certification process than we do on PC or PS4. It’s our goal to release Xbox One updates as close to day-and-date as possible, but the cert process could mean that Xbox One updates could come out a little later.

Is this the end of development?
NO. With your support, we’re going to bring new content, new features, quality-of-life changes, optimization improvements, continued bug fixes and so much more to Dungeon Defenders II.

What are you working on between now and launch?
We’re going to share those details over the coming weeks, but the big picture is bug fixing, polish, feature completion, bringing back Incursions & Incursion weapons into our endgame, and a few extra surprises. Stay tuned for the full details!
3nrique
Greetings, Defenders!

Before any of the lush environments, gnarly villains and dashing heroes step into the third dimension, we need to make them look like something -- preferably something cool! So how do we create concepts for new additions to the game? I figured we could go back to one of our recently revealed enemies, the Javelin Thrower, and see what it took for this abomination to come into fruition. (I also want to use this blog post as an excuse to melt your eyes with tons of art.)



Design, Reference, Brainstorming

So where do we start? Usually there is a to-do list for each development milestone for things that need art -- animation poses, VFX, environment paintovers, and weapons to name a few -- but my favorites are the enemy concepts. Usually we work on those that need priority first, but most often we pick the fun things! So when we first start, we need to know the enemy’s role in the game. At this stage, a design document has already been approved by the higher-ups with the information we need. Below is just a brief excerpt from the Javelin Thrower’s doc:

Design Goals
Ranged, smaller version of the Orcs
Uses massive javelin that pierces through targets and damages them
Varies minion wave composition
Switches to melee on close range

Makes sense. After we have a clear grasp of what our goal with this guy is, we start gathering reference and spend some time thinking of our design goals. Our main job as concept artists is to solve visual problems, so in this instance we ask ourselves a few questions: What would a heavy ranged enemy look like? How do you throw a javelin? Is he intimidating, or can we inject humor? At this point my mind is already brewing with endless possibilities. I start going through the list of ideas in my head, exploring different shapes and personalities while still keeping in mind the design goals.

Our initial goal is to generate enough ideas and concepts to get people talking. Sometimes we hit the nail right on the head, and the first concept we make is the one that everyone likes. We celebrate, shake hands, and party. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times. After we’ve exhausted our brain and poured our initial concepts onto digital paper, we usually gather with our Creative Director Daniel Araya, our Art Director Rusty Drake, and the rest of our art team, and pitch ideas back and forth until we are clear on what the game needs.

Form Follows Function

One of the great things about games is the amalgamation of so many talented folks coming together to illustrate a single idea. Oftentimes, if done really really well, you know what that idea is by glancing at it, without guessing or having someone explain it to you.

With the Javelin Thrower, we really wanted that to be apparent. We wanted the player to have a sense of what this character was just by looking at him. Hopefully we did our job right. In the initial concepts, everyone really latched on to the idea that his throwing arm is all he uses, so it’s ripped and huge! If this guy throws something at you, it will obliterate anything in its path. We wanted that to be the focus, so he is extremely out of shape, disfigured and malnourished in certain parts. He has basically neglected everything else… but that arm, though.



We are getting close! So at this stage, we couldn’t decide what to go with exactly in terms of personality. Should he be angry like the Orcs? Alarmed? Mysterious? Perplexed?

Ultimately, we agreed to have him be a little more fun and show more personality than his angry and intimidating Orc counterpart. B3 (see illustration above) was definitely the way to go. He seems super excited to get into the map and just throw things with wreckless abandon.



So there he is: the Javelin Thrower! He is perfect, the kind of enemy Etheria deserves -- except we are not quite done yet.



Tiers and Tears

So here is the part where we take the design and break it only to mold it again into perfection. Most enemies in Dungeon Defenders II have tiers, which means this guy goes from tough to tougher to ridiculous. Visually, one of the things we really care about when it comes to tiers is the character’s silhouette. Will you be able to tell this guy apart from the others? If so, how much will his silhouette change when he is in a higher tier? Is he still visually interesting, or is it boring?

Normally enemies need to look more aggressive and intimidating. With the Javelin Thrower, it needed to be that plus we had to maintain his essential dorkiness. There is a lot of back and forth in this stage. We move things around, try a lot of different shapes, armors, colors, and horns, lots of horns, until ultimately…



Like Brad Pitt in Troy

Bear with me here! We have a bit more time just before our deadline. Now after the design and the tiers have been approved, we need to make sure that all of our ideas are clear for everyone to be on the same page. We make a call out sheet to go over a few details and ideas we might have missed to make the 3D modelers and animators’ lives easier.

Now this little guy is ready to step into...



The Third Dimension

Our buddy Dan Pingston made sure of that, and he turned out very presentable, wouldn’t you agree? After this comes rigging, animation, materials, and finally those ones and zeroes can run through their veins. We have a ton of cool things to show you, so until the next one! Cheers!

The random winners of our previous blogs are:
Early Access Blog: Wyldbill
Early Access Blog: Ramzilla
Concept to Creation Blog: TehOwn
Concept to Creation Blog: xPi
A Bold New World Blog: Basston
A Bold New World Blog: Ratiasu

What did you think of the concept art process? Tell us in the comments below, and you could win a pre-alpha code for Dungeon Defenders II! You have a full week to leave a comment. We’ll pick a random poster and reveal the winner next Friday. Don’t have a forum account? It takes less than a minute to join the community!
ZackSmith
Creating 3D art is so cool! Okay, I had to get that off my chest because it's the truth! Turning a flat 2D painting into an object that you can walk on, interact with or marvel at as you run by is truly rewarding.

When a concept is given to a 3D artist, or at to least me, I am flooded with so many thoughts that are usually instantaneous. The main thought is, "How will I create this thing?" I begin to break down the shapes that I see in a given concept and ponder how I will translate that given asset into the third dimension.



Creating the Forge for Dungeon Defenders II was an exciting task to complete. I thought to myself, "I get to create a cool design that opens up, emits cool VFX, has glowly parts, and the Council helped design the concept!" This asset had a bit of pressure for sure, but a little pressure never hurt anyone.

Like any model, it all begins with a primitive geometric shape. I usually start off with either a cube or cylinder. Who would have thought that in high school I would literally work with geometry all day? It's a good thing the math is behind the scenes; I just work with the shapes. A given triangle count limit is given. This is the max limit of how many Tris (cool people say Tris instead of triangles) that can be used to create that given model. I try to not think of it as a restriction, but rather as a nice number that I have in the back of my head that will sometimes whisper to me: "Hey Zack, your Tri count is getting a bit high! Try lowering that number, okay?" I'm always happy to oblige to myself. Creating models efficiently as possible is one of the many factors that help regulate how well a game runs.



When creating the Forge, I broke the model into different parts. It was easy enough to do because the great design has very distinct landmarks that made it painless to figure out shapes and spatial relationships. This is crucial in my thinking process to get the model to look as close to the concept as possible.

Before the process of painting the Forge, I had to completely lay out the model to be flat. This is the process of creating UVs. The letters U and V are just the axes that a texture will be placed. Creating UVs is like unfolding a cardboard box completely flat. To save as much space as possible, UVs are overlapped and flipped in all kinds of ways to be snug tight. The better the UV layout, the easier it will be to paint the model's texture.



Texturing is one of my favorite parts. This is when the model really starts to come together. About 98% of my painting is done in 3D-Coat. This program allows me to paint directly on the geometry. Photoshop is used to do any minor clean-ups or color adjustments. The Forge involved painting lots of metal. The first part of the painting process involves putting down those nice base colors. Once that is done, I begin to paint the overall form a bit more. Little nicks and dents are added to give the overall piece an interesting look. Unlike realistic textures, not every minute detail is put into the painting. Implied paint strokes can be just enough to let the viewer understand what the material the model is made out of. We also do not want the model to become noisy with detail.



After hours of painting, the model is done. I do a quick visual sweep of the model to make sure I'm satisfied and to ensure there are not any technical problems before it's checked by the 3D art lead and art director. After critiques are given and changes are made, it’s handed off to rigging and animation!



Are there any other models that you'd like to see from concept to creation? Tell us in the comments below, and you could win a pre-alpha code for Dungeon Defenders II! You have a full week to leave a comment. We’ll pick a random poster and reveal the winner next Tuesday. Don’t have a forum account? It takes less than a minute to join!

The random winner of the Javelin Thrower Boogie blog is TezNyanCatLipoca! There's still time to enter the Bold New World blog giveaway!
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