Greetings Defenders,

Our first Xbox One patch is here! This patch fixes the biggest Xbox One crashes and bugs you’ve reported to us:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed the loading screen crashes.

• Fixed the Town crashes.

• Fixed the Series EV2 proton beam crash.

• Fixed a number of crashes that would happen when placing certain Dryad defenses, Lavamancer defenses and auras.

• Fixed a bug where players were unable to properly equip costumes.

In addition to these fixes, this patch includes a number of features and improvements from the 1.0 Update that were not available at launch, including tutorial improvements, new Campaign gameplay updates and more. With this patch, Xbox One is now fully up-to-date with the PC & PS4 versions! You can find the full 1.0 patch notes here.

Thanks for your overwhelming support! We’re continuing to work on server stability and improvements, and we’re also cooking up our first big post-launch update. Stay tuned for more information!

Love,
The Trendy Team

Our next patch, Loot & Survive, is coming soon™. It contains pretty much everything you could want while defending Etheria -- a new leveling/progression curve, level cap increase to 50, rewards & Skill Sphere choices as you level up, a completely new loot/stat system, Onslaught Mode, Nightmare mode, an economy balance to make gold more meaningful, and oh so much more.

It will also include a wipe of your heroes and some of your other progress. Since we’re going to miss your heroes too (nooo Portario56235!), we decided to go the extra mile and put together some EXCLUSIVE items for your hard work:

Corrupted Welp

Everyone who has leveled up at least one hero to level 25 will be awarded a unique, custom pet. To obtain this award, you must complete this challenge by 5 PM EDT, July 26th.

4 Survivor Hero Costumes [updated 7/18]

Everyone who has leveled up at least one of each hero class to level 25 will get a unique hero costume for that class. To obtain these awards, you must complete this challenge by 5 PM EDT, July 26th.

We hope these make up for this heroic sacrifice ever-so-slightly more than a colorized icon. We appreciate all of your hard work helping us build Dungeon Defenders II-- together we are going to make the best Action Tower Defense game there is.

Wyvern Token Rewards [updated 7/18]

Finally, for the past week, all of you have been using your Influence points on which kind of wipe you’d like to see -- a Full Wipe or Partial Wipe. As of the writing of this post, Full Wipe is 7000 points ahead -- but, we recognize this could change at any moment.

We’ve received a ton of feedback from the Partial Wipe camp, asking us to create a reward for the hard-earned Wyvern Tokens they’ve obtained. Well look no further! IF the Full Wipe wins, we will be awarding the following amount of gems based on the amount of Wyvern Tokens you’ve earned by 5 PM EDT, July 26th:

Come back Monday for an Influence Vote on the exact details of the wipe

P.S. It’d look something like this if we transferred your hero data over. Also, we’re fully aware of going a bit overboard on the rewards for this wipe. But what can you say, we all got excited about these costumes (thanks Dan!).

DEFENDERS,

It’s been a little over a month since we introduced the Mercenary, and that means the Winterfest season is upon us! In the spirit of giving, we are giving you a little bit of everything! We have some optimizations, a new tower, some cool new cosmetics, balance changes, and much more. Let’s get into it!

64-bit Client

We are adding a 64-bit beta client for potential fixes for many different crashes and general stability. Currently, a fraction of a percent of all Steam users are still on operating systems that can only play 32-bit games. For the time being, both versions of the game will be available to play in order to ensure there are no unexpected issues that arise with the new 64-bit client on PC. You can run the 64-bit client by opening Dungeon Defenders on Steam and selecting the appropriate client on startup.

Please let us know if you experience any 64-bit client only issues during your gameplay by taking this PC 64-BIT FEEDBACK SURVEY. We will announce when the 32-bit client will no longer be officially supported. We expect this sometime in 2022.

Winter Event

The Winterfest tree has returned for the holidays!

• Daily Present Drops:

  • Random Single Shard Pack - 100% chance

  • Legendary Winter Weapon - 100% chance

  • Bunny Hop Shard - 100% chance

  • Jolly Santolich - 10% chance

  • Frostbite Santolich - 10% chance

  • Krampuslich - 5% chance

• Every victory chest on Chaos 8 on all game modes has a 0.5% chance to drop a Nightmare Krampuslich pet! This also applies to Onslaught above floor 99.

New Cosmetics

Krampus Flairs

Have you been naughty or nice? Krampus knows. Grab this terrifyingly festive costume to strike fear into the hearts of all those who have misbehaved this year. Happy Winterfest!

• Krampus Hat

• Krampus Wings

• Krampus Tail

(This cosmetic set will also be available in Dungeon Defenders Awakened)

Winterfest Flairs

While admittedly not the most aerodynamic, you can still show off your holiday cheer with these two new sets of Winterfest themed wings! 

Note: Do not attempt to eat the Candy Cane Wings.

• Snowflake Wings

(This cosmetic also available in Dungeon Defenders Awakened)

• Candy Cane Wings

(This cosmetic also available in Dungeon Defenders Awakened)

Material Drop Changes

All materials will now only drop from the victory chest.

• Chaos 1 - 5 Plain Motes and 3 C1 Amps

• Chaos 2 - 6 Plain Motes and 3 C2 Amps

• Chaos 3 - 7 Plain Motes and 3 C3 Amps

• Chaos 4 - 5 Shiny Motes and 3 C4 Amps

• Chaos 5 - 6 Shiny Motes and 3 C5 Amps

• Chaos 6 - 7 Shiny Motes and 3 C6 Amps

• Chaos 7 - 5 Pristine Motes and 3 C7 Amps

• Chaos 8 - 6 Pristine Motes and 3 C8 Amps

Balance

Abyss Lord

• Towers

  • Skeletal Ramsters 

    • Increased their upgrade  scaling to be 15% per upgrade instead of 10%.

Dryad

• Towers

  • The slimes from the Slime Pit Tower have had their damage increased by 50%.

  • The targeting and pathfinding AIs of the Slimes have been improved.

Initiate

• Towers

  • NEW TOWER: Water Aura

    • Deals AoE water damage that drenches all enemies hit. Replaces the Flame Aura for Initiate.

  • Shards

    • New Shard: Water Jet - Decreases Max Targets by 4 but increases damage by x%.

Lavamancer

• Towers 

  • Fissures of Embermount have had their damage increased by 18%.

Huntress

• Blaze Balloon

  • Increased their upgrade scaling to be 25% per upgrade instead of 15%.

Mercenary

• Hero

  • The Fan of Knives ability can now be used while moving

• Towers

  • Nether Archers

    • Decreased their upgrade scaling to be 15% per upgrade instead of 20% 

  • Nether Spiders

    • The targeting and pathfinding AIs of the Nether Spiders have been improved.

    • The natural death timer of Nether Spider and Slimes has been increased from 10 seconds to 20.

• Shards

  • Explosive Spiders has been altered. Its name is now Augmented Explosions, and it can now additionally be equipped to the Slime Pit Tower as well as the Nether Spider Spawner. Its functionality is unchanged otherwise.

Pets

• The targeting AI of pets has been revamped. They now automatically attack the target closest to the player, and can switch targets while attacking.

• Pet damage is now affected by the hero's damage adjusting passives (Example: Anti-Melee).

• Water Damage on pets now drench the initial target hit.

New Onslaught Schedules 

• Arachnophobia - Includes Chaos 8 spiders and Death Weaver.

• Carnival Extravaganza - Includes small ogres, big goblins, tiny kobolds, pie throwers, and fire, poison, and frost mages.

• Army Of The Dead - Includes skeletons, skeleton orcs, zombie orcs, and zombie orc boss Treet.

• Carnival Flyers - Includes carnival flying kobolds and normal flying kobolds.

• Stabby Demon eyes - Includes Dark Assassins and Demon eyes.

Bug Fixes 

• Fixed an issue where the mercenary couldn't be damaged by Goblin Siege Rollers and their rockets.

• Adjusted Mercenary tower & Abilities descriptions to properly fit the F6 quick help screen.

• Fixed an issue where the golden ship pet couldn't be properly evolved.

• Fixed an issue where the Ascension health scaling on the Royal Guard Blockade was incorrect.

• Fixed an issue where certain new Daggers were not dropping.

• Fixed an issue where the size of the Draken Soul was incorrect on Mercenary.

• Fixed an issue so the duration of Petrify is now correct when activated with Lingering Poison.

• Poisoned Blades shard now correctly triggers Petrify.

• Fixed VFX issues with the Spider enemy.

• Dark Assassins have been removed from the Emp Zappers Onslaught lane.

• Fixed an issue with the Mercenary Mark passive where it could only roll 1 or 10.

• Mercenary's Mark can now only appear on Dagger weapons.

• Fixed an issue with Nether Spiders and Slime Pit where their kill count was incorrectly incremented when a Spider or Slime exploded

• The Tiki Mask's glowing eyes are now set correctly on the Mercenary.

• Fixed an issue with the Heroic Boost Talent where it was increasing more than intended.

• Fixed Single/Triple/Quintuple Chip not properly working on EV.

• Fixed an issue where Spectral Arrows was not properly functioning.

• Chaos 7 expedition is no longer a requirement for Onslaught floor 99 unlock.

• The Flameburst Tower can now properly use the Flamethrower's tower skins.

• Fixed the rotation of the elemental vfx of the Royal Dagger and the Noble Dagger.

• Fixed issues with the Golden Dino Egg name and Amber Dragon Egg’s default quality.

• (PC Only) Fixed an issue where GENERAL would be in all chat boxes.

• Fixed an issue where the Mercenary did not have a bag icon.

• Fixed an issue where Drakenlord’s Soul, Freezing Rain, and Frostfire Remnants did not properly proc Controller Servo / Chip.

• Fixed Elvish Artillery Cannon not having a Tenacity stat.

What's Next?

We are very excited to bring these changes to you in our last update before the new year! From our family here at Chromatic Games to yours, we hope everyone has a great Winterfest season! We can’t wait to come back in 2022 and show you what we’ve got prepared for Etheria in the new year!

Social Defenders

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

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

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

• 
  
• Razer Naga Hex Mouse
  
• Razer Black Widow Mechanical Keyboard
  
• A Dungeon Defenders II pre-alpha code
  
• A Dungeon Defenders II lanyard
  
• A Dungeon Defenders II poster, signed by the Dev Team
  
• A Dungeon Defenders II T-shirt of your choice
  
• A Dungeon Defenders II mousepad of your choice
  

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!

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.

We’ve received intelligence that the enemy is clandestinely moving a shipment of Legendaries through Free Play. We must get our hands on these weapons, Defenders! It could be the difference between failure and total annihilation.

Our sources have confirmed that, starting right now until Monday at 11AM EDT, the drop chance for Legendaries in the Free Play, Incursion, and Onslaught game types will be doubled (this does NOT affect End Game game types). Many Wardens died to bring us this information. We must ensure their sacrifice was not in vain.

A raid behind enemy lines will be dangerous, Defenders, but we need that gear. Legendary gear will allow you to venture deeper into conflict and withstand tougher enemies.  

Greetings, Defenders!

A few weeks ago, a mysterious portal opened in Etheria. Today, we’re excited to reveal the portal’s secret: It’s a Terraria and Dungeon Defenders II crossover! This isn’t a one-way crossover, either. We’re adding Terraria content into our game, and Re-Logic is adding Dungeon Defenders content into Terraria!

The mystifying portal of mystery spurred a number of wild guesses. Some of your conclusions were accurate (eerily so); some of them not so much. Our favorite was from a member of the Terraria community who thought Re-Logic was adding a flaming baked potato boss. The image of a villainous flaming potato won’t leave our head. Re-Logic, you have to add it to Terraria. YOU HAVE TO!

So what’s coming to Dungeon Defenders II and when? We’re not adding a flaming potato boss (yet), but we do have something tasty cooked up for you:

The Terraria Update

The Terraria Update is scheduled to launch on November 15th. When it arrives, it’ll include:

• The Dryad, a new Hero Balancing Corruption and Purity

• A Decidedly Deciduous Map

• An Ever-Watching Boss

• A Bloodshot Enemy

• Weapons For Every Hero!

  • A Purrfect Sword

  • A Bow of Seismic Destruction

  • A Great White Machine Gun

  • The Eat Your Green Beams Sword

  • A Staff That Came From the Moon!

  • This Book Really Cuts Us Up

  • Santa’s Favorite Staff

  • The Party Starter

  • We Have a Bone to Pick With You Gloves

  • This Knife Really Gets Around

• A Howling Incursion

• An Eclectic Collector

  • A morph dwarf by the wharf.

• All of Your Hopes and Dreams

  • As long as all of your hopes and dreams are about Terraria coming to Dungeon Defenders II

    • And as long as it’s only the select things we’re bringing from Terraria into Dungeon Defenders II

      • And as long as your name is Ricky or Taneka. Only the people named Ricky or Taneka who had the specific desires of certain Terraria elements coming into Dungeon Defenders II will have their hopes and dreams fulfilled with this update.

Reveals & Streams

Try Out the Dryad For Free

Speaking of the Dryad, we’re excited about an experiment we’re doing in this update. When the update comes out, you can try out the Dryad for free by visiting the portal in the Heroes Marketplace! We’ve setup a custom version of the Dryad to use in the new Terraria map, so you can test out all of her defenses and abilities before plopping down your hard-earned medals or your gems. It’s something you've been asking for with our new hero releases, and we hope you enjoy the experiment. We’re going to pay attention to the data to see how successful this is.

The Second Phase to Release

The Terraria Update marks Phase 2 of our journey to release Dungeon Defenders II out of Early Access. The goal behind The Terraria Update is to get lots of exposure for our game. More people playing = the more we can develop. We’re gathering lots of great data on our early game changes from Phase 1, and with this update, we’ll have more data to look at from other kinds of new players. And, of course, it’s just really awesome for DD2 to be in one of our favorite games, and Re-Logic is just as excited to see Terraria content in a game they love. (In fact, they’re the ones who reached out to us first! They have hundreds of hours in DD2! *fanboys*)

Love,
The Trendy Team

The Casters Guild is streaming the Pets & Dragons update today and tomorrow! They're exploring new maps, discovering new pets and trying to defeat our first DD2 boss, Betsy! Tune in to prepare yourself for the launch of the update on Tuesday, April 28th. Use the team page or the schedule below to learn when you can watch the update in action!

Sunday, April 26th

Dagnom, 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM EDT

djbouti_dan ft. LovinDaTacos, 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM EDT

LovinDaTacos, 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM EDT

PhoenixHydra, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM EDT

Elandrian, 8:00 PM to 12:00 AM EDT

oISketcHIo, 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM EDT

Monday, April 27th

Kiraeyl, 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM EDT

Dagnom ft. Victoryoftheppl, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM EDT

LovinDaTacos, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM EDT

Kraith88 ft. Piggyteehee, 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM EDT

Piggyteehee ft. Kraith88, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM EDT

VitamiinB, 8:00 PM to 12:00 AM EDT

This past week, all of us at Trendy have been hard at work on passion projects for Dungeon Defenders II. Now it’s time for you to help decide which make it into the game!

VOTE HERE

While we love all of these ideas, the realities of game development mean we can’t get them all in. So your votes will help us decide which are implemented. Now you can help us make the tough choices between focusing more on cleaning up the UI or getting an awesome combo ability feature in. 

Keep in mind that we’re excited about all of these ideas, as we’re sure you are too. The challenge is which to choose. So while it may seem like ties will help show us how you like everything (and trust me, we like them all too!), it’s more important to know what your favorites are. So the big winners are going to tell us the most!

Yes, that’s a lightning elemental sword. And yes, it actually does something cool now!

This orc is just doomed to die a horribly painful death.

Greetings Defenders! Our special Veteran Defender promo is coming to an end! If you own DD1 or DDE, you have until 9:00am EDT this Friday, August 21st to purchase DD2 and get 600 gems and an exclusive "Veteran Defender" title! Don't miss out.

NOTE: This reward was redeemed automatically in your mailbox when you first started the game or when you re-started the game after Wipeaggedon.

Good Co-op Play Comes From Variety

Sub-Objectives Divert Resources and Draw Attention

Losing a Sub-Objective Is Noticeable, But Manageable

Update:  The Calling All Heroes update is coming out on Thursday, June 2nd!

The Calling All Heroes PS4 update includes our first new hero, the Abyss Lord, the Unholy Catacombs Incursion update, major changes to the Hero Deck and more! For more information, check out the Calling All Heroes and Unholy Catacombs trailers below:

Here’s the best part:  The next PS4 update will include Series EV2 + the Bling King incursion, and the PS4 update after that will sync up the PS4 and PC versions! From that point on, updates will come out around the same time for both PS4 and PC -- most likely about a week or so apart.

This update also includes some PS4-specific changes like enlarged item tooltips, reduced fullscreen takeovers in split-screen, the ability to access the Inventory/Forge anywhere on the battlefield, a number of crash fixes and more!

We’re super excited to be so close to PS4 and PC update parity. Almost there, Defenders.

See you next week.

Love,
The Trendy Team

P.S. Remember to use your Carnival passes and tickets before the Carnival disappears! If you don't use them all, don't worry:  The Carnival will be back in the future!

DEFENDERS,

Things are getting exciting here at Chromatic Games! With the official launch of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, we’re celebrating with even more good news—a Day 1 Update with LOTS of exciting changes to both Xbox and PC (this will appear as 1.2.1 on Xbox, but it’s actually Update 1.3). Last week we teased some of the additions, revisions, and fixes included in this latest update in our Update 1.3 Preview post. Now that it’s here, let’s break down what you can expect to see in Etheria after you’re all updated.

Content

Tutorial

We’ve updated the tutorial! With the addition of new tasks and tooltips, any player can enter the Deeper Well to brush up on their defending skills. Even the most experienced defenders can reap the benefits of a new tutorial, too. Everyone who makes it to the end of the new tutorial is rewarded with the exclusive Summoner’s Hood mask to show off their mastery of the basics!

You’ll also notice there’s a new objective tracker part of the tutorial. Expect to see this throughout the entire game in future updates!

Massacre Additions
After completing the tutorial, defenders can now test their skills in the new Massacre levels within Pure Strategy and Mix Mode. These new difficulties introduce immunity-granting Siren enemies to the game modes, and defenders are handily rewarded for their successes. Here are the new loot details:

• Quality of item drops was adjusted in Pure Strategy to be equal to Survival mode.
• Quality of item drops was increased in Mix Mode at Massacre difficulty.

Performance

Enemy Counts
To improve performance for all defenders across all platforms, we felt reducing the number of enemies on all maps in Survival, Mix Mode, and Pure Strategy would do the job. We specifically focused on lowering the amount of our weakest enemies first—goblins, archers, and wyverns—because they were jamming up the lanes and unnecessarily dragging out the time it took to complete waves. After we were happy with the improved performance from those changes, we moved on to lowering the enemy counts in Survival Mode. With fewer enemies, we also adjusted wave schedules, which should result in dramatically faster wave times. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect to see in the improved Etheria:

• 70% reduction in enemy counts for Wyverns, Archers, and Goblins on all maps.
• 50% reduction in enemy counts for Orcs, Mages, Warriors, Kobolds, and Spiders on all maps.
• Adjusted wave schedules to decrease wave lengths.

Did you think you were going to get away with fewer enemies without any catches?? Of course you didn’t. We wanted to make sure the difficulty levels remained relatively the same even with the reduction in enemy counts, so active enemies are now beefier, meaning each enemy’s HP has been increased to compensate for the smaller crowds. With such a big change, we’re going to monitor the community feedback to make sure players are happy with the new balance.

Nameplates
Nameplates are looking nifty now. We added missing nameplates above some enemies, heroes, and crystals, as well as cleaned up the general display of nameplates in game. Players should see a significant difference in the quality of the displays with this change and have a much easier time keeping track of enemy HP, a necessary feature to accompany the increased HP of enemies. Cleaning these had some nice performance gains for all platforms, so on top of looking great, they are also helping make the game run better!

Damage Numbers
Get ready for some new and improved damage numbers during combat! Last week we showed you what changes were to come in this area, and now they’re finally here. Players should notice clearer and more consistent displays of damage numbers when attacking, and fusion hits on Rifted enemies will stand out with larger number displays. Like nameplates, we hit some optimizations here as well, so your performance is better while it’s also easier to read damage numbers than before.

Limited Login Event - St. Patrick’s Day Reward!

While today is already a super special day for us at Chromatic with the official launch of DDA on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, we haven’t forgotten it’s also St. Patrick’s Day. To celebrate, we’re giving out a special green-themed goody to players who download Update 1.3 and log in to DDA by Monday, March 22. This special gift will be available for PC players today through Monday, while Xbox players will receive the patch with this cosmetic in a few days. We’ll make sure to let the Xbox defenders know when they should expect their gift!

Steam Trading Cards

You read that right - we’ve got Steam trading cards for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened now. Because we’re feeling generous today, here’s a sneak peak of a couple of the cards you’ll be able to collect:

Bug Fixes

Along with all of the exciting changes mentioned already, we also fixed a whole bunch of bugs that were bothering players (or helping them a little too much…). Here’s are the fixes defenders can see in the game.

General

• Adjusted mask positions to better fit heroes.
• Fixed an issue where Steam Family Share accounts could play Online.
• Fixed an issue where “WASD” keys still functioned as movement inputs even when replaced.
• Fixed an issue where multiple players simultaneously swapping in heroes with Gem boosts allowed them to stack.
• Fixed an issue where accessories didn’t fade out when cameras switched to first person while players were backed up against a wall.

Enemies

• Fixed an issue where enemies were stuck in Magus Quarters.
• Fixed an issue where enemies were stuck in Endless Spires.
• Fixed an issue where enemies were getting stuck in the Throne Room.
• Fixed an issue where Sirens would not attack heroes.
• Fixed an issue where Skeletons would not show they had full health when resurrected by themselves.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue where defenses were able to be placed above the spawn door in Glitterhelm Caverns.
• Fixed an issue where defenses were able to be placed near the bottom of Lava Mines.
• Fixed an issue where some tooltips would not appear after cancelling the placement of multiple defenses.
• Fixed an issue where the inferno trap was not affecting enemies.
• Fixed an issue where leaving and rejoining a match to let players place multiple Fusion defenses wasn’t working properly.
• Fixed an issue where the Gem pet boost flickered on and off periodically.
• Fixed an issue where traps with Use Scale after swapping would have a very small scale.

Known Issues

• Some players are crashing on Xbox, we're currently investigating the issue.
• Some clients on Xbox are having issues healing. We're currently investigating this issue.
• Using gamepad, players are having issues selecting the pet and bracer slot.
• On gamepad, when pressing R3 (right joystick), your character's attribute allocation can get reset.

What’s Next?

While we’ll be monitoring this release and update, addressing any issues that may arise, we’re currently hard at work on getting our other ports for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation out the door to many eager Defenders. That’s not all, as we’re also getting a ton of work done on brand new content, including heroes, maps, enemies, and so much more! We’ll be getting word out soon to give all Defenders insight into what’s coming for DDA, and maybe a tease or two along the way.

Social Defenders

To get reliable updates on all things DDA, make sure to follow us on all our social platforms:

• Discord
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitch
• Forums

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

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

We wanted to ease players into our early game by making hero-specific loot drop more frequently on early maps. We like ramping our loot system to the player. As such we want early players to very frequently find immediate rewards. Later on when we’ve introduced more game concepts, we drop more variety of loot to show players the possibility space. There are a lot of options in the DD2 loot system for you to play with. We found a bug that was preventing hero-targeted loot from dropping on certain maps (mainly Town Entrance and Market) As a result, you’ll see more loot drop for your hero across the board:

• Resolved an issue where items were not dropping at the intended frequency for the selected Hero.

Many of you have been pointing at easy mode Monk for awhile. We listened. What we found is that the Monk’s Lightning Damage Spec Node was adding an additional 100% damage every time the Spec Node activated. We’ve fixed the issue and Monks are fitting better into our hero balance paradigm:

• Resolved an issue where the Monk’s Lightning Damage Spec Node did significantly more damage than intended.

Clarity is critically important. We identified certain stats and tooltips that were unclear or had bugs and cleaned them up:

• The Apprentice’s Reduce Cooldown Spec now displays the correct percentage in the Spec Node page. There were some additional edge cases that were fixed in this patch.

• The special stat “% chance to drench on hit for # seconds” was displaying different number of seconds depending on if the item was equipped or in the inventory. The tooltip should now display the correct number in all places.

• Physical and Magical Armor have been renamed to Physical and Magical Resist for items.

General Bug Fixing:

• Switching between characters with an item that has the lifesteal special stat no longer breaks the functionality of lifesteal. 

• Resolved an issue where the “Chance on Damage Taken for Fire Explosion” special stat on items would never trigger. 

• The special stat "% chance to stun a target for # seconds" no longer applies to the Monk's Lightning Aura.[/list] 

DEFENDERS!

It’s been a little while since we last spoke, but what we’ve lacked in words, we’ve been making up for in hard work! There’s a ton of stuff that we’re continuously chugging away on:  Update 1.2, console ports, and even our major content updates. We’re breaking the silence and ready to talk about our work with Update 1.2. Let’s get into it!

Console Development Check-In
We’re currently making a ton of great strides and getting a lot of performance out of our console work. There’s a lot with this type of development, not only in getting the game to run properly and at a decent frame rate but also in meeting the technical requirements of each specific platform before we submit for certification. As we continue to progress, we’ll keep you all posted.

Update 1.2
We’re going to be splitting this update into two parts to make sure everything we add is in the best state possible. The first part of this update includes additional gameplay, features, rewards, and bug fixes; the second part includes additional features and Kickstarter rewards. The goal with Update 1.2 is to put a bow on what we consider the baseline DD:A experience before we move onto major content updates.

Part I:  Enter the Rift
Rift Mode
We’ve been teasing it for a bit, but we’re ready to talk about our newest game mode coming in Update 1.2 — Rift Mode!

What is it?
Rift Mode is an option, similar to Hardcore, that players opt into throughout Campaign and Survival. Rift Mode serves to evolve the challenge and experience of DD:A, providing players something new, regardless of their experience with Dungeon Defenders, to take on. Here are the main takeaways:

• The number of total enemies is halved.
• Some enemies become Rift Enemies, providing additional functionality and difficulty.
  • All enemies can become Rift Enemies.
  • The Siren is already a Rift Enemy.
• A new weapon type called Fusion is dropped to take on Rift Enemies.
  • This will make taking Sirens on considerably easier.
• New armor set bonuses that can be target farmed to take on Rift Enemies.
• Increased loot quality dropped in Massacre.
  • This is not an increase in item caps, but rather dropping better quality loot in general to progress faster.
• Over 20 new accessories added only available in Rift Mode.

Where does it occur?
It is available at ALL difficulties for Campaign and Survival.

What are Rift Enemies?
Rift Enemies are considerably stronger monsters that have greatly increased health, increased damage, and additional mechanics. Here are three of the enemies’ new mechanics:

• Goblins:  They’re 33% larger, making them more of an imposing threat, and potentially blocking higher priority targets from getting hit.
• Archers:  They’re attack range has been increased and now they shoot homing missiles.
• Ogres:  They’ve cleared up their sinuses and instead of throwing snot, they throw Rift Kobolds that have a huge explosion.

This is just a sneak peek into the additional mechanics, as EVERY enemy can become a Rift Enemy.

What are the rewards?
As mentioned above, we’re adding in new weapon variations, new armor sets that help you take on these new enemies, new accessories to spruce up your character, and increased loot drops to progress even faster.

What’s the point?
In Dungeon Defenders Awakened we’ve got multiple types of players. There are Defenders who enjoy the traditional Dungeon Defenders experience, want to spend tons of time farming for that perfect drop, and like to set up an intricate grid of defenses that they can set and forget. Then there are Defenders who want an additional challenge, want better loot faster, and want somewhat shorter play sessions. With every one of our updates, the first group will get what they want, but for the second group, Rift Mode is our chance to provide an option to the second group.

This isn’t a one-and-done mode either. It’s a Rift, and as we progress further and further into DDA with our major updates, the Rift continues to tear more and more open, introducing new mechanics and challenges for players to overcome. Every new enemy added to the game will have a Rift version as well, diversifying the gameplay and introducing a new obstacle to overcome.

Really it’s just a mode to provide a reward that decimates the Siren.

Also, there’s a ton of new accessories to hunt down in this update! Why does that matter? Let’s get into the next big feature of this update — Transmog.

Transmog
This feature looks to provide players the option to make their hero look how they choose. It’s similar to the Flair system that was in Dungeon Defenders II that many players enjoyed, with similar elements to customization systems you may have seen in other games.

What is it?
You might get a fancy mask that drops that looks cool, but really you want to live out your dream of wearing a goblins face without sacrificing the godly-tier stats on your perfectly dropped fancy mask. Now you can! This system is pretty robust and is something we’re going to continue to build upon it over time.

Your Transmogs will exist independently of your actual equipment, so feel free to mix-and-match to your heart’s content! As you change your equipped items, your Transmog appearance will go untouched. No longer must beauty come at a price.

What can I do with it?
There’s multiple changes to the system. First, you can change the model of your equipped items in the following equipment slots:

• Weapons (you can only Transmog weapons that your hero can use)
  • EV, won't be able to Transmog her weapons, as they are not visible
• Masks (can be hidden or transmogrified to look like any other mask)
• Brooches (can be hidden or transmogrified to look like any other brooch)
• Bracers (can be hidden or transmogrified to look like any other bracer)

There’s over 20+ new accessories for you to hunt down, and we know what you’re thinking: yes you will be able to look like a Sharken with some of these new accessories.

However, the customization does not stop there. We’ve opened up additional colorization options on the heroes, giving you even more control of their appearance. It doesn’t even stop THERE! You can also recolor your WEAPONS & ACCESSORIES to look however you want. We’re making it so that all items  drop with their default colors, and the icons now reflect that as well.

All items can have their hue (color), saturation, and brightness adjusted. Black katana? Easy. Red Shield? Done. Neon green mask for that sweet rave in Deeper Well? No problemo!

You can preview how certain colors get converted to HSB with this nifty tool:
https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel

Bug Fixes? Bug Fixes!
There are a TON of bug fixes coming with this update. It’s a little complicated, but basically patching while we’ve been working on our console ports has been a very difficult endeavor, requiring a lot of additional work and potentially breaking a lot more, leading to delayed patch releases and console releases. We’re sorry we haven’t got these out sooner, but there are a lot coming and we’ll make sure to have detailed notes of ALL OF THEM.

Part 2: Give Me That!
We’re not a very large team, so when it comes to getting things done, we have to be really efficient and smart with what we work on. Our team has been hard at work on getting our console versions ready (work is still going on as of this post), which is a very time consuming and incredible engineering feat to accomplish. As such, there’s a couple features that we want to give a little bit of additional time and focus on to make sure they release fully functional.

Trading
This is going to be a pretty straightforward feature to many. Trading will allow players to open up a UI with other players to trade items that they have acquired throughout their journeys,for an agreed upon price. We’re wanting to spend additional time on this feature to make sure it not only has transactions working without a hitch, but also to remove any potential exploits that can ruin the experience of other Defenders.

Item Reforging
Sometimes you get a good drop and invest a ton of points into a piece of gear, only to want to reallocate the Upgrades that you’ve spent after acquiring more gear to really Min/Max your perfect setup. With Item Reforging, you can do just that! Just take a trip to the Blacksmith, and for a fee, he will allow you to reinvest your items’ upgrade points..

Kickstarter Rewards
Part of this update is putting a bow on the base game, and that includes fulfilling our in-game Kickstarter, Backerkit, and Preorder rewards. We’ve got most of the skins out, but will be adding in:

• Custom enemy names
• Custom weapon names
• Custom armor names
• Legends Tablet
• Credits/Special Thanks
• Hero Titles

WHEN????
Soon™.
We’re wanting to get a few weeks of testing done to make sure that Part I is good to go. Once we’re happy with where it’s at, we’ll get it out to you ASAP. Do you want to be part of that process? You can apply to join our Cavalry testing group to get a sneak peek as well as provide important feedback or report any pesky bugs that may be hiding from us. Part II will come out shortly after that. Our goal is to make sure it works before setting a release date.

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

DEFENDERS,

We’ve been hard at work on great things here at Chromatic Games, and it’s time to let one of those things spread its wings and fly. Update 1.2 is now live and ready for you to hop right into! An insane amount of bug fixes, Rifted maps, Rifted enemies, new weapons, new gear, new accessories, transmog, and more are coming your way. Let’s cut the intro and get into it, there’s A LOT!
 

We’re going to be splitting this update into two parts to make sure everything we add is in the best state possible. The first part of this update includes additional gameplay, features, rewards, and bug fixes; the second part includes additional features and Kickstarter rewards. The goal with Update 1.2 is to put a bow on what we consider the baseline DD:A experience before we move onto major content updates, with 1.2 serving as the foundation for us to build something wonderful!
 

Throughout Campaign and Survival you are now able to activate the Rifted toggle before joining a map, similar to Hardcore. This tears open the portal and provides access to Rifted enemies. Rifted Maps serve to evolve the challenge and experience of DD:A, providing players something new to take on, regardless of their experience with Dungeon Defenders.
 

The total number of enemies is reduced by 50%, but a portion of the remaining enemies become distorted from the Rift, granting them increased strength and mechanics. For starters, all Rifted enemies have increased health and deal increased damage. Oh, and also they have additional mechanics. You know, not a big deal, probably not anything worth mentioning. OH WAIT, VERY BIG DEAL! Here’s what they do:
 

• Goblins are larger, potentially absorbing hits for other enemies.
• Dark Elf Archers shoot homing arrows that chase down their targets.
• Dark Elf Mages have an increased healing radius, and summon skeletons that EXPLODE on death.
• Dark Elf Warriors are invisible to non-Fusion towers and drain mana on hit.
• Kobolds have an increased explosion radius.
• Orcs are tankier and take reduced damage.
• Ogres, oh no, Rifted ogres snot ball ensnares. Also the first snot ball isn’t a snot ball, but is a Rifted kobold. Also they deal increased damage to towers. Why did we make them so strong?!
• Spiders can no longer shoot webs, but they jump all over the place now. They also apply a web on melee hit that acts like normal webs with an added damage over time effect.
• Sharkens enrage when their charge is interrupted, increasing their damage and movement speed while becoming IMMUNE to crowd control effects.
• Djinn’s apply an Onyx buff to enemies, a much stronger gold buff. They also take less time to destroy towers, with an increased range, and decreased cooldown to do so.
• Goblin Copters are truly a terror from above, dropping Rifted ogres, have an increased missile and crashing explosion radius.
• The Siren is already a Rifted enemy. Surprise!

There’s a ton of new mechanics to master, but what fun is a new challenge without new rewards? Onwards we go!
 

Fusion gear is a new type of item that is only available on Rifted maps. There are two types of Fusion gear, weapons and armor.
 

These are special weapons that have a chance to drop on all Rifted maps. Rifted weapons are like normal weapons, except that they deal greatly increased damage to Rifted enemies! While they have a chance to drop on all maps, Rifted map bosses also drop Fusion versions of their weapons, providing the ability to target farm powerful weapons!
 

This new type of armor provides a ton of power to defend against the Rifted ruffians that are running your way! Not only does Fusion armor give you 5% Rifted Armor, causing you to take less damage from Rifted enemies, but if you combine an entire set you gain a Fusion set bonus. Depending on the set, the Fusion bonus converts a specific tower into a Fusion tower! This causes your tower to deal greatly increased damage to Rifted enemies, take reduced damage from them, and also negate their Rifted abilities (i.e. they now see Dark Elf Warriors)!

There are five Fusion sets total for you to search out to take on the Rifted foes that approach you!
 

• Ancient Set: Apply Fusion affinity to your Hero’s first tower.
• Guard Set: Apply Fusion affinity to your Hero’s second tower.
• Militia Set: Apply Fusion affinity to your Hero’s third tower.
• Miner Set: Apply Fusion affinity to your Hero’s fourth tower.
• Primitive Set: Apply Fusion affinity to your Hero’s fifth tower.

What does each of the sets do to each of the towers? They retain their base mechanics, affect and target Rifted enemies that they may have not been able to previously affect or target, as well as gain increased strength and functionality. That’d be a lot to type. Sorry, that’s going to be a lot to type. Here you go!
 

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Armor increased by 30% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Causes Fusion to do 10% more damage to affected Rifted enemies.
• This effect stacks with other similar effects.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Causes Fusion to do 10% more damage to affected Rifted enemies.
• This effect stacks with other similar effects.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Causes Fusion to do 10% more damage to affected Rifted enemies.
• This effect stacks with other similar effects.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Increases heroes armor against Rifted enemies by 50%.

• Causes Fusion to do 10% more damage to affected Rifted enemies.
• This effect stacks with other similar effects.

• Increases chance to enrage by 5% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Armor increased by 30% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.
• Increased stun effect by 50% against Rifted enemies.

• Gives towers that are buffed 50% armor against Rifted enemies.

• Armor increased by 30% against Rifted enemies.
• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Armor increased by 30% against Rifted enemies.
• Damage increased 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Damage increased by 100% against Rifted enemies.

• Armor increased by 30% against Rifted enemies.
• Damage increased 100% against Rifted enemies.

Oh my goodness! That’s a lot of power! Fusion gear locations! Where!? Where do they drop!? We’ll never tell, except for in the list down below, but outside of that good luck:

• Tornado Highlands Wave 25
• Ramparts Wave 25
• Throne Room Wave 25
• Any Act II Campaign Map Wave 5

• Arcane Library Wave 15
• Arcane Library Wave 25
• Any Act III Campaign Map Wave 5

• Deeper Well Wave 15
• Deeper Well Wave 25
• Any Act I Campaign Map Wave 5

• Tornado Valley Wave 15
• Tornado Valley Wave 25
• Any Act II Campaign Map Wave 5

• Promenade Wave 25
• The Summit Wave 25
• Glitterhelm Wave 25
• Any Act III Campaign Map Wave 5

• Royal Gardens Wave 15
• Royal Gardens Wave 25
• Any Act III Campaign Map Wave 5

• Ancient Mines Wave 15
• Ancient Mines Wave 25
• Any Act I Campaign Map Wave 5

• Tornado Highlands Wave 15
• Tornado Highlands Wave 25
• Any Act II Campaign Map Wave 5

• Alchemical Labs Wave 25
• Magus Quarters Wave 25
• Tornado Valley Wave 25
• Any Act I or Act II Campaign Map Wave 5

• Promenade Wave 15
• Promenade Wave 25
• Any Act III Campaign Map Wave 5

• Lava Mines Wave 15
• Lava Mines Wave 25
• Any Act I Campaign Map Wave 5

• Ramparts Wave 15
• Ramparts Wave 25
• Any Act II Campaign Map Wave 5

• Endless Spires Wave 25
• Arcane Library Wave 25
• Royal Gardens Wave 25
• Any Act II or Act III Campaign Map Wave 5

• The Summit Wave 15
• The Summit Wave 25
• Any Act III Campaign Map Wave 5

• Alchemical Labs Wave 15
• Alchemical Labs Wave 25
• Any Act I Campaign Map Wave 5

• Throne Room Wave 15
• Throne Room Wave 25
• Any Act II Campaign Map Wave 5

• Deeper Well Wave 25
• Ancient Mines Wave 25
• Lava Mines Wave 25
• Any Act I Campaign Map Wave 5

• Glitterhelm Wave 15
• Glitterhelm Wave 25
• Any Act III Campaign Map Wave 5

• Magus Quarters Wave 15
• Magus Quarters Wave 25
• Any Act I Campaign Map Wave 5

• Endless Spires Wave 15
• Endless Spires Wave 25
• Any Act II Campaign Map Wave 5

We also wanted to provide something for players to target farm alongside Fusion Weapons. Specific Fusion armor pieces drop from Wave 5 campaign and Waves 15 & 25 in Survival, allowing you to focus farm which sets you want to use!

Fusion armor set bonuses are channeled only to heroes that are actively equipped to your hero deck, providing you the ability to use up to four Fusion towers at any given time. This means currently in multiplayer you can have up to SIXTEEN Fusion towers to absolutely decimate your foes. Don’t fret though, the mode is not balanced around that extreme. Maybe there are ways to overcome this in the future…

One of the points of feedback that we’ve received from players is a faster track to earn the best gear in the game across all difficulties. Rifted has an increased floor of loot quality, meaning your chances of getting better gear is increased on Rifted maps. Higher risk, higher reward!
 

By completing Rifted maps, you have the chance to obtain new masks and accessories! They drop with difficulty equivalent stats and are a cool way to show off your prowess and luck to other Defenders! There’s over 20 new pieces to hunt down, best of luck!


 

In Dungeon Defenders Awakened we’ve got multiple types of players. There are Defenders who enjoy the traditional Dungeon Defenders experience, want to spend tons of time farming for that perfect drop, and like to set up an intricate grid of defenses that they can set and forget. Then there are Defenders who want an additional challenge, want better loot faster, and want somewhat shorter play sessions. With every one of our updates, the first group will get what they want, but for the second group, Rift Mode is our chance to provide an increased challenge that evolves as we develop the game.

This isn’t a one-and-done feature either. It’s a Rift, and as we progress further and further into DDA with our major updates, the Rift continues to tear open more and more, introducing new mechanics and challenges for players to overcome. Every new enemy added to the game will have a Rift version as well, diversifying the gameplay and introducing a new obstacle to overcome.

Really it’s just a mode to provide a reward that decimates the Siren. Everything else is just extra. And to introduce sweet new accessories. Why does that matter? One word — Transmog!

Defenders want ways to customize their characters in fun and unique ways. You get a lot of cool looking gear during your journeys, but sometimes the gear with the best stats isn’t visually your cup of tea. But what’s a Defender to do, look like an epic noodle but hit like a wet one, or look like a peasant but decimate their foes with the power of legends? With Transmog, you can look how you want while wearing your best gear. Go for that insane over the top neon colored Goblin with the pulsing Rift weapons, or go for a more understated look to catch your enemies offguard with your insane strength.


(Yes, you can change the Squire’s boxer colors now, something science said was impossible!)

Here’s all the stuff you can do with Transmog by visiting the Blacksmith in the Tavern:

• Replace your weapon with the visual of any equivalent weapon type that you’ve collected after Update 1.2.
• Replace your Mask, Bracers, Brooches, and Shields with the visual of any equivalent accessory type that you’ve collected after Update 1.2.
• Change the hue, saturation, and brightness of the above, as well as your heroes. Oh, and we added even more colorization options to the heroes default costumes.
• Save specific cosmetic loadouts that you can change on the fly. It’s all about options!

In order to have a piece show up, you must have an accessory already equipped to your hero. Meaning if you want a giant corgi head to show up, you must have a mask equipped to your hero for it to visually appear.

This is a new system, so we’re expecting a lot of kinks to work out. We appreciate any feedback on the system, and have tons of continued work to polish, but if you run into problems or bugs, please let us know!

As we add more gear to the game, it’s usage is instantly multiplied with this system, making the items you acquire provide even more usage!

With our game constantly growing, we’re adding some additional functionality to every Defenders home-sweet-home!
 

We’ve added a couple things to the Tavern with this update. First is the Tavern Difficulty Adjuster Button (PUSH AT YOUR OWN RISK). This changes the Tavern from a normal map, to Nightmare version, or Massacre version that applies different scaling to your defenses that you would find in maps of whatever difficulty you have selected.


 

Somehow this thing got Rifted. While it doesn’t drop any loot, it does take increased damage from Fusion damage. Test your DPS to your heart’s content!



Now you may be asking yourself, all of this sounds good and wonderful, but where in the heck do you get that giant corgi helmet?
 

Download Update 1.2 and play Dungeon Defenders from now until December 14th at 7 pm EST to receive the Corgi Cover cosmetic mask AND the Shadow EV skin FOR FREE! These are available for a limited time, so make sure to get them now while you can.



With that out of the way, let’s get into the months and months and months of general changes to the game, as well as a ton of the bug fixes included in Update 1.2!
 

With all the hard work we have put into getting consoles out to y’all we have picked up some nice PC performance gains along the way. With this patch we have brought in our CPU and Network optimizations from the console work. We nativized a lot of blueprint’s in UE4, this is a process of transferring a blueprint into native C++ code. Nativization can be tricky at times, but for the consoles it was necessary to go back and revisit some of our older work in order to increase performance. Depending on your system, number of players in your game, and what mode you’re playing your frame rate may now even be double what it was beforehand! CPU goes vroooom, Network goes yeeeee
 

We have added support for offline mode, you can find this on the main menu after launching the game. In offline mode you will only be able to use a local save, that will never upload to the cloud until you play online mode again. Offline mode will use a local save that you have when you enter for the first time. This means you can take your online profile offline, progress the game and when you enter online mode again you can choose to take your offline save to upload progress to online mode. When entering online mode again, be sure to select the proper save! Take DD:A on the road!

• Hosts are now able to force ready up by holding Ctrl + G.

• Removed various environment objects from inventory and character creation to better display transmog customization colors, and reduce background noise.

• Added a number of options to Damage Numbers to have greater control over what is displayed

Yes, the filter UI will get an art pass soon :)
 

• Added 15-20 seconds to build timers for all maps and difficulties.

• If an aura overlaps, enemies are only affected by the aura they came in contact with first.
• This was to fix a long standing exploit wherein players would unequip gear, build auras next to one another, then re-equip gear to have overlapped death zones.

Magic Missile Tower

• Increased Defense Power scaling by 18% in Massacre.

Flameburst Tower

• Increased Defense Power scaling by 18% in Massacre.

Lightning Tower

• Now scales from bonus attack rate.
• Increased Defense Power scaling by 18% in Massacre.

Explosive Trap

• Decreased Defense Power scaling by 8% in Massacre.

Poison Gas Trap

• Decreased the Effect Duration Scaling by 50%.

Inferno Trap

• Decreased Defense Power scaling by 8% in Massacre.

Thunder Spike Trap

• Decreased Defense Power scaling by 8% in Massacre.

Reflect Field

• Now displays 1:1 total hits it can reflect instead of arbitrary HP values.

Secondary Attack: Block

• Block no longer can be held indefinitely.
• Now the Squire has a Block resource, indicated by a shield above the Squires head.
• Different enemies attacks reduce the resource at different rates.
• Block regenerates when it is not being used.
• If the Block resource is completely used, players are unable to block again for 5 seconds.
  • With enough armor, this caused the Squire to become a blockade, and created an unhealthy meta that had players using a Squire and pet to handle an entire lane. This change prevents future map balance from having to take into account this meta, which if left in tact would ultimately reduce the amount of DU given in future maps.

Harpoon Tower

• Increased Defense Power scaling by 18% in Massacre.

Bowling Ball Tower

• Increased Defense Power scaling by 18% in Massacre.

Slice N’ Dice

• Now scales from bonus attack rate.

Skeletons

• No longer target Crystal Cores.

Dark Elf Warriors

• No longer knock back players.

Djinn

• Updated channel time for Djinn’s destroy tower in Massacre to 8 seconds (down from 9) to match Nightmare.

Copter Ogres

• Now have propeller hats!

Siren

• New functionality: the Siren no longer spawns with her aura. Instead, she reaches her destination and begins casting. If she is not defeated quickly, she creates an aura based on her elemental affinity, and then runs back to her spawner, applying an unremoval version of her affinity to enemies she passes through.
• The Siren takes increased damage from Fusion sources.

Demon Lord

• Decreased Massacre damage by 30%.

Ancient Dragon

• Decreased Massacre damage by 30%.

With ~1800+ commits to our dev branch, we are going to make a separate post covering all of the relevant bug fixes and changes. Head over to the forums and check out the list here.

We’re going to be watching this update very carefully and pushing out hotfixes for any issues that arise as we are able to get them out.

We’re not a very large team, so when it comes to getting things done, we have to be really efficient and smart with what we work on. Our team has been hard at work on getting our console versions ready (work is still going on as of this post), which is a very time consuming and incredible engineering feat to accomplish. As such, there’s a couple features that we want to give a little bit of additional time and focus on to make sure they release fully functional.
 

This is going to be a pretty straightforward feature to many. Trading will allow players to open up a UI with other players to trade items that they have acquired throughout their journeys, for an agreed upon price. We’re wanting to spend additional time on this feature to make sure it not only has transactions working without a hitch, but also to remove any potential exploits that can ruin the experience of other Defenders.
 

Sometimes you get a good drop and invest a ton of points into a piece of gear, only to want to reallocate the Upgrades that you’ve spent after acquiring more gear to really Min/Max your perfect setup. With Item Reforging, you can do just that! Just take a trip to the Blacksmith, and for a fee, he will allow you to reinvest your items’ upgrade points.
 

Part of this update is putting a bow on the base game, and that includes fulfilling our in-game Kickstarter, Backerkit, and Preorder rewards. We’ve got most of the skins out, but will be adding in:

• Custom enemy names
• Custom weapon names
• Custom armor names
• Legends Tablet
• Credits/Special Thanks
• Hero Titles

Console Releases
If you haven’t read our console progress check-in and what we’re doing, please head on over to that post here to find out more!

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

Thanks for all of your feedback and bug reports! We will be addressing some of your biggest feedback in a video later this week. We’re incredibly excited to work with you to build the best Action Tower Defense game possible. 

This patch primarily addresses bugs that have been sent to us through our forums and our bug reporting form. Keep sending those bugs in to the Tavernkeep! 

Features

• Several actions have been added to the controls in the Options menu. Activate, Alt. Activate, Ready Up, and Suicide can now be rebound to any key. Additionally, this implementation fixed a bug where rebinding other keys to the ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘g’, and ‘l’ key would prevent these actions. 
  

• Pressing left-shift with the item comparison tooltip will now display the currently equipped item.

• The AutoReporter has been added to help us debug crashes.

Bug Fixes

• Several users were reporting that transitioning from a gameplay map to the entry tavern would occasionally delete their profiles. This issue should now be resolved.
  

• Resolved a UI-related crash. 

• The ‘Right Arrow’ key can now be bound.

• Combo Feats no longer reward currency and experience due to an exploit. These rewards will be re-added when the Combo Feats are reworked in an upcoming patch.

• Skyguard Towers will now attack enemies that are close to the ground.

• The Squire's Powerful Spears Spec was not dealing the full damage to subsequent targets. This should now be working as intended. 

• The Huntress’ Long Range Spec no longer affects her Oil Flask and Concussive Shots abilities.

• The Apprentice’s Reduce Cooldown Spec now displays the correct percentage in the Spec page.

• Special Stat Procs, such as Drenched, now only apply to hero attacks and not defense attacks.

• Mana Nodes no longer start out in the activated state if a player joins the match after the build phase started.

• The item comparison tooltips with special stats no longer clips off the screen.

• The scroll bar for the Codexes page now functions properly when the arrows are pressed and the scroll bar is dragged.

• Removed the green glow from the War Table in the Group Tavern.

• The Crystal Cores in the Gates of Dragonfall and The Throne Room are no longer brighter than the sun.

• Resolved an issue in The Ramparts where the air lanes would fail to spawn. This was preventing the players from finishing the match. 

Known Issues

• We are still investigating several known launcher crashes and issues. If you’re experiencing launcher issues, please go to this page, try the possible solutions listed, and if you’re still having issues, follow the instructions listed at the bottom of the page.
  

• If you’re experiencing lag, please go to this page and follow the instructions listed.

• If you’re getting stuck on the Searching for Session screen, please wait a few minutes and try again. If you’re unable to get past this screen, please email supporttrendyent.com!

• Players have reported entering a black tavern and falling through the game world. This is hilarious, but we’ll fix it.

• We’re aware that players’ in-game name is different from their Steam name. We’re looking into this issue. For the time being, we can change your name for you! Email supporttrendyent.com with the name you’d like and a link to your Steam profile page.

• Some players are reporting that items purchased in the tavern are not appearing in their inventory. Be sure to check every bag that you own. Sometimes, leaving the tavern or entering a map will make the item appear. We’re investigating the issue.

Defenders,

Nat “Higgsbosonic” here, wanted to bring you an update regarding our next patch!

1.1 Patch Update

The Update 1.1 patch is going to be released in August. We’ve seen a few comments regarding the patch arriving in July and that it has been delayed. This post is the first official statement regarding the patch and its timeline. This is a standard content patch and not a paid DLC.

There are only two places for official announcements: the news posts on our website, and the Chromatic Games Dev streams (at twitch.tv/chromatic_games). Anything outside of that should not be considered official information, even if it comes from an official dev.

We know you are eagerly awaiting this patch and we're working at full capacity (without crunch) to bring you high-quality patches and content for DD:A. We care about our team and do everything we can to take care of them as we continue to make DD:A the game greater and greater with each update. We do not want to rush out patches or content. We are ruthlessly testing and incorporating the community during the entire process. Every week our RQA team and Ethereal Calvary which are all community members playtest our latest build and provide feedback. They help us find bugs and the fun! We thank all those who dedicate their time to us now, and in the future.
 

So what’s in it? 
There has already been a lot of information shared with the community about what is going to be in the patch in terms of features. I wanted to gather all of that in one place, confirm its existence and provide a few shiny screenshots. Please note, not everything included in Update 1.1 is listed on this post.
 

Massacre Survival 
Yes, it is on its way, we’ve been spending an immense amount of time to make sure this game mode feels right. Provide a challenge, proper progression curve, and rewarding loot. This is just the beginning of the late game and we hope you enjoy the challenge!

Skyward Challenges

Two new challenges await you! Take towards the sky as you tackle these new adventures in Tornado Valley and Promenade. Invade airships, defeat the ship captain, and dodge deadly mortar barrage; or play capture the flag against Copters of both the goblin and Ogre variety, meanwhile, there are missiles set to stun kill.

EV-A*
An old robot-friend has found her way into DD:A. Series EV is a beloved hero from the franchise, we wanted to bring her to DD:A along with her reflect and buff beams ^^. Something a little extra to help deal with the challenges that await in Massacre Survival and beyond.
*Hero name subject to change ;)

    Abilities:

•         Decoy
•         Proton Charge

    Defenses (All the Beams):

•         Proton beam
•         Physical beam
•         Reflect beam
•         Shock beam
•         Buff beam

Dual Weapon Equip:
Gain stats from both weapons
Only one weapon can be used at a time
Huntress and Apprentice weapons only

Check out some EV-A Gameplay over at JuiceBags Youtube channel!

Inventory
Oh, inventory management, where do I begin… Well, there was once a dev named Philtermancer, he was a wise engineer, privy to the plight of inventory management time sinks that plagued the community. His trusty friends Sir Sean “Shoryu” Ryan the UX wizard and Magister Mario “Luvcraft” Machado UI Art master devised a most wonderful solution. In Update 1.1 you are bestowed the blessed bag filters, making your adventures in Etheria easier, the end. 

Inventory Filter Bags:

New additional filters:

Fancy new tooltips:

There are additional features and changes coming your way in our 1.1 patch as well as hundreds of bug fixes.

Come say hello and chat about the upcoming content in our Discord!

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

After weeks of hard work, our team is ready to release the first major content update for DD2 since the Council Expansion. This update contains some huge changes thanks to your feedback, so let’s break it down:

Armor and Relics

• Totems: Defense Health

• Medallions: Defense Power

• Rings: Ability Power

Victory Chests

Stats and Special Stats Changes

Mana Nodes

Codexes

Feats

Titles

Full patch notes below:

Major Features

Armor System and Loot Changes

• Weapons & Relics can only have 2 stats:

1. 1 Primary 
   
2. 1 Secondary
   

• Armor was added to the game

• Four additional equipment slots were added:

1. Head Slot
   
2. Chest Slot
   
3. Hand Slot
   
4. Foot Slot
   

• Armor now carries your physical and magical resistance stats as its primary stat

• Armor has two secondary stats that it will pick from

• The number of Special Stats per item tier was adjusted

• The number of Stats on items also was slightly adjusted

• Players now have only one Relic slot

• There are three types of Relics:

1. Totems
   
2. Medallions
   
3. Rings
   

• Each Relic has will spawn with a specific primary stat

1. Totem: Defense Health
   
2. Medallion: Defense Power
   
3. Rings: Ability Power
   

• Tomes are no longer used as Relics they are instead used as Codexes 

Victory Chests

• When you win a map, a victory chest will now spawn

• Each player will get one victory chest

• There are four tiers of victory chests

1. Powerful
2. Epic
3. Mythic
4. Legendary

• When you activate your chest it has a chance to upgrade to the next tier

• Each tier of chest will guarantee one item of that tier and a lot of gold based on the level range you are in

Mana Nodes

• Chests & Keys are now replaced with the new Mana Nodes

• Mana nodes will occupy the same positions in all the maps

• Players now need to activate only one mana node to get all their mana

• Once you get your mana, all the remaining mana nodes deactivate. If a player disconnects or leaves without opening the node, the mana will be split among the remaining players and an additional node will activate

Feats

• Feats are a new addition to Dungeon Defenders II

• Feats are small repeatable challenges you can acquire while you play a map

• Example: 8 enemies defeated with your hero in a 3 second window

• There are a total of 24 feats in game right now

• Some feats have minor rewards tied to them 

Player Titles

• Titles are a new reward system for Dungeon Defenders 2. They are a great way to show off your accomplishments to other players! We’re looking very closely at how players are playing our game and designing rewards around those play styles. We hope you like them as much as we liked designing them.

• Completing challenges unlocks titles. Titles display in front or following your name.

• We provided an initial set of 6 titles. What titles can you earn? What titles would you like to see in the future?

• Titles are accessed through the Collections menu. Goto your local forge, select Collections, next to your Hero Deck, and look through the list!

• Select your title from the list then click Set Title.

Codexes

• Tomes are now used as Codexes

• Codexes are small snippets of lore that we intend to use to provide some backstory on different characters and locations in Etheria

• We have four volumes of codexes each having a variable number of them to collect

• The four volumes will drop across the entire game at different level ranges

• Note: some of the text is still a work in progress

• Codexes can be picked up like ordinary loot and can be read under the new collections menu in the Forge

Loot Tier Feedback

• We added additional feedback for different tiers of loot

• This includes:

1. Spawn In Sounds and Ambient Sound Effects
2. HUD Indicators 
3. Minimap icons
4. Light
5. Camera Shake

• The intensity of the feedback varies based what tier of loot it is

More Features

• Inventory items can now be moved to different slots within the same bag. This gives the player more control over where items are placed in bags.

• Added functionality to support variable death animations for enemies. Enemies can now play different animations when slain.

• Added a 1360x768 resolution for users on older HDTVs.

• The Group Finder now notifies the player when a hero in the Hero Deck is not the appropriate level for the bracket. After displaying the popup, the Group Finder will automatically remove any restricted heroes from the Deck prior to entering the queue.

• Added notifications about new level ranges when joining the Entry Tavern.

• Added a button to transition the next level range on the summary screen after a completed game match.

• The end-game timer has been increased by 25 seconds to accommodate the new end-game chests feature, 

• Added a 250 denomination for currency in game.

• The Weapon Shop is now a Blacksmith who sells weapons and Armor.

• The Relic Shop sells relics only.

• Updated loot profiles for relic drops.

Balance

• Added a 1 second cooldown to the Heal ability.

• Reduced the max number of Orc Skeletons per Dark Mage from 5 down to 2.

Content

Heroes

• Updated the Huntress’ terrain impact sound for bows.

• Updated lighting on the Huntress’ bows.

• Tweaked the Huntress’ secondary attack animation.

• Adjusted idle ground impact VFX for the Monk’s Lightning Aura.

• Updated VFX for the Monk’s Lightning aura.

• Updated VFX for the Monk’s Boost aura.

• Tweaked art assets to prevent the Napalm Balloon's decal from popping out and fading properly as intended.

• Slightly tweaked the Squire’s hand textures.

• Tweaked the total frame count on run animations.

• Tweaked the Apprentice’s secondary attack animation.

Enemies

• Updated the Skeleton Goblin’s SFX.

• Updated the WarBoar’s SFX.

• The Warboar’s VFX is now disabled when at full health. All regenerative VFX should function in this manner.

• Revised the SFX for attack, death, and hurt animations for the Lady Orc.

• Updated Ranged Goblin’s animations. 

• Tweaked the Dark Mage’s various death animations.

Environments

• Optimized graphic assets throughout the Entry and Group Taverns.

• Updated the new SFX to the Forge.

• Increased the volume of idle Forge sounds in Dragonfall Bazaar to match normal levels in other maps.

• Updated the placement of the Forge in Nimbus Reach.

• Updated the placement of certain chests in Nimbus Reach.

• Adjusted fade-out times for combat and build phase music tracks in Nimbus Reach.

• Repaired a wall in Nimbus Reach that was missing collision. 

• Tweaked VFX in Nimbus Reach to resolve a few minor graphic bugs.

• Resolved various issues with lighting in The Gates of Dragonfall.

• Tweaked fade-out time of in-game music in The Gates of Dragonfall.

• Tweaked ambient sounds in the Gates of Dragonfall.

• Updated map music in Greystone Plaza.

• Updated fadeouts of map music for the build phase and combat phase in Little-Horn Valley.

• Updated shadow and lighting in Little-Horn Valley.

• Resolved an issue where various ambient SFX were not playing correctly in Little-Horn Valley.

• Tweaked minimap brightness to increase contrast, improving readability.

• Updated shadow and lighting in Dragonfall Bazaar.

• Tweaked fade-out times for map music in Dragonfall Bazaar.

• Updated shadow and lighting in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Tweaked fade-out times for map music in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Increased the fade-out of build phase and combat phase music tracks on Siphon Site D.

• Updated environment assets to improve lane readability in the Forgotten Ruins.

• Updated textures and lighting in the Forgotten Ruins.

• Tweak various VFX in the Forgotten Ruins to make them more consistent with DD2’s overall aesthetic.

• Updated art assets in the Forgotten Ruins to increase lane readability. These changes affected lane decoration assets and color.

• Updated lighting on trees in the Forgotten Ruins.

• Updated map lighting on the Forgotten Ruins.

• Tweaked the fade-out times of build and combat phase music tracks in the Forgotten Ruins.

• Tweaked fade out times of combat and build phase music tracks in Battle for the Ramparts.

• Resolved an issue where the East Dock spawn point lane wisp was missing in The Battle for the Ramparts.

• Slightly reduced the volume of ambient SFX in Battle for the Ramparts.

• Cleaned up collision on the War Table in the Group Tavern.

• Optimized art assets in the Group and Entry Taverns.

• Updated names of certain characters in the Entry Tavern.

• Updated VFX for the core cart in Dragon’s Fall.

Items

• Updated lighting for all fire and storm elemental weapons.

• Tweaked staves that have gems attached to them. Gems now light up to match their elemental attribute.

• Tweaked art asset colors on elemental earth and ice staves.

• Updated SFX for tier 3 and 4 items.

• Tier 6 items now have a camera shake effect when dropped.

• Updated the large piggy’s art assets.

• Inventory bags names now have a max character limit of 40. 

Bug Fixes

• Resolved an issue where playing in maximized windowed mode severely lowered the game resolution.

• Fixed a bug where dying while viewing an item comparison tooltip caused the tooltip to linger on the player's death screen until respawn.

• Removed the word "bigger" from the profanity filter.

• Resolved an issue where shop items were not being refreshed.

• Resolved an issue where Hero walk animations would continue while tutorial videos were being played. Players should no longer hear Heros walking during the tutorial videos.

• Resolved an issue that occasionally prevented tutorial videos from being cancelled.

• Resolved a crash that occurred while interacting with tooltips. Players would see this the most in the Item Enhancement Shop.

• Fixed a bug where, while in tower placement mode, scrolling the camera upward while facing a spawn point resulted in the tower preview appearing behind your character.

• Resolved an issue where enemy units would trigger the red targeting reticle through walls or when otherwise invisible.

• Resolved an issue where exiting the Hero Creation UI while still spawning in a new Hero would cause the controller to get stuck.

• Resolved an issue where players on steam were not consistently being placed in the correct Tavern after being invited to play with friends.

• Resolved an issue where non-widescreen resolutions were being displayed incorrectly.

• Resolved an issue where logging out with a full inventory allowed players to buy more things than they could hold.

• Resolved an issue that caused sell costs to be calculated incorrectly when changing the premium bag's icon while selling.

• Resolved an issue where selling a tower that was built by a disconnected teammate displayed an incorrect message.

• Resolved an issue with the inventory UI that prevented clicking and dragging of the scroll bar.

• Resolved an issue where the Apprentice's projectiles were colliding with dropped loot.

• Resolved an issue which prevented the Dark Mages from summoning the proper amount of skeletons.

• Resolved an issue where Goblin skeletons had no collision and were invulnerable.

• Resolved an issue where air lane wisps would change from blue to red when sub objectives are lost in The Ramparts.

• Resolved an issue where the Monk’s Boost Aura would sometimes lose health during the build phase.

• Resolved an issue where the Monk's Pole Smash ability when used while standing on certain edges resulted in a momentary slowfall effect.

• Resolved an issue which doubled the VFX on the flameburst tower and arcane barrier when upgrading. 

• Resolved an issue where using Seismic Slam directly after using the Squire's Provoke would cancel the Provoke buff's effects.

• Fixed an issue with destroyed subcores not playing idle spark sounds if a player joined the match after the subcore was destroyed

• Increased fade out time of build and combat music tracks by 1 second

• Resolved an issue with the lightning spec node which prevented it from correctly scaling player damage stats.

• Resolved an issue which caused players to receive extra mana when a teammate left the game session.

• Resolved a bug that allow players to fall outside of the Nimbus Reach map.

• Resolved an issue where allowing a sub core to be destroyed triggered the defeat music theme in Nimbus Reach.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the main core's idle sounds from playing in Battle for the Ramparts.

• Fixed an issue with core barriers not playing idle sounds in the Forgotten Ruins.

• Fixed an issue where the Sentry Crystal was no playing idle sounds in the Forgotten Ruins.

• Resolved an issue where endgame music and text messaging was missing from Battle for the Ramparts.

• Resolved an issue where the Water trap wasn't working as intended in Dragonfall Sewers. Players should now always slide and (eventually) die if they fall or jump into the water.

• Resolved an issue where players were able to climb a lantern in front of the Echoing Tunnel spawn point in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Resolved an issue where players were able to build defenses in unreachable areas of The Gates of Dragonfall.

• Resolved an issue where the "New Level Range" popups were showing up every time the player changed heroes.

• Resolved an issue where players were able to get behind spawn points in Battle for the Ramparts. 

• Fixed a bug that prevented subobjective SFX from playing after the subobjective was destroyed.

• Resolved an issue where player counts in the Summary Screen were incorrect after a player left a match.

• Resolved an issue where a leader selection warning was appearing in gameplay maps.

• Resolved an issue where incorrect billboards were being displayed in Greystone Plaza.

• Resolved an issue with certain old one eyes layering their sounds incorrectly in Dragon's Fall.

• Resolved an issue where players would receive no game options if the group leader left the game during the summary phase of a private session.

• Fixed a typo on the Monk's Serenity Spec.

• Resolved an issue that prevented items from being deposited into the temporary item bag (TIB).

• Resolved an issue where new players who had never played a game or created a character were unable to confirm their invitation to a game currently in progress.

• Resolved an issue where upgrading the Boost Aura did not properly increase the damager per upgrade on nearby towers.

• Resolved an issue where relic slot icons were not appearing in the appropriate place in the Inventory UI.

• Resolved an issue where the clear button on the item upgrade UI was not clearing all items.

• Resolved an issue where the ""Retry Map"" button was not working as intended.

• Updated the "continuing in" message on the summary screen to read, "Returning to Entry Tavern in."

• Resolved an issue where players who were invited to maps with a hero that did not meet level requiremnts failed to transition back to their Entry Tavern.

• Resolved an issue where special stats would stop working when a player swapped heroes.

• Resolved an issue where attempting to join a map during seamless travel would crash the game.

• Resolved an issue with the forge idle SFX across all maps.

• Resolved SFX issue in Siphon Site D that prevented subcore waterfalls from playing.

• Resolved an issue where idle gas trap sounds were not playing in Siphon Site D.

• Resolved an issue with the Old Man idle voice over not playing before he leaps onto the cart in Dragonfall Bazaar.

• Resolved an issue that prevented Wyverns in the center lane of Greystone Plaza from remaining in the correct lane.

• Resolved an issue with Bell toll sounds not playing in Dragonfall Bazaar.

• Fixed an issue with creepy monster sounds not playing in Dragonfall Bazaar.

• Fixed an issue with forge idle sounds not playing in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Fixed an issue with Twisted Metal ambient sounds not playing in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Fixed an issue with the Main Core Water Tank idle sounds not playing in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Fixed an issue with Subcore Waterfall sounds not playing in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Resolved an issue where the Yak's SFX were not playing as intended in The Gates of Dragonfall.

• Resolved a bug that unintentionally produced a light beam in the Tavern.

One of the biggest questions we’ve heard from you since the Defense Council expansion is, “When will Early Access be available on Steam?” Today, we’re proud to announce that DD2 Early Access will be available on Steam on December 5th!

UPDATE 1: Armor and More!

Before we release Early Access on Steam, we will be releasing our first major update for DD2. This update will include a number of exciting new features, but today we wanted to highlight one important feature that our Councillors had a direct, major impact in deciding -- Armor! 

We have been debating Armor and its role in DD2 for a long time internally, and the recent Councillor feedback has helped us make our choice. With this next update, we’ll be introducing our first phase of stat-based armor. 

This will include a major revamp for how the current relic system works, as well as the beginnings of armor loot dropping in the world. While this armor will not visually change your hero, we’re still hard at work on our costumes feature that will be released in a future update. We’re really excited to share more information with you about costumes, which will not only give you choices in how you look, but will also allow your look to evolve as you progress through the game. 

A special thanks to Gutu and benjamminlaner for their threads on the subject and to everyone who spoke up there and in the survey. You all were a huge help in influencing this path, and we can’t wait to get even more feedback on everything we’re cooking up for you in this first update. We’ll have more information as we get closer to its release, which is currently slated for the end of November.

A Question For You!

And finally, we have a question for you: When we bring Early Access to Steam, should we extend the benefits of the Defense Council (forums, exclusive goodies) to the Steam audience, or should those remain something limited to our site?