News

Join us today on our Twitch channel at 5PM EST for our Weekly Devstream! Brad and Steven will be answering your questions and revealing what we’ve got in store for you:

• A sneak peak at the upcoming Besieged maps.

• A reveal of our newest Harbinger build weapons and explain how they work, when to use them and why we must never, ever tell the Harbinger we have them.

• Loot Changes: I will be playing (and dying) on the Loot Branch and Dan will explain the upcoming changes to the loot system.

• New Holiday Tavern decorations and costumes. ‘Tis the season, people. We got Holiday Cheer coming out the yin-yang.

• Showing off our newest pet: the Dragolich! Oh no, don’t look at it! It’s terrifying! Rawr…

• Our Squire Boxer giveaway continues! Seriously, somebody get this guy a shirt or something. He’s making us look bad.

• And our final, super-secret reveal...the Awakening Pack!

This hotfix gives qualifying players their Wipeageddon Survivor Costumes and Wyvern Token Gem rewards! For more information, please read the Wipeageddon Rewards blog.

Our next update, The Harbinger Awakens, comes out Dec. 15th! We have our noses to the grindstone trying to make the best boss fight yet. There’s a lot of other highly requested changes coming in the update, including improved loot, an improved leveling experience in the Level 38-50 range and so, so much more. This week is feature/content lock, and then next week is Stabilization Week, which is when we flatten bugs and spitshine the new hotness.

Also, PS4 players just received the massive Loot & Survive update! The epic patch notes are available here. Now our PS4 team is gearing up for the next content update. Expect to hear more news about it early next year.

We’ve also started two new programs:  If you sign up for our newsletter, you’ll receive 200 free gems! Plus, if you join our Steam Group, you’ll be entered in for a chance to win 1,000 gems every week!

Here’s what we’ve been working on this week:

Jay Twining, Senior Game Designer (TrendyJayT)

They are an army unlike any other. A sea of green skin, metal armor and dark magics. Crusading across Etheria towards the Eternia Crystals. Driven by a disastrous goal - unlocking the veil. To release the Old Ones. Leading them, the Harbinger. It is up to you, Stalwart Defenders of Etheria, to push him back. To disrupt his nefarious plan. To rise together in defense of this land. Your land. Together we stand. Together we defend! TO ARMS!

Danny Araya, Creative Director (DannyAraya)

Running around like a madman as we get closer to the release!

Tim Shannon, PS4 Producer (TimmyTrashTier)

Content Update 1 came out this week, and there’s a couple other surprises in store for the near future, but the immediate term is kicking off the next milestone on PS4 and then heading out to San Francisco for PSX this weekend.

James Reid, Software Programmer (Driscan)

Working with design and marketing on a way to get some discounts for premium items to you.  Currently working on setting up Costumes, Inventory, and Premium Pets to be able to go on sale.  Working pretty closely with design and content on the actual look and feel of sales.  Also throwing some small tweaks to the inventory screen.

Jeffrey Bickel, Technical Level Designer (TE_Jeff)

This week is my last week of development on the Harbinger before we go into full bug-fixing mode. Still lots to do to get the fight feeling great across all the playlists, but our internal playtests have been invaluable in taking this fight to the finish line. Less than two weeks until you guys get your hands on him. I can’t wait to see the reaction!

Steven Collins, Lead Level Designer (Esorath)

Working on getting everything together for the Harbinger. Also lots of fun balance updates making their way into the playlists. Making sure the winter maps are too chilly for everyone :D

But that cloaked figure tho….

Chris Flores, QA Lead (likethatwhenigothere)

Finishing up on the internal QA pass on the latest DD1 community update and starting testing on the new boss fight. As well as the rest of the MS20 content.

Joshua Javaheri, Lead Technical Artist (javahawk)

Hey out there! Putting the final touches on the holiday-themed events and a new adventure pack! It’s going to be an AWESOME winter!

Adam Stow, Associate Producer (TE_Stow)

Sometimes you’re working on a feature or piece of content and you just say to yourself "I could only be doing this if I worked in video games".  I’ve said that a lot lately...

Javier Barreto, Lead Software Programmer (javo)

I’m “overseeing” the development of the Harbinger; basically throwing some hints here and there to minimize future work/additions. The team really seems to like implementing big boss fights as this guy is getting done in record time.

As a base foundation for future bosses, there are some things that could (and probably will) need some restructuring, but given our schedule and it being the first (somewhat) iteration, it’s coming up pretty good.

Also doing my regular random code reviews… as strange and maybe silly as it sounds … this works! I get to catch requirement mishaps based on how things are implemented (this implies knowledge of all the requirements of all the features underway; this is accomplished by simply being attentive at feature reviews and whatnot; also standups).

While I’m not supervising the boss feature development, I’m consolidating our SKUs codebases (PC/PS4). This is a lot of work, and after all the major issues we’ve encountered with SVN, I would recommend not trying to keep two live (trunk) branches at a same time; when things go eerie, they escalate/cascade eerily.

Some final words:  Our team is growing. A couple of new engine programmers are helping us with our engine, and some of our Playverse team developers are also jumping into the fray fixing some of the matchmaking issues you guys have reported while also optimizing our services and making it more secure.

…there’s a lot going on. I hope you guys are enjoying the game, and as you do … bring a friend =D

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

Winter is coming...I've been working on the winter overlay for some levels, and now I'm currently working on the new Social Hub level. Time to expand the city!

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (DanielKaMi)

Really excited about how the Boss level is turning out! Did some work for the winter overlay on most of our levels and now working on the new Social Hub. It’s becoming a huge city!

Dani Moore, Remote QA Manager (Dani)

Assisting with the DD1 community push and tying up loose ends on our latest hotfix. Getting a feel for the Harbinger and the holidays content, and helping to ensure our final leg of the Loot Test goes smoothly.

Josh Isom, Community Manager (iamisom)

We’ve just started our newsletter gem program and our Steam Group raffles! Excited to have those up and running. Now I’m writing the flavor text for our Harbinger Update page, escalating some community requests for the milestone after this one and drooling over the new costumes. Y’all ain’t even ready for those.

Here are the notes for Patch 8.6 on Steam! Remember:  Our next major content update, The Harbinger Awakens, comes out December 15th! 

Features

• New Monthly Quest:  “A Harrowing Harbinger Holiday” The Harbinger has come to haunt the holidays! Protect Etheria from the invading horde!

• Quest Conditions:

  • Win 35 Maps

  • Kill 50 Special Enemies

  • Win 30 Onslaught Rounds

• Quest Rewards:

  • “Jolly Old” title

  • New Pet: Dragolich!

  • 300,000 Gold

  • 40 Tokens

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where two of the Monthly Quest requirements would appear as a blank space. Perhaps you could fill in a certain ex-lover’s name here, but the high wasn’t worth the pain. You know we love the players, and you love the game.

• Fixed a bug with how pet damage shields were reflecting damage back. Now they properly reflect the intended % back at enemies.

• Fixed an issue where the “Get” button on the Dragonfall Costumes linked to nothing.

• Empowerment was misspelled as "Empowerement" on the pet reroll tooltip. We were super tempted to leave it and make you think you were crazy.

• Added more metrics so we can understand you, bby.

Our first PS4 content update is here! When you load up the game, expect to see more content, more green mana, better solo play balance and so, so much more. How much more? Scroll down through this monster list of changes!

We hope you enjoy this update. Because of the sheer size of this update, expect to find many bugs and balance issues. This is not the final state of the game, but it is a large step for mankind. People will look back on this moment and note it as a true changing point for humanity. Tears will be shed. Babies will be named after us and not just because most of us have very common names. Oh, no.

Wipeageddon

Wipe Rewards

• • Apprentice, Squire, Huntress, and Monk Survivor Costumes have been added to the game. You will find these in your Mailbox for each hero class you had at level 25 before the Wipe. 

  • The Corrupted Welp has been added to the game. You will find him in your Mailbox if you levelled a hero to 25 before the Wipe.

  • Gems have been added to your Mailbox, based on how many Wyvern Tokens you earned before the Wipe:

    • 20-39 Tokens = 150 Gems

    • 40-79 Tokens = 300 Gems

    • 80-119 Tokens = 500 Gems

    • 120+ Tokens = 1,200 Gems

• These rewards will be going out slowly throughout the day. If you have not received your rewards by the end of day Wednesday, please contact our Support Team! We will be looking at your account information to verify that you do qualify for the rewards.

The Wipe

• All progress has been reset. When you start the game, you will be immediately launched into our new tutorial. As soon as you unlock the Tavern, you will find all your Early Access, Wipe and other Rewards in your mailbox. Good luck defending!

Features

Pets

Pets 2.0. Expect more from your awesome, scary and cute companions!

• Added pet tiers!  Unlock new tiers by evolving your pet.

  • Hatchlings

    • Each pet begins its life as a hatchling. Never, ever shake a hatchling.

  • Fledgling

    • What? Hatchling is evolving! Your beautiful pet gains increased stats and an active ability when evolving to a Fledgling.

  • Veteran

    • Veteran pets gain increased stats and, where appropriate, a visual evolution.

    • Visual evolution is only available on Token and premium pets.

  • Elder

    • The current maximum evolution for pets. Elder pets have the maximum stats available.

    • Also, pets at this stage will call you only when they need something and will blame all of their problems on you.

• Added Pet Rarities.  

  • The base stats of a pet are determined by its Rarity.

  • There are four pet rarities:  Powerful, Epic, Mythical and Legendary. Each pet has a set rarity, except for premium pets which can spawn at any rarity.

  • When transforming an egg to a premium egg, it will roll at the same rarity with the same stats as it would have with a standard egg, only this time your pet will look dope.

• Added new evolution reagents and containers.

  • Evolution Containers can be collected from Victory Chests and in Onslaught mode.

  • Open containers to collect evolution reagents.

  • Each pet has a specific evolution recipe and specific required evolution reagents.

  • Max out your pet’s Power and Affection Levels to evolve your pet to the next tier.

  • When pets rot, they are now transformed into a unique material that you can use to evolve your pets! Pet cannibalization complete. You win Twitch.

• Added new Pet Reroll Items.

  • Reroll Containers can be collected from Victory Chests, enemy kills, and in Onslaught mode.

  • Reroll items are consumed on the Reroll menu to replace one pet stat or ability with another.

• Added new premium pets!

  • Get Katkarot, Shinobi Kitty and Table Flip Demon by collecting a Gato or Creeper egg and transforming them into a premium egg! These premium pets will roll at the same rarity with the same stats as it would have with a standard egg, only this time your pet will look dope.

  • For those of you asking for premium pets to be more powerful than normal pets… um… just no.

• Added new monthly pet rewards starting with Thunder-O! You can find him on your Missions screen.

  • Monthly pet rewards have a unique ability and guaranteed rarity.

  • Abilities for monthly pets grow in power as they evolve.

• Changed Feed to Powerup for clarity.

  • Players powerup their pets by feeding them pet food and buying base pet food.

  • Powering up your pet increases its stats. Premium and Standard pets both powerup the same way. (Even though Katkarot should require way more food.)

• Added help strings to the Hatchery (where players turn eggs into pets) and Stable (where players equip, power up, evolve, and reroll pets). Sometimes we do want to help.

• New Pet Abilities

  • Added 25 new pet abilities! These abilities are unlocked when you evolve your pet into a Fledgling. 

  • Some abilities are unique to their species (Creeper, Dragon, Gato)

  • There is an elemental ability pool in which all pets can also pull from.

  • Exciting new abilities such as the following:

    • Curse Aura: Boost your speed and curse enemies while you are near them.

    • Blizzard: Summon a blizzard that slows enemies while dealing damage.

    • Fire Pillar: Create a pillar of fire that deals fire damage to every enemy it touches.

  • The rest of the abilities you will need to discover for yourself!

War Table

We completely updated the War Table! You no longer need to switch taverns to change what you want to play. All Game Modes are available from the War Table no matter where you are. Also it’s about a million times prettier. Thank you art team.

• Match Type:  Quick Match and Private.

  • Quick Match will match the player and party to others looking to complete the same content.

  • Private:  No change in functionality.

• Game Mode:

  • We’ve released new game modes! Complete the Campaign, then progress through Free Play to increase your Item Power. Once you’ve reached level 50, you can enter our end game content in the End Game game modes.

• Difficulty

  • Introduced 4 new Difficulties for end game:  Nightmare I, Nightmare II, Nightmare III, Nightmare IV.

  • Each difficulty has a different Item Power reward. Complete harder difficulties for better rewards. Are you up to the challenge? Butter isn’t.

• Map Selection

  • New: Select any Map

  • Selecting the Any Map button will queue the player for any available map for the Game Mode and Difficulty.

• Queueing

  • Players will now see a countdown when using Quick Match. After the countdown has elapsed, the map will launch.

  • Countdown timers are disabled for private matches.

• Minimum Party Counts

  • When queueing for these maps, the server will wait until enough players are matchmaking to that map.

  • Instead of a countdown, players will see the time elapsed, until a full party is formed.

  • Players can exit this queue at any time.

Onslaught Mode and Onslaught Loot

• You’ve been waiting, and now it’s go time! Onslaught is an infinite survival mode where players pick a reward at the beginning of the match and play to their heart’s desire. (Or until that one Javelin Thrower pierces your heart. I mean, core.)

• Onslaught plays out over a series of rounds and waves. There are three waves to every round. At the beginning of a round, you’ll have an unlimited Build Phase. Between each wave in a round, you’ll have a time-limited Build Phase.

  • The rounds are themed to specific enemies. So look out for the Spooky Skeletons and Kobold Rushes.

  • The rounds will also have secondary traits that will change per round. These are  buffs to the enemies during the round that will keep you on your toes. These will change with the themes and be different each round. This means round 1 could be speedy goblin hordes. But this also means you could have a healthy Dark Mage round at some point.  *Shudders*

• Once you unlock your first Onslaught map, you will be able to start playing for that sweet new item you’ve been wanting. Want an awesome new weapon? Select the weapon reward category and start running through Onslaught. You’ll get your selected category round at the end of each round. Keep your wits about you though, as Onslaught will be no cakewalk. How far can you get?

• There are unique pet and weapon rewards you can only find in Onslaught mode. But we’re not going to tell you what they are, because that’d ruin the fun.

Additional Difficulties

• Campaign - Easy, Normal

  • Campaign will only support Easy and Normal. Players that are new to the game will play through the Easy difficulty. Easy allows players to get used to the game mechanics while still presenting some challenge. Normal Campaign is for those who are somewhat familiar with Dungeon Defenders. While still explaining the mechanics of the game, you can expect a moderate challenge while playing Campaign Normal. Normal Campaign can be completed with 1 hero type.

• Freeplay - Easy, Normal, Hard

  • Free Play Easy - This is what you graduate into after completing Campaign Easy. This will be content cruising and allow you to experience Dungeon Defenders 2 at a non-threatening pace. As this will be easy, you won’t see huge leaps in Item Power as you progress. You can expect to play this content with one hero type.

  • Free Play Normal - This is what you will graduate into after completing the Campaign on Normal. This is a standard challenge for those who are confident with the game’s mechanics. To go along with this challenge, you will see a bump in Item Power as you progress. This will be where players will start to want to play with different heroes. While it isn’t required, different hero types will definitely make things easier.

  • Free Play Hard - Now we’re talking. Free Play Hard will be a considerate challenge to those who are well-versed in the game’s mechanics. Those who are willing to tackle Free Play Hard will need to know how to combat the resistances, they will need the right gear, and they will need to have some solid builds. Good luck.

• End Game - Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare I - IV

  • End Game Easy - So you made it through the Campaign Easy and Free Play Easy, but you wanna see some different stuff? Move onto End Game Easy! You will be able to see some new gametypes, some incursions, and some standard maps.

  • End Game Normal - Now that you are max level, it’s time to start getting your builds together. Wanna move onto End Game Hard? It would be a good idea to start here. Look out for different special enemies, more waves, more enemies and more rewards.

  • End Game Hard - Well now, aren’t we proud of ourselves? Made it all the way to End Game Hard, did ya? Well godspeed Defenders, because things are getting to be a little crazy. The Old Ones are sending more special enemies and more Ogres at you than you’ve seen previously. Now with more waves!

  • End Game NIGHTMARE I

    • So it begins. Nightmare. They don’t call it Nightmare for nothing. Here starts the hardest challenge you will face in Dungeon Defenders II yet. The Old Ones are pretty sore you’ve made it this far and will be throwing everything they can at you. Only the most prepared and skilled heroes can make it through such daunting odds.

  • End Game NIGHTMARE II

    • I guess that difficulty wasn’t enough for you, brave Defenders. Never fear, the challenge is only increased in Nightmare II. Get higher Item Power to even think about surviving Nightmare II.

  • End Game NIGHTMARE III

    • Let the games begin. Now that you’ve conquered Nightmare II, Nightmare III presents it’s own set of challenges. Bring your gear and skills to Nightmare III and pray to make it past Wave 1.

  • End Game NIGHTMARE IV?!?!

    • What’s this? You dare challenge the Old Ones?! Be afraid. Be very afraid. Be as afraid as a ‘90s middle school kid watching Are You Afraid of the Dark at night. As the hardest challenge you can attempt in DD2, you certainly will need the right Item Power and guts to face Nightmare IV.

Billboard Update

• A new coat of paint on the billboards, in both default and detailed view.

• Trait System - Bonus buffs and resistances are now applied to entire lanes. These are showcased on the new indicators on the billboards!

NPC Dialogue Boxes

• NPCs can now talk! And boy, are they chatty.

• Players can approach NPCs in Tavern for happy talk fun times.

• Please keep in mind that Etherians are just now learning to speak and might have their text changed in a future update as they become more eloquent.

Tutorial

• Tutorial Map

  • To help all your friends learn to use their green mana before readying up.

• Quests

  • New rewards like Skill Spheres, pet eggs, loot, stuff, and monkeys.

  • Shops are unlocked in an order that helps introduce the game bit by bit instead of everything in your face at once. And yes, this means you have to save The Keeper & The Stable Boy before hatching your cuddly friends.

Daily Missions

• You can now stack up to three Daily Missions!

• New UI! This will pop up the first time you enter the Tavern so you know what’s up!

• You can also access your Daily Mission & Quest menu from the Forge by selecting the big red exclamation mark! It pulses (a little too much)!

• Quests are now in! The intent is to guide players through our game and introduce all the cool stuff in a more digestible manner.

• We added a bunch of new Daily Missions, and the Daily Mission system will now unlock after completing the Campaign.

• Monthly Missions! Cool new rewards that will update monthly!

Hero Deck

• Added a fourth Hero Deck slot!

• Hero Deck slots are unlocked as you progress.

• Players can now buy more Hero Creation Slots with premium currency! Early Access players start with 6 Hero Creation Slots.

• Heroes that are maxed out and in your Hero Deck will give an XP boost to your other Heroes!

New Ubers

• 6 New Ubers! Like the Ubers you’re playing with for towers, these may adjust the style of which you play. They’re not meant to be direct upgrades, but situationally better for certain builds and times in combat.

• All Heroes:

  • Chance when a defense gets hit to be shielded for a percentage of your Defense Health Stat.

  • Chance when a defense gets hit to deal damage around it based on a percentage of your Defense Power Stat.

  • You can pick one of these Ubers when you hit level 50 with your first hero or buy them from Gran’Masta.

• Huntress:

  • Sticky Grenades

    • The Huntress’s concussive shots no longer stun but stick to surfaces now. When an enemy triggers one, the enemy takes damage based on a percentage of your Ability Power Stat. Cooldown reduced but cost increased.

• Squire

  • Empowered Sword Beam

    • The Squire’s Sword Beam now returns back to the Squire. When it reaches the Squire, it detonates causing damage in an area around him. The more enemies the Sword Beam hits as it travels, the more damage it will deal.

• Apprentice

  • Empowered Tornado

    • The Apprentice’s Tornado no longer hits multiple targets. The Tornado now stops on the first target hit lifting that target into the air and dealing more damage to that target. The tornado also picks another nearby enemy and does the same amount of damage to that enemy.

• Monk:

  • Shielding Wave

    • The Monk’s healing ability no longer heals heroes but instead shields nearby defenses for a percentage of the Monk’s Defense Health stat.

• Hero specific Ubers can be purchased with Betsy tokens.

Loot/Item Revamp

• Items are now entirely based on the new Item Power system!

• Based on the Tier and Item Power of an item, it calculates what the stats for that item should be.

• You can always expect an item with higher Item Power of the same Tier to have higher numbers. You can also expect items with similar Item Power to have similar numbers.

• Tier adds some variation on the stats on top of the Item Power system.

• In the new system, a Legendary item of Item Power X will be equivalent to a Powerful with a higher Item Power, ensuring that you always get some upgrades.

• Maps now have a suggested/required Item Power number

  • Suggested:  In Private Matches, you can still play a map that you do not have the suggested Item Power for, but good luck with that.

  • Required:  For public games, you cannot join a game that you do not have the required Item Power for.

• Different maps, difficulties, and game modes now drop different Item Power ranges.

  • The Item Power range on a map is split into three buckets:

    • Common: lower end

    • Uncommon: mid range

    • Rare: higher end

  • This means that you are less likely to see an Item Power 200 item in a bucket between 150 and 200.

• Secondary and Primary Stats on items have been reworked

  • Secondary Stats should now roll with similar numbers if you have two secondaries on an item. They will have the same number value associated with them but different stats. This was done to help you better understand and equate items to one another.

• Passives have been rebalanced with the new Item Power & Level Cap increase - this is still a work in progress.

• Stats on items have been reworked:

  • Defense Attack Rate has been removed as a Primary and Secondary stat that can appear on items.

  • Defense Attack Rate Skill Spheres are still in the game.

  • Four new stats were added to the game:

    • Defense Critical Damage

    • Defense Critical Chance

    • Hero Critical Damage

    • Hero Critical Chance

  • Critical Chance does not appear on items as a primary or secondary stat but can appear on Skill Spheres and passives.

  • Defenses and Heroes have a Crit Chance cap.

  • Critical Damage can now appear as a Primary or Secondary Stat.

  • Critical Damage can appear on Skill Spheres as well.

  • Critical Damage is additive rather than multiplicative.

  • Crit Explained:  Whenever you hit a target, there is a chance that you would deal critical damage to that target. The chance is based on your Crit Chance stat and the damage is based on your Crit Damage stat. Heroes, abilities and defenses have different potentials for Crit Damage. Some have a high Crit Damage potential and some have a lower Crit Damage potential.

  • We’d love to hear some feedback on the new Crit System as we intend to refine the balance in a future update.

• Passive rebalance in the works:  We’re gradually transitioning to have defenses, abilities and passives scale based on a percentage of your state. As an example, the new Slayer Legendary Weapons will increase in effectiveness the more points you have in a specific stat. This transition allows us to better explain to all of you just how these passives work and what exactly you need to do to make it better. We feel this will result in cooler builds emerging over time. We’ve only done this on a select handful of items, defenses and abilities (read balance changes), but we’ll be transitioning the rest in a future update. Let us know how you feel about this.

• A note on Item Power:  With the Item Power system and balance changes, the game should feel very different than it did before. Old strategies may not be as effective as more and more new strategies start to emerge. Our goal is to provide you all with as many tools as possible to be as creative as you possibly can in coming up with cool fun builds. We’re one huge step closer with this update, and we hope you’ll enjoy it.

Resistance Rework & Trait System

• Certain enemies used to be classified as Physical Resistant, Magical Resistant or Neutral. We’ve done away with that system in favor of a new trait system.

• Under the new trait system, all enemies can appear as Physically Resistant, Magically Resistant or Neutral.

• The spawners that enemies come out from now have the potential to have:

  • One Primary Trait

  • Multiple Secondary Traits

• Primary Traits are always resistance buffs

  • These buffs increase in intensity based on your difficulty getting as high as 75% resistant in Nightmare mode.

• Secondary Traits are more flavorful traits that are meant to provide new challenges.

• This update has the following traits:

  • Mighty: enemies that spawn deal +X% attack damage

  • Trollblood: enemies that spawn regenerate X health every 5 seconds

  • Grounded: enemies that spawn cannot be knocked up

  • Speedy: enemies that spawn move X% faster

  • Healthy: enemies that spawn have X% more health

  • Tenacious: enemies that spawn have X% resistance to crowd control effects

  • Chrome: you all know what this is!

• In the future, we’ll be expanding on this trait system to add more interesting traits -- some that can even benefit the player!

• To see what traits a spawner has, you can press Shift to read the new billboards.

• Enemies that spawn from a spawner will have all the Traits associated with that spawner.

• Traits start coming online gradually as you play through the Campaign and different difficulties.

Balance

• The balance of the game has shifted to almost entirely pivot on Item Power. So much has changed! But we still have a LOT more changes coming in future updates! For the time being, we’d like to gather some of your feedback on some of the recent changes but keep in mind the balance is not yet final. Also thank Blacksmith and the whole rest of the team if you can! They’re killing themselves for you guys.

• Green mana is given out more generously now! Trust us, you’ll need it.

• All Defenses got a substantial Defense Health increase based on the type of defense they are. Towers received a good boost, and blockades received a substantial boost.

• Adjustments have been made to solo play as well. When playing solo, you will notice only 1 or 2 high “threat” lanes. Look for this information using Left Shift and seeing where the problem enemies coming. This is where you will need to focus your attention as a hero. The other lanes will generally take care of themselves with solid tower setups.

• Enemies now like to stick together. You will see less “globs of every enemy in the game coming down the lane” and more “We are Warboars, fear our numbers” sort of deal.

• All enemy scalars have been redone. All enemy stats are now based around the Item Power of the content, which should make balancing and providing a fair challenge much, much easier.

• To match the new Item Stat & Item Power system, many Defenses and Abilities have been rebalanced.

• Reduced Electrocute stun duration from 2.5 to 1.0 seconds. Did we take it too far this time?

• The Dark Mage is cultivating mass, bro. Increased Dark Mage mass 300 -> 400. Now he is no longer interrupted by Squire/Monk melee attacks. Just try and move him!

Defenses

• Cannonball Tower (Squire)

  • Damage increased by 28%

  • Minor adjustments to projectiles

• Flamethrower Uber (Apprentice)

  • Its numbers were redone to make it more powerful and viable for end game play - it has reduced crit damage scaling but higher flat DPS output.

• Heavy Cannonball Tower (Squire)

  • Damage at max range compared to Cannonball is now +30% if AoE is utilized

  • Damage at min range compared to the Cannonball is now -36% if AoE is utilized

  • This should reward players that place the Heavy Cannonball Tower effectively and punish those that do not

• Lightning Aura (Monk)

  • Scaling for upgrades adjusted to match other defenses

  • Damage increased by about 10%

• Lightning Strikes (Monk)

  • Adjusted scaling for upgrades to match other defenses

  • Damage reduced by about 50%

  • Has higher Crit Damage scaling

• Explosive Trap (Huntress)

  • Damage reduced by 25%

  • Has higher Crit Damage scaling

• Elemental Chaos Uber (Huntress)

  • Base Damage Buffed by about 18%

  • Crit Damage scaling is high

  • Found a bug with the fire proc effect not dealing any damage. Fixed the bug.

  • Fire Damage Over Time now deals 100% of your Defense Power as damage over 1 second before fading - the DoT can crit, too.

• Napalm Balloon (Huntress)

  • Damage increased by 20%

  • Crit Damage set to moderate

  • Upgrade scaling adjusted to match other defenses

• Poison Dart Tower (Huntress)

  • Damage increased by roughly 50%

  • Crit Damage is very low

  • Fixed some upgrade scaling issues

• Geyser Trap (Huntress)

  • Damage increased substantially! (+400% since it is on such a long cooldown)

  • Crit Damage is very low

• Skyguard Tower (Monk)

  • Skyguard Damage buffed by 100%

  • Crit Damage is high

  • Upgrade scalars fixed to match other defenses

• Earthshatter Tower (Apprentice)

  • Damage increased by 76%

  • Crit Damage is moderate

  • Upgrade scalars fixed to match other defenses

• Arcane Blockade (Apprentice)

  • Damage increased by 100%

  • Critical Chance high

  • Upgrade scalars fixed to match other defenses

• Training Dummy (Squire)

  • Damage reduced to 25%

  • Critical Damage is moderate

  • Upgrade scalars fixed to match other defenses

• Spike Blockade (Squire)

  • Damage increased by 55%

  • Critical Damage is moderate

• Harpoon (Squire)

  • Base damage increased by 72%

  • Critical Damage high

  • Range increased by 10%

  • Upgrade scaling reduced to match other defenses

Abilities

• Arcane Volley (Apprentice)

  • Damage reduced by about 10%

  • Crit potential set to high

• Tornado (Apprentice)

  • Damage reduced by 50%

  • Damage potential is still relatively high if it hits a marked target

  • Crit Damage potential is high

• Mana Bomb (Apprentice)

  • Massive damage buff: 300% if used with Arcane Marks

  • Crit potential is moderate

• Concussive Shots (Huntress)

  • Damage increased by over 50%

  • Crit potential is low

• Oil Flask (Huntress)

  • Damage increased by 23%

  • Crit potential is low

• Piercing Shot (Huntress)

  • Damage increased by 250%

  • Crit damage set to high

• Pole Smash (Monk)

  • Damage increased by 47%

  • Crit potential is low

• Chi Blast (Monk)

  • Damage increased

  • Crit potential is moderate

• Sword Beam (Squire)

  • Damage doubled (almost)

  • Crit potential is high

• Taunt (Squire)

  • Duration scaling reduced slightly

  • Damage buff increased slightly

• Seismic Slam (Squire)

  • Damage increased by 250%

  • Crit scaling pretty low

  • Stun duration reduced to 2.5 seconds

  • Stun duration now scales with ability power (0.001% increase per point) - theoretical max is 6 seconds

• Frostbite Tower (Apprentice)

  • Now reduces enemy attack speed by 20% but does not scale with anything

New Passives

• Slayer passives can now be found in Onslaught Mode! *guitar riff!*

• Slayer passives appear on hero-specific items.

  • Added tooltips for Slayer passives. Then removed them. Then put something else in and called it done. It's "functional."

• Added Drakin Slayer passive on Legendary Shields. Killing Drakins gives charges, and blocking uses those charges to spawn fireballs. Half of the time. The other half of the time it just doesn't work... at all.

• Dark Mage Slayer passive added on Legendary Magic Staves. With this passive, killing Dark Mages gives charges, and fully-charged secondary attacks use those charges to stun enemies.

• Lady Orc Slayer passive added on Legendary Bows: Killing Lady Orcs gives charges, and fully-charged secondary attacks use charges to deal extra damage, you monster. Also this passive has no visual feedback. Maybe we'll add it eventually.

• Kobold Slayer passive appears on Legendary Polearms. Killing Kobolds gives charges, and secondary attacks use charges to spawn death-dealing fireworks and something hilarious we'll let you discover for yourself.

• Taser Suit passive can now appear in Victory Chests. You'll never want to leave home without it!

Passive Bug Fixes & Changes

• Removed more useless passives from high-end gear! So now, XP passives can't roll on end-game gear.

• Gave passives names for the first time. Look out for Apple, Blue and North. They're our favorites. (Don't tell Moses.)

• Made Life Leech leech less life. Reduced heal value by ~60% and reduced max heal value at level 25 to 60.

• Banned Dancing: Footloose (Movement Speed) values normalized and completely rebalanced. Met Kevin Bacon. Increased Movement Speed in the ~7.5 - 20% range depending on level and tier.

• Created the ultimate pair of boots. Proud of our creation, like new parents, we slipped our toes into their soles. Words cannot describe what happened next. Sprint passive disabled and removed from boots until further inspection (and less fear).

• Made stuff in the game better match stuff in the editor. You'd think they'd be the same, but...

• Made Heroic Presence more heroic. Increased Heal component scaling of Heroic Wave 1.01 -> 1.5. Side effect: Shielding Wave is now dope.

• Superconductor (Ability Cost) passive values slightly reduced. Why? Because we felt like it.

• We broke the Radiance (Aura Range) passive. Then we fixed it. And then it broke again (all by itself, we swear!). So in anticipation of fixing it next patch, we reduced its values.

• Disciplined the Victory Smell (Blaze Balloon Burn Rate) passive. Reduced its values to more closely match DPS increase of other defense-focused passives.

• Vector Corrector (Defense Range) passive’s increase of projectile tower range reduced so you can find more of it!

• In case you haven't caught on yet, passives were broken. How broken? Post-Disney Channel broken.

• Retribution passive increased a TON. It now appears on Torso and Shield items like it always should have.

• Black Arrow (Ballista Damage Magic) passive bonus damage doubled. Then doubled again. Then divided by four, multiplied by three point five, squared, thrown in a blender, and added to pi. After all of this we lost track of how much we increased and wrote the patch note "Black Arrow Special Stat bonus greatly increased." We also learned to hate fractions.

• Fault Line (Earthshatter Radius) radius bonus slightly increased.

Content

• Various optimizations across all maps.

• So, how about that War Table? Viewable in all of its 3D glory, and you’ll be able to select maps from there or from the UI on the left. We can’t wait to expand the world further!

• Pets!

  • There are a lot of new pets. Like, 4x the previous number.  

  • Evolution is unlocked, but to clarify, only token pets (Betsy) and premium pets will evolve visually at the moment.

  • You may see some abilities get more impressive as they change form, though.

  • Watch for the monthly and weekly reward pets to get your shot at rare content, some with enhanced visual effects. We won’t spoil which. You’ll just have to watch!

• Premium Pets!

  • Table Flip Demon

  • Kakarot

  • Shinobi Kitty

• New Costumes!

  • Cap’n Monk

  • Farmboy Apprentice

  • Tiguar Monk

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where players who were too high were unable to place towers. We mean... too high up.

• Map screen should now handle split-screen better.
  

• Increased the mana crystal cap that can be present in the world. Also, we added a 2-unit mana crystal. Hey, every unit counts, amirite guys?

• Purchased bags should now properly display the inventory space that they’re adding.
  

• Fixed one of the issues that was causing items to be lost in the inventory. It was all Tony’s fault. [[4968,hashtags]] (We don’t even have an employee named Tony, but we’d like one so we can blame him. Are you a Tony? We’re hiring!)

• Lane billboards should now properly display when pressing L3.
  

• Fixed an issue with the Token Shop UI where the items could scroll outside of the window. That's just not allowed. Geez.

• Players should now be able to create heroes when joining into any type of session if they do not have one currently.
  

• Apprentice’s secondary attack now pops the Blaze Balloon. Upcoming updates will add “locking” and “dropping” functionality to his newfound popping feature.

• Numerous audio issues have been fixed. We said, NUMEROUS AUDIO ISSUES HAVE BEEN FIXED.

• Hunted down that pesky fox stealing your eggs before they hatched. Sadly, that means we can’t have that Dora crossover like we planned.

• Fixed an issue where the Drakin could get stuck in the River High Path on Little-Horn Valley. Now to fix the million and one other places they get stuck. Sewers, we’re looking at you.

• Fixed an issue where the bow could appear incorrectly for the Huntress when swapping Heroes. Don't worry, we haven't fully eliminated Franken-heroes yet.

• Fixed several issues with the Costume Shop. Introduced several other ones, which are arguably way worse.

• Matinees should now properly play on every wave, not just the first.
  

• Costume shop should no longer run into trouble with unequal numbers of costumes per hero
  

• Inventory should now display the proper limit and current number of items.
  

From now until December 1st, get 25% off all Dungeon Defenders II Steam packs! Plus, you don't have to deal with Black Friday shoppers, which is a win-win.

Collector's Pack (Best value!)

Defender's Pack

Starter Pack

Inventory Pack

Also, all original Dungeon Defenders content is 40-80% off! Head over to the DD1 Steam page for more details.

Love,
The Trendy Team

PS4 Defenders,

Our next patch, Loot & Survive, is coming December 1st! 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 full wipe, which means your heroes, items and progress will enter the Void, never to return. (Any premium purchases will be refunded, so you’ll have all of your gems back!)

Since we’re going to miss your heroes, too, 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 11:59PM EST on November 30th. The pet will be given to you in the Loot & Survive update on December 1st.

4 Survivor Hero Costumes

Everyone who has leveled up at least one of each hero class to level 25 will get a unique hero costume for that class. That means if you level up your Huntress to 25, you’ll get the Huntress Survivor Costume, but you’ll have to level up a Squire, Apprentice and Monk to 25 to get their respective costumes. To obtain these awards, you must complete this challenge by 11:59PM EST on November 30th. The costumes will be given to you in the Loot & Survive update on December 1st.

Free Gems for Earned Wyvern Token

And finally, we’ll be giving everyone free gems for earning Wyvern Tokens in the game to date. Earned means that you have gained them, so this counts for any tokens that you spent on Uber Spheres and Lockbox Keys. We will be awarding the following amount of gems based on the amount of Wyvern Tokens you’ve earned by, you guessed it, 11:59PM EST on November 30th:

Thanks for helping us refine Dungeon Defenders II on the PS4! Together, we’re going to make the best Action Tower Defense game ever.

Love,
The Trendy Team

The Harbinger Awakens on December 15! Our next patch will include a brand-new boss fight, new in-game cinematics, 4 new build weapons and so much more! Watch the Devstream below to learn more!

Josh Isom, Community Manager (iamisom)

Our Loot Test is now available! If you wish to join, please fill out this form. This test includes upcoming changes to loot to focus on quality over quantity, which includes improved RNG for passives/stats and a reduced loot drop rate. We have limited space available for the test. We can't wait to hear your feedback!

Tim Shannon, PS4 Producer (TimmyTrashTier)

Content Update 1 wraps on Friday and heads into FQA on Sunday… it’s almost wipeaggedon time!  Also, anyone going to PSX? I’ll be there on the show floor if you want to talk Dungeon Defenders and/or bring me a water : )

Jeffrey Bickel, Technical Level Designer (TE_Jeff)

Continuing work on our next boss fight. It’s coming along very well, but still miles to go before I sleep.

Steven Collins, Lead Level Designer (Esorath)

Working on updating the Social area to have a better flow than what we put together during influence week. The flow will be much better and clearer than the original design. Making some decisions for our new boss fight on where you can fight him as well as doing some much needed bug fixing.

Chris Flores, QA Lead (likethatwhenigothere)

Things are very slowly creeping toward the MS20 Content deadline. In the meantime, we’re weeding through bug reports and working on hotfixes as they come.

Abraham Abdala, Lead Tech Animator (Broham)

Working on everything related to The Harbinger’s cinematics and gameplay animations. Creating simulations for his cape, and starting the hookups in editor so everything plays and looks smooth.

Joshua Javaheri, Lead Technical Artist (javahawk)

Working on the hotfix for this week - Look for an awesome post Halloween scarecrow theme for the Apprentice! Also, working on making town entrance into a cold winter wonderland ^_^

Adam Stow, Associate Producer (TE_Stow)

Spent a week on a boat, saw some islands, then came back to the team after they spent a week on a boat... in the sky. 
Just making sure everything gets proper signoffs and the like.

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

I’ve been working on the Boss level, adding the final touches…

Also Winter is coming!, spent some time working on a winter version of the Town Entrance level,  and last but not least while I’m writing these lines I started to work again on the social Hub level.

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (DanielKaMi)

We finished our work in the boss level last week and now it's time to let the winter come in all our levels! so don't let the cold winter weather stop you from the victory!.

And last we're working on some new and fresh stuff for the social hub!

Greetings, Defenders! We are currently deploying Patch 8.5. We do not expect any downtime, and the deployment is scheduled to end at 9 AM, EST. 

Content

• The Tavern’s received a makeover, just in time for Thanksgiving! The Tavernkeeper is really proud of the feast he’s laid out. Make sure you wash your hands, and no weapons at the dinner table, please. We’re looking at you, Squire. No, you can’t use a sword to cut turkey...
  
• The harvest is upon us! The Apprentice is all geared up for the season in his new Scarecrow costume. We tried to tell him a simple spell would work, but he insists on getting all dressed up. He seems to think he’s really scary. Magic-users, amirite?
  

• Some of you have been getting rich off of corpses. Well, we’ve reduced the drop rates from normal enemies on the Spooky maps, so that may put an end to all this grave robbing tomfoolery. We also reserve the right to use the word ”tomfoolery” whenever we please, so there.

• We’ve fixed the bug where Shellium shards are getting sent to the Scavenger and then destroyed. Maybe. We think we fixed it, anyway.  The Scavenger is kind of a scary dude, and he’s got the crazy eyes. Let us know if he keeps stealing your shards, and we’ll take care of it. Or maybe send the Squire after him...

Phil and Dan show you the Thanksgiving events, reveal the Harbinger and tease the Winter weather system! Also, please take this quick survey! Your feedback is incredibly helpful.

Daniel Haddad, Creative Director ([[48971,users]])

Working with the level designers on the Boss encounter we are building. Working on his new build items and how they will be different in structure compared to the other build items we’ve done. Working on Set items and how builds will eventually evolve into that, and finally working on Item Enhancement and other designs with the rest of the team.

Sorry no riddles or quizzes for a while as my brain is preoccupied with all of the above stuff ;_;

Danny Araya, Creative Director ([[64026,users]])

Working on a new skin design!

Tim Shannon, PS4 Producer ([[77554,users]])

I’m up at Human Head Studios in Madison, WI, working on finalizing our massive Content Update 1 for the PS4. You’ll hear more about it very soon!

Jay Twining, Senior Game Designer ([[67667,users]])

I’m working on a chat system proposal, a new event, and 3 new builds for the Apprentice, Squire, and Monk. Afterwards I’m focusing on a progression proposal to improve the 20-50 game, which has positive downstream effects on the late game.

Jeffrey Bickel, Technical Level Designer ([[61256,users]])

This week I’m continuing work on our new boss, it’s coming together well. I can’t wait to see players tackle him - he’s bringing some interesting new things to the party and will hopefully provide an interesting challenge to players.

Now that some creative secret hunters have uncovered our SpooOOooOky secret, I can stop refreshing those threads all day to watch the progress. I really enjoyed how inventive y’all got during the hunt - and it’s definitely got us excited to add more complex secrets in the future.

Steven Collins, Lead Level Designer ([[48993,users]])

Congrats to Diamond Doge, Con.rar, Kaptain, and Spy_Master for unlocking the spookiest secret of them all. This secret was much more fun than anticipated and can’t wait to do more. You guys gave us some great ideas for how to make some new secrets with more complexity.

Other than that, we are currently looking into how to fix some of the downtime that happens in Free Play when trying to break into End Game.

Abraham Abdala, Lead Tech Animator ([[59787,users]])

Lots of setup work for the Harbinger, gameplay related and cinematics related. Helping the animation team stay focused and trying to have ready anything they need to succeed.

Joshua Javaheri, Lead Technical Artist ([[23,users]])

Hard at work to develop a fantastic November and December full of AMAZING new content... Just you wait! :)

Jason Yu, Associate Producer ([[56534,users]])

The past week has been full of meetings with some meetings being about meetings. Every so often, we complain that there are too many meetings so we schedule a meeting to discuss which meetings we can cut. When we cut these meetings, we end up with some miscommunications so we schedule a meeting to discuss why it happened and how to fix it. Guess what’s always recommended as the solution. You guessed it; more meetings! Suddenly, everyone loves the idea of more meetings. Meetings! Meetings! Meetings!

All joking aside, I’m working with several programmers to develop a solution for beta testing. In our previous “beta” tests, we’ve asked the community to create a new steam account so we could manually copy each person’s profile. With the new method, we’ll create a specialized build that automatically copies people’s profiles which allows us to have more people in the tests. Pretty nifty stuff.

Jesus Diaz, World Builder ([[39450,users]])

Working side by side with the artist team to polish the Boss level, adding some nice touches, doing a collision pass, bringing some live by adding some moving actors and much more!

Also been working on the tavern level so expect a nice surprise!

Daniel Diaz, World Builder ([[33096,users]])

Working fast alongside the art team mates to get the Boss level fully polished by the end of this week so technical artists can go on with the optimization work!

Dani Moore, Remote QA Manager ([[25251,users]])

Checking the latest hotfix and looking forward to getting stuck into the beginning of the next major content,

Also preparing for a special big preview test with the community regarding a large scale preview of upcoming loot changes. More details to follow!

Josh Isom, Community Manager ([[4370,users]])

Preparing for the upcoming Loot Change testing! I’m excited to see how players feel about the changes. Also, I’ve been peeking into Designland on some future ideas they have brewing. [[7352,hashtags]]

The Inventory Pack is now available on Steam! Purchase the pack to get 4 premium bags, extend your maximum bag capacity from 12 bags to 16 and more!

The Inventory Pack includes:

• 4 Premium Bags (a value of 1800 gems!)

• Increased max bag slot from 12 to 16 bags

• 2 Extra Hero Slots (a value of 900 gems!)

• Exclusive "Baggins" Title

• 400 gems as a special bonus thank you!

• Our eternal love and devotion (priceless)

Thanks, Defenders! We really appreciate your support!

Love,
The Trendy Team

Here are the notes for Patch 8.4 on Steam!

Features

• Added the new Inventory Pack to Steam! By purchasing the Inventory Pack, you can increase the 12-bag slot limit to a total of 16 bags! Includes:

  • Four Premium Bags

  • Increases bag slots to 16 bags

  • Two Hero Slots

  • Exclusive Title:  “Baggins”

  • 400 Gems (A special bonus thank you!)

  • Our eternal love and devotion

• Disabled loot beams on Worn, Sturdy, Powerful and Epic loot. Only Mythical and Legendary items now have loot beams. Be gone, bright demons!

• Added the two Spooky maps to Free Play and End Game playlists.

• Steam Trading Cards should now be live. For real this time.

• Removed the spooky event tavern deco and re-added the basic deco.
  

Bug Fixes

• Players can no longer insta-kill Betsy using Sticky Nades before she spawns.

• Fixed two lane blockages on the second Spooky map.

• Fixed a small issue where when the Spooky Polearm is elemental, its default idle VFX would show up.

• Rings, Talismans, and Totems were displaying the wrong mesh offset in the shop and enhancement wheel UIs.

• Squire Norse Head Icon A is now the correct visual representation.

• Increased base damage for fire and gas traps on Siphon Site D so they actually deal more damage and scale off of difficulty.

• Fixed a bug that let players get behind enemy spawners on Liferoot Forest.

• Updated the Relics and Weapon Loot beams beam height to not be lower than the loot circle.

Extra Note

• We're getting ready to test some upcoming loot changes! Would you like to help us out? Keep an eye on this thread for more details later this week!
  

Brad and Phil talk about some of the loot changes coming and answer your questions!

Tim Shannon, PS4 Producer (TimmyTrashTier)

Working hard to get Content Update 1 ready for all the PS4 players. It's coming soon, I swear!

Jay Twining, Senior Game Designer (TrendyJayT)

Do we want free form chat? How do we want whispers to work? What kind of options can be expanded on and used by future features? These are the questions I’m focusing on. That proposal is being wrapped up today. We’re in the early stages. No deadline, just planning out the tech requirements to make this a reality.

Another mountain to scale. We’re at the base camp. Laying out our gear. Packing our provisions. I’ll let you guy know how to climb goes.

In other news I’m working with the incredibly talented world building team. We’re working on seasons and that super awesome weather system you guys saw during Influence Week. Lots of hype for this from the team. Lots of hype from you guys too!

James Reid, Software Programmer (Driscan)

This week I’m working on some visual changes/flow to bag customization, some sales related stuff, and some other inventory related things. I’m having to get reaquainted with everything and catching up on what I missed whilst on vacation.

Jeffrey Bickel, Technical Level Designer (TE_Jeff)

This week I’m putting in heavy work on our new boss. The level’s coming along great - now to get the boss behaving like he’s supposed to.

Hopefully players are enjoying the FINAL WEEK of our spooky event. There’s still one major secret left to find, but last week was my final hint! Good hunting, Defenders!

Steven Collins, Level Designer (Esorath)

This week is all about getting the Spooky Maps for their triumphant arrival into Free Play and End Game. They will arrive as standard maps without their Incursions. We will be returning the spookiest Incursions to their rightful place in time.

Also reviewing the location of all the shops on our outdoor Hub, making sure those are where they need to be.

Last week of the spooky event going down, all four of us getting ready for you guys to find this last secret.

Chris Flores, QA Lead (likethatwhenigothere)

Finished up the last hotfix and now going back to researching those lingering issues. May also start getting our hands on new stuff for Milestone 20.

Abraham Abdala, Lead Tech Animator (Broham)

Prepping our heroes to be cinematic friendly. Face controls, accessories controls, etc. Lots of boss preparation and production. Many reviews for his animation set, and tests, lots of tests!

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

Still working on the basic geo for the new boss level!

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (DanielKaMi)

Working on the Boss level and some new stuff for the Tavern!

Josh Isom, Community Manager (iamisom)

Here are the notes for Patch 8.3 on Steam!

Features

• The Spooky Event is running for another week! Because we love you.

• Activated the November Monthly Mission!

• Replaced the Cake pet food with Turkey Legs for the November Monthly Mission. Yep, it’s the Cake and not the Ham!

Balance

• Skeleton Hero enemies now drop slightly less total loot. (Wait, how are they even carrying loot in the first place? Our favorite response in the comments will win a cookie!)

• Skeleton Hero enemies have been working out and now have higher health and damage.

• Skeleton Squire enemy worked out his legs a lot and moves as fast as the other skeleton heroes now.

• Skeleton Huntress enemy projectiles now deal damage. It’s more of a bugfix, but it just fit here thematically. Cohesion, people. It’s all about cohesion!

Content

• Reduced the BLOOOOOM on the Dark Arts Apprentice Costume.

• Returned the Title Screen to the original image.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the Daily Missions wouldn’t appear for some players. If you are still experiencing this issue after tomorrow, please, please, please let us know on the forums!

• Fixed a case where a user could receive two daily quests from a single daily quest event.

• Elemental Chaos, Explosive Traps and Auras once again show their health/counts in tower view.

• Fixed an issue where comparing a fast weapon and a slow weapon displayed the difference as green text in the tooltip.

• Fixed an issue where a player could possibly reset to the previous Monthly Mission shortly after a new one began.

• Potential fix for a bug where enemies would get stuck inside a spawner on the second Spooky map.

• Fixed an issue where the Spooky Event Legendary Monk weapon sometimes wouldn't play the VFX on the head of the weapon.

• Fixed an issue where the Spooky Event Legendary Monk weapon sometimes wouldn't play VFX for ghosts when attacking enemies.

Known Issues

• The + and - for comparing fast and slow weapons is reversed. So going from a 1/s weapon to 4/s will say -3 instead of +3.

Victoryoftheppl, Co-Manager of The Casters Guild, has a message for the community:

This is it! If you have not heard, Trendy Entertainment and The Casters Guild will be participating in the 7th Annual Extra Life charity event and we need your help! Extra Life has been working since 2008 to bring thousands of gamers together to raise money in support of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Trendy Entertainment and The Casters Guild wanted to show support and do our part as well.

With the event drawing so soon, we believe we can solidly raise $750, possibly even more, but that is where YOU come in. We need the support of our family, friends, and the Defenders community in order for this to happen.

So when will this all take place? We will be starting our event this Saturday, November 7th. The first stream begins at 8:00am EST. All streamers will be on the Trendy Entertainment Twitch Channel. The event ends Sunday, November 8th at 8:00am EST. Below are the scheduled times, the streamer, and a link to their Extra Life page.

Extra Life Team Page

Saturday, November 7th

8:00am to 11:00am EST - Argick

11:00am to 2:00pm EST - Elandrian

2:00pm to 5:00pm EST - djbouti_dan

5:00pm to 8:00pm EST - iamisom

8:00pm to 11:00pm EST - Victoryoftheppl

Sunday, November 8th

11:00pm to 2:00am EST - Kiraeyl

2:00am to 5:00am EST - Darkpython

5:00am to 8:00am EST -  Darkpython

Oh! Did we mention prizes? Each streamer will have gem and costume codes to giveaway! AND our top 3 donors will win a grand prize pack each that will include:

• Steam code for the DD2 Collector’s Pack

  • 10,000 gems!

  • 4 Exclusive Costumes!

  • 4 Tower Skins (to be added at a future date)!

  • Exclusive Title!

• A signed Dungeon Defenders II poster! (top donator only)

• A T-shirt

• Lanyard

• Pin

Thanks, and we’ll see you this weekend!

Brad and Dan show off some new toys and answer your questions about Ascension Pt. 2!



As we mentioned in yesterday’s Thank You blog, we were hoping Steam would select our Grave Danger Costume Pack for the sale, and guess what:  We were selected!

From now until November 2nd, you can get the Grave Danger Costume Pack on Steam for 20% off! Remember:  Every dollar we make goes towards making new gameplay content for everyone.

The pack includes:

• 3000 gems

• 4 Skeleton Costumes [Limited Edition Costumes]

• Headless Horseman Premium Pet

• Exclusive “Bone Collector” Title

Thanks for your support!

Love,

The Trendy Team

Danny Araya, Creative Director (DannyAraya)

Working on really, really, really ambitious storyboards.

Tim Shannon, PS4 Producer (TimmyTrashTier)

The same thing I do every week Pinky -- try to get the PS4 community their money’s worth.

Jay Twining, Senior Game Designer (TrendyJayT)

Working on Chat System design for future releases. Get to watch you guys play the Spooky event this week! Super excited!

James Reid, Software Programmer (Driscan)

This week is a short week for me. I’m on vacation Tuesday - Friday!! Going to Disneyland and Halloween Horror Nights and get my spooky on!

By the time you’re reading this, you’ll have had a little bit to play with the new AUTO COLLECT FILTERS! I’m aware that setting them can be kinda tricky whilst having multiple bags open, and I’ll be rectifying this as soon as I get back from vacation. I really, really, really wanted to get the feature into your hands and didn’t want a pesky little thing like using the feature cleanly get in the way. ;-p

Jeffrey Bickel, Technical Level Designer (TE_Jeff)

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who has supported our game so far. Y’all really are the best the best the best the best the best. This week I’m working on gameplay for the non-prototype version of our new boss! I’m excited to get this out and see what the community thinks, but first it needs to be made.

But enough about work, it’s the most magical time of the year and our SUPER SPOOKY event is going on RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. I can only assume that if you’re reading this, you’re a skeleton because our event scared you to death. WHICH MEANS NOW THERE’S A SPOOKY SKELETON IN YOUR CHAIR WATCH OUT.

If that last sentence didn’t scare you off, enjoy a tip:  Be ready with 4 on 6 for an even spookier Halloween.

Steven Collins, Level Designer (Esorath)

Now that the Spooky Event has been released, going through some feedback on the forums about the event itself. All the feedback will directly relate to any future events we do so keep it coming! Other than that, looking into some balance for those guys around level 35 trying to get into End Game.

Also thanks for all the support! It’s great to see you guys enjoying the costumes and pets and the like. You guys are the bestestsetestestssed.

Chris Flores, QA Lead (likethatwhenigothere)

Now that the update is out, we’ll be working on upcoming bug fixes and content including even harder versions of the 2 Spooky Halloween events. We also have a backlog of user reported bugs that we’re trying to repro and get fixed for you guys. Also getting a sneak peak and future costumes. ^^

Abraham Abdala, Lead Tech Animator (Broham)

Everything related to the new boss. Animations, cinematics, rigs, face rigs, pets, skins, etc!

Joshua Javaheri, Lead Technical Artist (javahawk)

I’m getting married, so that’s dope! Some people get cold feet, but I just want to get this over with already! Does that mean I have warm feet? That’s kinda weird...

Adam Stow, Associate Producer (TE_Stow)

RIP Carl. It will return in a later update with a better name, appearance, and more, for those that saw the devstream. The map is in full development tilt. This includes more cinematics and more story!

Javier Barreto, Lead Software Programmer (javo)

Adding region swapping! …. I have to apologize first as the misleading error message happened because of an early commit / deployment; the feature was not in by the time the error message showed up. For what it’s worth … I worked overnight, too.

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

Working on the basic geo for the new Boss level. That means to create floors, walls, trims and that type of stuff.

Also, huge thanks for supporting our game!

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (DanielKaMi)

Working on the new Boss level. Really excited about how it's progressing so far!

Dani Moore, Remote QA Manager (Dani)

Real proud of both the RQA and RPG folks that did outstanding work to help us get the Halloween content to the place it should have been.

Over and over again, the DD community continues to impress with their dedication and passion.

Here are the notes for the Hotfix 8.2 on Steam!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where all loot picked up manually was going into the Scavenger even when bags were not full. We knew he liked loot, but he can't have all of it. Manually collected loot now goes to your inventory, when there's space, as intended. 

Here are the notes for Hotfix 8.1 on Steam! 

Features

• Added the ability to change regions. At the Options menu, you can change your region so you and your international friends can play together again!

• Added Nightmare IV difficulty to the Spooky Event (“2spookyNM4me”)

• Later this afternoon, our plan is to reward players who had the Monthly Mission available before October 27th with a free Bearkira pet! If something changes or goes wrong, we'll update these notes.

• Added a new premium pet:  Autumeow (Gato)

• Changed the description on the “I ain’t afraid of no ghost” Challenge to state that completing the event on 2spookyNM4me is not necessary to completing the challenge.

Balance

• Moved Trikk to Wave 2 on the Spooky Events.

• Rebalanced Treet to have the stats of a mighty Special Enemy.

• Updated Griblok’s minion stats to more closely mirror their older stats.

• Decreased Campaign Kobold Flier HP and Damage.

• Decreased Campaign Lady Orc HP.

• Increased Campaign Lightning Bug Damage.

• Decreased Campaign Witherbeast Burrowed Health Regeneration.

Bug Fixes

• Added in a potential fix for the issue where Daily and Monthly Missions would get wiped/reset. This may also fix some instances where Daily Missions aren’t showing up, but we believe there is still one more bug there that we’ll squash in our next patch. We’ve also added in a specific tracker on our backend so we can pinpoint the issue. This is a tricky bug to squash, but we’ll get it!

• Fixed an issue where Treet wasn’t dropping loot.

• Fixed an issue where the Hearty Blockade Max HP bonus was not appearing on the Spike Blockade tooltip. This fix should also improve clarity of all tooltips with Skill Spheres and Passives that relate to the categories listed on the Inspect Defense stats.

• Fixed an issue where under certain circumstances players would get pulled out of their party.

• Fixed an issue where the Possessed Sword was appearing solid white.

• Fixed an issue where Flamethrower Towers couldn’t properly hit enemies above or below them. (Note:  Flamethrowers aren’t supposed to target flying enemies.)

• Fixed an issue where flying enemies would get stuck in the air lanes on the second Spooky map.

• Fixed an issue on the first Spooky map where the green goo was causing damage outside of the green goo pool.

• Enemies can no longer snipe the subobjective from the curvy lane in the first Spooky map.

• Fixed an issue where the Weakening Curse on the Betsy Apprentice weapon did not apply on all projectiles.

• Fixed an issue where the Greatest Finds on the Summary Screen showed items that were already in your Inventory.

• Fixed some uneven terrain that was causing towers to look like they’re floating on the first Spooky map.

• Fixed an issue where the top part of the Barrow Cart near the player spawn point has no collision on the first Spooky map.

• Fixed a weird texture on the second Spooky map.

• Fixed an issue where the Skill Sphere text would overlap with other text.

• Fixed an issue where players using Low graphics settings had green icons in the Costume Shop.

• Fixed an issue where the Spectral Raven projectile would instantly disappear.

• “Cemetery” is now spelled correctly.

Known Issues

• Removing Skill Spheres will cause text to get lost in the UI. Clicking the scroll bar will fix this issue.

• The Haunted Huntress enemy doesn't do damage to players.

Dear Defenders,

We wanted to take a moment to thank each and every one of you. Your support for Dungeon Defenders II has helped it become the success it is today:

• 1,000,000 Installs (!)

• 11,000,000 Hours Played (!!)

• 0 Old Ones Released (Priceless)

Give yourselves a round of applause! You’ve earned it.

Thank you for playing, and thank you for supporting our F2P model. Every dollar you spend and have spent helps us create new gameplay content for everyone, like the two Spooky maps and the Spooky Event we released yesterday. Thank you for cheering when Steam promotes our game (which we’re hoping they do with the Grave Danger Pack in the Steam Halloween Sale). Thank you for cheering when friends and strangers spend money on badass costumes. Together, we get to make the best Action Tower Defense game ever.

And we get to feed our families, which we’re sure they appreciate.

With Love,
The Trendy Team

Ascension Part II is here for Steam! Here are the notes:

Features

Two New Maps!

• The Deadly Road:  Enshrouded in tales of ghost sightings and vanishing caravans, the Dead Road has been actively avoided by travelers since its discovery. Many brave souls have tried exploring the ruined catacombs in search of treasure, but none have emerged alive.

• Temple of the Necrotic:  Deep in the woods of Etheria, there exists a temple built in the space between life and death. A powerful artifact has appeared inside of the structure, throwing the forces governing the living and the dead into total chaos.

New Event:  Spooky 2015

• Cut a hole in your chair and grab a bucket because you’re gonna s*** yourself with our first Holiday event. Maldonis the Dark has invaded Etheria, and he brought some ghoulish new friends with him. Be on the lookout for some seriously spooky secrets in each of the new maps!

Steam Trading Cards

• Added 15 Steam Trading Cards. Collect them all for Steam badges, emoticons, profile backgrounds -- the whole shebang. (That word seems a lot dirtier when you see it on paper.)

Spooky Challenges

• Complete the 8 new Challenges for a spooky surprise. You’ll need to act fast as these Challenges are only available for a limited time!

Four New DPS Weapons

• Added four new weapons, each with a unique DPS-focused passive.

Auto-Collect Filters

• Become the Bag Master. You make the rules now.

• Tell your bags to filter in certain types of loot automatically during Auto Collect. For example, tell a bag to filter in all Legendary loot. All Legendary loot that is Auto-Collected from the ground will automatically go into that bag. That’s right, Champ. You’re the boss. The Bag Boss. That’s higher than Bag Master. You were promoted just by reading the patch notes.

• Added 13 Auto-Collect filters to bags. The sky's the limit within these 13 specific filters.

New Tavern Decorations

• The tavern has been spookified. The Grumpy old man isn’t too pleased, but what do you expect.
  
  

Dark Arts Apprentice Costume

• 1600 Gems

• 4 Mythical Accessories

• Unique Heal, Spawn, Death and Mana Bomb Animations

November Monthly Quest Going Live on 11/3/15

• Title: An Etherian Pilgrimage

• Description: This month's mission is stuffed with adventure! Go forth and gobble up tokens and pet food to get this month's pet!

  • Condition 1: Win 30 maps without losing a sub-objective!

  • Condition 2: Find 40 Turkey Legs From Pet Food Boxes

  • Condition 3: Earn 50 Wyvern Tokens!

• Rewards

  • New Monthly Pet: Narwhagon!

    • Type: Dragon

    • Ability: Unified Defense - Create a shield that does damage to nearby and attacking foes.

    • Tier: Legendary

  • Wyvern Tokens: 40

  • Gold: 30,000

New Premium Pet:  Autumeow

• Available on Thursday!

New Main Menu w/ New Music

• Updated the Main Menu to reflect the current festivities.

Updated War Table

• We’ve added some quality of life improvements specifically for events.

• New Quick Jump event icon found in the top right hand corner of the War Table. Click the Quick Jump to the event playlist.

• New Spooky Event difficulties for the new Spooky maps.

Skip Tutorial

• Players now have the choice of skipping the tutorial on the first playthrough.

Extra Notes

• Pet Reagent Boxes now have proper mesh and texture representation in world. Still no loot beams.

• Costume shop mannequins have new costumes displayed.

• Changed costume shop lighting.

• Renamed Lightning Rod to Concentrated Cyclone.

• Renamed the Tower Range stat to Defense Range.

Balance

• Rebalanced the Squire Provoke Duration Skill Sphere to 2.0 / 4.0 seconds

• Thorns Skill Spheres are now unique.

• Mark Targets Skill Spheres now increase mark target maximum by 1 / 2.

• Updated Steiner’s health in the Incursion.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where sometimes the Lane Billboards were showing the incorrect information or were placed onto the wrong lane.

• Fixed an issue where the Immediate Message for server/patch maintenance caused the whole screen to blur.

• Fixed an issue where pressing K wouldn’t change the message at the top of the screen.

• Fixed an issue where the Flamethrower Tower caused less loot to drop from Special Enemies.

• Fixed an issue where the Losing Social Score message would appear when a player attempted to leave after Victory or Defeat on a map.

• Fixed a bug where cutscene sound wouldn’t play after the first play.

• Fixed a render thread crash.

• Fixed a crash related to a missing sound notification.

• Changed the wording on Error 2003.

• Fixed a few typos and reduced the length of Empowering Beam description.

• Fixed an issue where some pet eggs that were hatched weren’t being removed from the Inventory.

• Polished up some map collisions to make sure walking through the lanes is an easy and enjoyable experience.

• Fixed an issue where some Ranged impact sounds were playing inconsistently.

• Fixed an issue where the Mana Node interaction collision didn’t cover the little green spirit dude who floats above it.

• Spelled reservoir correctly in Siphon Site D. Now you defend the RESERVOIR in Siphon Site D. That’s right, THE RESERVOIR. The RESERVOIR needs defending people….

• Fixed a hole in Forest Crossroads.

• Skeleton Goblin now has correct iconography in game.

• Fixed an issue where heroes wouldn’t play their full spawn-in animation after death.

• Resolved an issue with Griblok's "I'm out" animation not playing.

• Resolved a bug where the Liferoot Forest Incursion Special Enemies would not spawn.

• Fixed and updated several Skill Sphere descriptions.

• Fixed an issue where there were duplicated stats in the stat manager.

• Fix issue where some decals were not being applied to meshes.

• Fixed an issue where the glow on the proximity mine was too dark in its deactivated state.

• Fixed an issue where the outline effect when targeting certain objects was displaying incorrectly.