News

Greetings Defenders,

Trials: The Endgame Update is now available on PC and PS4! Check out the Trials Update Page for an overview of the changes.

This update represents our shared vision of the core Dungeon Defenders II gameplay experience. It’s the culmination of two years of new features, bug fixes and conversations with you about where the game should go. As a result, this update is MASSIVE. But it’s also not the end. From here, we’ll continue to expand our endgame with more Chaos tiers, more Shards, more maps, and … well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

On a personal note:  We hope you love this update as much as we loved making it. Many of us gave up our holiday breaks, our nights, and our weekends to make this update a reality. This game is built by the seemingly endless passions of our small team, and with your support, our game will keep growing and growing.

Features and Changes

Chaos Difficulty and the Trials

• Nightmare is over. Now is the time of CHAOS!

• This update scratches the surface with five tiers of Chaos, but don’t get too comfortable because we have more Chaos tiers in store. (queue maniacal laugh track)

• As you descend through the tiers, new threats will appear and combine to lay waste to your heroes and defenses. Following us on social media may or may not give you some indication of what’s to come. (SHAMELESS CROSS PROMOTION!)

• Chaos is unpredictable and can only be thwarted through conquering the Trials.

• In the Trials, the Knight Commander assigns you to a defense commensurate with your power. Survive enough Trials at a specific difficulty, and you will accumulate the experience, gear, and resources needed for the Knight Commander to deploy you on even more dangerous fronts.

• If certain Trials prove to be too much initially, you can perfect your strategies by practicing on any map at any difficulty. Remember, though, that the Trials are the only path to glory, gear, and gold (among other valuables).

Shards:  A New Way to Build Your Hero

• Goodbye Passives and Skill Spheres; hello Shards!

• Shards are upgradeable artifacts that slot into your Defense Relics, Armor, and Weapons.

• Shards give you extra buffs, bonuses and sometimes even new functionality!

• Most Shards can be moved between gear. No more leaving your Passives behind when you find an upgrade!

• Defense Relics can hold up to 3 Shards and can only equip Defense Shards.

• Armor and Weapons can hold up to 2 Shards and can only equip Hero Shards.

• Shards drop in Victory Chests.

• Shards can be upgraded directly from the all-new Inventory to further augment your dominance on the battlefield.

• When Veteran Defenders first login, they’ll find themselves ahead of the game with a complementary bundle of Shards we’re giving all Defenders as a thank you for their patience and support while we polished this update to be something truly special. You’ll also find that all the Skill Spheres you’ve previously purchased have been replaced by a bounty of gold! (Trust us, you’ll need it.)

Ascension:  Go Beyond Level 50!

• How far past 50? Your imagination is your only limit in Ascension. That and the code that comprises the system...

• With this update, heroes at the level cap will generate account-wide Ascension XP that accrues towards Ascension Points.

• Ascension Points are invested on a per-hero basis in Ascension Powers that bestow additional bonuses and augmentations.

• Some Ascension Powers are universal for all heroes; some are unique to each hero.

• Harder challenges award greater sums of Ascension XP.

• Multiple Level 50 heroes in your Hero Deck will not grant additional XP.

Defense Relics, Defense Speed & Defense Range

• Now you can build powerful defenses AND be a fearsome combatant at the same time!

• All Relics are now Defense Relics and will roll with up to three Defense stats. Armor and Weapons will roll with up to two Hero stats.

• Heroes can now customize each of their defenses’ strengths individually by attaching a Defense Relic to them.

• Defense Speed is back as a stat!

• Defense Range is now available as Shards and as Ascension Powers.

• Two new Relics are available:  Orbs and Marks. Orbs are for Defense Speed builds, and Marks are for Defense Crit Power builds.

Five New Enemies

• The Siege Roller was just the beginning. Whatever horrors Chaos brings, rest assured that they will push you to experiment, adapt, and overcome. You will need to achieve perfect hero/defense unity to best what awaits you in the Trials.

New Inventory

• Everyone (and we mean everyone) is getting a brand-new inventory UI!

• We’ve streamlined the loot management process by putting more stuff in fewer bags, consolidating item management to a single UI, and bringing hero and item management under one roof.

• Additionally, we expanded the item sorting and management options to empower you to interact with, compare, and save/sell loot more easily, efficiently, and expediently.

• Added the ability to lock items on PC and made Locking do what it should have done in the first place on PS4 (oops).

Loot System Upgrades

• Loot generation has been revamped, reworked and revised. The new system will help you find more upgrades more often.

• iPWR has been removed. We hope that players will enjoy the new feeling of focusing on our new item systems and stats. Items still generate with stat ranges in each difficulty tier, and some stats reach a maximum cap in each difficulty. Want higher stats? Crank up the difficulty!

• Now you can enhance your loot (and Shards) without leaving your Inventory (or putting on pants)!

  • Also, no more silly “put 5 pieces of loot in” nonsense. Just upgrade with Gold or Defender Medals!

Hero Changes

Every Ability and Defense has been completely rebalanced, and these changes are more fundamental than just a numbers update. Each Defense now has its own stats, and many have undergone changes that alter their fundamentals so the entire defensive playing field is very different.

Rather than provide a before-and-after stat difference (which would be a bit misleading and very messy due to every defense being modified in several ways), below is a summarized list of the major changes to each hero’s defensive kit. This will include information such as changes to defense lineup, changes to defense roles, and other major high level changes to gameplay.

All Heroes

• Adjusted all Hero Damage, Critical Damage and Ability Power scaling.

• Adjusted all Defensive Stat scaling across all Defenses.

• Blockade towers aggro levels are now equalized. Abyss Lord’s Colossus has a slightly higher aggro value.

• All normal tower aggro levels reduced to Flamethrower levels. Traps and Auras remain unchanged.

• 2-Spread and 4-Spread firing solution weapons are disabled from spawning. The only firing solutions are Single, Triple, Penta, Burst Shot, and Scatter Shot.

• Improved handling when in the air on all Heroes to closer match the Gunwitch.

• Balanced all Hero swing information to closer match the Squire swings (results in a substantial Monk melee DPS increase).

• Charge attacks now deal more damage.

Abyss Lord

• Direct Command now scales with Ability Power instead of Defense Power. (Except Skeletal Orc)

• Revised basic attack values to improve DPS slightly.

• Removed AoE effect from secondary attacks.

Apprentice

• Flameburst Tower has been replaced by Flamethrower Tower.

• Arcane Barrier now maintains collision when in its deactivated state.

• Arcane Barrier DU cost increased from 20 to 30.

• Earthshatter DU cost increased from 50 to 80.

• Apprentice Flameburst Tower Challenge/Achievement now relies on Flamethrower Tower.

Dryad

• Revised core stats to match new melee hero scaling.

• Revised melee combo multipliers.

• Reworked Blessing to provide damage reduction instead of an armor buff and updated the description.

• Revised slow and damage values on Powder Toss.

• Adjusted Starfall’s damage and Corruption cost.

• Moss Hornet’s Nest spawns an additional hornet and gains additional Hornet movement speed in Corrupt Form.

• Slime Pit’s oil applied by Corruption can now be ignited.

EV2

• Anti Gravity Bots, Death From Above and Proton Charge now only scale with Ability Power.

• Proton Charge heat consumption doubled.

• Rebalanced heat dissipation values of certain Canister types to be more viable.

• Reduced secondary attack charge time to better match the audio and VFX.

• Mortar weapon types now properly do AoE damage.

• Cleaned up Weapon Manufacturer inspection tooltip.

• Reduced Reflect Beam DU from 60 to 30 for two nodes, with an additional 10 per node.

Gunwitch

• Removed Hero Damage scaling on abilities.

• Increased/added Ability Power scaling on abilities.

• Twice the Price activation cost increased from 60 to 80.

• Book Drop Broom Power cost increased from 30 to 40.

• Broom Storm cost increased from 50 to 60.

Huntress

• Oil Flask duration reduced.

• Increased Blaze Balloon DU from 50 to 80.  (Remember that we changed all defense scalars all over the place!)

Lavamancer

• Hero Health refactored to be slightly closer to Squire.

• Damage resistance decreased slightly to fall in line with other melee heroes.

• Balanced all Ability costs.

• Removed innate resource generation.

• Inflame no longer makes you take more damage while activated.

• Oil Geyser can now properly combo with fire effects to ignite enemies.

• Added a Fissure of Embermount 30 DU Cost.

• Reduced Maw of the Earth Drake DU Cost from 80 to 60.

Monk

• Added double jump.

• Lightning Aura is now Flame Aura.

• Serenity Aura has been removed and has had some effects combined with Boost Aura.  Boost Aura now can equip all Serenity Aura shards but does not heal heroes standing within.

• Lightning Strikes Aura has been added as a base tower at 40 DU.

• New weapons spawned for Monk will come with one of the new firing solutions (does not affect pre-existing weapons).

• Lightning Aura Challenge/Achievement now relies on Lightning Strikes Aura.

Mystic

• Revised core stats and base health to match new melee hero scaling.

• All secondary attack firing solutions provide more consistent DPS.

• Reduced Dark Torment’s DoT and Tower duration.

• All ability costs revised and Serpent’s Coil now costs 20 DU.

• Increased arc on Viper’s Fangs and updated decal to show new size.

Squire

• Adjusted ability, hero damage scaling, and base stats to match new melee hero scaling.

• Reduced mana cost of Sword Beam from 25 to 20.

• Balanced Light and Heavy damage multipliers to closer match Medium.

• Increased Training Dummy DU from 20 to 30.

Enemy Changes

Siege Rollers

• We’re reducing the maximum number of Siege Roller spawns. This applies to both solo and multiplayer matches.

• Siege Roller rockets can no longer damage the core. The Siege Roller must hit the core with the roller to hurt it.

• Siege Roller can now be stunned with diminishing returns based on the number of players.

• The hitbox on the weak point is being adjusted so that melee heroes and certain defenses can hit it more easily.

Ogres

• Ogre melee range reduced. This change makes Ogres slightly harder to kite and less likely to miss defenses placed on slopes.

• Ogre punches are slightly quicker.

Special Enemies

• Special enemies’ HP / Damage increased substantially to match closer to Ogre category. All special enemies should now present a threat (even Griblok).

• Tenacity has been rebalanced for them as well. Most enemies have 50% Tenacity. Some have less (Gnash, Lady Orc Berserker). Some have more (Griblok, Tuskar, generic melee meatbags).

Other Changes

• Rebalanced Campaign to account for all of these changes. We made it slightly harder overall based on your feedback.

• Updated the Campaign Quest rewards to reflect our new loot changes.

• Crit chances now display as percentages.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed all of the Passive and Skill Sphere bugs by removing Passives and Skill Spheres from the game.

• Fixed all of the old Inventory bugs. Now there are new Inventory bugs to discover! Yay!

• Fixed all of the Onslaught bugs by...removing Onslaught from the game. We’re seeing a trend here…

• Honestly, there are so many community-reported bugs that we fixed in this update by virtue of our system changes.

• Melee goblins now hit towers and cores much more reliably. Be scared. Be very scared.

• Demon Eye and Eye of Cthulu no longer get knocked back and fall through the world when using knockback or knockup abilities / towers.

• No longer can G up before the chests show up on Harbinger’s Warship.

• Fixed a bug where the Lavamancer was able to get stuck on Gates of Dragonfall while submerged.

• The Create Hero voiceover volume is now properly controlled by the Volume settings in the Options menu.

• Player names in the Session List will no longer stay at "999" (the default data).

• Slime Pits no longer glow like the sun in bright areas. Tower base and top are now unlit meaning their lighting will look more even across the board.

• Fixed collision issues in Dragonfall Sewers.

• Fixed collision issues in the Ramparts.

• Okay, we fixed collision issues on all of the maps.

Quick Hits: What Happened To…?

The Skill Sphere System

• We converted most of our old Skill Spheres into Shards.

• Some Skill Spheres were turned into Ascension Powers.

• Some Skill Spheres were removed from the game.

• Those who’ve purchased Skill Spheres with either Gold or Defender Medals received a Gold refund. Our goal is to make sure that your choice to invest in your hero’s power is translated over into this new system -- you’ll need all the Gold you can get to upgrade your Shards and your Loot.

  • All gold and Defender Medals spent on Spheres will be reimbursed based on a calculated conversion ratio.

  • For this compensation only, every Campaign quest completed will give players 2 Standard Shards per quest. Players who have completed all Campaign quests prior to this update will receive a maximum of 36 Standard Shards.

The Passives System

• Passive have been changed into Shard Slots on gear.

• Many of the bonuses previously offered by Passives can now be found in Shards.

• Others can be found as Ascension Powers.

• A select few item-specific passives in this update (those on the Terraria weapons) have turned into special LOCKED shards that come with the weapon and cannot be removed.

• Some Passive effects were lost along the way (the flu hit really hard this year) and will possibly be added in at a later date.  Others were removed or reworked.

The Stat Allocation System

• The previous Stat Allocation System is retired.

• You will be able to find many similar options in the Ascension system and level them to the MAX.

Nightmare Difficulty

• It’s gone to make room for better things.

My Inventory

• Bags were consolidated to fit more items in fewer bags.

• Converting to this system has been constructed to ensure that you will receive the same if not more item slots when you log in for the first time.

My Current Gear

• Most Passives turned into Shard Slots; some weapons kept their unique passive as a locked Shard.

• Relics are now used for Defense stats. Weapons & Armor are now used for Hero stats.

• Medallions and Totems will retain their primary stats and gain a random secondary and tertiary stat. Rings will be rerolled into different Relics with different defense stats and will no longer exist in the game.

• All Weapons & Armor have been rerolled with new hero stats.

• Loot XP Boosters and Wyvern Tokens are now gone.

Terraria Weapons and Wayfarer

• We didn't want players to immediately shortcut to owning Chaos V weapons with Souls when the update launched, so for now, you can only buy the Campaign and Chaos I versions of the Terraria weapons. We're still finalizing our plan on how players can acquire later Chaos versions of the Terraria weapons.

Guaranteed Drops

• The only guarantee in Chaos is your doom!!!

• We might re-visit these in the future.

Incursions

• Will remain in game as a fun way to earn Defender Medals.

• For the time being they will only be at Campaign Hard difficulty.

  • Will these be updated? Only the shadow knows… and Jason because he sets the schedule.

Onslaught

• Onslaught is finally taking the rest we’ve been talking about. In the future, we have plans for an Onslaught revamp or for a new system to take its place. It shall be reborn!

Miscellaneous

• Daily Map Bonuses have been removed.

• The My Heroes UI on the Pause Screen has been removed.

• The Forge now links to the new Inventory interface.

• Titles and Collections have been moved to the Pause Screen.

Known Issues

• Keybinds may have been reset due to changes.

• Controller is not supported on all user interfaces. We’re working on it!

• Some Incursion weapons and their respective passives/Shards have been removed in this patch and will be re-introduced at a later date.

• Volcano tower does not get increased attack speed from Eruption anymore.

• Ramster Gambit Talent only gives 3 range per talent point (should be higher).

• Tooltips display improperly in the Scavenger UI.

• Frostbite Slow Talent displays as negative (harmful) on Inspect.

• The inspect tooltip of the Frostbite Tower says the slow gets worse as you upgrade it more. This is visual only as the slow does get stronger as you upgrade.

• Whenever the Cybork stuns a chain of EV nodes, only 1 node in the chain will have the stun VFX.

• The arc that the arcane volley projectiles take to their target is a lot higher than intended.

• If you’re having continued odd game problems, validate the integrity of the game cache via Steam.

• PS4: The Equip/Unequip context icon doesn't update after you equip or unequip a pet in the Petrinarian UI.

• PS4: Various navigation issues on the PS4 costume shop.

• Magic and physical resists have been removed from the game, but they are still on pets. Please reroll them using your millions of saved pet reroll items.

• Worm Scarf is the best shard in the game and is totally not broken right now.



Devstream 71 is over! If you couldn't watch us live, you can catch the YouTube archive above.

In this Devstream, Elandrian and Blacksmith showcases the new features coming in Trials: The Endgame Update, which launches on Tuesday. They also dove into Chaos and...they died. A lot. As expected. 

This is the last Devstream before Trials:  The Endgame Update comes out on Tuesday. We hope you'll enjoy the update as much as we enjoyed making it!

Greetings Defenders,

We’re on the home stretch now. There’s only six more days until Trials: The Endgame Update comes out. Alongside the community playtesting group, we're playing the hell out of the update to make sure we nail the endgame feeling we’re going for. We’ve made some modifications to the update, so some of our previously reported details have changed. Final details will be available on release day, but everything is really coming together now.  

Today’s report comes from Prime Scout Atticus Scout -- yes, this report comes from Prime Scout Scout. We hope he gets that promotion so we don’t have to call him Prime Scout Scout anymore -- he’ll be Scoutmaster Scout:

Vanguards

“Prime Scout Scout here. I’ve been scouting all week, and scout’s honor, I’ve discovered a new enemy. They walk about in packs, and the things I’ve seen their shields wipe out...no doubt, we’re gonna need to change strategy.

This has been a scouting report from Prime Scout Scout. Over and out.”

Greetings Defenders,

Trials: The Endgame Update comes out February 28th!

It’s been a busy couple of months here at Trendy, and we’re finally putting the finishing touches on the update (gold accents, chandeliers, at least one marble statue of a mostly naked person, you get the idea). This update represents our shared vision of the core Dungeon Defenders II gameplay experience. It’s the culmination of two years of new features, bug fixes, and conversations with you about where the game should go. As a result, this update is MASSIVE. Here’s a preview to tide you over till the end of the month. Keep in mind that these details are subject to change between now and the update release.

New Systems and Changes

Shards:  A New Way to Build Your Hero

• Goodbye Passives and Skill Spheres; hello Shards!

• Shards are upgradeable artifacts that slot into your Defense Relics, Armor and Weapons.

• Shards give you extra buffs, bonuses and sometimes even new functionality!

• Most Shards can be moved between gear. No more leaving your Passives behind when you find an iPWR upgrade!

• Defense Relics can hold up to 3 Shards and can only equip Defense Shards.

• Armor and Weapons can hold up to 2 Shards and can only equip Hero Shards.

• Shards drop in Victory Chests.

• Shards can be upgraded straight from the all-new Inventory to further augment your dominance on the battlefield.

• When you first log in, you’ll find yourself ahead of the game with a complementary bundle of Shards we’re giving all Defenders as a thank you for your continuing patience and support while we polish this update to be something truly special. You’ll also find that all the Skill Spheres you’ve previously purchased have been replaced by a bounty of gold! (Trust us, you’ll need it.)

Ascension:  Go Beyond Level 50!

• How far past 50? Your imagination is your only limit in Ascension. That and the code that comprises the system...

• With this update, heroes at the level cap will generate account-wide Ascension XP that accrues towards Ascension Points.

• Ascension Points are invested on a per-hero basis in Ascension Powers that bestow additional bonuses and augmentations.

• Some Ascension Powers are universal for all heroes; some are unique to each hero.

• Harder challenges award greater sums of Ascension XP.

Defense Relics, Plus the Return of Defense Speed & Defense Range Stats!

• Now you can build powerful defenses AND be a fearsome combatant at the same time!

• All Relics are now Defense Relics and will roll with up to three Defense stats. Armor and Weapons will roll with up to two Hero stats.

• Heroes can now customize each of their defenses’ strengths individually by attaching a Defense Relic to them.

• Gobus will have nowhere to hide because Defense Range and Speed are returning as stats!

Chaos Difficulty and the Trials

• Nightmare is over. Now is the time of CHAOS!!!

• This update scratches the surface with five levels of Chaos, but don’t get too comfortable because we have more Chaos levels in store. (queue maniacal laugh track)

• As you descend through the levels, new threats will appear and combine to lay waste to your heroes and defenses. Following us on social media may or may not give you some indication of what’s to come. (SHAMELESS CROSS PROMOTION!)

• Chaos is unpredictable and can only be thwarted through conquering the Trials.

• In the Trials, the Knight Commander assigns you a defense commensurate with your power. Survive enough Trials at a specific difficulty and you will accumulate the experience, gear, and resources needed for the Knight Commander to deploy you on even more dangerous fronts.

• If certain Trials prove to be too much initially, you can perfect your strategies by practicing on any map at any difficulty. Remember, though, that the Trials are the only path to glory, gear, and gold (among other valuables).

Five New Enemies

• The Siege Roller was just the beginning. Whatever horrors Chaos brings, rest assured that they will push you to experiment, adapt, and overcome. You will need to achieve perfect hero/defense unity to best what awaits you in the Trials.

New Inventory

• Everyone (and we mean everyone) is getting a brand-new inventory UI!!

• We’ve streamlined the loot management process by: putting more stuff in fewer bags, consolidating item management to a single UI, and bringing hero and item management under one roof.

• Additionally, we have expanded the item sorting and management options to empower you to interact with, compare, and save/sell loot more easily, efficiently, and expediently.

• Added the ability to lock items on PC and making Locking do what it should have done in the first place on PS4 (oops).

Item Enhancement

• Now you can enhance your loot (and Shards) without leaving your Inventory (or putting on pants)!

• Also, no more silly “plus 5 pieces of loot in” nonsense. Just upgrade with Gold or Defender Medals!

Siege Roller Updates (Because we listen and care deeply about you)

• We’re reducing the maximum number of Siege Roller spawns. This applies to both solo and multiplayer matches.

• Siege Roller rockets can no longer damage the core. The Siege Roller must hit the core with the roller to hurt it.

• The hitbox on the weak point is being adjusted so that melee heroes and certain defenses can hit it more easily.

Balance Changes

• The entire game has been rebalanced. No… really, we didn’t just nerf PDTs and call it a day. Dan and Brett have been doing nothing but re-balancing since New Year’s. Well… that and shards and eating and I think sleeping? Maybe?

Bug Fixes

• Check! And the update after this will have even more.

Quick Hits: What’s Happening To…?

The Skill Sphere System

• We converted most of our old Skill Spheres into Shards.

• Some Skill Spheres were turned into Ascension Powers.

• Some Skill Spheres were removed from the game.

• Those who’ve purchased Skill Spheres with either Gold or Defender Medals will receive a Gold refund when the update comes out. Our goal is to make sure that your choice to invest in your hero’s power is translated over into this new system -- you’ll need all the Gold you can get to upgrade your Shards and your Loot. We’ll have the exact figures of how much Gold you’ll receive on release day.

The Passives System

• Passive have been changed into Shard Slots on gear.

• Many of the bonuses previously offered by Passives can now be found in Shards.

• Others can be found as Ascension Powers.

• A select few item-specific passives have turned into special LOCKED shards that come with the item and cannot be removed.

• Some Passive effects were lost along the way (the flu hit really hard this year).

• The exact details will be listed in the patch notes on release day.

The Stat Allocation System

• The current Stat Allocation System is retiring.

• You will be able to find many similar options in the Ascension system and level them to the MAX.

Nightmare Difficulty

• It’s gone to make room for new better things.

My Inventory

• Bags are being consolidated to fit more items in fewer bags.

• Converting to this system has been constructed to ensure that you will receive the same if not more item slots when you log in for the first time.

My Current Gear (In case you missed it in all the previous stuff)

• Most Passives are turning into Shard Slots; some weapons will keep their unique passive as a locked Shard.

• Relics are now used for Defense stats. Weapons & Armor are now used for Hero stats.

• Medallions and Totems will retain their primary stats and gain a random secondary and tertiary stat. Rings will be rerolled with defense stats.

• Weapons & Armor with hero stats will remain the same. Weapons & Armor with defense stats will be rerolled into hero stats.

• Loot XP boosters are going away, so use them now!

Pets

• A handful of balance changes, otherwise the same… for now!

Terraria Weapons and Wayfarer

• The weapons are still in the game, but the way you acquire them is something we’re still discussing.

Guaranteed Drops

• The only guarantee in Chaos is your doom!!!

Incursions

• Will remain in game as a fun way to earn Defender Medals.

• For the time being they will only be at Campaign Hard difficulty.

  • Will these be updated? Only the shadow knows… and Jason because he sets the schedule.

Wyvern Tokens

• Wyvern Tokens were disabled last May, but with this update, they’ll be fully removed from the game. Spend them now!

Onslaught

• Onslaught is finally taking the rest we’ve been talking about. In the future, we have plans for an Onslaught revamp or a new system to take its place. It shall be reborn!

Grandma

• We’re sorry, Billy. Grandma left us yesterday. But don’t worry, she’s having fun in nice big Vegas upstate where she can spend lots of time with other grandmothers and play slot machines all day! No, sorry, we can’t go see her. We’re not allowed back in Vegas. No I can’t explain why honey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

\

In last week's report, we heard from the late Prime Scout Andrelian about an electrically charged new Orc. Today’s report comes from Prime Scout Xavier, whose drawing seems to have the exact style as Andrelian...

“What an unusual creature. Or is it a device? I can’t really tell. The little guy doesn’t eat. Doesn’t drink. Just follows orders. But it gets angry if you poke it with a spear as one of our scouts discovered. RIP Eddie. You were an idiot, but the kind of idiot everyone needs in a group. You completed us!

The Geode emits some sort of shield when activated. I wonder if the Geode itself is vulnerable to attack. Hmm, maybe it wasn’t angry when Eddie hit it with the spear. Maybe it was scared.”

“I have seen the gathering Chaos… the thundering footsteps… the spine-chilling roar… oh woe, oh terror, the green sea that descendeth upon us! Wait, do you hear that, Billy? By Grabthar’s hammer, run! Get out of here! Our insurance won’t cover this!”   

- Prime Scout Andrelian, as recounted by his second-in-command, Billy

Andrelian's death was not in vain, for along with that… err… pleasant anecdote came a detailed drawing and a brief description of a new addition to the Old Ones’ army:

“Later phases of Chaos contain these enormous brutes. They appear to be powered by the evil sky magic called electricity. I can only speculate on the exact impact of their hammers, but I’m sure whatever they do will be positively shocking!

Even in the face of death, I cannot ignore a good pun.”

On Friday, Elandrian and Blacksmith discussed Trials: The Endgame Update! Watch the archived stream above.

In the first half, we spoke about the new power you'll discover when the update comes out. If you'd like to learn more, check out our New Power blog. In the second half, we answered tons of your questions.

Stay tuned next week for more details on the new challenges standing between you and your new power. 

"Those who want Power must cast themselves into the Chaos." - A quote we totally didn't make up.

Greetings Defenders,

Trials: The Endgame Update is the systems update you’ve been waiting for. We’re improving progression, herocrafting, strategy, challenge and so much more. We’re pouring every ounce of ourselves into our most ambitious update yet, and we hope you’ll love it as much as we do when it comes out soon.

There’s a lot in this update, which also includes new threats, new difficulties, new ways to play, a new Inventory, balance updates, quality of life improvements, bug fixes and more, but this week, let’s focus on the new power you’ll find in the update:

Shards: A New Way to Build Your Hero

Our brave Etherian scouts ventured deep into the emerging Chaos. While evading fearsome new foes, they discovered powerful new artifacts called Shards! Shards slot into your Defenses, Weapons and Armor where your passives once were. Shards give you extra buffs, bonuses and sometimes even new functionality, which can be upgraded to augment your defensive capacity!

Defenses can hold up to three Defense Shards; Weapons and Armor can hold up to two Hero Shards. When you enter the new update, you’ll find your previously acquired gear -- slightly modified -- alongside a complimentary collection of Shards to start you on your way. Those with iPWR 750 loot will initially venture further into Chaos than other players by leveraging these complimentary Shards, but all will eventually find their way to greater iPWR glory (more on this in a future report). Best of all, most Shards can be moved between gear, which allows you to modify and improve your builds without losing earned progress!

Gone are the days when you bowed in tyranny to the RNGsus of Passives. Now you only need to bend one knee slightly to the Shard Gods!

Summary of the Shards system:

• Goodbye Passives and Skill Spheres; hello Shards!

• Shards are gemlike artifacts that slot into your Defenses, Armor and Weapons

• Shards give you extra buffs, bonuses and sometimes even new functionality

• Shards are found as loot drops separate from your other gear

• Shards are upgradeable

• Most Shards can be moved between gear. No more leaving your Passives behind when you find an iPWR upgrade!

• Defenses can hold up to 3 Shards and can only equip Defense Shards

• Armor and Weapons can hold up to 2 Shards and can only equip Hero Shards

• When you login, you’ll be given Shards to help you on your journey into Chaos, and depending on how many Skill Spheres you’ve purchased, you’ll be given a ton of gold (which you might think you have enough now, but you’ll need all the gold you can get for upgrading Shards)

Ascension: Go Beyond Level 50

While our scouts risked life and limb in the Chaos, our magical scholars made a discovery of their own -- you can now go beyond Level 50! They’re calling it the Ascension system, and they’re quite proud of the name. (They’re as smug as they are clever, those scholars.)

Oh, and what’s the new limit, you ask?

You’ll be delighted to know our scholars believe this path to be limitless! Trust us, our scholars have been testing it. They’re as thorough as they are smug.

When a hero hits Level 50, any XP gained from that point forward goes towards your Ascension Level. Some of you might be wondering whether a deck of four Level 50 Heroes gives you four times the Ascension XP. Some of you might be on the right track! Having multiple level 50 Heroes and braving the toughest challenges rewards you with the greatest bounty.

Earning an Ascension Level gives you points to invest in Ascension Powers. Some Ascension Powers are universal while others are unique to specific heroes. To be the best, you’ll need to rise off your laurels, test yourself, bring your A-game and choose your Powers wisely.

Summary of Ascension:

• Go beyond Level 50 with the Ascension system!

• When a hero hits Level 50, all XP gained after that point goes towards your Ascension Level

• Earning Ascension Levels gives you points to invest into Ascension Powers

• Some Ascension Powers are universal for all heroes; some are unique to each hero

• Harder challenges will grant more Ascension XP

• Four Level 50 heroes in your Hero Deck = 4x the Ascension XP

All Heroes Become Master Builders AND Master Fighters

The Blacksmith and the Relic Hunter have something up their sleeves for you, too. You’ve seen them cozied up in the Marketplace, haven’t you? They’ve been working on updates to Relics, Armor and Weapons that will transform your heroes into simultaneous master defense strategists and combat experts!

All Relics are now Defense Relics

The Relic Hunter fashioned a method for attaching a Relic onto each of your Defenses. Rather than specializing all your gear towards a single Defense, you can now augment each of your Defenses individually! Want a Defense Health Blockade and a Defense Speed Ballista? Done.  Want Defense Range Cannonballs with Defense Power Training Dummies? Easy. You can do all of that with a single hero! Mix and match Relics, Defense Shards and Ascension Powers to make a build that is specifically you!

And yes, you read that above correctly:  The Relic Hunter rediscovered Defense Speed and Defense Range! Be sure to stop by the Marketplace to thank him.

Armor and Weapons Reforged

In conjunction with the Relic Hunter, the Blacksmith reforged Armor and Weapons into Hero Gear!   Similar to Relics, Hero Gear will now allow you to empower and modify your raw combat potential and mystical abilities. Combine gear with Shards and Ascension Powers to make your mark in the annals of Etheria.

Summary of Loot Changes:

• Now you can build powerful defenses AND be a powerful fighter at the same time

• All Relics are becoming Defense Relics

• Defense Speed and Defense Range are returning as stats!

• You can equip a Relic per defense, so you can customize the stats of each defense individually

• Armor and Weapons will now roll with only Hero stats, which means you don’t have to choose between hero stats or defense stats!

These loot changes combined with Shards and Ascension Powers provide new potential for hero builds, and we can’t wait to see what new builds you’ll create.

Phew! That was a lot, and we haven’t described even half the changes coming in the update! In our report next week, we'll shine a light on the forces of Chaos that stand between you and your new power.

Frequently Anticipated Questions

You haven’t asked them yet, but we know you’re going to.

Q:  Wait, there's even more coming in this update?

Yep! This is hands down our most ambitious update. We're putting in long hours to make this the best update yet, and we hope you’ll enjoy our changes as much as we do.

Q:  Does Trendy need feedback on these changes? How can I help with that?

Yes, we do! The most useful feedback would be your hands-on impressions, and if you want to do that, you can join our Remote Playtesting Group. Email dani.moore[at]trendyent.com if you’re interested! Other than that, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Q:  What’s happening to the Passive and Skill Sphere systems?

Most Passives and Skill Spheres are being converted into Shards and some are becoming Ascension Powers. When you login, you’ll be given a number of Shards to aid you on your journey into Chaos, and depending on how many Skill Spheres you’ve purchased, you’ll be given a ton of gold (which you’ll need for upgrading Shards). Those who have purchased more Skill Spheres than others will be given a big leg up here as gold will be key to upgrading Shards and getting further into Chaos faster than other players. And those who farmed iPWR 750 loot will be able to start deeper into Chaos than others.

Q:  What happens to my current Relics, Weapons and Armor?

The most important thing is that your iPWR will remain the same! Your Medallions and Totems will still be Defense focused. Any Defense stats on weapons and armor will be rerolled into Hero stats. Rings will become a Defense Relic and will contain Defense stats. And again, if you have iPWR 750 loot, you’re ahead of the curve.

Q:  Does that mean that investing my time into Skill Spheres and farming gear was worthwhile?

Yes! The more Skill Spheres you purchased, the more gold you’ll receive when this update comes out. Gold is essential to upgrading Shards and gear. And your iPWR will be untouched in the update, so those with higher iPWR gear will be able to start further into Chaos than other players when used in conjunction with the new Shard system! It’s always a little tricky when an in-development game makes big changes, but top-tier players now should remain our top-tier players when the update comes out.

Q:  Will one Defense Relic give me the same amount of stats for a Defense as before?

Maybe not perfectly 1:1, but the goal is that one Defense Relic along with your Shards and your Ascension Powers should give you all the power you need for an individual defense. Our overall goal is that you can have the power fantasy of being an awesome builder and an awesome fighter at once.

Q:  Will I want to build multiples of the same hero now?

We imagine that players will create different builds of a given hero using Shards + Gear Stats + Ascension Powers similar to other loot-driven RPGs.

Q:  I have more questions! Where can I ask them?

You can ask them in the comments below, and we’ll do our best to answer them. You can also join us on our Devstream this Friday at 3PM EST, and we’ll answer as many questions as we can!

Welcome to 2017, Defenders! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. For the first time in nearly six years at Trendy, I took a month off to focus on my mental health. Apparently going 110% all the time isn't healthy. Weird.

While I was slacking off, the team went into hyper-overdrive before the break. Blacksmith and a few others worked through the holidays to help us conquer our ambitions. I firmly believe this update will turn some heads in the community. I believe it'll also achieve world peace, but setting reasonable expectations is my resolution this year, so I'll settle for turning water into wine.

I was hoping to share more specifics this week, but those details need some extra time in the oven. But there are some questions about the update I can answer now:

Q: What's the goal of the update?
A:  The goal is endgame! This won't be the final version of our endgame, but it lays down a foundation we can expand upon in future updates. It also aims to improve loot, build customization and a lot more.

Q: What is this update called?
A: We're having fierce internal debate, but you should leave your suggestions in the comments below. We've used community names in the past! (Wipeageddon came from someone in our Twitch chats.)

Q: When is the update coming out?
A: We don't have a date just yet because we want to give ourselves iteration time. We also want to get player feedback in as early as possible, so we can iterate off of that, too.

Q: How can I give feedback on these changes?
A: The best way for you to give feedback is to join the Remote Playtesting Group. The RPG is a group of volunteer community members who get to play early builds and offer feedback. Contact dani.mooretrendyent.com if you're interested. You can also keep an eye out for our update blogs in the coming weeks and leave your feedback in the comments.

Since we've returned, we've been digging into your Siege Roller feedback from the last update. We're investigating some issues with the weak spot hitbox that is making it more difficult for towers and melee heroes to deal damage to the spot. We're also discussing how many Siege Rollers spawn for solo players. I hope to have more info for you soon.

Also, it seems like this week's patch improved connection performance for a ton of players! That's freaking awesome! If you're still experiencing issues, let us know.

Most of us are too busy diving into our next update to come up for air, but a few of us breached the surface to give you a few extra treats this week:

Steven Collins, Lead Level Designer (Esorath)

Working on a massive update for Dungeon Defenders II and that comes with some new enemies. Here is a sneak peek at one of our favorite enemy designs. Let the theorycrafting begin….

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

Hello, Defenders!

I've been doing some fixes to the Social Hub and Private Tavern, so you can expect some new cool things in the next update! Aside of that, I'm working on new assets for the upcoming DD2 levels!

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (@Danimix1983)

Hope you all had a good start this new year! I've been so busy working on new assets, fixes, updating some levels, collisions, lots of stuff! Here's a preview of one of the new assets I've been working on this week (work-in-progress).

John Muscarella, Digital Puppet Master (Muskie4242)

New year.  New people.  New challenges.

The Animation and Tech Animation departments are now teaming with new faces. There is a lot of fresh talent here to help us push through 2017.  

SO! To kick off the new year, I’d like to give you all a gif-t. Please enjoy these reaction .gifs that you can now use to harass us and each other on the forums. (Shhhhhhhh…  Don’t tell Isom these are from me.)

Happy New Year, Defenders!

Hello, Defenders! Thanks to your reports on our Bug Reporting Site, we’ve been able to track down some of the lag issues in our game! This patch for PC & PS4 should improve connection performance for a large number of players.

Please note that this is not a complete and total fix of all connection performance issues. You may still experience issues while playing, and our team is dedicated to crushing them. More fixes will come. Also note that some of these fixes may create additional issues, so please help us keep an eye out for any new bugs and report them to the Bug Reporting Site!

Connection Performance Improvements

• Optimized towers to potentially fix the multi-builder lag issue. Please let us know if the issue still persists, or if your towers aren’t updating properly when you change items or hotswap between heroes.

• Fixed several issues that were causing our servers’ CPUs to spike. These issues would cause what looked like lag in the game. Please let us know if your heroes are not properly getting XP after this change.

Holiday Event Complete

• The Holiday Event is now over! We hope you enjoyed your presents!

• Just like the real holidays, the decorations may be gone but the snowpocalypse lingers. Stay warm out there.

Happy Holidays from everyone here at Trendy Entertainment!  Thanks for a great 2016 and we can’t wait to share what’s coming up in 2017.  Here’s some tidbits about some of the things we’re working on in the game.

Daniel Haddad, Design Director (Blacksmith)

There are no holidays in the camp of Blacksmith. We’re working on three huge changes coming to Dungeon Defenders II very soon. Today I am going to talk about 1.5 of those changes.

While we were working on the Terraria crossover, our back burners were burning away thinking about what we can do to DD2 to make it a more entertaining experience and help empower the end game. While I was playtesting the bloodmoon incursion, one of the answers was staring right at me the entire time. Do you guys see what is wrong with this picture?

Even though we give you the option to carry four heroes in your hero deck, in order to achieve the full fantasy of a hero, you need three of that hero. In the image above, I had:

1. Defense Health Dryad dedicated to building tanky trees

2. Defense Power Dryad dedicated to building damage dealing defenses

3. Hero Damage/Ability Power Dryad dedicated to wrecking face during the combat phase

We are all used to this by now and it’s funny that this has been staring all of us in the face for years now, and we never realized how obtuse it feels. In order for a player to achieve the fantasy a hero promises, that player needs to level 3 of the same hero and farm for at least 18 pieces of gear.

While thinking about this seemingly obtuse problem in DD2, I started thinking about how players interface with loot and realized that loot itself is also currently obtuse. Imagine you are a hero. Imagine you are wearing a full legendary ipwr 800 set of armor. You’d feel powerful right? Protected? Safe? That is what armor is for right? Not in current DD2, if that armor had defense stats on it, well, you will get 1-shot in nightmare… What about if you have an iPwr 800 legendary weapon! Surely you can deal great damage to your adversaries right? Well, not entirely … you more like tickle them to death if that weapon had the wrong stats… Similar to how you interface with your hero deck, there is a lot that does not make sense about DD2’s loot.

To fix these problems I proposed one simple rule. “Whoever equips an item, is affected by that item”. What does that mean? Well, if a hero is equipping a piece of gear, only that hero is affected by that gear. This allows us to make armor and weapons make sense once more. You will no longer find a weapon with Defense Stats nor will you find Armor with Defense Stats.

“What the ploop Blacksmith! What are you doing!? You know this is a Tower Defense game right! Why are you taking tower stats away this is garbage!”

Aha! But wait! There is more! Heroes can no longer equip relics and the game is going to have a total of 5 relic types:

• Medallions

  • Primary Stat: Defense Power

• Totems

  • Primary Stat: Defense Health

• Rings

  • Primary Stat: Defense Range

• X (not sure what this will look like yet)

  • Primary Stat: Defense Crit Damage

• Y (not sure what this will look like yet)

  • Primary Stat: Defense Attack Rate 

Each one of your towers will now have an equipment slot in your equipment belt that can equip a single relic. So for example, on the Squire you will see:

• Weapon Slot

• Shield Slot

• Helm Slot

• Chest Slot

• Gloves Slot

• Boots Slot

• Cannonball Relic Slot

• Blockade Relic Slot

• Ballista Relic Slot

• Dummy Relic Slot

Each tower is now only affected by the relic they equip. What does all this mean? Well this change allows us to combine those 3 heroes you did before into a single hero. Your hero deck of 4 heroes can now literally be 4 different heroes (or 4 squires if you really want to, you can do what you want, you’re all grown…). Each hero can now fulfill the fantasy role in its entirety.

But Blacksmith, what about hero diversity? At least before you had 3 different Squires… It now sounds like all Squires are going to be the same!

Nope! They won’t be, and here is why. If you think about it really, the 3 different Squires you had before were not at all very exciting differences. The next two changes (that I cannot yet talk about) are targeted at adding customization and diversity to each hero type so that you can have different sorts of Squires, Apprentices, EVes (EVii?) and so on.

One of the two things (that I cannot yet talk about, but I am going to anyway) revolves around how you interface with Passives. Right now passives are a good customization tool but are also a massive pain to interface with. You are dependent on RNG to get you the 3 passives you want in the right combination. We are changing that. We are thinking that passives will no longer spawn on gear. Instead, gear spawns with passive slots and passives drop independently on different maps. We are also thinking that passives will no longer have random values but instead will start at a fixed value and can be upgraded through item enhancement. Instead of finding a passive that says “Cannonball Tower does +15% more damage” you will now find an object, let’s call this object a shard, that says “This shard improves the damage of the tower it is socketed into by 5%, can be upgraded 10 times”. By divorcing loot and passives (it was a doomed relationship from the start), you can now invest in the passives you want to and when you get a higher iPwr piece of gear, simply unsocket that passive and move it to the new piece of gear.

All these changes are highly experimental, a lot may change about them, and are the reason why I will be working through the break to deliver these changes to all of you as quickly as possible. We will talk about all these changes in the future, but I wanted to reveal some of them to you know so we can start gathering your feedback. If you have something to say please comment and include “Blacksmith” in your reply. If you have concerns or even if you like what you hear and want to send a few encouraging words please reply in the comments below!

(Also examine the inventory screenshot below closely, you may see the new equipment slots for each hero)

Joshua Javaheri, Tech Art Director (Javahawk)

First and foremost, Happy Holidays! It’s been a long year and a long journey thus far for us and for you, and we're really glad to be here with you throughout. The last few patches have been relatively quiet as we continue to work on huge system overhauls that will dramatically change the way we play and interface with DD2.

A few of us are wrapping up our year here with some much anticipated quality of life improvements to the inventory UI. Gone will be the days of the hero's forge soon, as we're shoving a ton of important hero and inventory specific information onto this revamped inventory system. The right side of this new UI will be the inventory management screen while the left side is relegated to dealing with your hero deck, equipment, and various stats.

One of the questions we've been getting lately is "will these inventory changes affect the structure of bags, and if so, how will this affect my previous purchases?" Simply, yes, we are getting rid of the concept of standard and premium bags in favor of a simpler system. All bags will have the previous premium functionality and will consist of 64 inventory slots apiece.

All players who return will get converted to the new system with the same-or-higher number of inventory slots as they previously had (rounded up to the nearest 64 slot bag). So that means a player who currently has a total of 144 slots (9 bags of 16 slots) will get rounded up to 192 slots (3 bags of 64 slots). THIS MEANS THAT IN EVERY CASE, PLAYERS WILL RECEIVE THE SAME OR GREATER NUMBER OF TOTAL INVENTORY SLOTS.

Additionally, all bags will have extensive sorting functionality. More specifically, players will now be able to sort by Weapons, Armor, Relics, Pets/Pet Items, Consumables, and Lockboxes, and our smart after sorting algorithms will also intelligently sort between different types of items. For example, if a player currently has a huntress equipped, when they sort by weapons, the top hits will all be bows, followed by other weapons with similar ranged stats. We also have a second layer of sorting, with tags such as iPWR, rarity, recent, etc, for even more sorting control.

We are also giving players the tools they need for smarter auto-loot collection. Players will be able to specify, on a per bag level, which loot goes where! It will now be possible for a player to throw all legendary huntress bows into one bag, and all garbage low tiered items into a garbage bag automatically. This should help some of the tedious item management pain points we've noticed players experiencing.

Here are some other cool inventory notes players can expect when we release inventory 2.0:

• Inventory Item locking

• Sell all in bag feature (Locked items ignored)

• Unified design across all platforms

• Full gamepad support

As a parting shot, we are also working on a solution to upgrade gear from the inventory, similar to DD1! :)

What're these!?:

Colin Fisher, Assistant Producer (Elandrian)

I can’t wait for this next year, and I can’t wait to share all the hype that I have been containing since I started working on DD2. We’re going to be on our holiday break for a while, but we’ll be back in January and grinding hard at some big boy system updates.

I might stream a day or two over our break, and if you’re interested in streaming over the holidays, let me know!  I’ll still be around the interwebs interacting with the community when I’m not sipping martinis (shaken not stirred) on a beach and hopefully hosting some fun people on our Twitch channel!  

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

Happy Holidays Defenders!

For those who didn't read the last Devlog, we are working on a barbarian themed level, and this week we've been focusing on some viking huts meshes and textures.

We already made some good progress and can't wait to start the world building phase of this level! Meanwhile, here are some of the new assets.

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (DanielKami).

Hey Happy Holidays everyone! As Jesus said, we're working on a barbarian themed level, mostly doing art test stuff. We had some master classes and received some great advice from Jordan this week to help us improve our hand painting skills.

Here's an example:

The Holiday Siege Update and new Hotfix is live on PS4 and Steam.  Check out the Holiday Tree for presents each day!
The Permafrost Pack of all the ice-themed hero costumes is live on Steam today, and is coming out on December 22nd for PS4!

HOTFIX 18.1

• The Goblins will deliver presents once a day to the Holiday Tree in the Heroes Marketplace or the Private Tavern.  Then they will patiently wait 24 hours after you take the present and possibly give you more...

• Iron Reaper can now be properly equipped on the Squire again.

• PS4 - Fixed an issue with the analog stick with Game Browser navigation.

Experience Winter in Etheria with the Holiday Siege Update Out Now on PC, Later this Week on PS4!

FEATURES

Siege Rollers, ROLL OUT!

After months of Goblin Research and Development, the Harbinger has deployed a new war machine onto the battlefields of Etheria.

Holidays in Etheria!

New decorations in the Heroes Marketplace and on a limited number of maps!

Happy Holidays! The goblins are toiling relentlessly making presents for the Holiday Tree. Check back soon for presents!

Costume Showcase

Check out even more costumes in the newly designed Costume Showcase at the Seamstress.

BALANCE

• Dryad

  • Removed collision from the Hornets so they can properly target enemies.

BUG FIXES

• There were some areas of Siphon Site D that the Dryad could sneakily build … Well, NOT ANYMORE!

• Fixed an issue with some skeletons spawning underneath the main core on Greystone Plaza.

• We learned how to spell “Watermelon.”

• Hornets no longer attack empty space on the Dawn of the Blood Moon Incursion.

• Fissure of Embermount’s AoE graphic should be less distorted in some cases.

• No more typos in the Forest Biome loading screen and description.

• No more typos in the Soul of Night tooltip.

• Fixed typos with Little-Horn Valley’s description.

• Fixed the wording for the Skeletal Orc Health and Abyss Knight Damage passives.

• Fixed some collision issues with areas of the Heroes Marketplace.

• Fixed some collision issues with pillars on both forms of the Ramparts maps.

• Fixed a case where people could get behind the enemy spawner on Forest Biome.

• Fixed the Mystic’s Hemolytic Poison sphere’s poison stacking infinitely.

• Fixed an issue on the Harbinger’s Warship where you could G up before the victory matinee and not get your victory chest.

• Fixed an issue with the From the Ashes Phoenix Box Passive where it would travel along the ground rather than firing into the sky.

• The “Delete Hero” button at the Forge works again.

• Mystic’s Sand Viper towers now focus targets affected by Dark Torment properly.

• Mystic’s Sand Viper tower now can be affected by buff beam.

• Fixed an issue with Damage over Time effects not critting properly.  This change should have added critical chances back for a number of defenses/abilities: Dryad's Corrupt Mushrooms/Blessing, Huntress's Blaze Balloons/Poison Dart Tower DoT, Gunwitch's Snipe Poison Rune, Mystic's Lash Out and Dark Torment, Squire's Sword of Unholy Fire, Abyss Lord's Left Click attack, Lavamancer's Fissure of Embermount and Monk's Lightning Aura.

• Souls of Night no longer expire.

• Fixed an issue where a buff beam would be destroyed if a buffed tower was moved or sold.

• Fixed some visual effect issues with goblins.

• Proton beams no longer drain Boost Aura when not hitting anything.

• Fixed an issue with the Dryad where you couldn’t upgrade towers in corrupt form.

• Fixed an issue with the Dryad’s Hornet’s Nest health value being displayed too high above the tower.

• Fixed a typo with the “3 Castle Wins” quest.

• Fixed a typo in pet tooltips.  Learned how to spell “Abilities.”

• Buried Bastille has the correct iPwr recommendation and correct description now.

• PS4 - Fixed an issue where the cursor would go back up to the top of the item category after the “Are You Sure” confirmation box.

The Holiday Siege Update comes out next Tuesday, so let’s take a look into the update and at the past year of development.  (If you want to see it in action, tune in to our Holiday Siege Devstream tomorrow at 3PM EST at twitch.tv/trendyent !)

Colin Fisher, Assistant Producer (Elandrian)

I thought this Dev Log should be bits of what Dev Logs have been before and a little bit of looking back over the year of development.

This is my first Dev Log debut, but here’s a little introduction for anyone that doesn’t already know me from the forums/Twitch/community/etc.This past year, I’ve gone from end-game player, Dungeon Defenders II Twitch streamer, Production Intern at Trendy, to a full Assistant Producer helping out with more aspects of development than I can count.

The past year of development for Dungeon Defenders II has been filled with updates (58 at the last count @_@) and the team here at Trendy has been diligently working on game systems, content, and trying to keep development on two platforms up to speed with each other.  Did I also mention that we had over 950 bug fixes? (We counted.)  

We’ve also had some huge moments for the game happen over the past year:

• Releasing the first new hero, the Abyss Lord

• Hot-swapping in combat between heroes

• Finding games via the Game Browser

• We revamped the campaign experience, providing more story and quicker progression to get into the end-game.

• Hero Deck Overhaul - Remember when you could only build with the four heroes in your deck?  Remember when we fixed it so that you can build with all your heroes!?  (I ‘member.)

• Community Bug Reporting Site - Vote for the bugs that bother you the most and we review it on a regular basis!

• Getting the opportunity to work with Re-Logic and the Terraria on an amazing crossover.

• We wanted to pack the game with content over the year, and we really achieved that with boatloads of new maps, incursions, weapons, and heroes.

Looking back at a feature-packed year, I’m beyond hyped for the next year working on Dungeon Defenders II. Stay tuned for our January blog where we’ll put together a comprehensive retrospective and future plans for DD2.

I guess it’s time to delve into the details about the Holiday Siege Update! This patch is definitely one of our smaller updates, but it’s still one of our more meaningful ones. We’ve been talking about adding new enemies into the normal enemy schedules on maps for a while now and are continuing to work on adding more, but we’re delivering on that now with this update. As someone who is in a “player-first” mentality (since I still actively play and interact with players), I’m pumped for any/all new enemies.

The Siege Roller is really going to shake up a lot of the popular builds right now. On the recent Trendy Friday Fun Twitch stream, a couple of community members and I decimated the Forest Biome with a Volcano tower spam build. I tried to replicate that scenario using Volcanoes against the new Siege Rollers and the struggle was REAL. My Volcanoes did a good job of destroying the normal mob waves, but the Siege Roller blasted right through my walls and defenses and dumpstered my core. It was AWESOME!!!

In addition to the Siege Roller, we’re adding in some fun Holiday content as well.  Our artists really go above and beyond when it comes to decorating our social areas for the holidays.  The Heroes Marketplace and Private Tavern have been decked out with holiday decorations, and remember to head over to the Holiday Tree for a chance to get a present each day that contains some random consumables!  (Maybe, it’ll even give you some Souls of Night!)

In the spirit of the season, the art team came together and pumped out seasonal Ice-themed costumes for every hero currently in our game.  (I’m partial to the Lavamancer because he’s in a perpetual state of confusion … Is he lava? ... Is he ice? Who knows anymore!)

This next year is going to be chock-full of improvements to the core game experience with the next couple months primarily focused on end-game, and I can’t wait for everyone to try it out.

Daniel Haddad, Design Director (Blacksmith)

I’m going to bust out some crazy stats, too! This year, we wrote 1.93 Gigabytes of Design Documentation. We created 995 (we’ll probably hit 1k) design files that are all contained within 212 folders because we like to stay organized. The design team thudded on their desks in frustration a grand total of 288 times, Brett was thanked for last night roughly 210 times this year, 33% of our design team was punched at least once in the eyeball, and we managed to get by this year with only one heinous act of unprofessionalism…

In all seriousness though, I’m happy at what we all managed to accomplish in 2016, and I’m super proud of the phenomenal people I get to work with every day. At the start of this year, we hadn’t made a new hero in about 3ish years. It was an intimidating and terrifying task. The year is over, and we launched 6 new heroes, and designed about 9 of them. We learned a lot with each release and then started a grand push towards getting the game out of early access. We also got the chance to work with the awesome team at Re-Logic on our Terraria crossover which was probably one of the more involved crossovers between two companies I’ve seen so far.

As we wrap up 2016, I hope you all are looking forward to what 2017 will look like. We have massive, maassssssivvvee changes coming to DD2 that aim to revitalize its end game. While we can’t talk about much yet, we hope that by the end of 2017, the game will look substantially different. Making games and working on a live game, specifically, is never easy, and the road ahead is long and potentially tricky, but with such an awesome community backing us, I’m confident we can work it out.

Speaking of our community, we also hired Colin Fisher this year. He is a huge fan of DD2, is part of our Caster’s Guild, eventually came onboard as an assistant producer, and is doing a bangup job spreading the cheer and memes around the office. We also hired Eric Petrie, another dedicated DD2 player, semi pro Overwatch player, and a phenomenal QA tester. Are there more of you out there? Maybe… let’s see what happens in 2017.

John Muscarella, Digital Puppet Master (Muskie4242)

It’s been a long but fun year here at Trendy. Lots of changes and more than a few late nights and weekends. Here are a some of my favorite pieces from the last 365.

Wait a minute, who is this guy?

Must be some character the community never voted for....

Steven Collins, Level Design  (Esorath)

Working on creating some updated enemies to add new threats and mechanics. We’ve seen some threads floating around about mechanics that already exist in the game that you would like to see on enemies. Taking these and some internal ideas we’ve got some serious threats coming out.

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3odoc)

These last weeks, I've been working on a new tileset for what might be our next level. That means I've been creating new meshes, textures, and materials mostly, but I've also been fixing some world building/collisions related bugs.

Finally, I'd like to share with you a pic of the level we worked on. As you can see this level focused on the barbarian aesthetic.

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (DanielKaMi)

I've been working on multiple task last weeks, from bug fixing (most of them related to collision problems) to an art test for future levels. We're trying to improve our painting skills and that means a lot of fun!.

Here's some stuff I did for the art test level.

Tim Shannon, PS4 and Live Producer (TimmyTrashTier)

I am working on a secret project which I can neither confirm or deny.

We're talking about the Holiday Siege Update on this Devstream.

Check it out!

We talk about the new Siege Roller enemy, Holiday Event and the future of DD2!

Here are the notes for Hotfix 17.2 on Steam and PS4!

PS4 HOTFIXES

• Reverted the check for restricting hero equipment to the heroes that they rolled for.

• Create Hero Screen was focusing on costumes that you don’t own instead of just showing the regular hero creation causing some confusion.  

• The Eye of Cthulu and Demon Eyes cannot be killed by making them follow you down pits and off the edge of the map.

• The Poison Imbuement Buff from Vile Mushrooms no longer applies to the Eye of Cthulu.  (No more four-shotting, hope you already got your Meowmere)

• Random Ogres don’t spawn together and get stuck anymore on the Forest Biome map.

• Dryad’s Harpy’s Perch does not keep attacking if the World Tree near it is sold and then rebuilt.

• Boots no longer generate with default stats for all heroes.  There was an issue where they were dropping with incorrectly rolled stats for Gunwitch, Abyss Lord, etc.

• Abyss Lord’s Skeletal Orc was maintaining the Direct Command buff for wayyy too long.

• Pressing X on the souls of the night consumable no longer removes them from the inventory.

• Tooltips no longer stay on screen during the Item Enhancement process on PS4.
• Fixed an issue with not being able to build near the World Tree.

PC HOTFIX

Here are the notes for Hotfix 17.1 on Steam! (PS4 players will receive this hotfix next week.)

Fixes

• Reverted the loot changes implemented in The Terraria Update thanks to your feedback.

• Create Hero Screen was focusing on costumes that you don’t own instead of just showing the regular hero creation causing some confusion.  

• Dryad’s World Tree is now properly destroyed during the victory animation when it’s close to the core.

• The Eye of Cthulhu and Demon Eyes cannot be killed by making them follow you down pits and off the edge of the map.

• The Poison Imbuement Buff from Vile Mushrooms no longer applies to the Eye of Cthulhu.

• Random Ogres don’t spawn together and get stuck anymore on the Forest Biome map.

• Dryad’s Harpy’s Perch does not keep attacking if the World Tree near it is sold and then rebuilt.

• Boots no longer generate with default stats for all heroes. There was an issue where they were dropping with incorrectly rolled stats for Gunwitch, Abyss Lord, etc.

• Abyss Lord’s Skeletal Orc was maintaining the Direct Command buff for wayyy too long.

It’s here! It’s finally here! For months, we’ve been itching to get the Terraria crossover into your hands. (Paws? Mitts? Cybernetic robo-arms?) The Terraria Update, out now on PC and PS4, is one of our largest content patches to date. We hope you have fun with those badass Terraria weapons while we continue working on Phase 3 of our Journey to Release Plan, which contains updates to Endgame, Loot, Inventory and much more that you’ve been asking for.

We had the pleasure of working with Re-Logic this year on this fun collaboration, and we can’t say enough about how amazing and talented they are. We’re so thankful to call them our friends. But we’ve even more thankful for you, our dear Defenders. Whether you’re just joining our community today or you’ve been with us for years, we appreciate your support!

(Before you read on, we wanted to let you know that we're doing a Dryad giveaway on Twitter!)

Features

Terraria Crossover

• New Hero: The Dryad
  • The Dryad is the physical manifestation of the will of Terraria itself. With the wisdom of untold ages, she takes up arms to protect and defend her home against evil and corruption. Her World Tree is an anchor for all of her ferocious defenses.
  • Abilities
    • Ability One - Dryad’s Blessing:  Blessing surrounds the Dryad with leaves, shielding her and increasing her armor. When corrupt, Blessings deals damage around her.
    • Ability Two - Powder Toss: Purification mushrooms heal nearby allies and slow enemies. Corrupt mushrooms deal damage and stun when they expire.
    • Ability Three - Starfall: Starfall damages enemies and leaves behind a star that Dryads gather to replenish their mana. When corrupt, the star explodes and deals damage to enemies in its range.
    • Ability Four - World Tree: The World Tree provides the power that the Dryad needs to summon her defenses. It restores 5% of a hero's max HP over time while giving +20% Hero Crit Damage and +10% Hero Crit Chance to nearby heroes.
  • Defenses
    • Defense One - Moss Hornet’s Nest: The Dryad summons a hornet's nest that periodically summons a hornet which viciously attacks an enemy. When corrupt, it spawns more hornets.
    • Defense Two - Harpies’ Perch: The Dryad summons a dangerous Harpy that hurls feathers. When corrupt, the feathers pierce enemies in their path.
    • Defense Three - Slime Pit: Slime Pits spawn slimes that targets enemies and explodes, dealing damage to enemies on impact. When corrupt, they deal more damage in an area and oils enemies.
    • Defense Four - Angry Nimbus: The Angry Nimbus follows enemies, dealing damage over time and drenching enemies. When corrupt, it periodically zaps enemies for high storm damage.

• New Map: Forest Biome
  • Experience the new Terraria themed map that includes some new mechanics that can change up your defense! (Can you say crafting stations?)

• New Incursion: Dawn of the Blood Moon
  • The Blood Moon has come to the Forest Biome and brings a host of different enemies and a new larger threat...

• New Enemy: Demon Eye
  • These pesky critters will fly around and poke you to death in the Forest Biome! Make sure you have some anti-air ready!

• New Boss: Eye of Cthulhu
  • Have you seen his final form!? (2spooky5me)

• New Weapons: Cranked up to ELEVEN
  • We added at least one new weapon for each hero in the game. Check out the Wayfarer to see all the new Terraria-themed weapons!

• New NPC: Wayfarer
  • The Wayfarer has traveled far to peddle goods from the recent Incursion for all heroes to enjoy! Say “Hello!” to him in the Heroes Marketplace.

Try the Dryad Right Now!

• Want to try out the Dryad before you unlock her? Head to the portal in the Heroes Marketplace and select Normalized Mode! This will let you experiment with the Dryad’s defenses and abilities in the Forest Biome.

Enhanced Training Dummies

• We’ve added new training dummies in the Heroes Marketplace and the Private Tavern.
• These new dummies will provide significantly better ways for players to track their BIG DEEPS.

Item Stacking Changes

• Multiple items now stack higher than they did previously. Just a little preview of our upcoming Inventory UI revamp hotness.

Updated My Heroes UI

• Much more informative and interactable (Google says this isn’t a word, but we don’t care) Hero UI while we work on our new UI improvements. Tooltips are finally working on this menu for PS4!

Loot Change

• Any gear with class specific passives will now be locked to that class. This is in preparation for much larger itemization changes coming in future patches!
  

Balance

Monk

• Base resistances buffed to make Monk more viable in melee.
• All root motion has been removed from combat animations.
• Sky Dragon’s Fury and Thunderball got a balance pass.
  • Damage Range increased from 100-200% to 140-200% Hero Damage.
  • Thunderball now procs 100% of the time with an 8 second internal cooldown.
  • Thunderball damaged once per second, instead of three times per second.

Squire

• Base resistances buffed to make Squire more viable in melee.
• Root motion removed from Light and Heavy attack stances.

Bug Fixes

🔥 Community Bug Fixes 🔥

This section is dedicated to bugs reported on our Bug Reporting site! Bugs labeled “Hot Issues” are next on our priority list. More community bug fixes coming in the next patch!

• Every time Frostbite Towers would try to attack the same enemy, or if an enemy would die, they’d have to re-target, which caused their firing to break. This is no longer the case. Ice to meet you, bug.
  • Thanks, Zimmermann!
• Buff beams were able to buff other buff beams. (Buff-beam-ception?) AND Buff auras buff Buff Beams which no longer buff buff beams, which no longer buff buff buff when you buff buff your buff buff.
  • Zimmermann crushing it with the buff bug reports!
• EV2’s Heat now resets to 0 when build phase begins.
  • Thanks for staying on top of this bug, K-ToF!
• “Hide Enemy Health Value” was causing Health to not display on towers and cores. Now it’s always visible.
  • Thanks for the report, Ancient Ogre!
• Some Steam achievements were not unlocking after completing the requirement.
  • So glad to finally crush this bug. Thanks,K-ToF!
• Mystic’s Dark Ritual blade was only dropping with set passives.
  • Good looking out, Hom-Sha-Bom!
• PS4 - The Logo and Intro Video did not have any sound. Now you can hear their velvety goodness.
  • There’s still a sound issue where you can hear the Main Menu music during these cutscenes. We’ll get that one next. Thanks for the report, Plic!
• Hero Critical Damage no longer bugs out when swapping characters, which caused some serious damage discrepancies. 
  • We came, we saw, we CRUSHED that bug. Thanks, Pandynator!
• Updated some text warning people that Mystic’s Split Vipers Skill Sphere does not overwrite the reduction of damage of Slow Death.
  • Good catch, Dreamanime!
• The toggle checkbox in the Options Menu for turning Damage Coalescing on and off now works correctly.
  • Pandynator is life. Pandynator is love.
• The Abyss Lord’s Colossus would attack slower after being upgraded.
  • Thanks, JoghurtDipper!
• Mystic’s Sand Viper tooltip no longer contains the “Enemies Chilled” stat.
  • Thanks for pointing that out, Talis Cat. Maybe we should add some random stuff to other defense tooltips just to keep you on your toes...
• Activating the Trick or Treat chest on the wave 7 of the Temple of the Necrotic would spawn an invulnerable skeleton.
  • Uhhhh, surprise? Good catch, Klaga!
• Abyss Lord’s Orc Blockade’s base would become displaced during Frenzy.
  • Thanks, Buddyvv!
• The Apprentice’s Harbinger Staff was spawning anon-textured AoE graphic on the ground.
  • Graphic is now TEXTURIZED thanks to Dreamanime!
• The Spooky Event title was not being rewarded.
  • A spoopy thanks to Virydis!
• Altar Assassins now primarily target players. If they can’t find a player, they will attack cores.
  • Thanks for the report, o0Exile0o!
• On Altar of Athame, it was possible to place defenses floating above the altar.
  • Thanks, geo981010!
• Sky Dragon’s Fury passive typo fixed.
  • And with this report, Zimmermann takes the cake with the most reported bugs fixed in this update!

General Bug Fixes

• The toggle checkbox in the Options Menu for turning Damage Coalescing on and off now works correctly.
• New Defender Medal Monthly Pets no longer show up as regular monthly pets at the Petrinarian.
• Hotswapping characters properly resets pet ability cooldowns.
• Skeletons no longer spawn in non-combat phases.
• Skeleton enemies no longer leave a lingering purple visual effect after death.
• EV2’s passive “Torpedo Range” got a language pass.
• The Challenge “Defender of Etheria” can only be completed in campaign and had its description updated to reflect thatintention.
• Keybinds now save when you rebind keys at the title screen
• Returning Players occasionally had the Monk and Huntress still locked when returning to the game after being inactive for awhile.
• Mystic’s Dark Torment towers would not despawn.

PS4-Specific Fixes

• When a Split-Screen player joined, sound effects stopped working until you opened the Options Menu.  There might still be occasions where this occurs. Please let us know on the Bug Reporting Site!
• The Reward Select screen in Onslaught wouldn’t show up correctly in Split-Screen.
• Scaled up the R3 button icon so that it’s more readable.
• Tooltips weren’t showing up on Item Enhancement.
• The Main Menu was interactable (dang it, Google, we’re making this a word) while the Intro Videos were playing.

Known Issues

• Watermelon is spelled with two “L’s” in Etheria…
• Phoenix projectiles spawned from Blaze Balloons via the From Ashes Passive are travelling along the ground… we’re trying to build their self-esteem back up and playing some Kenny G so they can soar once again.
• Split-screen players loading into Curse of the Blood Moon Incursion (especially on Normalized) may be missing ability icons. Hotswapping resolves this.
• My Heroes screen has some issues. We’re aware and working on them.
• Nature’s Growth does not buff other World Trees at the moment.
• If you jump mid spawn animation, the Mystic will become invisible… use that information how you will…
• We saw an issue - once - with hero decks missing heroes when loading into the normalized Curse of the Blood Moon Incursion. We couldn’t repro it, but if you manage to figure out how to reliably produce this result let us know please.
• The pressure sensitivity on some controller faceplate buttons can create some weird ‘intermediate’ press states in the newer UIs and on the Dryad’s jumping to flying transition.  TL;DR - Press hard or go home.
• If you cast a Dryad ability while transforming it will resolve as though it were cast in the starting form rather than the ending form.
• Frostbite Tower does not attack the training dummies in the tavern(s). (Don’t lie Zimmermann, you were going to report this if we didn’t call it out).

The Terraria Update comes out Tuesday, so in this's week Dev Log, we're pulling back the curtain. (And if you want to see the update in action, tune into our Terraria Devstream tomorrow at 3PM EST!)

Elliot Cannon, Creative Director (Myscha_Sleddog)

As a hardcore gamer myself, it’s a riot to peek behind the scenes of any developer’s curtain, so let’s cast that Oz barrier away for a moment. I’ve also tossed in some secrets for you at the end.

The Terraria Update update got its start back in January 22nd of this year. (10 months ago) At the time, we were mid-stream working on the Abyss Lord, along with creating a massive backlog of critical and important features and game improvements laid out for the whole year. (Such as the Game Browser, Hero Deck changes, Quick Swapping, Hero Designs, Incursions, etc.) Then we got this cool email from Ted “Loki” Murphy over at the Terraria camp.

This type of collaboration does not happen often enough! Game developers all like each other, end up working together over the years, play each other’s games, and hang out together. We share cabs as E3, laugh and critique at each other’s bad GDC presentations, blow up each other’s bases, stunlock and zero each other’s kids, and cheer each other on when our games ship. This is because we are all big kids inside, dress like misfits, and absolutely love games, so doing something cool together means one thing – FUN!

Terraria Secrets

Here are the parts that really make it neat in addition to all of the in-your-face-stuff you’ll see next week. The new map layout, inspired by the Terraria Forest Biome, is different from your run-of-the-mill Dungeon Defenders II map. Steve Collins added cool crafting secrets from Terraria, we have lane merges that are larger than most, double backs, three cores, and of course the entire look and feel is what you would expect if Terraria became a Pixar movie. This map has long line of sights, great sniper perches, and screams out for AoE. We offer this as Normalized and as an Incursion for Nightmare I-IV.

Play Now, Even if Brand New to Dungeon Defenders II

In Normalized mode, you play with a pre-generated deck of four max level and geared heroes including the Dryad! The Normalized mode is lovely, safe, happy, and good for brand new Dungeon Defenders II players who want to jump in and GO now! This is a great way to be part of the BIG THING. It’s also an ideal way to test-drive the Dryad hero before you pick her up with your earned Defender Medals or Gems stash.

The Nightmare I-IV modes are actually Incursion versions and much tougher. You’ll need to bring your own knife to that gunfight along with your own heroes. It has the Blood Moon theme from Terraria and nasty pointy teeth. Steve has a very cool secret chest set up in the map. Who will get lucky AND be smart enough to figure it out!

Besides all the other bells and whistles we usually do, we cranked out weapons for every one of our ten heroes as a homage to some of the most iconic Terraria weapons, all with over-the-top FUN special effects. You can buy these at different power ranges from the a new NPC near the portal in the Heroes’ Marketplace. He only accepts the Terraria currency called Souls of Night which you can find in Victory Chests in either version of the new Terraria map! (Normalized or Nightmare) Be sure you read the tooltips, because we have multiple heroes that use swords now. Each weapon is hero specific!

To reward you hardcore players for reading today’s entry, here is a cool tip. Each weapon always has the same top signature passive. Take the Gunwitch, for example. Her Megashark Terraria Gun Broom weapon will always have the signature Meteor Bullets passive, circled in the below image. However, the other two in the rectangles reroll randomly upon entering the Heroes’ Marketplace, so if you are really dying for a particular set up, just load a map and come back until you get the roll you want. That way you can focus on grinding up Souls of Night and spend them on exactly what works for you. Each one of these weapons have FUN and POWERFUL effects on them. Collect them all!

Daniel Haddad, Design Director (Blacksmith)

Nature hurl green leaves at your putrid feet Defender!

That’s a greeting in the Dryad tongue… Not really, I just made it up. I hope your feet aren’t putrid, you should probably have that checked to be perfectly honest.

For this Dev Log, we thought it would be a good idea to give you all some insight into some of the decisions we made in this Terraria crossover. When the Terraria crossover first came to be, we had just started our hero initiative so it made perfect sense to have a new hero be a part of it. A lot of us played a bunch of Terraria and we obviously had fond memories of the different NPCs we encountered while playing Terraria.

An early exploration of the Dryad:

Another early exploration:

There is plenty more to talk about when it comes to Terraria and the crossover. Next week I’ll talk about how the Terraria weapons made their way into DD2 and some neat enemies as well. Tune in to our Devstream tomorrow to hear more about the update! We will have a very special guest and divulge all the details.

Steven Collins, Lead Level Designer (Esorath)

Greetings, Defenders!

We finally get to show off our nice new map. The team had tons of fun putting tons of small references here and there that we hope the Terraria fans appreciate. Can’t wait for everyone to jump in and explore the Forest Biome.

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

Hello, Defenders!

As you might know there's a new map coming to Dungeon Defenders II next week, a map we've been working secretly. So it's time to share with you some cool pics of the level. I hope you have fun playing and exploring it!

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (@Danimix1983)

Everyone in the team is really excited to show off some of the work we did and kept in secret for so long. So, if you don't have enough with the pics posted above, here's another one! I know! It's a really cozy place!

John Muscarella, Digital Puppet Master (Muskie4242)

I am so excited to finally show off some of the work we have been keeping so secret.  With the release of the Terraria crossover patch, we will be revealing a TON of cool stuff from the animation department.  Hopefully you have all seen the cinematic already.  If not, check it out here! Here are some of the other things we’ve been doing:

HERE SHE IS!

AND HERE SHE IS AGAIN!

Yes that’s right!  You can play in both her Pure and Corrupt forms at will.  Transform whenever you please, and wreck face!

But of course, like all of our heroes, don’t take too much damage, or else…

Cool armor, bro...

Also, we have a new animator here at Trendy.  Jerzy Perez has been a part of this past milestone helping on a number of different things, such as:

We’re going to get Jerzy a forum ID in the near future.  You can expect to see more cool stuff from him soon!

Dani Moore, Remote QA Lead (Dani)

With the Terraria testing coming to an end (we still have one more final test tonight at the time of writing this on Tuesday!), the feedback of the RPG folks has been very solid and helpful as always. The bug hunting RQA folks found this little gem that they wanted to share.

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 Halloween Steam Sale is live, which means our spooky new Steam packs are on sale! Check 'em out:

Celebrate Halloween with our new Burning Souls Pack! Set up some fireworks, popcorn, and put on some Halloween masks to throw your own in-game party.

• 4 Burning Soul skins for the Original Heroes (Squire, Huntress, Apprentice, Monk)

• 50 Consumable Masks to spice up the party

• 10 Fireworks Launchers

• 10 Popcorn Machines to give you and your party some sweet combat buffs!

The Burning Souls Pack will be available on the PS4 in a few weeks!

Masquerade Pack ($15.30)

Snag five new costumes for the newest heroes at a HUGE discount. (4800 Gem value!) Not satisfied with just costumes? We added gems, too!

• 1500 Gems

• Lavamancer Risen Cinders Costume

• Abyss Lord Depth Lord Costume

• EV2 Mantis Striker Costume

• Gunwitch Huntwitch Costume

• Mystic Empress of Serpents Costume

Witching Hour Pack ($8.50)

The Witching Hour Pack contains the Gunwitch Hero and her two costumes. (A 2800 Gem value!)

• Gunwitch Hero (includes a Hero Card Slot)

• Black Magic Ops Costume

• Huntwitch Costume

The Halloween Update is available now on PC & PS4! 

Halloween Update!

• Return of Maldonis Incursion

  • Maldonis has reclaimed the Temple of the Necrotic, and it’s up to you to defeat him and his henchmen. Look carefully and you might find a few hidden treats...if you’re lucky.

  • Maldonis can drop Spooky Weapons that roll up to iPWR 750!

• Spooky-Themed Heroes Marketplace

  • Once you’re done raiding his loot, stop by the extra spooky Heroes Marketplace and make everyone green with envy!

• Spooky Halloween Packs Available on Friday

  • We’re releasing new Halloween packs on Friday for PC, including the Burning Souls Pack with the wicked new Skeleton costumes in the image below!

  • PS4 players can purchase the Burning Souls Pack in a few weeks -- just in time for Thanksgiving.

  • More details coming tomorrow!

🔥 Community Bug Fixes 🔥

This section is dedicated to bugs reported on our new Bug Reporting site! Bugs labeled “Hot Issues” are next on our priority list. More community bug fixes coming in the next patch!

• Series EV2’s Heat Bar now properly resets at the start and the end of Combat Phase.

  • Reported by K-ToF, our #1 bug submitter. Thanks for the help, K-ToF!

General Bug Fixes

• Defender Medal pets are no longer erroneously listed for gold. This was a rare bug that happened when entering the Heroes Marketplace or the Tavern. (You couldn’t buy them for gold, just FYI. It was just a visual bug.)

• Improved the aiming of the Gunwitch’s right-click Snipe.

• Players who completed the Spooky Champion award last year should now properly have it this year.

Update from the Emergency Magical Staff

• Officials from the EMS have been investigating the portal since its mysterious appearance. They believe they'll have more information next week.

Josh Isom, Community Manager (iamisom)

The Halloween Update comes out tomorrow! Maldonis has reclaimed the Temple of the Necrotic, and it’s up to you to defeat him and his henchmen. Look carefully and you might find a few hidden treats...if you’re lucky. Once you’re done raiding his iPWR 750 versions of the Spooky Weapons, stop by the extra spooky Heroes Marketplace and make everyone green with envy!

The Burning Souls Pack for the PS4 will come out in a few weeks -- just in time for Thanksgiving. ;)

Jesus Diaz, World Builder (N3oDoc)

Hello, Defenders! As you might know already, the Halloween Update is coming out tomorrow! I've taken some shots of the Halloween themed creatures you'll have to deal with in the two spooky levels! So take a look of those fierce enemies! Do they look scary enough for you?

If those are not enough for you, just look at this!

Treet just killed the Squire, and he's going straight to smash the core! You have to stop that!

Daniel Diaz, World Builder (@Danimix1983)

So... it's almost here! The Halloween Update is coming into Etheria. Don't be scared! Here are some more shots of the spooky Heroes Marketplace!

James Reid, Software Engineer (Driscan)

Finally, while it's not in the Halloween Update, I wanted to show you some updates I'm making to the My Heroes UI to make it easier to organize your deck:

And here's how it looks in split-screen!

The Devstream is now available to watch! *spooky*



Etheria -- Earlier today, a strange portal opened and then quickly disappeared. No injuries were reported.

According to officials from the Emergency Magical Staff, the portal's lingering trace indicates a powerful magic of unknown origins. Officials are warning citizens to avoid the area as the portal may come back.

The EMS managed to extract the memory of the portal from an eyewitness, and The Etherian Free Press has exclusive coverage of that memory in the video above. 

While the portal was open, unidentifiable leaves and branches blew through. Botanists are scratching their heads over this strange flora.

Meanwhile, local citizens are preparing for the possible return of the portal.

"I hope something dangerous is coming," said the Dragonfall Knight Commander. "You can quote me on that. I've already got one scar. I want a matching set!"

The Knight Commander is calling all heroes to prepare for a fight.