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Update 1.2 Preview

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DEFENDERS!

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


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


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


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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Social Defenders

To get reliable updates on the future of DDA make sure to follow us on all our social media platforms:

Keep an eye out for more info!
For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

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11 Comments

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Paloverde zfogshooterz

These seems to be great features arriving soon! The Transmog system is practically nullifying a major issue I was having with DDA and DD1 - weapons with random colors. Unlike DD2 where those is only rare instances, DDA and DD1 just have too many to the point where I just don't have the motivation to collect any weapons. As what's the point with collecting all the same weapons but with jarring and random colors. It's not fun for me. With the weapons being reverted to their default state while the colors will just a customizations option instead, the possibility of collecting weapons in DDA (at least for me) is opened.

Also, really glad the color customizations for costumes is being improved on. The current iteration felt really clunky to the point where in some cases it better to stick with default or roll with the shadow costume (looking at you, Monk...). 

And looking forward to seeing the new fusion weapons and the 20 new accessories! (Wowzers)

With all this new features that I want coming soon to the game, guess I'll actually return to playing some DDA.

 

Edited by Paloverde zfogshooterz
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Link to comment
chpoit

> Theiyr'rre

In all seriousness, thanks for the update. Is there any way that you could push the bug fixes sooner than the actual content?

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ddace
22 minutes ago, chpoit said:

> Theiyr'rre

In all seriousness, thanks for the update. Is there any way that you could push the bug fixes sooner than the actual content?

That would be nice but not likely due to the process they were mentioning about the console ports.  It would likely increase the work they would have to do.  Still, it is nice to know that they are coming.

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Wardude202

Great job guys <3
Biggest thing is keep that trading system 100% under development UNTILL you're as sure as you can be there will be no bugs... 
Once you break a games economy it allmost can't be unbroken... :/

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Vhoori

Hey developers, how about you fix you class system before anything else.  We should be able to use any class to hunt down end game content instead of 1 or 2. You have made to the huntress and monk are the only chars worth playing for farming. You made it so farming for anything in the game is nearly impossible unless you have 3 specific weapon and need to have a 4-man team to attempt to get it on mass. Bad enough you nerf the hell out of us on nightmare, then screw us on mass for nerf. I mean seriously it crap. I get that 10% of players like that level of a challenge but the other 90% do not. Anyone should be able to play the game solo on all skill levels and get end game content.

Yes, I know this was deigned to be a group experience. but you make that completely point less by making ever mob increase in power per player joining. Multi player is supposed to make it easier not fucking harder. Yes, I do expect some challenge as I progress. but watching my dmg on insane be 1.135 go it to 113.5 k on nightmare and then drop to 11.35k on massacre. all the while the mobs just get more fucker power and gear does not even remotely scale to help. My own wife who love this series stopped playing with me a while back because it cease to be fun having to play an action tower defense and that starts off that way and ends up being a crappie tower defense. I should be able to play any class and handle all levels with those classes and those defenses only if I choose.

Also, your stupid timers need to completely disappear. If I am stuck using multiple char defense, we as the play should have unlimited time to set up defense. now if you want to make the time as part of hardcore, that is fine you manual choose that difficulty. I set you right now as your game stands you have lost 80% of your fans do to lack of communication. I thank you all for putting in hard work. But no talking to us cost you fan base badly.

Further note. unique drops should be on at the very least nightmare but also insane. not to mention there should be more than just 6. hell, where is the unique armor sets. speaking of which what is the point of having 4 styles of armor when there is on 1 slight difference between them. it makes it virtually pointless. Yes, I know there are many who will give me crap for what I wrote here. Yet some needs to tell them the truth the rest of you do not seem to want to.

At the end of day this game should appeal to all on ever difficulty not just the 10%. making so on 2 classes are playable on nightmare and mass is a serious screw up in development period. Making so a player must make 4 of every char so you can make perfect builds and then make 1 special char to be dps is not only irresponsible but just down right unfun. last fix the bug that make so you tower stop change the dps per map you play its beyond bull.

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Dizzy49@gmail.com

I will agree that I hate the build timers.  I'm a slow builder, and my daughter can't build at all because she isn't a hardcore gamer.  The timers kill any casual aspect of the game.

There needs to be some kind of storage in the tavern!  I'm carrying around 2 screens of pets because I want to keep them!  Simply give us a place to store things and it's added collecting as a whole other task!

I like the idea of item reforging a lot.  Looking forward to seeing that, hopefully it isn't months away.

I thought the trading that Blizzard implemented was pretty good.  Can add items and/or money, both players click agree, if something is added after one player clicked agree, then it resets so they have to click again.  DO NOT DO ANY KIND OF AUCTION HOUSE!  1) That destroyed the economy in WoW  2) There isn't enough of a played base to make spending time on it worth it.  But to be honest, I think there are so many other things to work on/fix before trading.

Lastly, why are you splitting time with console ports right now?  Why not complete the game, THEN port it over.  The console will have to wait a little longer, but they would have a much better experience overall as they would get a full game that has been well tested, and hopefully a more thriving player base.  Splitting your time makes EVERYONE unhappy and gives EVERYONE a less-than-ideal experience all around, and the risk of players bailing is much higher.

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papafhill

I'm going to skeptically say I'm looking forward to this.  I'm still not a huge fan of the Rift idea, since I'm anticipating still having to invest 90+ minutes into each play-through of a single map.  Perhaps there will be a wave setter on Rift mode as well?

I also think a nice feature / setting that could be added would be the ability to select which wave you want to play, and have the game just repeat the wave a set number of times (minus dropping pets from chests).  That way I can run wave 25 on repeat for however long I want, without going back to the tavern, and just continue to farm items (rift / fusion items?).  It's annoying to be able to only run waves 22 - 25 on repeat (haven't played in a long time, so not sure what entry point is now allowed).

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tyyuer

I expect that each play-through of a single map will still take me 90 minutes or more. Perhaps a wave setter will be available in Rift mode as well? 

 

 

Super Mario Bros
 

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