[Defense Council] Playtest: Next Wave Patch 1 Feedback Thread (Now live!)

Hey all,

This is our very first Council Session patch! Now that a lot of the game’s systems are finally in place (albeit, some very broken <_<), we can really start to iterate on balance and fun.

Remember, Dungeon Defenders II is in pre-alpha. Almost anything and everything can and will change. Some stuff is completely broken, and might be for some time. This whole process is, quite honestly, about us trying things and you letting us know what you think. This is how we think great games are made, and now, we get to make them with you. I want to personally thank all of you for your feedback so far!

Many of the changes in this patch attempt to make the Tower Defense and Action feel more balanced. One of our goals with Dungeon Defenders II is to have equal Tower Defense and Action, that you can influence with your roleplaying elements. Please play the game and let us know what you think of the changes in this thread:

Patch Notes:

• 
  
• Major balance changes to all heroes. Tower damage has been increased across the board
  
• Experience values from level 10 - 11 has been fixed.
  
• Item Enhancement crash has been fixed
  
• Item Comparison issue where relic types were not comparing against the correct relic type has been fixed.
  
• Items Stats should now be visible on equipped relics
  
• Spec sheet should now open up when the forge is accessed and you have unspent spec points
  
• Dragonfall Bazaar's air lanes now spawn enemies properly.
  
• Town Entrance Level 1 - 2 difficulty has been reduced about 40%. Most noticeable for solo players.

Hero Specific Changes:

Squire

• Increasing net DPS/DU of all Squire defenses by ~33%
  
• Increasing net HP/DU of all Squire barricades by ~25%

Apprentice

• Increasing DPS of Flameburst Tower by ~30%
  
• Correcting unnecessarily low HP on Frost Tower and Earthshatter Tower
  
• Slightly increasing DPS of Earthshatter tower by 10%
  
• Slightly lowered Earthshatter default range, but fixed range scaling on upgrades to be correct
  
• Slightly lowered radius on Earthshatter emitter to better-match visual effects
  
• Reconfiguring data to fix missing slow effect on Frost Tower
  
• Frost Tower now slows by 50% at all tiers (wasn't slowing at all before)
  
• Frost Tower Radius set to ~400 (covers much of a lane)
  
• Frost Tower Range now scales like other towers with tier upgrades (double range at max tier)

Monk

• Monk Defenses, Damaged Increased
  
• Lightning Aura - Slight Damage Increase (+15%)
  
• Skyguard Tower - damage increase (+25%)

Huntress

• Napalm Balloon - Damage Increase (25%)
  
• Poison Dart Tower - Slight damage increase (~15%)
  
• Geyser Trap - Slight damage increase (~10%)
  
• Electrocute Combo - Damage increase (50%)
  
• Explosive Trap - Slight damage increase (10%)

edit: PATCH is now live! If you were playing at 8:30PM you'll have to restart your client to get the updated.

+ Spec sheet should now open up when the forge is accessed and you have unspent spec points

:D You guys do care! <3 lolololol Thanks a bunch! (I hope it works for me now)

+ Napalm Balloon - Damage Increase (25%)

Aaaaannnnndddd.... FACEPALM.

Aaaaannnnndddd.... FACEPALM.

I understand what you mean, there were already so strong xD But with damage increased on almost every defenses maybe if the damage was the same on Blaze balloon, it would have been useless.

I understand what you mean, there were already so strong xD But with damage increased on almost every defences maybe if the damage was the same on Blaze balloon, it would have been useless.

Wisdom... you has it. :D Seriously though yea that is a great point. I didn't think of it. Plus there have been complaints about how it seems very difficult to start out so this will help with that along with the intro to Hard (and even Insane) this buff will not make it overkill and impossible for us.

Awesome, I'll have to check it out later today.

EDIT

v111 contains a fix for the Blaze Balloon. You may resume use of it.


ORIGINAL POST

We have discovered a bug with the Blaze Balloon duration. Per-charge, the damage effect is persisting for significantly longer on the ground than it should. We have fixed this internally, but the fix is not in this patch.

In the interim, please discontinue use of the Blaze Balloon if you're evaluating difficulty / challenge factor. The current state of the Blaze Balloon is not indicative of it's intended balance (at all).

If you need magic damage in a lane as a Huntress, please use the Poison Dart Tower in the interim.

Ballistas don't need a buff - they're perfect where they're at right now. All the squire's other defenses do deserve the buff though.

I'd submit that you'll also want to increase the DPS of training dummies even further (and by a significant amount); make it the highest DPS defense of the squire. Right now there's no reason to use it other than "hur dur I summoned a dummy lolz", because the dummy's DPS is pitiful and spikes tank a ton more damage.

We have discovered a bug with the Blaze Balloon duration. Per-charge, the damage effect is persisting for significantly longer on the ground than it should. We have fixed this internally, but the fix is not in this patch.

In the interim, please discontinue use of the Blaze Balloon if you're evaluating difficulty / challenge factor. The current state of the Blaze Balloon is not indicative of it's intended balance (at all).

If you need magic damage in a lane as a Huntress, please use the Poison Dart Tower in the interim.

I was actually going to post this issue I noticed with Blaze Balloons but you beat me to it :p

I hope that the buff helps out the Poison Dart tower because at its current state it is underpowered.

That explains why it is so potent and also why there is a 25% damage buff. Glad this will be fixed, bummed that it won't be this playtest. Guess I'll have to switch up heroes and test out other towers in the mean time lol

That explains why it is so potent and also why there is a 25% damage buff. Glad this will be fixed, bummed that it won't be this playtest. Guess I'll have to switch up heroes and test out other towers in the mean time lol

I am hoping that the buff to poison dart towers makes them useable because they are to weak atm.

Oh, i'm definitely trying this all out today :P

When might this patch be coming out may I ask...

Patch is live!

The Blaze Balloon fix is in the v111 patch.

You may resume use of the Blaze Balloon.

Aww, I was hoping the crafting wheel bug would have been fixed. Stats still don't stick when applying them.

Edit: And Greystone plaza Hard still doesn't spawn chests :(

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...NO!

So I can't access the forge now. If I do the spec sheet pulls up and I have the same issue which means now I can't even organize my loot and change equipment. Sweeeeettttt.... please someone at Trendy, help me.

Just played with level 1 squire. I like the feel of the balance. It doesn't feel like im baby sitting the towers. Towers can actually hold their own. Will try solo from level 1 with the other characters.

Patch is live!

So Live! So Vast! The Vast, VAST, ... dead...

I can't switch out heroes or control what gear is on my heroes. This patch literally killed me.

So.

My original "install" of the game now crashes on joining the tavern before I can do diddly. Had to move the launcher somewhere else and redownload completely (and lose all my settings: apparently there's in't 16:9 ratio screen sizes any more?).

OTOH I'm now level 12.

Level 1 characters on starting map.

Apprentice - easiest of the 3 heros to complete. Wall of flame towers just in front of crystal blocking each lane.

Squire- another wall of cannon towers with the same setup as apprentice.

Hunter- medium difficulty, Having a good cluster of placed mines helped a lot. Map littered with mines.

Monk- hardest. most trouble near end with the hulks with hammers. Entire map littered with elec auras. Was interesting to see how much health mobs had before reaching me at the crystal.

Obviously there will be a big sign when creating a character like in dd1 to give the difficulty of using said characters.

All these extra features being added are good and well, but it is pointless if you can't capture your audience in the first 10 minutes of gameplay

With the changes made it gave me a feeling of wanting to progress on. Good work.

.

I DID IT - LEVEL 25.

I've left my feedback as I've progressed in other posts, and now that I've played from start to finish, I have a few concluding thoughts. Let me preface this with the emphasis on the fact that these are very important!

• 
  
• I figured out what made me stop playing DDE right now; I'm freaking sick of playing maps with wildly varying difficulty, trying to blindly feel my way around which maps are on par with my gear. 90% of the time in DDE I get levels that are either too easy or I get clobbered. This playtest during levels 20-25 I felt very similarly. I'd try a level on Hard, get clobbered, try another level on Hard, pass it without a sweat. This only further proves my point of wanting control over the incoming enemy level, which would effectively remove the guesswork spending hours of playing too easy or too hard content.
  
• Loot progression was definitely broken for me. I found most of my myths/legendary gear at level 10, equipped it at level 12 (level requirement), and replaced only 1-2 pieces from that point all the way to level 25. My recommendation on loot progression:
  [list=1]
  
• Take all the stats on a piece of gear and average them together. Powerful you'd sum each stat and divide by 3, myths you'd divide by 5, etc. This number would determine the level requirement for the piece.
  
• Take this piece of gear and only drop it where the level requirement is applicable.
  
• For example, Sturdy loot with a +30 to physical resist and +35 to hero health would only appear somewhere around the level 10-15 playlist. If you wanted sturdy loot to drop in Throne room for the level 25 playlist, sturdy loot there should be giving stats of 100-125 in two areas with a level requirement of 24-25.
  

I'm concerned with the direction of gear; different classes can wear a different number of tomes, totems, and medallions. The problem with this is that there's no way to swap out upgrades without looking at all those pieces. For example, the squire can equip 3 totems and 2 medallions. Say I find a legendary totem - I want to equip it immediately, but I want to make sure I swap out the correct one. Right now there's no way to effectively switch out your desired gear without comparing the stats of all three totems at the forge and making your decision there. If I find an upgrade, I want to press 'F' and equip it immediately. This is yet another reason why I think moving towards equipping one of each type of relic would be better. The thought process would be, "Sweet, a legendary tome! Is it better than the tome I currently have? It sure is, I'm equipping it!" as opposed to, "Sweet, a legendary tome! It's looking promising that it might be an upgrade, but I have no control over what it replaces so I'm going to pick it up for now and look at it further back at the forge.".


Those were the super-important things. Now onto the general feedback:

• 
  
• Blue mana is plentiful. Remove the regen over time, and make dropped blue mana disappear after 60 seconds or so.
  
• I give you guys a 10/10 on green mana/upgrade balancing. For the first time I was looking at what was coming and upgraded my defenses based on the intensity of each lane.
  
• The shiny spikes stun on a spike blockade makes an ogre attack about twice as fast. Since the stun is so short for ogres, he gets stunned for a fraction of a second, then immediately attacks again. This means a shiny spiked blockade is at a severe disadvantage against ogres.
  
• Regarding the enemy spear thrower:
  
  • 
    
  • I must concede that the their range is just a tad bit too far. I'd like to see it shortened just a little bit and perhaps have it directly scale with what tier they belong under.
    
  • Please don't make piercing spears hurt the crystal. If you insist that they do hurt the crystal, at least turn off the notification that they're under attack. That notification is designed to alert you of an active threat, and right now I don't trust it anymore because it has cried wolf so many times.
    
  
  
• Cannons and ballistas deal near identical damage. Ballistas can pierce while cannons deal damage to only a single target. I can say with confidence that ballistas are vastly superior to cannons right now, and I'm not a huge fan of that. I feel that cannons deserve a fairly significant damage buff. Ballistas are great where they're at right now.
  

I DID IT - LEVEL 25.

Congrats buddy you did it! haha you disconnected but I managed to do the final wave with your ballista after waiting for about 5 min in case you came back.

Here's my feedback, only lvl 11 so far but has been good to play.

What I love:
-Love that there is no max mana now and I dont have to worry about am i losing mana when I swap heros, am I full. Oh wait im full let me go make a tower on other side of map then run all the way back to this chest. THANK YOu, saves so much time and energy.
-Spec sheets look good, coming along nicely. I need to play with them more.
- Inventory screen looks good was a tiny bit confusing at first but just because wasnt use to it. Tad confused why I still have 3 spaces empty, but ill figure it out. Please let me right click Inventory?
- Maps look amazing and the background graphics and sounds. The war room / throne room please let me turn off the Cannons haha they were cool at first but they play whole time on map. Tiny bit too loud

What I don't like so much:
-Spear thrower range, seems a bit crazy, sometimes shooting from inside the purple and cannot dmg him
- Chest system. Wow I have liked the chest system up until this point but for some reason I really resented running around and around trying to find the chests and doing each one. Not so bad with 2 keys but 4 keys every wave is a bit annoying. Especially the throne room where two chests dont appear on the map due to the size of the objective/s on the mini map.
-

Please don't make piercing spears hurt the crystal. If you insist that they do hurt the crystal, at least turn off the notification that they're under attack. That notification is designed to alert you of an active threat, and right now I don't trust it anymore because it has cried wolf so many times.

Hitting the crystal is an intended effect. And I agree with the reasoning behind it. OTOH I see where you're coming from.

I think there are a couple of factors here:

• Cores have waaay too much health
  
• Spears, once thrown, have almost infinite range (I have not seen one finally succumb to gravity or otherwise hit a maximum distance)
  
• Some paths are very cramped. Cough, Chiseled Caverns (west path) on Ruins.

Congrats buddy you did it! haha you disconnected but I managed to do the final wave with your ballista after waiting for about 5 min in case you came back.

Yeah, my game crashed, and I was like "screw it it's 4AM, I'm level 25, I'm calling it a night". Glad you beat the map though!

• Cores have waaay too much health
  

Early game they do have a lot of health. However when I was in the level 25 playlists, if you let a few goblins, wyverns or an orc through for a few seconds, the secondary objective is guaranteed to be destroyed and the main objective is going to be severely damaged. I like where crystal health is at right now; it gives you a fighting chance if your defenses fail, and that fighting chance decreases the further you progress into the game.