Bugs

Hello, I would first like to address a few bugs. I will not be able to cover every detail of each bug, however I will try to not be annoyingly vague. So it has come to my attention that certain bugs have become norms/game mechanics now. This is not unheard of because some bugs were great amazing later on features to the game. Mana Swirling, Lab Assualt, and Tower stacking are not so great and amazing, these are somewhat game breaking and skillless exploits. 

Starting off with Mana Swirling we can see that maybe every mid tier user has heard of, or uses this "mechanic". For those that do not know what Mana Swirling is: it is the use of some sort of fast attack rate weapon such as the popular Wolf Hunters Bow or maybe even the new Mischief Maker to manipulate their pet genie to give them more mana in less than seconds. The way they can do this is because of how the Genie pet works. The pet will reward you with a certain number of mana per hit you deal. With these multi-hit weapons, your genie will now reward you up to 7 times that value in the same amount of shots. This is a very lazy way to upgrade all your towers in 2 or even 1 round. People that do not know of this exploit will continue to play the game happily, so patching this glitch will not disapoint any players that appreciate a bug free game. Also worth noting that a few players get confused with the fast upgrading part.- The fast upgrading is all having to do with your hero attack speed stat, and NOT mana swirling.

Second broken and abused game mechanic is Lab Assualt. I know this is just a map, however there are many things wrong with it. One of my greatest issues with this map is the BF Drill weapon allowing anyone to solo it in around 3 minutes. How do you do it? Simple, all you have to do is find a fast route to snipe the crystals with your cursed BF Drill. After you do this you are then able to meet at the center of 2 2 lane conveyer belts. This next part is dumb, but hear me out. You have to shoot the EV bosses enough times to.. Get this. Push them off the map. If that isnt dumb enough, the drops you get are really insane as well. I will not be going into the drops, but the 3 minute runs you can do are insane for; quality Accessories, Armour, and Huge amounts of mana. Not to mention that using an emulated character will double, triple, and quadruple your drops. An emulated character is available to you using a script, or an xbox controller. Rarely you will see people use a second steam account to get more than 4X the drops. This is possible because Lab Assualt map can hold up to 6 heros, and some can do this using a script or using a completely diferent computer.

Lastely the worst bug yet, Tower Stacking. Some high tier players will strongly disagree with me for mentioning this on my list. They will say it saves time, or it is for speed running. I can only say one thing, "bug off". This is easily exploitable and people have used this ever since the dawn of time. The length of time can not possibally measure how broken this mechanic is. Tower Stacking is placing a tower inside another tower, or minion inside another minion. These towers can face any direction, and they will save a TON of build space. On embermount there is no recorded video that I know of, that someone has completed the map Embermount Survival Nightmare Hardcore Mixed Mode up to wave 40 WITHOUT stacking. Sure some people might have, but seeing is believeing. If I am not seeing I am not believeing. Some might say that they do not feel like editing such and such hours of footage to show to one person. I can understand that, however this is just one map I am asking for. I might be getting off topic, but back to why Tower Stacking is so broken. My main concern with it is the brainless builds you can get away with, and the Defence Units (DU) you can save. Using Tower Stacking you will try less, and the builds you make will more and more revolve around stacking towers. The builds you make are going to spark curiosity in newer players. These newer players will want to try it and pretty soon they are making even more brainless builds. What I am talking about is stacking 5 Deadly Striker Towers (DST) and 3 Lightning Towers (LT) on a 4 du buff beam, alreading supporting the auras or traps that make enemies weak to your towers elements. The maximum LTs I have seen placed on a 4 DU buff beam is 6. stacking saves you a bit of DU, because it only takes 3 1 DU reflect beams to protect your stacked towers. I am also fine with the LT getting a nerf. Maybe you can make them deal more damage under auras and less damage out side of them.-This is just an bad idea. LT have been too powerful combined with stacking. This is because you can protect them with the reflect beams and a minion wall around them. 

This thread is still a work in progress, and if there is anything I should note or address please do not be afraid to add your oppion or send factual evidence. I know somethings I have addressed are vague, but that is something that happens when you type up a rank late at night.

Contact me here https://steamcommunity.com/id/Lapiztf2/ for your questions and hate.

No to the fix on mana swirling, this was added in the bucbay beta and no one liked it so it wasn't added, if you don't want to use it fine, but it's been accepted as a feature by most of the community.

Lab has already been nerfed once so I think it's fine atm.

DD is not a competitive game, so skill never really comes into it. When you have to farm maps hundreds of times to get something good stacking is nice to save a little time but it's really not that big of a deal, I say it's not harming you that other people stack, if you don't like it just don't do it, it's that easy. 

Also lol https://youtu.be/DL3yddCn-aA ember is one of the easier end game survivals, not a really good example.

https://dungeondefenders.com/1/topic/126501/

Please see this topic here regarding the "genie bug". Will address other stuff later

"People that do not know of this exploit will continue to play the game happily, so patching this glitch will not disappoint any players."

^Patching mana swirling has already been done in a past beta and a large majority of everyone who played it hated it.

I'm only going to argue what you've said in this post, not about what should and should not be in the game. (In my honest opinion, the topics you've mentioned in this post won't ever be solved.)

Tower stacking shouldn't even be touched. you say it breaks the game but you can't give me any statistics on who uses tower stacking. The only way it influences the game is that it saves on space and du. It saves 2 du from making a 4 du beam instead of a 6 du beam. You can say it's overpowered just because you don't like it but you can do just as well without stacking, you just need to know how to actually play the game. 

Lab isn't broken at all. If you think Lab Assault is broken, you don't realize what other things are broken in the game. Sure, you can cheese the game to clear the map with lower stats or even a minute faster. But there are so many other "broken/overpowered things in the game." Theres a couple things i personally thing are "broken" in DD that are worse than cheesing lab assault.

-Starting the wave on one character and adding in 3 more during the wave to make the wave easier and getting 3 more pets.

-Having an emulator (If you REALLY wanted to, you could call this cheating but if you did you're just insane)

Anyone who thinks lts are op or stacking is op. try not using the two things i listed bellow.

-Any build on a non-base game map that is on NMHC that uses buff beams

-Any build on a non-base game map that is on NMHC that uses strength drains.

Also what you could do is just not use everything you listed. I haven't gotten any statistics to shove at you but i'd want to say that half of the community agrees and half disagrees.

I was going to say more but i forgot.

It is a bit unfair to mention that the game is not skillful, I would like to see more players join. I would also like for the game to be more balanced, or what would the rules be. All good games have rules, and all good players recognize balance. There might not be a competitive scene any time soon or ever. I hope we both can agree that we want ranked mode to not be like open. And with that noted tower stacking should be on the open side, with all the other nonsense. Stacking is what started out as an glitch, but then turned into an exploit with scripts. Not all people use scripts to stack, but many do. I also do not understand how Lab was nerfed, since you can still BS your way through it in 3 minutes or less.

① Genie swirling will probably not be fixed because the community really hated the fix.

② Lab will probably not be fixed because people get really unhappy if you even talk about changing Lab any further.

③ We might be able to fix stacking, but you'll have to convince the community.  Right now I don't think there's a consensus, but it looks like there are a lot of people who feel strongly on both sides. 

Personally, I don't think it's a big deal.  You can build 8 LTs on a 4 DU buff beam without stacking.  On most maps tower stacking gives you either no advantage (aka, ww) or lets you build one more LT (tol, moonbase). Due to its design Ember survival is rather easy (with or without stacking), but Ember camp is harder and might be a good example of where stacking makes a significant difference. 

Minion stacking is usually not very good but it can be helpful in some low stat builds.

We have an idea for "tower snapping", an option which lets you place a tower next to another tower really easily.  If you move the mouse cursor over another tower, it'll "snap" the placement to the nearest possible position in that direction, so that you can place them side-by-side more easily.  If we end up fixing stacking (and that should be both tower and minion stacking), that might be a nice QoL change to help people place towers.

All of the good end game accessories were pulled off lab assault making it a LOT less attractive to run now, the only thing it still has is armor which there's another map that's better than lab assault for armor farming. Which is moon base survival. Lab is only really still attractive to low stat folks who can't run moon base survival yet. Otherwise people will just run moon base since it's easy to set up and gives more supreme/ ult armor an hour than lab does for a lot less effort and is afkable with decent enough stats.

Edit: And that's IF you have an emulator or extra controllers, i forgot to bring that point up initially. Lab is AWFUL if you don't have access to either of those. The fact you basically never see threads of WTS or WTB Lab run's should be pretty clear how little interest that map still has currently. Those threads used to be posted constantly. Lab does not need to be nerfed even further than it already has been.

@bonny quote:

Theres a couple things i personally thing are "broken" in DD that are worse than cheesing lab assault.

-Starting the wave on one character and adding in 3 more during the wave to make the wave easier and getting 3 more pets.

-Having an emulator (If you REALLY wanted to, you could call this cheating but if you did you're just insane)

Anyone who thinks lts are op or stacking is op. try not using the two things i listed bellow.

-Any build on a non-base game map that is on NMHC that uses buff beams

-Any build on a non-base game map that is on NMHC that uses strength drains.

I'd like to add rolling damage all to the list of things that are more op then stacking/LTs.

To be honest, i don't understand why you want those changes lapiz, if you wanna play without LTs stacking/BF/Mana swirling, then go for it, the fact is that would be unfair to new players to change theses things.

Imagine an old 10k hours player, that farmed with those "exploits" for all that time, how would it be fair for new players to farm without ?

And apart from this, farming armor is already painful, if mana swirling didn't exist, every armor farmer would need lots more time investment in the game.

Btw, there are still some players that play without emulator/LTs stacking/mana swirling, its kind of a pride, same for players that only farm themselves every items they use. And i don't think those guys are bothered by the other players using theses.

Tower stacking can actually save you some du which makes it basicly easier which already is a dumb thing. Not even wanna talk about the stupidness that you have to download scripts/macros to be able to stack lts (the most famous tower stacking after summoner). It can safe you a bit space and get you 1 lts more for example which already is a huge advantage cause they are just broken as hell.

I think Lab really would need some changes. You can easily get some ult armor pieces after doing the map some few times with an emulator. You cna easily do it without putting any efford into getting the equipment for it. Evs also get stuck everywhere on the map on the most stupid places and the stuck position in the famous camping corner is still not fixed even after so long time... It needs some buffing or changing and the Evs shouldn´t get stuck anywhere on the map and just jump down like retards.

Emulator is just stupid in my opinion too. It´s supposed to be a kind of farming game... Well with the advantage of getting 3 people more in (by downloading external things again... and again... and again...) you ar able to farm the things incredible fast. What´s the point of a farming game where you don´t have to farm much?

Other things I would consider complaining about too are:

- Stuck mobs

- Jester wheel

- LTS

- Cheaters/modders (seen really not too few of them in the last time). You just join their game and people are all afk with the host speeding the build phase up and killing every mob instantly with one stack of auras.

- Event items (that should already explain anything)

The game is so easy by abusing game mechanics and downloading external software... Ask yourself what you don´t like about the game and I´m pretty sure some of the things you´ll find here.

—This is a response from a Direct Message I have recieved, and I thought I should share it.

LootlovingGamer "All of the good end game accessories were pulled off lab assault making it a LOT less attractive to run now, the only thing it still has is armor which there's another map that's better than lab assault for armor farming. Which is moon base survival. Lab is only really still attractive to low stat folks who can't run moon base survival yet. Otherwise people will just run moon base since it's easy to set up and gives more supreme/ ult armor an hour than lab does for a lot less effort and is afkable with decent enough stats."

Apart from that, this game require already 1K5 hours to be able to farm all maps alone, i dont think 6K would be better cuz of no-emus


That game got already a big high-end player community, if you change the way they got there, no new players gonna be able to reach that point

- Cheaters can be avoid by community, just report them when you see somes
- Events are collectibles, i think its one of the thing i appreciate the most in that game, trading would be bad without them, and erasing them would destroy huge collections, it is also a way to make nice giveaways / events that make the community happy and that connect players with others.

If you disagree on basic main mechanics, can i ask you what you think about EV tower buff beams ? or the fact summoner got another amount of DU than normal towers ? feel free to try to change the game but i trust changes in a game with players that already spent big amounts of hours in should only be QoL improves and new features.

It's either download a emulator or buy 3 controllers, not everyone can buy 3 controllers just to get 4 characters in and that makes the emulator the much cheaper way. 

Also keep in mind that LT's has already been nerfed quite heavily in the last patch. i think they are in a better place right now than what they used to be. Stacking LT's and stacking in general has been part of the game for years i don't see why that would need changing, let the people that want to use it do so and if you don't like it don't use it. A macro is not required to stack and if you can't do it without you simply just suck. :D

I feel like Event items are a bit powerful in general considering they are not possible to get in game no matter how much you farm. I dont use them other than cosmedics for my pimped out medic summoner. I guess you can say that they set the absolute max stats you can get for weapons. These are obviously not balanced or ever will be, but with them you are able to BS the mana swirl mechanic using certain ones. The fact that on small maps with just the normal stone thrower weapon you can hit most enemies and by holding m2 you have infinite mana. The event item is even more effective at this, but instead of aiming toward a spawner only on small maps, you can aim anywhere on any sized map. I really dislike them, I will not add them into my arguement as a bug. The response I have pasted from a chat is something that I can strongly agree with, however event items are for another discusion.

@Lapiz quote:

I feel like Event items are a bit powerful in general considering they are not possible to get in game no matter how much you farm. I dont use them other than cosmedics for my pimped out medic summoner. I guess you can say that they set the absolute max stats you can get for weapons. These are obviously not balanced or ever will be, but with them you are able to BS the mana swirl mechanic using certain ones. The fact that on small maps with just the normal stone thrower weapon you can hit most enemies and by holding m2 you have infinite mana. The event item is even more effective at this, but instead of aiming toward a spawner only on small maps, you can aim anywhere on any sized map. I really dislike them, I will not add them into my arguement as a bug. The response I have pasted from a chat is something that I can strongly agree with, however event items are for another discusion.

Just don't use events if you don't like them, how is other people in their PRIVATE games affecting you? Same goes for stacking. And if you join someone who is stacking/using events then just leave. Play how you want to and stop accusing others for being unskilled for wanting to run maps a bit faster. No one cares that you don't stack or use events so why should you care what other people do?

@Lapiz quote:

I feel like Event items are a bit powerful in general considering they are not possible to get in game no matter how much you farm. I dont use them other than cosmedics for my pimped out medic summoner. I guess you can say that they set the absolute max stats you can get for weapons. These are obviously not balanced or ever will be, but with them you are able to BS the mana swirl mechanic using certain ones. The fact that on small maps with just the normal stone thrower weapon you can hit most enemies and by holding m2 you have infinite mana. The event item is even more effective at this, but instead of aiming toward a spawner only on small maps, you can aim anywhere on any sized map. I really dislike them, I will not add them into my arguement as a bug. The response I have pasted from a chat is something that I can strongly agree with, however event items are for another discusion.

Lapiz, you mentioned that the weapons set the absolute max stats on weapons. that is in no way true. i have tower weapons better than every event tower weapon thats been released. better pets than almost every event pet thats been released. and thats all to farming. i recently just hit 1.5k hours not too long ago and if youre expecting me to put 6k hours into this game to get to where i am now then youre insane. same can be said for LOTS of other people. emulators and the like have been in countless other games, theres nothing you can do about it and for instance if they were taken away. id have to go out and buy 3 controllers to match what other people have and THAT is ridiculous. 

And dont bother even saying there there are SOOOOOOOOO many external programs you have to download. you download 2 files and move em around. if you cant do that then how are you able to even do anything on your computer?

Back to the whole debate thing about this original post. In the end  you're pretty much just trying to change "core" mechanics to the game that'll affect literally everyone when you yourself can just stray away from it. you can say its broken. you can say its fair, but if you complain about it all when its obvious that a LARGE majority of this community is against changing it then this isnt going anywhere.

Sorry I just wanted to help fix a bug that I noticed in the game a long while ago. I did have a feeling everyone would go against me, however this is all because of a bug that you rather exploit. I find it a bit immature how some of these responses are completely ignoring what I have to say. Because of losing how many seconds on your run? 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13. How can you guys become so restless that you insist on relying on a bug to help you with your builds because you are so incompetent. How can your only excuse be that you have been using it for a while, and you don't adapt well to change? Why do you reject the idea when one person wants to put it out there? I feel like that is one of the most selfish remarks amongst most. Have any of you even tried to give the developers the chance to voice their own opinion on bugs. I feel like some developers are too afraid of the hate they will recieve when they do if they ever decide to. I did happen to notice that no one actually took plane's response into thought, and no one responed to her. Maybe only one community developer can post on a forum at a time, but if this isn't the case then maybe what I mentioned earlier is true. This is a controversal topic, but it is all in good nature to fix errors in the code. Do you agree?

This is a controversal topic, but it is all in good nature to fix errors in the code. Do you agree?

of course its in good nature to fix an error in the code, you're not wrong there. but you need to remember, this isn't a game breaking bug and a lot of these "errors in code" are actually liked by the community. you're kind of right when you say it is an exploit but in the end, if you remove this and every other bug that MANY people would rather have in the game, you lose like 80% of the regulars who still play this game. you can argue whatever you want and say no ones listening to what you're saying like you've been saying in every post so far, but in the end you're arguing against mechanics that everyone's been used to, everyone favors, and everyone would rather play with than without. you're being hypocritical when you say no ones listening to you when you're covering your ears and shouting at a mirror. this topic can last forever but you need to realize that taking away these bugs is a very minority opinion. (this'll never happen but) if this does happen and these bugs are removed, you're pretty much going to make you and maybe 3 other people happy while everyone else who even cares about this will hate it. 

Me and many others understand your point,"why save 10 more seconds on building with stacking? its just 10 seconds." You're right in every way, its literally 10 seconds.

But a lot of people like stacking. you can argue what you want but in the end, just don't stack and everyone will be happy, just forget that stacking exists and both parties will be satisfied.

we also understand your other point. you're saving SO MUCH DU FROM STACKING ITS HORRENDOUSLY OP (you literally save 2 du). we understand that.

I don't know about you but a lot of people including myself have no idea what you can spend the extra 2 du on that'll benefit your game,. you can throw down two magic barriers but that costs mana and it wastes time.

You said that "you don't adapt well to change? Why do you reject the idea when one person wants to put it out there?"

We already answered this by saying, it doesn't matter if you stack or not, you can do that exact same maps without stacking. you can do the exact same build without stacking. What we're saying is that yes we can build without stacking but stacking saves time and it allows us to be lazy. you saying that we're incompetent or not able to change is very rude. everyone can play the game how they want, that's the beauty of games.

You also mentioned that no one talked to Plane or responded to her. Everything that she said has been vaguely discussed in this thread and many of the things she said has its own thread that has been discussed about

You said no ones listening to you but you're not listening to anyone else. I'm going to make this part easy so you can see it and hopefully the thread ends after this.

"it's not harming you that other people stack, if you don't like it just don't do it, it's that easy." - Washboard

"let the people that want to use it do so and if you don't like it don't use it." - Herr Jeol

"Personally, I don't think it's a big deal." - Plane

^ These were quotes from active people in the forums. all being well known in the community and one being apart of the CDT.

If you didn't get what i said this time around, just don't use it. simple enough, you don't need to play captain police man and  make sure everyone is being a divine vanilla player just like how you want it to be. just host your own private game and don't stack, play lab assault, or use a genie, simple. 

Have a good day/night - Bonny

I for one agree that all three bugs mentioned should be fixed. If the community decides that shouldn't happen I'm not gonna cry about it, I'm just voicing my opinion. I think it is important to show that there is support on both sides of this argument.

I am going to put my opinion on here too. No, a big no from me. I dont want to add more time and effort when i already know im going to play the map hundreds of times. Just dont use it. No big deal, i dont affect you

1) yea nooo, its not a bug anymore really. (or at least I don't think about it as a bug) There was fix, no one liked it, everyone accepted its a feature that is staying on.

2) already nerfed

3) No. Let me be lazy. For a very good amount of my hours I built without stacking, I know how to do every map without it, but let me be lazy now that I know I can beat the map anyways. Du you save in most cases is like 2du, time? not much. Also calling builds with stacking "brainless builds" is really incorrect. Even with stacking, the stack of lts can't be placed just anywere, you need to think about minions, auras, etc. Sure I stack in.. lets say tow. Not many lts in the build even, could place them on the same lenght beams without stacking. Still need to think about minions etc. Not brainless. At all.

Bonny and everyone has stated the point many times, I have said my opinion in the past also. The first post was a heavy read, too tired to comment more on that.

Jyutta i agree with you, if a bug is appreciated enough to be part of the game for that long, it is not anymore a bug but a feature, part of the game.

Still a bug no matter what you guys say, and I am standing by my word. If you disagree that is fine. I am aware that this will probably never get patched considering how many bugs they list in the patch notes.

according to the fact a bug is a " error, flaw, failure or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways", those were bugs, but now they behave in a "intended way/expected result" cuz it already been fix, a part of a software that behave the way you want isnt a bug.

Anyway, already fixed. a fixed bug isnt a bug anymore cuz the person that changed that software did want the software to behave that way.

Stacking is part of the game right now, but it is a bug.  Think about the following:

1. You can stack minions in overlord, but if you move your mouse at all it stops working.

2. You can move minions onto each other, but it stops working 2.5 seconds after they spawn.

3. You can stack towers or minions by pressing jump at the same time as the hotkey, but this depends on your keyboard polling rate, so it's harder with some keyboards than others.  That's why it's easy for some people, and other people use macros to make it easier.

4. You can move any tower onto a present, but only after you've moved that present at least once.

5. You can stack any tower by moving a tower into a location there isn't enough room for it, but you can't control where they stack.

6. You can build a tower inside another tower when its animation is finishing, but the timing depends on your casting rate.

If stacking were made into part of the game, and not a bug, surely none of these things would be true.  It would be easy for everyone to do it and wouldn't break in such strange ways.

Consider the accessory upgrading bug.  After the cost per level wrapped around (past 2.1B mana cost), it used to be really buggy.  The rest of the levels were free due to this bug, but it was annoying because every level caused the stored mana indicator to jump around, and upgrading them took forever.  This behavior was changed from unintentional to intentional when the mana cost was set to 1 for each level. They remain free to upgrade after that point, but it's no longer weird and buggy.

I don't think we should do that sort of thing for tower stacking.  I'm just using it as an example to demonstrate the difference.  Stacking is clearly buggy in its current state, regardless of whether or not you like it.

By the way, people have different opinions about fixing minion stacking and tower stacking.  They're the exact same bug, so it feels a little weird to me to fix one and leave the other, but people do have that opinion.

Stacking a mage on top of a spider is a separate bug, though.  Because of this bug, you can also place an ogre on top of an archer or a mage, but not on top of an orc.  And actually, you can build any tower on top of a spider, not just a mage.

When placing a tower, the game checks an invisible box called a "trace extent" to see if there's anything inside of it.  If there is, you can't build there.  This trace extent is the exact same size and shape no matter what you're building, but its z-axis location varies a little.  For most towers, the z-axis location of the volume is exactly the same, but it's higher for ogres to accomodate how tall they are. 

Originally, using a fixed size didn't matter because all towers were approximately the same height.  When minions were added, though, that was no longer true, and it made some stacking possible.  Take a look at this image:

See how the volume is pretty high off the ground?  That's high enough that it goes over the head of an archer, but not an orc.  Likewise for when you're building a mage over a spider:

The trace extent is just a little bit off the ground, just high enough that it doesn't intersect a spider.  This didn't cause a problem in the original game, but it should really be just a little bit taller to prevent these glitches.

People would be angry if we fixed this bug too, so I don't think it's likely to get fixed, but it is a bug.