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[CG] LAWLTA

Chromatic Games
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Blog Entries posted by [CG] LAWLTA

  1. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS,
    As you're aware, we’ve got a lot of work going on currently, and today we want to talk about a more serious subject and what we’re currently doing. We’re just going to jump right into it.
    COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease) Response
    As this virus has spread and became recognized as a pandemic, it is important that we do our part as a studio in helping reduce the spread and effects. Last week and towards the end of the previous week, we began efforts to become an entirely remote studio. The greater part of this week, and continuing on, we’re still working out the kinks and making sure everyone is able to continue working, adapt meetings, and more. Outside of doing our part to stave off the virus, our goal is to make sure that our employees are safe, healthy, and set up to work as comfortably as possible.
    We’re still continuing to hit our intended milestones. The Etherian Cavalry received their first round of testing this weekend, tearing apart Nightmare to help us polish and address any large issues before releasing our March Update “Summoning the Demon Lord”. Having to mobilize our entire studio has definitely eaten up a fair amount of time, but we’re currently on track to still hit our milestones as outlined on our roadmap. If this should change, we will be sure to let you, our GLORIOUS Defenders know about it. We want to get this game out to you in the best state as soon as possible, but when it comes down to it, we will not sacrifice the safety and health of our employees to do so. We’re people just like you, there are things that are out of our control that we have to adapt and overcome to the best of our ability. We appreciate your support and understanding in the coming months.
    Please make sure to do your part in helping out throughout these tough times. If you are unaware of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), or have any questions, please visit the CDC’s Coronavirus Page for more information on symptoms and how to help prevent the spread. Stay safe out there!
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on the future of DDA make sure to follow us on all our social media platforms:
    Discord Twitter Facebook Instagram Twitch Forums Keep an eye out for more info!
    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
  2. [CG] LAWLTA
    Greetings Defenders,
    The cold winds from the west are upon us, bringing Dungeon Defenders II:  Drakenfrost with them! We put out a Dev Log showcasing some of the work that’s gone into the update, as well as a Dev Stream debuting some of the goodness coming. In this patch preview, we’ll be talking about those systems a little more in-depth to hold you over until the Update Notes are released. Let’s get to it!
    Drakenfrost Keep

    This is the newest map to Dungeon Defenders II. Some old school Dungeon Defenders fans will notice a lot of similarities to the Royal Gardens map, but don’t get comfortable, as there is a lot more danger to this map to take on. We’ll touch on this map more overtime, we’re excited to see the different builds that arise to take on the challenges that wait.
    Elemental Combos
    Speaking of different builds, Elemental Combos received a lot of attention in the Drakenfrost Update. We spent a lot of time making all the debuffs in the game more uniform so that they all applied the same effect. For instance, all oils now work the same, previously some slowed certain mobs, some didn’t. Oh also, ALL water damage now drenches, including water mods (both chips and servos). This is our first phase on improving this system, something a lot of Defenders have asked for a very long time. We’re only able to add this system because of our Diminishing Returns system.
    Diminishing Returns

    This is a new system that we’re adding to the game, something that is a staple in a lot of different types of RPGs. A lot of players really LOVED the Weapon Manufacturer’s Mod “Shocking Revelation”, it brought a really awesome stun and a good chunk of damage with it, and a lot of Defenders immediately set off to get it. Eventually we had to nerf it a little bit to bring it in line with other Mods, but we loved the allure it provided for players.
    If we wanted to do anything further with Mods like this, we needed to implement a system that didn’t make stun crowd controls negate all future content and negate any future Mods/features that weren't a stun with a different color (because anything less would not be as good). Enter Diminishing Returns. This system allows you to crowd control enemies, but after using it back to back the effect loses its strength. After a short while of not being affected by crowd control effects, enemies are able to be crowd controlled again at 100% efficacy. We’re able to buff up blockades during this update as well, and potentially give them even further functionality in additional updates!
    We’re going to be very responsive to feedback on this, but it allows us to do a lot of cool stuff in the future. That means new Mods, any new heroes, and MUCH more we can’t talk about just quite yet can now have a lot of epic moments and crazy amounts of power without worrying about it not being as cool as strong as a 100% stun up time or so strong that it disables every enemy that has existed, currently exists, or will ever exists. This opens up the doors for some amazing things!
    Communities
    This is a feature that we’re also wanting a lot of feedback on. We’re releasing it initially on Steam, almost as a beta test of the feature. It’s a system that allows up to 30 people to be in a structured group, and you can be in 5 Communities at a time. These groups can talk to each other regardless of where you are using the chat system, invite one another to groups, and more. We’re wanting to build even more off this system, but it’s something you’ll have to get your hands on and see.
    Communities are coming later in this patch after we've given it a little more polish.
    Inventory Improvements
    These are things we’ve had in the works for a long time. This portion of the update has A LOT of quality of life improvements that get you out of your inventory faster and into the action. Sorting improvements, identifying perfect mods, and more are coming. There’s more information coming with tomorrow’s update!
    What’s Next?
    There’s a lot we’re experimenting with in this update to make the future of Dungeon Defenders II as great as possible. We’re welcoming all the feedback that you can provide on it, but of course make sure it’s constructive, it’s the best way to ensure we can make the best changes as fast as possible. The update is live tomorrow, so start a fire, things are about to get cold!
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  3. [CG] LAWLTA
    Greetings Defenders,
    The cold winds from the west are here, bringing Dungeon Defenders II:  Drakenfrost with them to Steam and PlayStation 4, with Xbox coming later today! We put out a Dev Log showcasing some of the work that’s gone into the update, as well as a Dev Stream debuting some of the goodness coming. In this patch preview, we’ll be talking about those systems a little more in-depth to hold you over until the Update Notes are released. Let’s get to it!
    Drakenfrost Keep

    Drakenfrost Keep has recently been re-discovered by members of the intrepid Etherian Explorer’s Guild. The Explorers were guided to its location by a tattered scroll discovered in the Mages Council Library. The scroll alluded to an ancient sealing ritual used by the early Council to seal away the powerful Generals, commanders of the armies of the Old Ones. The scroll detailed the Keep’s location with cryptic hints about “requiring the ultimate sacrifice” to seal away evil’s essence into “a vessel unlike the Eternia Crystals”.
    This is the newest map to Dungeon Defenders II. Some old school Dungeon Defenders fans will notice a lot of similarities to the Royal Gardens map, but don’t get comfortable, as there is a lot more danger to this map to take on. We’ll touch on this map more overtime, we’re excited to see the different builds that arise to take on the challenges that wait.
    Drakenfrost Keep is available in a new Adventure that includes Drakenfrost Resort (previously known as the Hotspring Map) AND in Expeditions.
    Winterfest is Here

    Head to Town or your Private Tavern to take part in Winterfest! Visiting everyday gives the opportunity to take a present from the giant festive tree located next to the Scavenger in Town, and next to your vault in the Private Tavern. This tree contains one of three gifts:


    Epic Gift
    Contains one of four holiday themed weapons for the Squire, Apprentice, Monk, and Huntress.
    Mythical Gift
    Contains one of four holiday themed weapons for the Squire, Apprentice, Monk, and Huntress.
    One regular Defender Pack
    One random Shard container (1 Shard)
    Legendary Gift
    Contains one of four holiday themed weapons for the Squire, Apprentice, Monk, and Huntress.
    One Mythical Defender Pack
    One random Shard Pack (5 Shards)


    In order to obtain the items, approach the tree and hit the appropriate button that appears to receive your wonderful gift! The weapons that come from these gifts ARE tradeable, and follow the same rules as any other tradeable item (they cannot be traded if they are upgraded in anyway). These items also scale to your champion score up until the Chaos VII 6/10 upgrade level.

    For the season of Winterfest there’s also a pretty amazing sale going on. Inventory bags are going to be 50% off and the Material Vault is ~33% off. The Material Vault now holds 9,999 instead of 999 for each slot, and it also includes both new reroll materials, these changes are applied to currently owned Material Vaults as well. Supplies aren’t limited, but this sale isn’t going to last forever!

    Winterfest is going to be on for quite a while, lasting past December. This gives you plenty of chances to get all four weapons and some nice Shards and Defender packs along the way! Oh, and of course, don’t eat the yellow snow.
    Elemental Combos
    Elemental Combos received a lot of attention in the Drakenfrost Update. We spent a lot of time making all the debuffs in the game more uniform so that they all applied the same effect. For instance, all oils now work the same, previously some slowed certain mobs, some didn’t. Oh also, ALL water damage now drenches, including water mods (both chips and servos)! This is our first phase on improving this system, something a lot of Defenders have asked for a very long time. We’re only able to add this system because of our Diminishing Returns system.
    Diminishing Returns

    This is a new system that we’re adding to the game, something that is a staple in a lot of different types of RPGs. A lot of players really LOVED the Weapon Manufacturer’s Mod “Shocking Revelation”, it brought a really awesome stun and a good chunk of damage with it, and a lot of Defenders immediately set off to get it. Eventually we had to nerf it a little bit to bring it in line with other Mods, but we loved the allure it provided for players.
    If we wanted to do anything further with Mods like this, we needed to implement a system that didn’t make stun crowd controls negate all future content and negate any future Mods/features that weren't a stun with a different color (because anything less would not be as good). Enter Diminishing Returns. This system allows you to crowd control enemies, but after using it back to back the effect loses its strength. After a short while of not being affected by crowd control effects, enemies are able to be crowd controlled again at 100% efficacy. We’re able to buff up blockades during this update as well, and potentially give them even further functionality in additional updates!
    We’re going to be very responsive to feedback on this, but it allows us to do a lot of cool stuff in the future. That means new Mods, any new heroes, and MUCH more we can’t talk about just quite yet can now have a lot of epic moments and crazy amounts of power without worrying about it not being as cool as strong as a 100% stun up time or so strong that it disables every enemy that has existed, currently exists, or will ever exists. This opens up the doors for some amazing things!
    Mod Improvements
    Previously we talked about Mods receiving changes in phases. In Phase I we more than doubled the drop rate of 10/10 Mods, as well as buffing all 6/10, 7/10, 8/10, and 9/10 drop rates. This means that 1/10, 2/10, 3/10, 4/10, and 5/10 Mod drop rates were lowered.
    We promised a Phase II with this update, and we are delivering! Perfect 10/10 Mod drops before the update on average appeared within about 4 hours of active gameplay. We’ve received a lot of great feedback from players enjoying this change. However, it really stinks to be an outlier and it take a very long time to get a 10/10. The first change of Phase II is that it now on average takes about 10 hours of average play to get a GUARANTEED 10/10 Mod. If you play with more players, because you’re seeing more Mods, the amount of time this take drops significantly,  taking almost half of the listed times.
    Mod Rerolls are available in the following areas:
    Expeditions
    Drakenfrost Maps drop 2 Reroll Materials
    Onslaught
    Drakenfrost Maps drop in the following amounts
    Floors 28-35 drop 1 Reroll Material on Drakenfrost Resort
    Floors 35-59 drop 1 Reroll Material on ALL maps, and 2 Reroll Materials on Drakenfrost Resort
    Floors 60+  drop 2 Reroll Materials on ALL maps, and 3 Reroll Materials on Drakenfrost Resort
    We provided ways to farm them outright for the Defender who may want to take it easy in Chaos VII, or while progressing so even as you’re climbing Onslaught you’re able to take part in this new material and are even rewarded for taking on harder challenges.
    Inventory Improvements
    These are things we’ve had in the works for a long time. This portion of the update has A LOT of quality of life improvements that get you out of your inventory faster and into the action. The changes include:
    Auto Sort
    Auto sorting now sorts your bags by actually moving all the items, previously provided a visual update only.
    The sorting goes by item type and Gear Score, but is a big update to the previous system 

    Shard Sorting
    Shard sorting logic has been updated. It now prioritizes the following.
    Sorts by Defense Shards first, and then by Hero shards
    After sorting between the two types, Shards are sorted alphabetically.

    Mod Sorting
    On the “Filter By” tab, the right most tab in the inventory, there is a new icon for Mods. This filters your best Mods first. This makes long play sessions easy and quick to check if there are any of those GLORIOUS 10/10’s just sitting in your bags.
    Numbers on the bottom right correspond to what the highest Mod quality is on the item.
    Numbers are white intentionally to make it easier for colorblind players to see what the number is.

    Mod Inspect
    By holding down Shift, you can now see the highest Mod quality of an item in the bottom right.
    General Changes
    Vicinity Targeting
    This is a new way to interact with players. This allows you to target other players, keep them targeted, and choose to do a variety of things:  invite them to party, inspect their shop, and more interactions when Communities are implemented.
    Material Vault Changes

    We received a bunch of feedback regarding the Material Vault. Previously it allowed you to store 999 of specific materials in each slot. Now you are able to store 9,999 IN EACH SLOT! That’s not all, the Material Vault now also has spots for the Primary Reroll Material and the Mod Reroll Material. So much space for activities!
    Social Menus
    There's been a social menu added next to your abilities and towers on the main HUD. This brings a bunch of quick functionality when interacting with others!
    Enemy Spawning
    We took additional passes at enemies getting stuck in spawn, but also fixed a big issue where enemies were going underground for a while and coming out of the ground later on in their path, bypassing blockades. We’re going to be keeping a vigilant eye on this, so please provide feedback on this if you see anything!
    Console Voice Chat
    We have now provided an option that allows you to disable voice chat in social hubs, Console player rejoice! You can now opt in to hear all the great music choices of your fellow Defenders. And by great, we mean potentially terrible. It’s usually terrible.
    Victory Chests
    Tired of waiting for your legendary loot to come out of that chest as you’re playing with other Defenders and getting so much more? Well that wait has been significantly reduced. When you open the Victory Chest, all your loot comes shooting out all at once. When playing with three other Defenders it looks like a legendary shotgun explosion.
    Oh, and before we forget, if you don’t open your Victory Chest before moving on, all the items inside are sent to your inventory. If your inventory is full, then it goes to the Scavenger. Never miss out on Victory Chest loot again!
    Communities
    This is a feature that we’re also wanting a lot of feedback on. We’re releasing it initially on Steam, almost as a beta test of the feature. It’s a system that allows up to 30 people to be in a structured group, and you can be in 5 Communities at a time. These groups can talk to each other regardless of where you are using the chat system, invite one another to groups, and more. We’re wanting to build even more off this system, but it’s something you’ll have to get your hands on and see.
    Communities are coming later in this patch after we've given it a little more polish.
    Balance Changes
    Abyss Lord
    Towers
    Colossus
    Health scaling increased to 600, was previously 430.
    Skeletal Orc
    DU cost lowered to 35, was previously 40.
    Apprentice
    Towers
    Arcane Barrier
    No longer allows enemies to pass through it while exploding.
    Shards
    Frost Power
    Defense Power scaling changed to (9 + 1 per level) from (10 + 2 per level). Max gilded is now 33%, previously was 58%
    Dryad
    Towers
    World Tree
    DU Cost lowered to 25, was previously 30.
    Lavamancer
    Towers
    Maw of the Earthdrake
    Defense Unit costs reduced to 50 DU, previously was 60 DU.
    Defense Health Scaling increased to 300, previously was 200.
    Fissure of Embermount
    Adjusted overlap to match that of similar towers (Flame Aura, Weapon Manufacturer, etc.)
    Mystic
    Towers
    Viper’s Fang
    Upgrading the Viper’s Fang now allows you to bubble up to 5 enemies.
    Squire
    Towers
    Training Dummy
    DU Cost lowered to 25, was previously 30.
    Bug Fixes
    Fixed an issue where the first bag in an inventory would visually not load.
    Fixed an issue when selling items that other items would be put in their place.
    Fixed an issue with Dryad’s Angry Nimbus that caused it to target enemies within the spawner.
    Fixed an issue with Dryad’s Hornet’s Nest not dealing elemental damage when using an elemental mod.
    Fixed a VFX issue when killing Betsy while she was breathing fire.
    Fixed a variety of DPS tooltip calculations
    Fixed an issue where Floor 40 Onslaught flairs were labeled with the wrong floor to attain them.
    Fixed an issue where Replay From Wave refunded Level 1 Tower mana if they were upgraded.
    Fixed an issue with gamepad focus moving when buying the last item from a shop.
    Fixed focus issues with Pet Stat reroll UI for gamepad.
    Fixed an issue with the Initiate, Gunwitch, and Huntress’s stat changes via various Ascension talents.
    Fixed an issue with Favorable Winds mod proccing off any kills, not just primary attack kills.
    Fixed an issue with the amount of XP given from Drakenfrost Resort in Expeditions.
    Fixed an issue with the Dark Arts Arcane Barrier not displaying properly.
    Adjusted tool tips for items on the ground when using 4K settings.
    Fixed an issue on Xbox where Defenders would get stuck on the main menu.
    Adjusted the Vanguard’s collision so that it better matches his shield.
    Fixed an issue in Assault on the Throne Room where destroyed subcores would not spawn enemies.
    Fixed an issue with Ancient Life Steal only healing for 5% when at 5+ points.
    Adjusted the difficulty of Forest Crossroads and Wyvern Den.
    Fixed an issue with UI layering issues when purchasing or creating a hero.
    Forest Ambush now has less amount of kobolds blowing up your lanes.’
    Fixed an issue with the My Deck button going gray after deleting a hero.
    Betsy’s overall damage reduced.
    All Adventures difficulty lowered across the board.
    Fixed a visual issue with the Harpy’s blinking animation
    Fixed an issue where EV2’s Buffer Chip worked on other heroes.
    Known Issues
    If chat is gray, deleting your ini will fix it and give you colors.
    Keybindings were reset with this update because of Communities being added.
    On PlayStation 4, when in-game and quitting to the main menu, you may run into issues logging back in. Just restart the game and you should get back in.
    The following Elemental Effects' durations are not working the correct length: Onsen Bath, Maelstrom, Water Chip/Servo, Freezing Rain, and Drenching Strikes.
    DPS Tooltip for Hornet's Nest is showing debug stats (get it, because they're bugs).
    What’s Next?
    There’s a lot we’re experimenting with in this update to make the future of Dungeon Defenders II as great as possible. We’re welcoming all the feedback that you can provide on it, but of course make sure it’s constructive, it’s the best way to ensure we can make the best changes as fast as possible.
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  4. [CG] LAWLTA

    PATCH 4.1 PREVIEW!

    By [CG] LAWLTA,

    Ahoy Defenders!
    Around the docks of Etheria there is talk of Patch 4.1 arriving later this week. Among these whispers are some predictions of what’s to come. Join us as we peer slightly into the future, it’s time to dive into Patch 4.1 preview!
    Perfect Mod Drops
    This is something that we received a lot of feedback on and are working on in multiple phases. The first phase is coming in this patch, it allowed us to do calculations on changing the drop rates specifically. We are going to be increasing the drop rate of perfect Mods by MORE than double, while lowering the drop chance of lower quality Mods.
    The second phase of this is a lot more complex, and we’re not ready to discuss it just quite yet. We know the current drop rate has an average time that players should see perfect mods, and for a lot of players they are at or below that average. However, there are players that are outliers on this system, taking a long time to see any perfect Mod and that doesn’t feel great. We are currently developing ways to try and curb this entirely.
    Mod Quality Visuals
    Players have requested that we make it easier to understand where your Mod quality ranges on a scale of 1 to 10. Now there will be a number that reflects the quality nestled gently on top of the “Qualibean™.”
    Mob Pathing
    We’re continuously finding ways to make our game experience as smooth as possible. Stuck enemies and those that go off their intended path are no fun to deal with, and they certainly are a challenge for us to ensure they work correctly. There are changes coming with this patch aimed at drastically decreasing these types of behaviors. We’re going to keep a close eye on these changes to make sure they work correctly, and if there’s more work to be done we promise we’ll be hammering away it.
    Replay From Wave
    This was a feature added in with Isle of Dread that a lot of players have enjoyed. We ran into an initial technical challenge that did not allow this feature to work well on Lost Temple. Replay From Wave was released and since we set to work on getting it to work on Lost Temple. After testing it, we’re now able to get Replay From Wave to work on this map — including Omega Waves.
    And That’s Not All!
    There’s of course a slew of bug fixes coming, expanded explanations to the above, and a couple other unannounced changes that will be in the patch notes.
    Social Defenders
    There’s a lot of people playing Dungeon Defenders II, and a lot of them gather on our social hubs. When it comes to finding other players, figuring out how to conquer a specific challenge, or just wanting to get to know others in the community, or getting the latest DD2 news, you can’t go wrong with our social platforms:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    We’re getting the finishing touches on this patch and cannot wait to share it with you all.
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  5. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS,

    Now that we’re a week out from our PAX return, we’re ready to share a lot of information about Dungeon Defenders: Awakened and what you can expect. There’s a lot to talk about, and based off the title of STEAM EARLY ACCESS, you probably already have a ton of questions. Let’s get into it!

    Steam Early Access
    Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is going to be available for Steam Early Access on February 21, 2020 (just in case you thought it was February 2021). This is something we’re incredibly excited for and hope that you are too! There’s a lot of reasoning that went into this, so we’re going to break it down because we want to be as transparent as possible to you, our GLORIOUS Defenders.

    We previously mentioned that we would be avoiding Early Access, but we feel this is the best route to deliver on our promise that we’re working very hard, while being able to also deliver something tangible to you by the extended deadline we provided. Our continued goal is to be as transparent as possible and have our fans tied to our development for years to come.

    Feedback
    We received A LOT of feedback. We put out a survey to our testers at the end of last year/early this year, and the turnout was insane. The thousands of results outlined what all of you thought about our game. In fact, for how rough the Beta was, we were ecstatic by the results:


     
    In total, it’s less than 10% of the most diehard hardcore Dungeon Defenders fans were not happy with the Beta. In terms of testing a game… that’s a home run! We knew that we were doing a lot of things good, but based on the feedback provided, we know we can do better than good and produce great work.
    The feedback outlined a lot of what people enjoyed about the game so far, and also some of the holes we had to fill. We went through and outlined everything we could make better based off the feedback from the survey, forums, and feedback provided through zendesk. It was a lot, and we’re not devs who shy away from a lot of hard work. Some of the feedback we’ve received made it into the PAX build and had an incredibly positive reception, showing that our approach to focusing on pushing from good to great is the best approach for not only us as a studio, but to all of our incredibly loyal community.

    Studio Work
    We’ve been working at a pretty high capacity to make sure things get out on time. We could have made a February launch for both PC and Nintendo Switch, but based on the feedback we received, it would have felt like 80~90% of the game you expected. This created a lot of internal conflict, because the people who work here at Chromatic are incredibly talented individuals who have done such a great job in such a short amount of time (we’re coming up on only 1 year of development), and we hold ourselves to a higher standard because 100% of what’s in the game is a reflection of our work.

    When we received the feedback, we knew that if we weren’t feeling the game was at 100%, then we couldn’t be dishonest and release it saying it was 100% ready. We want gameplay to feel polished and smooth, we want everything to look amazing and crisp, we want the systems to be seamless for people to use, and we want it to be a Dungeon Defenders game that our players are proud to support for years to come. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible, which leads us into what our Early Access schedule looks like.

    Why Early Access?
    Going into Early Access on Steam allows us to get where the game is at into the hands of our players on PC. By doing so, we’re able to iterate quickly, getting Dungeon Defenders: Awakened into that 100% state as soon as possible. We are still going to be honoring our Nintendo Switch exclusive deal with Nintendo, with our PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases coming in Q3 2020.
    That said, this Early Access is not going to be like other games, or like Dungeon Defenders II. The Early Access period is going to be incredibly short, because we’re really spending this time to polish up the game and meet your expectations. Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is going to be fully released during Q2 on PC and Nintendo Switch. We want Early Access to be as short as possible so that we can get Dungeon Defenders: Awakened out to all of you as the best version of the game.
    A lot of the polish we’re doing is to systems and gameplay, those are a bit harder to show off or discuss, but they encompass enemies spawning, how much loot drops, what kind of loot drops, enemy difficulty, enemy AI, and more across the entirety of the game. 
    One of the things we can show is the visual changes to some portions of our feedback. One thing that was shown off at PAX (and is still being iterated on) was the changes to the HUD:


    The feedback from the survey was overwhelmingly positive:



    That’s 4.5% that were dissatisfied, which when it comes to feedback, it's a slam dunk equivalent to (Space Jam spoiler alert) Michael Jordan slam dunking with his long arm at the end of Space Jam on the Monstars to score the two points needed to save the world: 

    As a result, we’re going to continue to use this time to polish up UIs in a similar fashion to how the HUD was polished. We’re excited to get these updates out to you in Early Access, and will be continuing iteration through Early Access based on feedback. As we speak, the UI has received even more polish than what’s shown here.
    Another change that we made was to the Huntress and Monk. We had seen through written feedback that people were not happy with their visuals, so we made some changes and presented them in the survey. People were happy with the direction we were going, but weren’t sold all the way. Something we weren’t able to get in the PAX build was our next iteration on the Huntress and Monk:

     


    You can see the progression we made over time, the first being the version we released into Beta, the second being a first pass presented in the survey, and the last being an updated version based on the feedback we got.
    These images felt to us a lot closer to Dungeon Defenders, while bringing them graphically up to 2020. We’re going to continue to get feedback on these as well, but we’re really happy with where they are at currently.

    Roadmap
    Releasing into Early Access isn’t only going to be setting the game live in its early state and then providing the finished product months later. Instead, we’re going to be updating it over time, adding in features as they become polished and in a state we’re happy with. Thus, THE ROADMAP IS BORN! 



    As a studio, this is what we are sticking to as a studio. Should anything change, we are going to make sure that we keep all of you updated as soon as possible. We want this road map to serve as a look into where our focus is and as a promise for what we’ll deliver.

    Beta Closing
    We’ve already implemented a ton of Beta feedback and are currently working through more. As a result, we’re going to be bringing the Beta to an end on Sunday, February 2nd at 11:59PM. We were very happy with the amount of people that we got in and the amount of feedback provided. If you had fun in the Beta, it’s only the surface of what’s in store for you on Early Access and our full release! Early Access is less than a month away.

    What’s Next?
    We’re going to keep working. As shown in the Roadmap, we’ve got some ground to cover still. We want to keep updates coming and to further enhance our transparency and direct communication with our community. After Early Access launches, we plan on having updates showcasing the work that has been done, introducing you to members of the team, and giving you a look at the work it took to make Dungeon Defenders: Awakened.

    Chromatic Weekend Wind Down, Dev Streams, and more are going to be coming as we continue development. We’re very excited for everything coming out and are excited that all of you are along for the ride!

    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team thanks you for your support. We’re working to make Chromatic Games a studio that is able to create games current and future that our Defenders are sure to enjoy, because our games are made for YOU!
    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games

  6. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    The day is finally upon us, Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is OUT NOW on Steam Early Access. This is a huge day for us as a studio, as it’s our first launch of a product out into the masses; it’s a huge step for Dungeon Defenders returning to its roots; and it’s a huge accomplishment thanks to your support, to get something this amazing out WITHIN A YEAR! With that said, you what we do, we get into it — let’s get into it!

    Steam Early Access
    This is time for us to deliver on our promise of having a release in February. This period is pivotal for us to get the game into the Defenders of Etheria’s hands and go crazy throughout the entire game. We used the 10,000+ pieces of feedback we received from our Beta, and used it to help mold the game into this Early Access state. There’s still work we’re polishing, but the state the game is in, we’re comfortable and proud to present it to you. We’ll go over a couple pieces of info we’ve gone over before, as well as discuss what to expect in this Early Access release.
    If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, we’re on Steam right now. Click here to visit our Steam page!
    Roadmap
    Releasing into Early Access isn’t only going to be setting the game live in its early state and then providing the finished product months later. Instead, we’re going to be updating it over time, adding in features as they become polished and in a state we’re happy with. Thus, THE ROADMAP IS BORN!

    As a studio, this is what we are sticking to as a studio. Should anything change, we are going to make sure that we keep all of you updated as soon as possible. We want this road map to serve as a look into where our focus is and as a promise for what we’ll deliver.
    Why Early Access?
    Going into Early Access on Steam allows us to get where the game is at into the hands of our players on PC. By doing so, we’re able to iterate quickly, getting Dungeon Defenders: Awakened into that 100% state as soon as possible, something we’re unable to do on consoles as fast as we want to iterate. We are still going to be honoring our Nintendo Switch exclusive deal with Nintendo, with our PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases coming in Q3 2020.
    That said, this Early Access is not going to be like other games, or like Dungeon Defenders II. The Early Access period is going to be incredibly short, because we’re really spending this time to polish up the game and meet your expectations. Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is going to be fully released during Q2 on PC and Nintendo Switch. We want Early Access to be as short as possible so that we can get Dungeon Defenders: Awakened out to all of you as the best version of the game.
     

    Teamwork makes the dreamwork.
    This will give us a chance to make sure that the game is balanced, being easy or hard in the appropriate parts of the game; animations and art assets are looking great and working properly; working out any kinks when it comes to playing with others; making sure our network tech properly connects you to others and also properly saves your gear; and of course testing our flags, checks, and reactions from our anti-hack systems on a much larger scale.
    What’s In Early Access?
    Shown in the Roadmap above outlines what is going to be coming to Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, and briefly goes over what is already in. We’ll blow it apart a bit more here!
    Every heroic adventure starts in a really deep well, right?
    Campaign
    The Campaign is the progressive order maps are presented in, and on the full release will include story elements and bosses scattered throughout to help you understand what exactly is going on in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. In the Steam Early Access release, Campaign includes all 12 maps part of the whole campaign:
    Deeper Well
    Ancient Mines
    Lava Mines
    Alchemical Labs
    Tornado Valley
    Tornado Highlands
    Ramparts
    Throne Room
    Arcane Library
    Royal Gardens
    The Promenade
    The Summit
    These maps are in a great state, but we are still open to feedback as you play through these maps, so please throw it our way through the in-game link seen on the Escape screen.
    Alchemical Labs, Throne Room, and The Summit do not currently have their bosses implemented. As covered in the Roadmap, the Demon Lord arrives in March, the Goblin Mech charges in during April, with the Ancient Dragon approaching in the full release.
    Difficulty
    On this release, you have access to:
    Easy
    Medium
    Hard
    Insane
    We’ve tested these extensively, and the progression through the campaign feels incredibly good. Our goal is to let people provide extensive feedback on these difficulties before we throw you into the terror that is Nightmare in March, which is going to push Defenders to take on some substantially harder enemies.  It doesn’t stop there though, as upon release you’ll have to survive the newest difficulty — Massacre. Both of these difficulties provide new enemies that only brave Defenders will be able to cull!

    Survival
    Making its triumphant return, the Survival game mode is going to be available on all difficulties and all maps provided in Early Access. Each map rewards a unique pet to join you in your adventures, while also boosting your hero in some way. There’s a lot to master through all 12 maps, we hope you’re able to survive!
    While playing through Survival in Early Access, we are going to continue to optimize the maps to accommodate all the enemies that you are going to be fighting. As noted on our Road Map, there is going to be continuous updates to the game, and this include performance optimizations. If you run into frame drops or crashes, report them in feedback, as that’ll help us polish things up. For Defenders looking for a true challenge, try playing on Insane Survival Summit on very old hardware getting 1 FPS, outside in the rain, while taming lions (please don’t do this, this part is just jokes, play it normal and safely please).
    Pets
    There’s a lot of pets that are going to be in Steam Early Access that were not in Beta. Some pets are straight forward, boosting your stats and slapping enemies, however we brought back some revamped fan favorites *cough*Genie*cough*, and also some new pets that have never been seen before. We made sure that you have a wide variety of pets to use, trying to apply a variety of play styles to fit certain pets. There are even more coming past this, but we’re sure you’ll quickly grow to love all of these companions (the Ramster is so dang cute!).
    Gear
    There’s a TON of gear to earn. Going back to our roots, we wanted people to get excited for gear to hunt. Itemization feedback has been tremendous, and so we used words from Defenders old and new to curate some awesome pieces to hunt for. We brought back a lot of the systems that made Dungeon Defenders gear great to hunt. Gear rolls any and all stats that are on your hero, making it exciting to receive that one perfect piece that has all the defensive stats for your Tower Builder spec'd heroes, or well-rounded gear for any Defender who prefers a Jack of All Trades play style! Another exciting return is that weapons and pets are randomly colorized, providing unique looks to the loot you receive. White and Gold is one of the rarest combos you’ll find, so good luck!

    Gear continues to get stronger as you progress through the game of course, with each difficulty providing new pieces to empower your heroes and defenses to new heights! While climbing also make sure to keep an eye on what armor you’re equipping, as gear sets are back in the game.
    Accessories
    Through your journeys, you’ll also be receiving accessories that visually change the look of your character. This was not something part of Dungeon Defenders original release, but they are so fun to acquire and add a great level of visual customization that we couldn’t just not do them! Masks, Bracers, Brooches, and Shields (Squire Only) are some of the pieces you’ll receive that you can uncover to add another layer to empowering your character.
    Cursed Gear No More!
    One thing you will notice that is different from Dungeon Defenders is that there is no longer any cursed gear. This was something a vast majority felt very strong as a detractor from the game, and made getting gear feel like a potential punishment if it had the one stat you wanted, but diminished others.
    Tools of the Trade
    There’s a lot of tools we wanted to provide to the players. One of them was an updated Tactical Map (tac map for short). There’s a ton of upgrades we made to this feature, trying to provide as much visual clarity on what’s going on and where. There’s also brand new additions, such as in the options menu, you can now select filters for the tac map to show specific upgrades and items that you’re looking for, making it easy to survey the land quickly and go get your items before continuing on.

    There’s also a lot of the HUD and UI improvements. There are seriously too many to include here, and as noted on the Roadmap, there are more coming! Comparing items in your inventory, providing clearer definitions for upgrades, revamped stat names, and so much more.
    Towers are also part of the UI improvements. You can now interact with your towers to see how they are performing and what their stats are. Even a deep layer, towers show you the important stats that matter based on what they do. This means seeing what’s important in how a Spiked Blockade performed is different than seeing how an Ensnare Aura performed. We can’t wait to hear your feedback on these features and make any improvements possible!
    Kickstarter, BackerKit, and Preorder Rewards
    Rewards are planned for our full 1.0 release. While we have already chipped away at getting these made, today is our final deadline for our backers to submit what they’d like. We recently got a ton of requests back from our initial surveying to people in appropriate tiers, so now we just need to get to work on them. Some of these things are absolutely beautiful, others are horrifying, and we wouldn’t have it any other way!
    Early Access Note
    We have an Early Access FAQ that we’ve put together. If some of your questions weren’t answered here, please give it a look and hopefully they are answered!
    There’s some stuff that we are not covering in this post, but there is a ton to discover in this game. Some of it is intended, some of it may be bugaboos that need to be squashed, and some of it may be as Bob Ross put it: happy little accidents. This is a game that we’re proud to present as a culmination of developer work and extensive community feedback. We truly feel this is a game made for our GLORIOUS Defenders, and we hope you feel the same. We want to thank you for joining us on this journey so far, and we can’t wait to continue on and hope you’ll be there by our side.
    What’s Next?
    We’re going to keep working. As shown in the Roadmap, we’ve got some ground to cover still. We want to keep updates coming and to further enhance our transparency and direct communication with our community. We plan on having updates showcasing the work that has been done, continue introducing you to members of the team, and giving you a look at the work it took to make Dungeon Defenders: Awakened.
    Chromatic Weekend Wind Down, Dev Streams, and more are going to be coming as we continue development. We’re very excited for everything coming out and are excited that all of you are along for the ride!
    Next week some of our team is going to be at PAX East, Booth #12074, right next to the Nintendo booth! If you’re going to be there, stop by to play, chat with the devs, and maybe leave with some sweet sweet swag! We had a crazy turn out at PAX South, loved hanging out with our glorious Defenders and the new Etherian recruits we picked up, and would love for PAX East to be Chromatic Games At PAX II: Revenge of the Hangout Boogaloo the Game, the Movie, the Game Returns.
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team thanks you for your support. We’re working to make Chromatic Games a studio that is able to create games current and future that our Defenders are sure to enjoy, because our games are made for YOU!
    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
  7. [CG] LAWLTA
    Good morning Defenders!

    We’re almost there! Steam Early Access (check it out here) is just a few hours away, and on behalf of everyone at Chromatic Games, THANK YOU. To our players new and old, wider community, backers, and advocates, you have paved the way for us to continue to breathe life into this franchise, and Dungeon Defenders is truly stronger than ever!

    I wanted to take a quick moment to drop a few fun never before seen pieces of content, as well as a message about what you should expect not only today, but in the coming months. If you’re new or haven’t already checked out the DDA Early Access Roadmap here, please be sure to do so.

    As many of you know, we started on Awakened a little under a year ago. Making a game like Dungeon Defenders is not easy. For those who don’t know what goes into making a systems heavy game like ours, here are some numbers to give you better context as to how much we’ve gotten done and what is reflected in the Early Access experience you’ll be playing today and for the next few months...
    Characters: Over 40 (heroes, enemies, NPCs, and Pets)
    Maps: ~12 tile sets over 15 maps
    Unique weapons: Over 80, with over 80,000 total color combinations possible (be sure to grind for those rare white and gold weapons!)
    Unique armor pieces and accessories: 50
    Animations per hero: Over 50 each
    Animations per enemy: On average about 10
    Hand drawn / illustrated icons: Over 200
    100’s of concept art pieces / illustrations
    Music tracks: Over 20
    UI Scenes and Widgets: Over 250
    Over 200 design documents
    Dozens of game features and systems, totalling over 90,832 lines of code and counting
    All with under 30 developers, in a newly formed studio, in less than a year. The amount of work and love put into this has been nothing less than incredible! And what better to celebrate this achievement with our community than with Early Access launching in a few hours? Oh! I know what’s better! How about a teaser? Click here to see what’s coming later to DD:A!

    We’ve already heard tons of feedback from our beta in November and have been working towards addressing the biggest concerns from our fans. If you missed this blog, give it a read for more information on our post beta survey. Much of that feedback will be represented in today’s build, and much will be rolled out in the coming months. 
    Until then, we ask you to bear with us while we iron out some kinks. More specifically, but not exclusively, we’re currently working to improve upon these areas over the coming weeks and months, leading all the way up to our 1.0 launch:
    Performance optimizations
    4P split screen support
    More polished gamepad controls 
    Continuous UI aesthetic transformation & polish
    Hero progression updates
    Polishing up some epic boss battles
    Rolling out the higher difficulties
    Implementing our story elements via beautiful new in game cinematics
    Finishing up the Kickstarter and Pre-order rewards for 1.0
    Anti Hacking measures
    The list goes on...
    Anyhoo, the time is NOW for hype! We need your help to spread the word today! Grab your friends, and join us online at 1PM ET for the Early Access launch of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened!
    Sincerely,
    Chromatic Games
  8. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    This is just a brief check-in to talk about preorders for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. We’ve received a lot of support from a ton of you, and want to make sure we reward that where we possibly can. There’s two big things to go over, being preorder upgrade options for Kickstarter and BackerKit supporters, and preorder window coming to a close. Let’s get to it!
    Preorder Upgrades
    We’ve been working tirelessly with our shop partner to enable upgrades over the past few weeks. Without getting into the details, we unfortunately have not been able to get upgrades going, and don’t want to let people know very last minute that they can upgrade, if at all.
    Instead, we’re going to do the following. ANYONE that preordered through BackerKit or backed us on Kickstarter will receive the $60 Prestigious Edition bonuses shown on the preorder store, that are preorder exclusive. This includes:
    Forum Titles
    In-game Titles
    Digital Soundtrack, Strategy Guide, and Artbook
    Awakened Phoenix Pet 
    Crystalline Skins 
    Rift Skins
    At Chromatic, we want to do everything we can to reward all of our players who support us, as fairly as we can. We announced the ability to upgrade, and since we are not able to deliver, we are taking the high road and providing the bonuses to those who would have been able to upgrade for FREE. We chose these tiers because it’s equivalent to how much the retail price is for the game. This serves as a big THANK YOU to all of our supporters who joined us early on this adventure, and to help show that we’re focused on making a great game.
    Preorder Availability
    With Early Access coming on February 21st, we’re going to be closing our Preorder Store the same day. This is to ensure that all our sales for the PC version of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened goes through Steam. With the Preorder Store closing, the Preorder Bonuses will no longer be available for ALL platforms. If you want to grab the Preorder bonuses, you only have until February 21st.
    Kickstarter and BackerKit Changes
    Starting on February 21st, we will no longer be able to change the platforms that people have selected, as we need to make sure that orders are locked and ready to fire for when we release on each individual platform, ensuring that people receive their correct copies.
    What’s Next?
    We’ve got a Dev Stream that we’re going to have tomorrow, February 14th at 3:00 PM ET, where we answer questions that we’ve seen posted everywhere, answer questions that all of you have for us, and show some gameplay as well! Please join us, and potentially win a free Prestigious Edition of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened.
    That’s all for now, just a quick check-in. We’re hard at work to make sure that Early Access feels as great as possible, and cannot wait for you guys to tear it apart!
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team thanks you for your support. We’re working to make Chromatic Games a studio that is able to create games current and future Defenders are sure to enjoy, because our games are made for YOU!
    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
  9. [CG] LAWLTA
    Greetings Defenders,
    Protean Shift Patch 3.2 is now live on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One! We’ve been hard at work ever since Professor Proteus made his glorious arrival in Etheria! The feedback from all of you has been tremendous and we greatly appreciate it. We’re addressing requests that players have wanted both for a while now and recently with the Protean Shift expansion. Let’s get into it!
    Multiplayer Bonuses
    Defenders love playing together, there is strength in numbers after all. Previously, when playing in multiplayer settings, enemies became stronger, but did not offer any additional rewards for the harder challenge. This is a pain point that you as a community have voiced to us for a long time, and with gear in a much better spot, we now have a way to reward the increased difficulty!
    Previously, when playing in multiplayer sessions, enemies gained additional health without offering any increased rewards. Now when teaming up with fellow Defenders, you now gain additional Gear from Victory Chests. You may be asking, “how much?”, and the answer is A LOT. Here’s the breakdown you can expect to see when playing with multiple Defenders:
    One Defender:  Remains the same.
    Two Defenders:  +125% additional Gear drops!
    Three Defenders:  +275% additional Gear drops!
    Four Defenders:  +425% additional Gear drops!
    When playing solo, the Escape/Options menu shows:


    When in a group of two:

    This pattern increases the more Defenders in your session. To have our bases covered, Gear is specifically armor, weapons, and relics. These additional pieces of gear offer players multiple opportunities on finding perfect stats and Mods while taking on stronger enemies. This means you have more gear to use or sell, boosting Defender strength and our player economy substantially. As a result, we’ve slightly tweaked sell prices to vendors. With the increased loot drops, you’ll be making on average the same amount of gold when selling to vendors. However, we maintained previous minimum Player Shop sell value of items to offset this. You’re now provided more opportunities to sell more gear between one another to obtain greater mountains of wealth than ever before!
    We were able to get these changes out now to provide a feature the community highly requested thanks to the feedback we received via a survey many of you participated in. One concern that several Defenders brought up was in regard to party control and functionality. These will be coming in our next Update among a slew of new features not too far from now. We’ll touch on some additional changes later on in these notes!
    Material Vault
    In Protean Shift, we introduced a good chunk of crafting materials for Defenders to have more control over their gear. There’s a ton of new materials and one bit of feedback that we’ve received quite often, is about storing these spoils of combat.

    Enter the Material Vault! It’s a new vault that will be available to players that want to be able to store extra crafting materials. This special vault allows you to hold 999 of every crafting material and access to materials saved in your Material Vault regardless of where you are. Want to pump up the strength of your gear, or move some Mods around, but you put the materials in your Material Vault? You can now do it on the fly without pulling the materials out! When doing anything that requires crafting materials, Inventory Materials are used first before using crafting materials in your Materials Vault.
    What’s Coming?

    In our last Check-In post, we outlined some short, medium, and long term goals. In our next update, here’s a sneak peek as to what you can expect to see:
    Onslaught floors are always one map floors.
    Extra rewards as you climb through Onslaught.
    Improvements to Ancient Power
    Increased party control and functionality
    And…. A NEW BOSS, WEAPONS, MAPS, AND MUCH MUCH MORE!
    As development continues, we’re going to be providing opportunities to test this content and earn “Tester Only” rewards, such as Betsy White, a true friend and confidant to any Defender.
    Bug Fixes
    Improved enemy spawn and pathing logic so enemies getting stuck in spawns will now have a better chance of finding their way out of the spawner.
    Fixed additional cases where Berserker Orcs would get around blockades and walls.
    Fixed an issue in Player Shops that caused a visual duplication while moving items.
    Fixed an issue with Abyss Stone and Abyss Fountain giving an incorrect error message when there’s not enough mana available to use them.
    Updated Shard Dust description to explain how it’s acquired.
    Fixed a bug where the Jackpot shard increases gold reward upon wave completion.
    Fixed an issue with comparison tooltips remaining when closing the Vault UI.
    Fixed the text size of “LIST IT!” on 4k resolutions.
    Fixed an issue with Gilded Colossal Fissure Shards receiving a negative increase.
    Fixed an issue with Campaign Boot tinkering requiring an Iron Hammer.
    Fixed an issue with Chaos V Boot upgrades requiring weapon crafting materials.
    Fixed an issue with buy back items going to the wrong location in the inventory.
    Fixed an issue where items claimed at the Scavenger while the inventory is full would look like it had been claimed but was still in the Scavenger.
    Remember, if you run into any bugs, please let us know at our bug site. Also, check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!
    For Etheria,
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  10. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS,
    Beta has been out for a few weeks now, and what a ride it has been! As a studio, it is incredibly exhilarating to have a ton of the hard work that we’ve been hammering away at as a studio out into the wild. Between watching streams and youtube videos; discussions on the forums, Twitter, Facebook, Steam, and Discord; the plethora of feedback that’s been provided; and just playing the games ourselves with friends and family, it’s been an incredibly awesome experience. So let’s start with Beta in general!
    Beta, What is it Good For — Absolutely A Lot
    Our Beta launch was something that we were incredibly happy with. When putting something as complex as a game out into the wild has developers putting on a helmet, and strapping down everything, for the potential chaos that can come with a Beta that just aren’t able to be tested in an internal environment. We launched with relatively low issues: gameplay was working at a very high degree with little bug issues; crashes were low and easy to identify; lanes performed with little issues, and our testers computers didn’t burst into flames (that was a super huge one). We were able to address crashes and tweak some things to improve the Beta experience pretty quickly, releasing four patches in a very short amount of time — SIX DAYS!
    Betas over time have taken a turn in the industry to have a large range in what that actually entail. Our version of Beta was the original approach, that is getting a functional build that is very representative of the final experience regarding the core gameplay loot: build, defend, fight, and get sweet loot. A lot of things performed correctly, and the gameplay, for a Beta, could not have been better for us! That said, we have received a lot of the feedback, and are still parsing through a lot of it. Things like UI art, character visuals/faces, Survival scaling, hero and tower balance, and more are on our radar. There’s a lot of feedback that we’re getting that was anticipated, so we’ve had plans to address these things for the most part. We received a ton of feedback regarding UI visuals, and we are going to be making sure to give it that Dungeon Defenders feel. What was in the Beta was focused on functionality, to ensure we didn’t waste any work making art that could lead to wasted work. Needless to say, there’s a lot of improvements that we’re going to be making, and your feedback has been incredibly helpful to validate our plans moving forward!

    Pre-order and Backing
    We’ve had multiple ways that Defenders have been able to get Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. Starting with Kickstarter, which then transferred to BackerKit, and finally ending on our current store. There were bumps along the way, many we are still sorting through (note: if you preordered through Kickstarter and BackerKit, with any issues, please reach out to preorder@chromatic.games, DO NOT if you purchased through our current store, that should be done through support@xsolla.com). These three phases were part of our total plan, but the bumps were a very large learning process and we are working diligently to make sure we provide everything we can to our supporters.
    One of the things that we’re going to be doing is sending out beta keys to our BackerKit supporters who purchased the $25 copy of the game. The store outlined what was included, but there was some confusing messaging going out about the BackerKit store. Our higher paying backers have had access to the Beta for a while, giving them exclusive access, and now we want to open it up to show our appreciation for your support, and also to make up for any confusing messaging that may have been sent.
    We’re also offering more rewards through our newest storefront. We don’t want to exclude people who backed early from these rewards, so we’re going to be doing our best to be as inclusive as possible:
    First, anyone who purchased through BackerKit will be moved over to our current storefront in the coming weeks. We'll let you know when this change is made. This means that you’ll get what’s at the $40 tier, but also have the option to upgrade to a higher tier if you want to, instead of having to purchase an entirely new copy.
      Second, anyone who backed on Kickstarter at or above the purchase tiers on the new storefront will receive the rewards included in the new packs. For example, did you purchase the $75 tier on Kickstarter? You’ll receive everything included in the Prestigious pack, the costumes, titles, everything! Our goal is to make sure that when you’re purchasing Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, you feel good about the purchase, and that you’re getting awesome rewards with an awesome game. You guys help make the game, and we want to make sure you know you’re valued.

    Beta Late Than Neva
    We’re sorry for that pun. It’s terrible, but it had to be said. With preordering and getting beta keys, the vast majority got out, but there were some keys that weren’t properly transferred over, surveys were submitted late, etc., that lead to people not receiving their keys on time. One thing we’re going to do is extend the Beta into January. Here’s why:
    You have provided a ton of feedback and we want to increase the window so that every nook and cranny is covered. We want Dungeon Defenders: Awakened to be the best game it can be, and a lot of the feedback you’ve provided has been instrumental in making sure that’s the destination we reach.
      We’re opening the beta to the $25 purchases, and some people didn’t receive their keys on time, or are still in process (please reach out to preorder@chromatic.games if you haven’t already), we want to make sure that players have enough time to experience the beta and provide their feedback. These two reasons alone make it very important for us to keep with our goals of being inclusive to all Defenders, and making the best game possible. We want and encourage you to continue to provide feedback. Maybe later this month, there maybe an update, maybe that expands on some stuff, and maybe fixes some issues you've reported, maybe probably maybe. As for January, we’re currently discussing adding more for players to experience, with there being a reflection of change via the feedback all of you have provided.

    MORE FEEDBACK
    Another thing that should be in your inboxes in the coming week is a survey to those who have taken part of the Beta. While digging through all the feedback you’ve provided, we also want to get general sentiments and feedback about as many facets of the game as possible. To that end, to make sure we’re doing the best we can, we’re going to send out a curated survey for our Beta players. By completing the entire survey, we’ll be drawing 10 WINNERS to receive our Prestigious pack, giving you another copy to use for another platform, give to a friend to join you on your adventures in Etheria, or whatever you want!

    New Stuff
    Dungeon Defenders: Awakened isn’t just some simple port or remake. We’re adding a lot of content, and have some big plans for future content. People have seen some of the new rewards from the Beta, but we wanted to give you a quick sneak peek at some of the awesome weapons and pets that are coming your way:
    New Weapons — Tech Rewards

    With new rewards coming in, we want them to feel awesome. We also want them to feel awesome for ALL heroes. This is the Squire’s sword that you’ll be able to hunt down, alongside getting weapons for the Huntress, Apprentice, and Monk that are part of the future tech-based set.
    New Pets

    We have familiar pets coming back that many Defenders love, but we also have new pets to be earned. Currently called the Etherial Ancient, they are just one of the new pets that’ll help boost your character and pack a punch when fighting enemies.
     
    FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
    We've added an FAQ section to help address questions for current and returning Defenders. We'll be updating this overtime as more questions come in!
     
    What’s Next?
    We’re going to keep polishing systems and working. There’s a ton of feedback we’re actively working through, and are going to keep up to really make the game for our GLORIOUS Defenders. Keep throwing feedback our way, and know that even if you don’t get a response, it has been seen and that we’ll do our best to address it.
    When it comes to communication, as we’ve acknowledged, have not been the best. We’re working on a few initiatives internally to help bridge the gap between our community and development. We’ve also been working through bringing on a full-time Community Manager, working with some fantastic candidates. Current plans have our new Community Manager joining Chromatic Games in January, and we can’t wait for you to meet her!
    Chromatic Games is going to continue to work on doing things to the best of our ability. There have been bumps along the way, and while they can be frustrating, we want to thank you for sticking through it with us, as we grow into this new studio and are able to make awesome games for YOU! <3

    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team thanks you for trying to destroy the Beta. We’re grateful for all the tremendous feedback we’ve received so far (and more to come), and want to thank you for joining us on this journey!
    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
     
  11. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS,
    It’s time. It’s FINALLY time. Oh good golly gosh, it’s finally time… BETA IS HERE! Today we launched the Beta, getting Dungeon Defenders: Awakened into the hands of Etheria’s brave Defenders. There’s so much to cover, that we’re not going to cover it all. We want you to discover all the beta has to offer on your own. Let’s get into it!
     


    Beta Release
    The current Beta is available to our Kickstarter Backers first. This is a promise that we made during our Kickstarter, and are going to make sure to uphold. Kickstarter Backers currently have advanced Beta access. On Friday, November 22nd, we are going to open up the Beta to everyone who has purchased the $40+ preorder packages.
    Beta is currently scheduled to run for roughly three weeks! Starting on November 22nd and ending on 13th, this gives us a great window to gather feedback and be able to make necessary changes before launching in February.
    Progress and data from the Beta does NOT carry over to the release of the game. Beta is used as a testing ground to make sure that the game is in the best possible state. Keeping data from Beta (ha, it rhymes) can cause major issues when updating to the release version.
    If you did not receive a Beta key, and are a Kickstarter Backer, make sure you have filled out the surveys that were sent to your registered Kickstarter E-mails from "Backerkit". If that survey is not filled out, then the Beta key is not sent.
    All pre-order and Kickstarter Backer keys have been sent out. If you are missing keys, please write to preorder@chromatic.games, using the e-mail you used for Kickstarter and/or BackerKit.
    Remaining pre-orders will be handled through our new store located here. If you run into any issues getting a key ordering from this store, contact support the new support here (suppot@xsolla.com) or using the link on the receipt of your purchase.
    Streaming and Content Creation
    During the Beta, you are free to stream, make videos, or whatever content you want. We want Defenders to enjoy and share as much as they want when it comes to Dungeon Defenders: Awakened!
     
    What’s Missing?
    There’s a lot to cover what’s in a game. Patch notes usually say what’s new, but with so much of the game being new, we’re going to let you explore the game. Instead, we're going to outline what may not be in the Beta that we are currently polishing and iterating on to get in for release (we may be missing some things from this list as well):
    Tactical Map
    This is currently in a functional state. We’re going to be updating the map images, and make sure it’s a lot prettier come release.
    Challenge Maps
    We’re currently wanting to make sure that balance feels good across the map in general. Challenge Maps are coming your way on release!
    Maps
    There are a total of 15 maps in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. Not included in the Beta is Act II, Act III, and the Bonus Maps. Act I is the big focus for our beta test, helping us set the foundation so the rest of the maps bring the right amount of challenge.
    Difficulty
    Nightmare and Massacre are not going to be included in the Beta. We don’t want people beating all the hardest content during testing. Gotta have something scary hard for you to master on release!
    Enemies
    With Nightmare not in the beta, Sharken, Djinn, Spiders, and Goblin Copter will not be spawning in a lane near you.
    Weapons
    All of our weapons are not in the game. We have a pool of roughly 5 different weapons per hero to simulate the amount of weapons you would see during your playthrough of Act I on release. Weapon random colorization is also not reflected in the beta build, but will be implemented for release.
    HUD
    We’re going to be adding various improvements to the HUD. Currently we have it setup for beta to be functional. There’s a ton of work that we’ve done not in the Beta, but expect improvements on launch.
    Armor
    Currently we have placeholder armor models in. The final models are currently getting a last pass and will be sparkling and shining on release.
    Set Bonuses
    Set bonuses are working but may not currently be showing up correctly.
    Split Screen
    We’re testing base functionality currently, so split screen is not available during the Beta.
    Spawn Immunity
    Enemies are immune up until a certain point in spawn doors. Indicators are not included in Beta, but will be here on release.
    Social
    We’re wanting to make sure that getting your friends into a match is as easy as possible, give hosts control over their sessions, and showing who’s in your party. These are currently not in the beta, and can be expected on release.
    Hardcore
    Currently not in Beta, coming on release. 
    Twitch Integration
    Currently being developed, it will not be in the Beta.
    Game Modes
    In the Beta we have Campaign and Survival. Other game modes are coming on release.

    Pets
    There are a total of four pets that are available during the Beta. On release, there will be much more!

    Elemental Weapons
    Some weapon elemental affinity visuals may be disabled, as we’re making sure performance comes first. Your weapons will be shooting flames and electricity during release.
    Kickstarter Rewards
    Kickstarter rewards, such as exclusive skins and portraits, are not available during the beta.

    Currency
    Mana from the original Dungeon Defenders is being split into three different categories. Currently in the game is ability and defense mana. Ability mana regenertaes over time, and Defense mana is gained from defeating enemies and completing waves. Currency in the form of gold is what will persist outside of maps, being used for trading between players and upgrading items.

    Trading
    Trading is currently not enabled during the Beta.

    Upgrading
    With currency not in the Beta version, you are unable to upgrade items.

    Boss Fights
    Boss fights are coming with release. These are big epic moments that we want to make sure are special for release.

    Cross Saves
    The beta is only available on PC, so Cross Save functionality is not part of the beta.

    Tavern
    Currently you are unable to build defenses in the Tavern. As such, there are not any training dummies for you to beat up.

    Defender Forge
    We’re testing for functionality currently with our Inventory and Hero Deck systems. The Defender Forge makes its glorious arrival on launch.
    New User Experience
    This is something we’ve spent quite a bit of time on, and are going to refine. It is important for new Defenders to understand how to protect the world of Etheria, but it will be available on release.

    Tower Inspection
    A step up from what was offered in Dungeon Defenders II, tower inspection shows you the most pertinent information for your currently placed tower. This is currently disabled, and will be available at release.

    Tower View
    Another feature brought over from Dungeon Defenders II, where you are able to hold a button/key and see what the range of your defenses are. This is currently disabled, and will be available at release.

    Gamepad Support
    This is disabled for the Beta currently. We’re actively polishing the gamepad experience and did not want to provide it in an unpolished state.

    Hero Customization
    During the beta, the heroes will not be able to be customized in regards to color changing and costumes.

    Auto Equip
    This is a feature we are providing for Defenders who don’t understand the item system right away. This will come during release.

    Level Requirements
    During beta, there are no level requirements for gear. What you get is what you can use. Since we’re not having trading, we wanted to make sure getting gear was as fun as possible for testing.
    Mana Chests
    Mana chests are gone-gone-gone. Keep an eye out for end-of-wave loot chests.
    Options Menu
    The options menu is currently in a beta state and does not reflect every option that will be available upon full release.
    Cinematics
    The in-game cinematics are not part of the Beta.
    Known Issues
    A lot. It's beta, so there's a ton we're still working on. Music not playing correctly, audio playing from different parts of the map instead of where you are, UIs not working properly. There's a ton, but we're knocking them out super quick. Be sure to leave feedback in the DD:A Beta Discussion Forum.
    Next Steps
    We’re going to be monitoring gameplay and feedback that all of you provide. While polishing and finishing remaining systems for our February launch, we’re also going to be scouring feedback to make sure that we get the game into the best state possible. Nothing in the Beta is guaranteed to be final, and is going to be scrutinized heavily.
    From now until release, we’re going to keep churning away to make sure DD:A is the best it can be!
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team cannot wait to see you tear apart the Beta. We’re excited for release in February and thank you for joining us on this journey!
    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
  12. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    Today is a big day for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened and Chromatic Games! Earlier today we were featured as part of the Nintendo Indie Showcase, which if you haven’t seen, click HERE to check it out. This is HUGE for our game and studio, helping us bring the world of Etheria to many future Defenders.
    This showing also revealed something very big: A RELEASE DATE! Dungeon Defenders: Awakened releases February 2020, and there’s a lot of reasons for this, so let’s get into them by answering some questions we’re sure you have!
    Release
    Why is it not releasing in October 2019?
    Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is meant to be a showing to our loyal fans of what we’re capable of as Chromatic Games. This isn’t a simple remaster/remake, but bringing back the soul of the original Dungeon Defenders into modern day. Building the game from the ground up is no simple feat, and we’re pulling out all the stops to really blow your socks away. Half of the maps in DD:A are new; Assets in the game are new; all of the UIs are new; and a slew of new features to make for an enjoyable experience. Releasing in October would lead to two things: an unpolished and unrefined gaming experience, or tons of crunch that can burn out developers. As a studio, we absolutely REFUSE to release DD:A as half-baked, and as a business we don’t want people working unbearable hours (we love all our employees, they already kick a ton of butt). This meant pushing our release date to accomplish our goals, and give you the game you deserve!
    “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” - Shigeru Miyamoto
    Why February 2020?
    In short, It’s the best time for us to release the game. In long, there’s a multitude of reasons. We’re able to keep cranking out content without overworking and breaking developer souls; we can release a beta that allows us time to make iterations as they’re needed; we don’t have to compete with AAA releases that would drown our marketing efforts; it’s after the holidays, giving Defenders a chance to get back to post-holiday life-ing and get hyped for DD:A release; and we could keep going. Overall, it’s best for us as a studio and better for those of you wanting a great DD:A experience. For those of you wanting a bad DD:A experience, we apologize, but we are unable to provide that.
    Beta? BETA?? BEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTAAAA??!??!?!?
    We’re currently going over the best time for beta and letting you sink your teeth into this meaty game. DD:A PC Beta will be available Early November 2019. This Beta allows us to monitor all the systems we’ve been working tirelessly on, and getting any fixes out before the release. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated during these testing periods, together it we get to make an AWESOME game.
    Nintendo Switch Console Timed-Exclusive?
    This means that we’ll be releasing on Nintendo Switch and PC right out of the gate in February 2020 at the same time. What does this mean for our PS4 and Xbox One backers? We’re going to be spending extra time polishing up the builds for your platform. The release for these platforms is not very far off from the initial release, with a concrete release date coming in the near future. Or maybe we’ll NEVER release on those platforms, MUAHAHAHA (just kidding, we love all our consoles Defenders and could never hurt you like that).
    New Content?
    Well I guess… So far we’ve been showing off some of the hotness coming in the forms of complete maps, concept art, and goblin animations. Everything here is still considered a work-in-progress, but everything is until the game’s released! First we want to show off our new Dungeon Defenders: Awakened logo and cover art (it’s freaking amazing).

    Let’s take a look at the new Squire in 3D, with his animations in-game!
    Attack 1


    Attack 2


    Attack 3


    Blood Boil


    Circular Slice


    Healing


    Death


    Also how about our first boss map, Alchemical Labs!

    The core will be in the middle, we just wanted to show off the art!





    There’s that core, get back to the middle of the room!
    How about a look at your favorite homestead, a place to kick up your feet and admire your loot, THE TAVERN!


    That’s Sir Bubbles himself there on the wall.


    Here’s old George, on patrol. Kind of.

    And last but not least, while we’re finishing up the work on his encounter, how about a look at the NEW Demon Lord?

    What’s Next?
    We’re going to keep working incredibly hard to get DD:A into your hands, duh! This is a giant passion project for all of us, and every day is a blast, even when we’re squashing bugs (ty QA, we love you). Regular updates are going to continue, and we’ve even brought on board some awesome help to get this info out to you! Speaking of…
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team is having a blast working on DD:A, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on it. Stay tuned for more info!

    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
  13. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    October flew by, and November is here, which means we’ve got a slew of new things to show off and talk about! The Dungeon Defenders: Awakened PC beta is coming this month, with news on when it’s being released very soon. We’re currently working with our excellent PR partners on getting Dungeon Defenders: Awakened in front of as many Defenders as possible, so bare with us as we prepare to make this beta an explosive success!
    While we’ve been working incredibly hard, today we want to show off the Huntress’s traps, some of the new gorgeous UIs, never before seen maps, and an update as to how as a studio we’ve been working on the game. Without further ado, let’s get into it!
    Huntress Traps
    We wanted to make sure that the Huntress’s traps conveyed that they were put together by an elf, using materials that are available to a being from the woodlands. There’s a lot of VFX and power that we’re going to be adding to these traps, but for now we’re going to show you what you’ll see as your creating a literal minefield for the hordes that are coming!
    Poison Gas Trap


    Proximity Mine Trap


    Inferno Trap


    Darkness Trap


    Etherial Spike Trap

     
    User Interface Facelift
    One thing that we promised with Dungeon Defenders: Awakened was providing a cleaner User Interface, something that is definitely wanting when playing the original Dungeon Defenders. Our approach is to make things read well so that you’re able to discern the information you want, get your gear and character setup the way you want fast and efficiently, so you’re back in the fray and doing what you do best — defending Etheria!
    The inventory in Dungeon Defenders has always been a big part of the gameplay, and we’ve made it look aesthetically pleasing, while also providing a ton of functionality. We’ll start off with showing the item box:

    One thing you’ll notice is that there are Nintendo Switch inputs at the bottom. One of the biggest goals we had with the UIs for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, was to make sure that it played well with a gamepad first. If it plays well with gamepad, then we can easily make it play well with mouse and keyboard.
    You’ll also notice that there is a filter tab in the top right. This filter is going to allow players to filter gear with multiple options! Filtering is something that players have wanted for a while, and we’re bringing it in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. Here’s a tentative list of what you can expect to be able to filter by:
     
    Quality (Common, uncommon, rare, epic, etc.)
    Equipment (Weapons, Helmets, Chests, Gloves, Boots, Pets, Brooches, Masks, Bracers, and Shields)
    Armor Type (Leather, Mail, Chain, etc.)
    and More!
    Another important aspect of the game is being able to inspect a piece of equipment that you’ve received, compare it with a piece that you’ve got equipped, and decide if it’s an upgrade or not. Those were our goals with gear tooltips and comparison:


    When making these tooltips, we made sure that we included the “worst case” scenario for when you receive an item. By that, we focused on what the absolute biggest an item tooltip would be, and this is the result. There’s a ton of information that we need to convey, and so we made sure to push things to their absolute limits in order to provide a clean and easy to read UI. It’s worth mentioning that the white circles and squares are where our icons are going to be going to represent each stat (they’re currently made, just need some slight adjustments).
    We also are adjusting the names of stats so that they are able to be understood. These images are work-in-progress still, but these names are something we’ll be looking for feedback throughout our beta process. 
    All of it together, here’s what you can expect to see when playing solo:

    There’s still some iteration we’re going to be making (and currently are), but we’re very proud of where the UI currently is and can’t wait for you to be able to use it to its full potential!
    There are a couple things that aren’t being shown here, but we want to give context to:
    Abilities:  This will be where a hero’s abilities and towers are explained.
    Runes:  This is the level up stat allocation area. Your stat updates are reflected in the character stats pane.
    Character stats: This is currently getting polished , but will appear where the current item tooltip is in the above screenshot.
    A lot of these pieces are coming together for beta. They have functionally been in our test builds as engineer art.
    New Map? New Map!
    Half of the maps in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened campaign have never been played before, and they help bring an all new epic feel! Two of our new maps are desert based maps, the ruins of a civilization that has long been gone. One of those maps, is tentatively called “Tornado Valley”, opening up to a giant ruined city:






    The next map is a follow up to Tornado Valley, that we’re tentatively calling “Tornado Lowlands”. That’s most definitely a developer name, as there’s nothing low about this map. Be careful not to fall:
     






    Studio Work
    As a studio, we are churning through a ton of work. Recently our communication has not been as frequent as we’ve wanted and we’re progressing towards making it better. We’re currently expanding our workforce to help with this, but also are going to be working with our partners, including a PR firm, that will be getting updates and information out across our social channels, and into the hands of various game news outlet to really help Dungeon Defenders: Awakened blow up!
    There are multiple goals that we have with Beta. First is to deliver on a promise to our backers, we want to be good on our word and you deserve to see what your support has created. Second, you’ll be providing really value feedback, both in terms of gameplay, but also from the metrics that we’ll be reading on the back end. Last, it’s a great milestone for us to achieve that really helps bring the game together and empower us as a studio to keep working hard.
    After the beta, we are going to continue work on the game, up to the release in February. This means polishing systems, balancing gameplay, fixing bugs, and a lot more. The amount and quality of work that we’ve done in such a short time (a little over 8 months) is something that we’re incredibly proud of, and we use that pride to push us in these remaining months. What you’ll see in the beta does not mean it is final, and there’s going to be a ton of time put into making DD:A the best it can be!
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team is having a blast working on DD:A, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on it. Stay tuned for more info!

    For Etheria!

    Chromatic Games
     
  14. [CG] LAWLTA
    Greetings Defenders,
    There’s a ton of new features and content on the horizon, so it’s time to give a little inside peek as to what’s coming in the next update for Dungeon Defenders II! Mod improvements, elemental combos, blockade buffs, and even more (somethings we aren't even talking about just quite yet) await in this update. Let’s get into it!

    Alec “Lawlta” Saare — Community Expedition Leader
    What’s up everyone, you know what it do!
    We’ve been working incredibly hard on getting this update out to you before the new year and really put in some serious time. While there is new content coming (the new map looks amazing, there’s some image down below), we did a really big push to make a lot of systems feel a ton better. A little while ago we improved Mod drops and promised that there was a Phase II for this system, and Mark will cover the changes coming down below. Players want Elemental Combos to be awesome, so we went through and did our Phase I pass on them, with more coming in future updates. There’s been a lot of feedback on Blockades being viable, and boy did we bring the heat with them.
    There’s additional features that are coming, you’ll see most of them laid out in the patch notes that come with the update. We’re excited for you to get your hand on this update, we’re just polishing things up a little bit before we release it. There’s a Dev Stream tomorrow (December 7th) 3PM EST where we are going to show some of them off. Don’t miss it!
    Smooches,
    Lawlta

    Mark “Telflon” Telfer — Technical Designelf
    Hey Defenders!
    It’s been a while since we’ve last spoken! I’ve been doing a ton of MOD-related work over the interim, but alas, I was threatened by Lawlta to keep it all under wraps. Luckily, tis finally the season of giving, and I’ve been given the okay to give you some major bean spillage on what I (and the other Trendy elves) have been up to in our workshop.
    Recently, the Trendy elves had started seeing a huge amount of holiday wishes come our direction and all said the same thing. They said, “Santa Lawlta, all I want for Christmas is a perfect MOD.” Many of you felt that it took way too long to find those perfect Qualibean™ MODs and that waiting forever was just no fun! I knew I had to do something about it fast, lest I find myself on the naughty list in perpetuity. I grabbed a bottle of spiked eggnog, locked myself into a room, and set out to right this issue once and for all. Thanks to the copious amounts of eggnog I drank, my memory gets a bit fuzzy after that, but a few days later I woke up and Lawlta told me that the rates for higher quality MODs had significantly increased with our last hotfix.  Apparently, I had more than doubled the rate of perfect MODs and had substantially increased the drop rates for MODs of quality 6 and above! Presents for everyone! On average, you should see a perfect MOD about every four hours of active gameplay. Gone are the days where the ground is cluttered with nothing but MODs as red as Rudolph's nose. You should now be seeing far more green MODs in the mix (a Christmas Miracle)!
    Now I know what you’re thinking, “Mark! The increase to drop rates sounds fine and dandy, but you see, I have a problem. That problem is bad luck. It’s a condition that I’ve had since birth and RNG has picked on me for it my entire life. Even though you’ve increased the drop rates, Mark, I still don’t think I’ll ever see anything good. I’m just too darn unlucky!” Well, dear player, I have a revelation to make. I too am afflicted with this most heinous condition, and I feel your pain. Playing 50 hours and still not seeing a perfect MOD feels worse than getting a lump of coal in your stocking! I knew that if I truly wanted this update to bring good tidings to all (especially myself), I would have to be sensitive to those in the community who share this affliction. Well, fear not! This new update brings with it a solution for even the unluckiest players. We have built a system that GUARANTEES that you will get a perfect MOD if you go an extended period of time without seeing one. If you haven’t seen a perfect MOD in about ten hours of active gameplay, then we will guarantee that a perfect will drop for you! That’s right! At worst, you’ll see one perfect MOD in less than 10 hours (as long as you are actively playing). And do you wanna know a secret? If you play in multiplayer and get the legendary loot bonus, the amount of time it takes to guarantee this perfect MOD gets drastically reduced. Don’t tell Lawlta I told you, or back onto the naughty list I go.
    So now we’ve increased the perfect MOD drop rate, and guaranteed that even the unluckiest defenders will see them. But this still doesn’t fulfill the other biggie on people’s holiday wish list. Sure, seeing A perfect MOD is great, but ultimately what you are looking for is THE perfect MOD. There’s always something specific you have in mind that you KNOW will make your build perfect, and that’s the thing you really want a chance at getting (I’m looking at you, perfect tenacity). It is with great excitement that I announce the introduction of a brand new material, MOD rerolling! MOD rerolling lets you improve your chances of getting the specific quality MODs you want in more of a targeted way. Playing maps in our new region will guarantee you a drop of these awesome little guys, and the potential that they possess is amazing. You’ll be able to invest in your favorite MODs and guarantee yourself a risk-free chance at making it better each time you complete a map. This is a game-changer, guys. This reroll material makes the time it takes to get THE perfect MOD you are looking for in a fraction of the time that it takes right now. This is big.
    So to recap:
    Perfect MODs drop rates were more than doubled in our last hotfix.  Six to Nine MOD drop rates were increased too.
    This update brings with it a new system that guarantees unlucky players a perfect MOD drop in less than 10 hours of active gameplay.
    MOD Rerolling is being introduced and this gives you a targeted way to invest in your favorite MODs.  It lets you get a favorite MOD to perfect in a FRACTION of the time it would take to see it dropped.
    Now all of that is super exciting, but I still have more in my bag of gifts, Defenders.  We’ve heard you when you’ve said that you want to spend less time in menus and more time whacking gobus in their very punchable faces. It is with great excitement that I can announce MOD quality filtering in the inventory. In our new update, the “Filter By” tab (the last tab in your Inventory) now includes an option to filter by MOD quality. Selecting this option groups equipment by the highest quality MOD on it, highest to lowest, and then displays that number on the icon of the equipment itself. That means that you can visually scan your equipment with ease and find high quality MODs in a jiffy. Tune into the Dev Stream tomorrow at 3pm EST to see for yourself.
    We’ve also adjusted the way Shard sorting works too. In the new update, Shards are sorted together by type and then alphabetically. For example: all defense (green) Shards are grouped together when sorted, and will be listed in alphabetical order. This makes it way easier to find the Shard you are looking for and should cut down the amount of time spent in menus substantially. We’re open to any feedback after this goes live, but we’re excited to get these changes to you!
    The elves at Trendy are looking forward to the release of this update and can’t wait to see you play it. We’re far from finished when it comes to improving MODs in the game, so your continued feedback is always appreciated. Happy Defending and Happy Holidays!
    Love,
    Mark

    Eric “Petire” Petrie — QA Designer
    Hey all, I’m just going to get right into it! The focus for me this update was allowing players to have more choice and agency in what they use while feeling powerful based on their setups. I’m going to go over our first step in expanding two different systems that happened to work very well together. The first one is the Elemental Combo system. We think it’s a great way for players to expand on making builds they truly feel are their own. The problem with the elemental combo systems in the past were either they were the ONLY way to build, or they were completely useless. The reason for this was not the Elemental Combo system itself but more the ability for players to stack Crowd Controls over and over again to increase damage output beyond expected values, completely stunlocking enemies.
    Allowing players to pick what kind of towers they enjoy using and use those in nearly every circumstance (as long as they put the time and effort in to get the mods/shards for those towers) is a cool and interesting aspect a RPG Tower Defense can have. For instance, having your Cannonball towers oil enemies so your flame aura begins an ignite, or allowing your Skyguard to stun enemies knocked up from geyser. Those are cool and interesting interactions that we want players to feel good finding and discovering for their first time, but not have them make all content trivial.
    This is not the final stage of our combo system, but rather a first step. We’re hard at work on back end systems that need to be altered in order to future proof additions we create, and of course give our amazing artists enough time to go forward and make awesome visual effects (so awesome you may shed a tear) to show off new and amazing combos.
    Another quick thing I want to talk about is Blockades. Blockades have decreased in use ever since we added shards, and even more so with Mods, because Crowd Control effects are too powerful on our enemies. The reason for this is the many instances of Crowd Control available at any point and time without any kind of cooldown on using them. Enter Diminishing Returns. Diminishing Returns allow certain passives and shards to increase their base values everytime any Crowd Control is applied to an enemy future CC’s will have less effect. There’s more to talk about on Diminishing Returns being added, but by adding them in we’re able to make Elemental Combos a lot more interesting, create even MORE Elemental Combos in our future patches/updates, AND buff Blockades so that they are part of your builds. All of these changes are because of feedback we received from so many of you, and we’ve done a lot to make them feel good.
    Activating my trap card,
    Petire

    Daniel Diaz — World Builder
    Hey everyone! I’m Daniel Diaz, and I want to share with you some of the work we’ve put into the next map coming to you all very soon.

    Our main inspiration for this level came from Game of thrones (specifically Night's Watch, Castle Black) and some awesome concepts by artists at Trendy.
    We had lot of fun working on it. I remember I started working on the front of the castle, if you wonder about the workflow just take a look at the pic below.

    Finally, one of the biggest challenges for this level on the world building side was to create the ice cavern and backgrounds for the level (we had no concepts for them) so we had to explore and use our imagination.

    We can’t wait to see you all conquer this frozen castle and reap the rewards for doing so!
    Thanks everyone,
    Daniel
    What’s Next?
    Our Dev Stream is December 7th, @3 PM EST. Be sure to come join us, check out all the epic snow covered goodness, system changes, and hard work poured into this update. Oh, also, you know, maybe win some prizes coming with this update!
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  15. [CG] LAWLTA
    Ahoy Defenders!
    Dungeon Defenders II:  The Isle of Dread Expansion is out now on ALL platforms! This expansion contains a treasure trove of features, changes, and improvements. Set sail for adventure on two new maps, strike down your foes to gain new weapons and Mods, take on new enemies, and so much more. Put on your best eye patch and get your parrot, let’s dive into some expansion notes!
    New Maps
    We’re excited to be introducing not one, but two maps with this expansion. These maps are available as their own Adventure set, can be selected when playing Expeditions, can come up as you progress through Onslaught, and one is even a Chaos VII Incursion!
    The Jacked Sparrow

    The first map is set on The Jacked Sparrow, previously known as The Sparrow before the heroes of Etheria hijacked it in order to reach their destination. As you traverse this map, enemies attack from above and below the levels of the ship, requiring all hands on deck to keep the masts safe from destruction! There’s a ton of fun to be had aboard this ship, as you use cannons to blast your enemies away, catapults to fly across the map, and vantage points to take out enemies when they least expect it!
    Plunderer's Paradise

    After braving the rough seas, the heroes land on an island besieged by an army of the Old One trying to break into the island’s mountain. Among these enemies are new foes that have not been seen before, helping beef up the horde that is coming your way! Protect the island to prevent havoc breaking loose, but also explore to find secrets hidden throughout the map. Conquer the Incursion version of this map by striking down Captain Dreadbones to unlock a new Barbarian weapon to add to your arsenal!
    New Enemies
    There’s a slew of enemies that are now donning pirate attire, an absolute necessity when conquering on such vicious tides! Here are a few of the enemies you encounter on your journey:

    These goblins upped their pirate fashion game, but they also recruited additional allies to take down heroes from afar.

    Cannon Ogres have joined the ranks of foes you must face! They are a fearsome terror that can ruin your defenses and range, but are also deadly when you’re up close and personal.  

    A cursed orc pirate, Captain Dreadbones, is a new boss that you encounter in this expansion. You can fight him and his mighty crew in Plunderer’s Paradise on all game modes the map is available! Be careful, his cursed strength is nothing to underestimate.
    The World Map

    The War Table is improved with this expansion, adding some wonderful visuals to the world of Etheria, and also providing some quality of life changes as requested by our glorious community! The World Map shows all the different places Defenders may explore through different game modes:

    Campaign: A new World Map that outlines where you’ve been, and where you’ll be going!
    Expeditions:  Choose the region, map, and difficulty you want!
    Adventures:  Four zones full of different Adventure story arcs are available to choose from!
    Onslaught:  Hop right into your floor and get to climbing!
    Mastery:  With a similar look to Expeditions, you can see your Mastery Star progression!
    Incursions:  You can change difficulties to see each available Incursion!
    Each game mode contains different formats for ease of use, but also provide an “Advanced View” session browser in each. The Session Browser allows quick visibility of all the games going on, allowing players to filter down to specific maps within specific difficulties of specific game modes. Very specific!
    When navigating through the various world maps, there is also a new indicator that shows which maps are included in Daily and Weekly quests!
    Social Improvements

    Interacting with players is getting some good attention with this expansion, with much more coming even after the expansion! Player Lists are now easier to navigate, selecting another Defender and choosing to inspect their shop or invite them to party among other options provided via a drop down menu.
    The Player List menu has also received additional features. You can now see who’s in your party, who’s the party leader, any friends in the hub, and skip time inspecting every player by seeing who has items listed in their shop!
    Receiving invites is also streamlined to not take over your screen and there’s a timer to avoid invite spam. Parties received attention as well, for instance, the leader is now consistent and gives control to choose when and where your crew go! We’re continuing to develop social interactions between players, and this is a giant first step towards making it an easier and more enjoyable experience.
    Replay From Wave

    This is something we are introducing to help Defenders overcome the challenges they are presented with and promoting experimentation as you progress. Sometimes you can get up to a certain point and you want to try a different strategy. That’s where Replay From Wave comes in!
    Now when you fail a wave, the Performance Optimization System outlines what defenses fell or which ones may have been underperforming. You are able to evaluate what changes you need, make adjustments, and get back to overcoming the challenge before you.
    This system is available in Adventures, Expeditions, Onslaught, AND Mastery (without losing stars). The only caveat to this is that Replay From Wave is not available on Lost Temple, as it’s meant to stand as a final gauntlet to overcome every five floors. We can’t wait to see how far this system let’s Defenders go!
    Onslaught

    It’s finally here — one map floors are now the standard in Onslaught! This change was due to a lot of great feedback many of you provided. There are a few things that needed to change when going towards the one map format:
    Difficulty Scaling:  We shifted the focus of investing time into each floor to overcoming greater difficulties sooner. As a result the rewards previously earned in Onslaught at various floors (Floor 114 for instance) are scaled down to the same difficulty; Ancient Power reset minimum reset floor is lowered; and Omega Waves were added in as an extra challenge to provide a greater feeling of progression.

    Rewards:  Since players are facing a greater challenge faster, we wanted rewards that reflected overcoming said challenges. Now every 10 floors, players receive an Prestigious Weapon, with a guarantee on their unique Mods to roll a five or higher!

    More Maps:  You are now going to be exposed to every map (except boss maps) as you climb Onslaught. Every five maps runs a format of easy, medium, and hard maps, with the fifth map being The Lost Temple!

    More Schedules:  There are even more enemy schedules that you'll encounter now!
    Omega Waves:  This is a new sixth wave added to the end of The Lost Temple. It’s a small victory lap as you continue to climb, where you will be provided with Mini-Boss only waves and unique schedules!
    Onslaught is something we want to continue to build upon. With the feedback you provide, we’re able to make sure that we keep putting out content you enjoy, and these Onslaught changes are a result of that. We can’t wait to see how high you climb, maybe even a Memes For Marcos 2.0 is in our future!
    Ancient Power

    Onslaught and Ancient Power go together like pirates and the ocean, so of course we added more to this system! Ancient Powers themselves are more powerful than before and require less of a point investment to utilize their maximum potential. Now two players are able to reach the maximum strength provided by Ancient Power, previously something only four players were able to do.
    There are also FOUR new powers to help bolster your battle against the horde of enemies coming your way. Protean Shift brought some order to the Critical Chance/Damage system, and as a result we are able to add the following Ancient Powers:
    Hero Critical Chance
    Hero Critical Damage
    Defense Critical Chance
    Defense Critical Damage
    Ancient Power is also more accessible early on now. You are able to gain Ancient Power after completing Floor 30! You do not have to acquire Ancient Power here and can keep climbing gaining higher Minimum Ascension as you progress through floors. Previously you gained 3 Minimum Ascension for every floor you completed (with three map floors), but now you gain 12 Minimum Ascension for every floor with the one map system, and also gain 4 Talent Cap increases per floor as well!
    As you gain more Ancient Power, your Minimum Ancient Power Floor increases as well. This system continues to climb until your Minimum Ancient Power Floor reaches Floor 50, requiring you to reach Floor 80 to acquire additional Ancient Power. You then have access to Floor 50 right away after acquiring Ancient Power, granted you’re equipped to take on those challenges!
    One final change when acquiring Ancient Power:  your pets no longer reset! This change may not be permanent as we’re investigating ways to improve pets, but for now, your pets are untouched by the Ancient Power System!
    New Items

    There’s one thing that pirates are always on the hunt for — TREASURE! There are multiple ways to acquire the new items coming.
    Professor Proteus’s Seaworthy Weapons
    Professor Proteus now has a new cache of weapons available for Defenders taking on the high seas. Using these weapons provide unique death animations that are fitting for the battles that await you! Turn your enemies into a boat, and watch them sink into a whirlpool, or drop your enemies and make them flop like a fish.
    There are multiple animations these weapons provide, and they are available on all weapons! The variety of animations are on a rotation daily, so be sure to check back regularly to see if the one you want is available.


    Pirate Map Seaworthy Weapons
    We’re trying something new by allowing Defenders to get these new weapons by completing the new maps! These weapons do not have the unique death animations, but instead come with all new Mods. These Mods are not weapon or hero specific, though some of them are bound to being melee or ranged only. They aren’t like Mods that are currently in the game, some take your movement speed into account; another has a chance to poison, drench, or oil your enemies; and another can even prevent Dark Assassins from stunning you!
    There are ten to discover, and they can only be acquired through completing The Jacked Sparrow, Plunderer’s Paradise, or through Player Shops
    Depending on where you acquire these weapons, you are also met with new pirate themed Mods that pack quite a punch that can be transferred to any weapon; or unique death animations that can sink your enemies (literally, one can turn them into a boat and sink into the ground)!
    New Features
    What good expansion doesn’t contain some new features? We’re introducing new features to help Defenders as they keep Dragonfall and Etheria safe.

    Primary Stat Reroll
    Primary Stat reroll system that we’re experimenting with. This system allows you to acquire reroll materials from completing the Jacked Sparrow and Plunderer’s Paradise, and reroll your primary stat into a potentially higher number. This change is not enforced if the roll is lower, you are always given a choice to accept it or decline! The new reroll materials are also able to be traded.We’re looking for feedback on this system and if you all enjoy it, we’ll investigate greatly expanding it.
    Player Shop Changes
    There are a some changes coming with Player Shops to make them more enticing to a larger amount of Defenders:

    Use any piece of gear you purchase! Previously players were limited to buying a piece of gear that was only available to their level. This meant players having gold to purchase cool Mods, but not having the gear score to do so. Now when you purchase a piece of gear, the gear is scaled down to your Champion Score. After purchasing an item, and it scaling, you are still able to sell it on your shop. Even more Defenders can now participate in buying and selling!
    Gem Mine
    We’ve introduced a new way for Defenders to get a sweet deal on gems. The Gem Mine can be purchased from the platform stores, providing 100 gems everyday that you login for 30 consecutive days. That’s a total of 3000 gems for a lot less!
    Balance Changes
    Protean Shift brought a lot of new ways to play and a ton of power to Defenders, which we really love! As a result, there are a slew of things that are either not as strong as we’d like or too strong, removing any challenge while playing. We’ve discussed a couple of these, let’s get into it:
    Abyss Lord
    Towers
    Colossus
    Range increased to 800 from 600 (33% increase!)
    Skeletal Archers
    Damage scaling increased to 15 from 11.5 (30+% increase!)
    Ramsters
    Direct Command range increased to 5000 from 4000 (25% increase!)
    Dryad
    Towers
    Harpy’s Perch
    Damage scaling increased to 5.175 from 4.5 (15% increase!)
    Hornet’s Nest
    Hornets from any nest can attack any enemy. Previously only one hornet per nest could attack the same enemy.
    Up to three hornets can attack the same enemy, regardless of where the hornet spawns.
    EV2
    Towers
    Weapon Manufacturer
    Minimum range added to node placement similar to Auras. This change bring this tower in-line to similar towers, while still keeping it unique.
    Huntress
    Towers
    Explosive Trap
    Damage scaling increased to 6.6 from 5.5 (20% increase!)
    Range scaling increased to 0.0575 from 0.05 (15% increase!)
    Range Max increased to 1150 from 1000 (15% increase!)
    Base Range increased to 6900 from 6000 (15% increase!)
    Trigger Radius increase to 400 from 200 (100% increase!)

    Lavamancer
    Towers
    Volcano
    Damage scaling increased to 9.31 from 7 (33% increase!)
    Mystic
    Towers
    Sand Viper
    Damage scaling increased to 6.875 from 5.5 (25% increase!)
    Squire
    Towers
    Ballista
    Damage scaling increased to 21.27 from 18 (18+% increase!)

    Mod Changes
    Tower Mods
    Unique Defense Crit Chance Servo
    Increased max Crit Chance to 30% from 25% (5% increase!)
    Unique Defense Crit Damage Servo
    Increased max Crit Damage to 40% from 35% (5% increase!)
    Boom Mods
    We’ve changed how boom mods work. Previously they were a flat percentage that allowed them to scale infinitely, making them a must for climbing later floors.

    They’ve been retooled to do damage based on the enemies they explode up to a cap. The number shown is an average of what that damage is based on the different kinds of enemies within that group. For example, a melee-splosion does less damage when exploding a small goblin than it does when exploding a berserker orc.

    General Changes
    Chaos VIII Amps and High Onslaught Mods
    Modified Mark’s Thoughts:
    These now start dropping at floor 35. Their drop chance increases every two floors you complete up to a cap on Floor 83 for Amps and Floor 92 for Mods.
    Bug Fixes
    All C8 shards have been disabled. We may revisit them sometime in the future, but to provide an equal battlefield for all Defenders, we’ve disabled C8 shards for now.
    We made some pathing adjustments, fixes to spawners, and adjustment to enemies that should improve their pathing across several maps. Looking at you Northwest flier lane in Lost Temple!
    Fixed a bug where the Betsy Staff could cause enemies to, more or less, one shot anything in their path.
    Fixed an issue with Betsy’s Curse shard allowing enemies to one shot anything in their path.
    Fixed spelling errors on Unique Crit Chance Servo, Unique Crit Damage Servo, Defense Crit Chance Servo, and Defense Crit Damage Servo.
    Removed some tutorial text that was hanging out in Gates of Dragonfall - Hard.
    Fixed a rare issue where when an item is upgraded to 10/10 Chaos 7 the ipwr could go to 0.
    Fixed an issue where Consecutive Win Bonus XP was being multiplied by Ancient Power an additional time.
    EV-2 no longer infinitely lazers the Bastille Master in her incursion.
    Fixed several cases where the Bastille Master could get stuck.
    Fixed an issue where players could get into a state where they were unable to evolve pets.
    Fixed a case where split-screen users could have the Player Shops overlapping the Ancient Power UI.
    Player Shops - "Your inventory is full" notification now shows on other players shops when your inventory is full
    Piercing Towers now pierce Vanguards.
    Protective Downgrade Servo and Last Stand Chip now have a vfx to show when the effect triggers
    A lot of you submit bug reports constantly, and we make sure to squash as many of them as we can. As with any expansion, there are a lot of fixes coming your way. Please continue to submit them to our bug site, your help is invaluable to knocking out some of the pesky issues that appear.
    Known Issues
    If beyond the first three tutorial maps, hitting Play Now on the main menu sends you to town.
    Traps are not respawning correctly when using Replay From Wave.
    Temporary fix in for rare instances where upgrading gear to 10/10 would greatly lower it’s stats. For these rare instances, instead of greatly lowering, stats are now slightly raised. This is a catch for if this error occurs, not a change applied to all gear.
    Tower-like abilities (Talisman of Empowerment, Abyss Stone, etc.) are running into a few issues that we’re aware of.
    The Champion Score filter is currently not functioning correctly.
    Player 2 in splitscreen is able to be kicked from party when in a party with a leader that isn't part of the splitscreen
    When the first player in split screen mode spends or receives currency the pop up appears on both screens.
    When placing defenses on the bottom floor of The Jacked Sparrow there is a chance to have it go to the top layer
    Social Defenders
    There’s a lot of people playing Dungeon Defenders II, and a lot of them gather on our social hubs. When it comes to finding other players, figuring out how to conquer a specific challenge, or just wanting to get to know others in the community, or getting the latest DD2 news, you can’t go wrong with our social platforms:

    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on this expansion. Get to setting sail!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  16. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    We’re almost at the end of September, which means there’s a little over a month away from the Dungeon Defenders: Awakened PC Beta! The team has been putting in tons of time to really make sure the beta is a great experience, while also polishing up a lot of areas that won’t be seen until release. Starting next month, we’ll begin ramping up displaying a lot of the hard work that’s been going on in the world of Etheria.
    As we’re working on that, we didn’t want to leave you without anything for September, so while this will be one of our shorter updates, we do have some awesome things to show off. We have a big post processing and shader effect that is still being tweaked, and the following pieces are still works in progress, but without further ado, let’s get into it!
    Squire Towers
    We previously showed the concept for these bad boys, now it’s time to see them in-game!
    Spike Blockade



    Bouncer Blockade


     
    Harpoon Tower



    Bowling Ball Tower



     
    Slice n' Dice Blockade


     
    These towers not only look fantastic but are incredibly fun to defend with. There’s another set of towers that we’re putting the finishing touches on in regards to animation, so we’ll show off the concepts for now. Get ready, the Apprentice Towers are coming at ya!
    Apprentice Towers
    Arcane Barrier

     
    Magic Missile Tower

    Flameburst Tower

    Lightning Tower

    Deadly Striker Tower

     
    Our goal was to make sure that the towers are very discernable from one another, something that was harder to do previously. We cannot wait for you to see their 3D beauty, we’re just giving it some finishing touches before doing so.
    These are things you’ve seen before. How about we look at something that’s NEVER been seen before? Maybe a map?  Maybe a new map in Act 1? Actually yeah, that sounds pretty good. Let’s do that!
     
    NEW MAP: Lava Mines
    This map is one of the new campaign maps coming in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened! It’s a ton of fun to play, it’s absolutely gorgeous, and most of all — LAVA!





     
    What’s Next?
    We’re still working our hardest to ensure the Beta coming in November is going to be the best first step at letting you, our valiant Defenders, take on Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. There’s a ton of info we’re excited to gain, where we can make the game better, and most of all — LET YOU PLAY! There’s a ton still left to do, but it’ll all be worth it.
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team is having a blast working on DD:A, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on it. Stay tuned for more info!

    For Etheria!

    Chromatic Games
     
  17. [CG] LAWLTA
    A red spaceship has arrived in Etheria!  Dragonfall guards have questioned a small robot that says his name is “Protobot.” After a brief examination, Protobot hands a mysterious letter to the guards. Let’s open it and see what it says:

    Greetings Defenders!
    I thought everyone could benefit from one of my more recent discoveries that I’ve made in my research, my new Shrink-o-matizing technology!  It really was just a simple matter of combining a crystal core with the matter quantizing array. This allows all sorts of items and materials to be stored at a much smaller size than before! This is only one of the many new item transmorphications that I plan on making.
    I do hope that Protobot is in good health and did not damage anything upon his arrival. He’s had some slight malfunctions in his navigational subroutines recently, but his Shrink-o-matizer is in perfect condition! You can trust your items to be protected and stored properly upon the Vault Ship.
    I can’t wait to arrive in Dragonfall to share all of my latest research with all of you. I simply was held up making some last minute adjustments to my latest creation, the Robo-witch Prime!  Or was it Mecha-witch? Gunda-witch? Don’t worry, I’ll figure out what I’m calling it and head right over! I can’t wait to share all my latest findings with everyone! The Old Ones won’t know what hit them!
    Sincerely,
    Professor Sebastian Proteus

    Patch 2.4 crash landed into the Dragonfall Marketplace today and is now live! This patch brings a highly requested feature in the form of a shiny spaceship — The Sky City Bank! With the bank’s arrival come some tremendous improvements to load times, optimizations, and bug fixes. Let’s get into it!
    Sky City Bank


    The Sky City Bank is now available! This futuristic bank is located directly behind the Emporium in Town, or next to the training dummies in your Private Tavern. The bank is used to store items that you want to hold onto, but don’t necessarily need on your journeys throughout Etheria.
    For starters, every player gets at least one Bank Vault for free right when they login. This means if you only have the default inventory space, you now have that same default inventory space AND a Bank Vault upon logging in!
    For people that purchased the old Inventory Packs or the Bag Booster Pack are going to notice a shift in their inventory. Bags obtained through those packs that go over eight Inventory Bags become Bank Vaults with this patch. Previously it confused players when they saw other players with ten or eleven bags, when they could only have eight. Because of this, we are standardizing inventory bags.
    The change looks like this:

    Pre-Patch 2.4
    8-11 Possible Maximum Inventory Bags
    0 Bank Vaults

    Post-Patch 2.4
    8 Possible Maximum Inventory Bags
    12 Bank Vaults
    FREE Sky City Bundle


    To celebrate the Sky City Bank’s arrival, we are offering a FREE bundle that you can redeem from the in-game shop for 0 Gems. This bundle awards:
    One additional Bank Vault!
    Shutter Shades Flair!
    By redeeming the free bundle, you are able to start off Patch 2.4 with at least two free Bank Vaults! This bundle is available for two weeks, so grab it while it’s here!
    Stack Splitting
    This patch brings the ability to split stackable items into different stacks and amounts. For instance, if there’s a stack of 99 pet food in your inventory, you can now break it down into two or more stacks of whatever size you choose. Want to keep some items on you, but store the rest of the stack in the bank? Now you can do that! Stacks on stacks on stacks.

    Transfer All
    Now that the Sky City Bank is open for business, moving items quickly to the bank is a must. You can now move an entire bag full of items with one button press. The “Transfer All” button moves all non-locked items in the bag you currently have selected into the Bank Vault that you have selected. You can move Locked Items as well, they are just done individually. “Transfer All” also automatically stacks any stackable items so you don’t have to!
    Load Time Improvements
    Patch 2.4 contains an emphasis on inventories. Our Lead Programmer looked into ways our inventories could be better to really add some “oomph” to this patch. After investigating how profiles saved, loaded, and handled inventories, we made a lot of improvements when loading into any part of the game! Some players are going to notice drastic load time decreases, while others may notice slightly quicker loads.
    General Changes
    Pets
    When at the Hatchery, eggs can be hatched directly. No more drag and dropping or incubating!


    Visuals
    Tower Inspect UI updated for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (PC already has this).
    Zapper Kobold Flier now has a red outline.
    Made Lavamancer Weapon drops larger, something hot now looks cooler.
    Mana Node received some visual improvements.
    Slight tweaks to some of the Barbarian’s Accessories.
    Minor adjustments to the Barbarian’s whirlwind.
    Blacksmith’s shop no longer has a confirmation pop-up for purchases.
    War Table Cybork info now includes that they disable nodes.
    Bug reporting page received updated buttons.

    Audio
    New audio cue for Wave Complete!
    Betsy fight sequence in Dragonfall Bazaar received updated sound cues.
    Added and improved on Berserker Orcs during the Glitterhelm matinee.
    Hero Changes
    Dryad
    Corrupt Form
    When building a tower in Corrupt Form, towers now gain the Corrupt benefits when placed.
    Slime Pit Tower
    No longer slow enemies that are immune to slow. Berserker orcs aren’t afraid of slimes!
    Huntress

    Shards
    Explosive Poison
    The shard is now working correctly, spreading poison if a poisoned enemy dies.
    Shards
    Inspiration
    Can no longer be equipped to the Abyss Lord or EV2
    Bug Fixes
    Fixed an issue where EV2’s Proton Charge could produce higher than intended damage while gaining zero heat.
    Fixed an issue with the Barbarian’s Leap preventing resource decay.
    Fixed an issue where the Flamethrower Tower’s VFX did not get larger when defense range was increased.
    Fixed an issue where Auto-Equip Relics did not work on the first press.
    Fixed an issue where Chaos 3 Shard Packs were not on the Emporium.
    Fixed an issue when comparing equipment on the Squire.
    Fixed an issue where the Barbarian could get out of bounds in The Throne Room.
    Fixed an issue where the Sub-Cores are on the incorrect sides in The Throne Room.
    Adjusted the Dryad Starfall resource cost so it no longer overlaps.
    Fixed an issue that allowed parties to play the tutorial maps (we are looking into letting parties into these maps down the road).
    Fixed an issue that caused an infinite loading screen. Please let us know if you experience them after this update.
    Removed the ability to auto-equip when in the Portal.
    Fixed a bug where multiple towers could be placed simultaneously. May look into adding a stable version of this down the road.
    Fixed an issue where several weapons were not consistently dropping in the world without their vfx visible.
    Fixed an issue where the Lavamancer VFX would appear on some maps when using the Barbarian Leap.
    Fixed an issue where the champion crowns were not properly rotated on hero cards.
    Updated an issue where golden eggs would show up as a regular egg in several places.
    Fixed an issue where purchasing the last item in the list from the Blacksmith or Relic Hunter shop using a controller causes the list to lose focus.
    Fixed an issue where several items in the blacksmith shop were displaying improperly.
    Fixed an issue where item comparison was not working for equipped items.
    Removed references to the shards being equipped on the sell all message.
    Equippable is now spelled correctly in the shard folder when you have no shards available for the gear slot. Stay in school kids.
    Removed a reference to the old pet bag when trying to hatch an egg with a full inventory.
    Fixed a visual issue where a large number of shards displayed the current upgrade level is in the wrong location on the tooltip.
    Quest Complete pop-up will now say Daily Mission completed when completing a Daily Mission.
    Attempting to equip a shard to an invalid tower slot throws either unknown error, or no error. Now has a valid error string.
    Fixed an issue on XB1 where sub-core icons were not being removed after losing a sub-core.
    The Sky City Bank is the first arrival for something much larger coming to Etheria. Over the next couple months we are going to be actively discussing the new features coming with our next expansive update. For more information sources as we post updates, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (doing so also gets you the Pirate Monk and Academy Apprentice skins for free):
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    We’re still tinkering away to get some gigantic changes to Dungeon Defenders II that we think you’re really going to enjoy. More information coming soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  18. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!

    The Defender-Centric Update is now live on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One! This update contains a whole lot of love to a lot of foundational systems within Dungeon Defenders II. These changes are based off of feedback many of you have provided, and as Chromatic, we wanted to really give our GLORIOUS Defenders something that demonstrated how much we value our community. Without further ado, let's get into it!
    SHARD SHOP
    Shards are such an integral part to Dungeon Defenders II when it comes to empowering your heroes with great strength to take out the waves of enemies constantly thrown at you. Currently there is a lot of RNG regarding which shards you get, and to help cut down the randomness, farming lower tiered content is the easiest way to go.


    We don’t want that. We want you playing content you find engaging, while being able to acquire the Shards you want. With this update, you can! We're adding in the Shard Shop, a service that the Gran Ma'ster now offers. Visiting her allows you to purchase Shards directly from her, from Campaign to Chaos VII. There is also search functionality so you can search for the Shard you want and cut down the hunt!
    CHAOS VIII SHARDS
    Chaos VIII Shards are a new tier of shard, that some of you may have snagged before. We went through and found a way to make these shards feel like a good reward for climbing higher Onslaught, and have them compete with similar Shards. You can get them after a certain point in Onslaught, similar to when you start receiving Chaos VIII Ampoules.
    MATERIAL CONVERSION
    We want players enjoying Ancient Power as much as they can, and our big goal was making sure that Defenders could play content they found engaging, while working towards a specific goal. Enter Material Conversion. Material Conversion allows you to take a Pristine quality material and convert it to the same type of material of a lower quality. This makes it so that if you are climbing Onslaught, or playing higher Chaos, you're always gaining usable materials to acquire Ancient Power.


    That's not all though! As you play Chaos VII and above, you can take your Chaos VII Ampoules and convert them into CHAOS VIII AMPOULES! We want players upgrading and getting Chaos VIII gear, so this is a step towards making that process feel good and not entirely beholden to RNG. We’ll be using this as a basis for any additional changes/additions made to Ancient Power.
    NEW WEAPONS


    One thing that we love is the ability to customize the heroes in Dungeon Defenders II. Weapons are part of the epic-ness (or silliness) that can really show off your own personal taste. This update provides over 30 NEW Weapons that are currently unobtainable. These weapons are gained by climbing through different tiers of Onslaught. The higher you go, the more epic the weapons become! These weapons scale upon opening the gifts to your progression (to a cap, like Chaos VII items). There's a ton to hunt down, and if you happen to get the same weapon repeatedly, no worries — you can trade it to your friends!
    NEW ELEMENTAL DAMAGE — POISON!
    Poison Mods in the form of Chips are coming with this update. This Mod can be find in Lost Temple for now. Poison can be applied to weapons to give them an additional damage over time effect. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! If earth damage is dealt to a poisoned enemy, they now become PETRIFIED, freezing them in place, turning them to stone, and causing their fellow enemies to attack them!
    NEW USER EXPERIENCE
    We understand that a lot of Defenders that come to Dungeon Defenders II want to start the game off with their friends. This update includes the ability to complete the New User Experience (the first three tutorial levels) with friends. The flow has also been adjusted so that new Defenders get to town faster and instead of having to complete the tutorial maps first.
    BALANCE CHANGES


    Heroes
    Adept
    Towers Hailstorm Tower Increased damage scaling to 4.7 from 4.5 (5% BUFF) Abilities Arc Lightning Increased scaling to 42 from 40 (5% BUFF) Gunwitch
    Abilities Two at Twice the Price Increased scaling to 5.5 from 5 (10% BUFF) Broomvault Increased scaling to 37 from 35 (6% BUFF) Broom Swarm Increased scaling to 12 from 10 (15% BUFF) Huntress
    Towers Poison Dart Tower Now deals Poison damage by default. This provides the same rules as other elemental damage towers, where Mods cannot apply a second form of elemental damage, but Shards can. Initiate
    Abilities Draining Strike Increased scaling to 27 from 25 (8% BUFF) Lavamancer
    Towers Maw of the Earth Drake Defense Unit cost reduced to 40 from 50 (20% BUFF) Defense Health Scaling reduced from 225 to 175 Fissure of Embermount Increased scaling to 2.2 from 2.0 (10% BUFF) Oil Geyser Health scaling increased to 0.2 from 0.1 (50% BUFF) Volcano Increased damage scaling to 9.51 from 9.31 (3% BUFF) Increased range scaling to 1.5555 from 1.3334 (15% BUFF) Abilities Eruption Increased Tower Defense Power scaling to 1.3 from 1.2 (8% BUFF) Mystic
    Towers Sand Viper Increased damage scaling to 6.975 from 6.875 (2% BUFF) Snaking Sands Increased range scaling to 0.1534 from 0.1334 (15% BUFF) Shards
    Abyss Lord
    Power of the Knight (Gloves) Increased damage boost scaling to 5 from 3 per level (66% BUFF) Dryad
    World Tree McBufferson (Relic) Increased shield bonus to 15 from 10 per level (50% BUFF) Gunwitch
    Broomnado Power (Boots) Increased damage scaling to 3.5 from 3.0 (17% BUFF) Scatter Power (Chest) Increased damage scaling from 3.5 to 3.0 (17% BUFF) Snipe Critical Strike (Weapon) Increased Critical Chance to 3 from 2 per level (50% BUFF)
    Lavamancer
    Crumbling Stone (Relic) Increased damage multiplier to 1.5 from 1.0 per level (50% BUFF) Shattering Stones (Boots) Increased detonation damage to 45 from 40 per level (13% BUFF) Volcanic Might (Relic) Increased stun chance to 2% from 1.5% per level (33% BUFF) Volcano Mega Rock (Relic) Increase Defense Power scaling to 200 from 150 per level (33% BUFF) Mystic
    Lashing Power (Chest) Increased damage to 3.5 from 3.0 per level (17% BUFF) Split Vipers (Relic) No longer removes ramp up damage (BUFF) Debilitating Madness (Gloves) Increased damage amplification to 3.5 from 3.0 (17% BUFF)     
    BUG FIXES
    Fixed an issue with Pristine Motes not dropping correctly from Victory Chests (now drops a stack of five). Fixed an issue with Shattequake triggering Mod effects based off the heroes equipped weapon. Fixed an issue with poison sometimes not applying towards the Controller Burn mutator. Fixed an exploit that allowed users to generate infinite mana with the Dryad. Adjusted error messaging when players were pushed to the main menu from the tutorial maps. Fixed an exploit that allowed users to generate unlimited defense mana. Fixed an issue that allowed defense effects to stay after being sold. Adjusted the messaging from the second tutorial map. Adjusted messaging that indicated a map had not been unlocked yet. Fixed an issue that allowed players to get infinite help. KNOWN ISSUES
    Shattering Stones, Explosive Poison, Snake Bomb, and Explosive Finale shards are not working correctly. Crafting Materials are currently not tradeable. Poison damage is not procc'ing correctly on Target Dummies. The Wayfarer is still in his winter clothes, we’ll get him a new pair of clothes in our next patch/hotfix. Poison Dart Tower does not have an attunement icon. SOCIAL DEFENDERS
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter Facebook Discord Twitch The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  19. [CG] LAWLTA
    The Heroes of Etheria have arrived at Drakenfrost Keep and explored its grounds. Throughout their exploration they unlocked a hidden chamber shrouded in runes around a mage who made the ultimate sacrifice to keep an ancient evil at bay. The seal has been broken, and the Drakenlord lives again! Held at bay for many years, kept alive only by fables, this menacing evil seeks to take back his keep, raise a dragon army, and set out to conquer the lands of Etheria. It is up to you, Defender, to send this juggernaut back to the underworld.
    Greeting Defenders,
    We unleashed a beast in Patch 4.3, which is now out on ALL platforms! The Drakenlord has come to terrorize the citizens of Etheria, we took a pass at some additional Mod Reroll quality of life, bug fixes, and more. Let’s get into it!
    The Drakenlord

    Soaring through the skies of Etheria, the Drakenlord is trying to take back his domain, Drakenfrost Keep. He’s a new boss type that will require you to create unique strategies to take him down, unlike any other boss you’ve fought so far! With his arrival, he may appear in other maps as well. He is now ready to fight you in Expeditions!
    Drakenfrost Keep is also now a map that appears in Onslaught. Starting at Floor 39, Drakenfrost Keep appears every 10 floors as a capstone floor (similar to The Lost Temple). This means at Floors 34, 44, 54, 64, etc., you have to defend the Lost Temple, and on Floors 39, 49, 59, 69, etc., you conquer Drakenfrost Keep.
    The Drakenlord provides new rewards every week! There are a slew of new weapons AND Mods for you to obtain by slaying him and protecting Etheria.
    A costume for the Squire is now available on the Emporium, where you can BECOME the Drakenlord. We’re excited to see how you handle what he has in store for you, and the great rewards that await you.
    Mod Reroll
    We’ve been all about adding Mod quality of life changes, and here’s another one. Previously we doubled 10/10 drop chances, then last week we ensured that you run into a 10/10 after actively playing for ~10 hours, AND we added a new Mod Reroll material (that can be stored in the Material Vault).
    A lot of people have enjoyed these adds, but we thought we’d take it a step further. Mod Rerolls allow you to target specific Mods into becoming 10/10. Some players target farm lower tiers to try and get better luck on a 10/10 dropping for a specific lower Mod (*cough* Tenacity *cough*). We want you all playing content you find engaging, so now Mod Rerolls after a while will guarantee a 10/10 roll. The amount of time is greatly impacted by the ability to buy this material from other players. This change means you can keep climbing or playing content you want, and are guaranteed to eventually get a 10/10 of the Mod you want.
    Diminishing Returns
    There were a few issues with Diminishing Returns upon release. Most of these problems were related to towers/abilities that could apply a stun more than once a second (i.e. Weapon Manufacturer and Protons). These towers were causing a large spike in diminishing returns that was not intended. On top of that, because of the fast attack rate the drop off of diminishing returns was halted.
    Three major issues caused this, Stuns reapplying themselves and adjusting their initial duration each time. This caused initial stuns to a lot last less than intended, which was fixed in today’s update. Second, all Crowd Controls (CC) were adding to the same tenacity pool instead of separated by type (for instance, stuns and slows). This was causing a much higher overall tenacity than expected, which was also fixed in today’s update. The final issue, which we are still working on, is related to how the tenacity fall off is calculated. This is causing some enemies that start at a higher base tenacity when playing with four players to have enemies be nearly immune to CC after their first stun. This is not intended and we are actively looking into a fix to allow players to use theirs stuns as intended.
    Communities
    This is a feature that we are testing on PC/Steam. There’s a lot of information that we’re going to be gathering with this specific feature, so we want to communicate that there may be times where it’s not working correctly, and it may require game restarts to get it functioning correctly, but will not affect your gameplay specifically.
    Communities provide a way for you to gather with up to 30 like-minded Defenders and talk across games and lobbies, invite to party, and more! You can be in up to 5 communities at any time, and are able to create communities whenever you want. Here are some of the functionalities that Communities offer:
    Give them a unique name (don’t worry, the name filter is working)
    Give them a three or four letter acronym of your choice.
    By using “/c1”, “/c2”, “/c3”, “/c4”, and “/c5” you can quickly chat in each of your communities. (You can also use /<insert acronym here> to chat with them as well).
    Invite players to join your parties in the Town or Private Tavern.
    Use different ranks (Owner, Officer, and then regular members).
    Invite and recommend users to join a Community.
    There’s a lot more functionality and we’re looking at ways to add more and improve the current setups. We’re looking forward to your constructive feedback and will be doing everything we can to make these Communities great.
    Hero Changes
    Abyss Lord
    Towers
    Skeletal Orc
    The DU cost is now 30, was previously 35.
    Dryad
    Towers
    World Tree
    The DU cost is now 20, was previously 25.
    Lavamancer
    Towers
    Fissure of Embermount
    The overlap is now 35% of the max range, was previously 50% (for reference, flame aura overlap is 50%).
    Squire
    Towers
    Training Dummy
    The DU cost is now 20, was previously 25.
    Bug Fixes
    Fixed an issue where a small group of player’s pets had invalid stats tied to them.
    Fixed an issue where Boom chips were functioning incorrectly.
    Fixed an issue for PS4 users getting kicked to the main menu, and having to restart the game to continue.
    Fixed an issue with inspecting items on the ground while playing splitscreen for PS4 and Xbox.
    Fixed an issue when inspecting defenses, it showed the stats of other defenses.
    Adjusted billboard focus size to make them easier to read.
    Destructive Pylon and Destruction interaction match the Destructive Pylon tooltip and no longer stack.
    Fixed an issue when going through incursions and getting put against Malthius.
    Updated drenching strikes to be affected by electrocute for the correct duration
    Fixed an issue with pathing in lanes that had translucent objects.
    Fixed an issue where water chip was sometimes not drenching enemies.
    Adjusted Vampiric Empowerment to show the correct stat boost on the individual tower inspect screen in the inventory.
    Fixed an issue where restarting Drakenfrost Keep produced one less core alive.
    The Haunting Shard now shoots ghosts on secondary attacks.
    Fixed an issue with Ogres teleporting on the far east lane of The Lost Temple.
    Fixed an issue with non-leader members of a party get a bad error message when matchmaking.
    Changed the schedules on Drakenfrost Keep on Chaos VI and VII in Expeditions.
    Boom mods should now work on everything they’re equipped to.
    Fixed a framerate drop on Xbox when interacting with enemy schedule billboard.
    Fixed an issue on PS4 where the menu level music played during the video intro.
    Fixed an issue on comparing/inspecting items in the inventory if they are not equippable for the current selected hero.
    Removed an Auto Sort checkbox on the Tinkering UI.
    Tweaked the VFX for the Accumulator Servo to show the AoE effect.
    Fixed an issue on Sacrificial Warden adventure when using a controller/gamepad.
    Fixed an issue for a very small subset of users that caused an issue when coming back from a long break that had them temporarily stuck on Greystone Plaza.
    Adjusted how Diminishing Return buffs were calculated with different types of debuffs.
    Adjusted the difficulty of Forest Crossroads, Liferoot Forest, and Betsy during the campaign to be easier.
    Added elemental effects to weapons dropped during the New User Experience.
    Adjusted the pickup radius for Primary Reroll and Mod Reroll materials.
    Fixed an issue on gamepads/controllers with focus while rerolling Mods/Primary stats.
    Known Issues
    Some sources of fire damage from Shards/Mods are not lighting torches correctly on Drakenfrost Keep.
    If you are not able to use Communities, restart the game to get back into them.
    Consecutive Win Bonus and Replay From Wave can fail, currently getting a fix ready.
    Replaying from Wave on Drakenfrost Keep and winning can result in not receiving the special Frost weapons.
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  20. [CG] LAWLTA
    Greetings Defenders,
    We’ve been hard at work since our latest update and we’re ready to share some of what you can expect to see in our next update! We wanted to take a step back and focus on some more player-centric changes, and we’ve got a pretty hefty list of things we’re accomplishing. There’s still a lot of work for us to do, and while we’re not ready to show anything off yet, it’s the perfect time to talk about some of the things you can expect to see coming to Dungeon Defenders II!
    Shard Acquisition
    Shards are such an integral part to Dungeon Defenders II when it comes to empowering your towers with great strength to take out the waves of enemies constantly thrown at you. Currently there is a lot of RNG regarding which shards you get, and to help cut down the randomness, farming lower tiered content is the easiest way to go.
    We don’t want that. We want you playing content you find engaging, while being able to acquire the Shards you want. The exact details cannot be spilled out here, but we’re working on concrete ways to get the specific Shards you want.
    Chaos VIII Shards
    They’ve been gone for a while, and the game has changed quite a bit since they were removed. We have taken a pass at them so that they fit into the current game and are something you want to get. You’ll be able to get them after a certain point in Onslaught, similar to when you start receiving Chaos VIII Ampoules.
    New Weapons
    There’s a lot of epic weapons that we’re going to be making available, some that have been available previously, and some you've never seen before. Players love to make their characters look unique, and while costumes, flairs, and accessories help accomplish this, weapons also play a big part in making your heroes look awesome!
    Elemental Addition
    We know a lot of you really enjoyed harnessing the powers of the elements, and we promised to add to this system. In the next update, Poison Mods will be added. While we’re not talking interactions yet, we wanted to let you know that we’re expanding on the list of powers you can combo to break apart your enemies!
    Other Greatness
    There’s still a decent amount to talk about, and we promise to get word out on things as soon as we can. This next month is going to be a crazy ride for all of our Defenders and we cannot wait to share with you what our 2019 is going to look like! We'll be doing at least one other update over the next month, and then go through our usual release of dev streams and previews. We’re wanting to really take our time with everything we're conjuring up and give attention to a lot of things that we believe you’ll enjoy.
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team

  21. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    Today we announced yesterday that tomorrow we want to pivot our goals with any future games within our studio. There’s a lot to talk about, so for now we’ll just go over the big bullet points, because who even reads these things? The text is all bold because everything is important. Our artists are too busy, so we're going to draw these things for you in MS Paint to the best of our ability, which are the peak of art. Let’s smash that like and subscribe button:
    After our Kickstarter succeeds, we will be launching a second Kickstarter for a new Dungeon Defenders dating simulator. It is currently known as Project: Smooches, it is 9 years into development, and all the characters are mo-capped (motion captured) by Steve Buscemi in a fat suit (a true professional).

    New company mascots, the Chromie Bois. We got all three of the good ones:

    Our current Kickstarter has received so much support so quickly in such a short amount of time. We want to reward our players with an accelerated experience. Instead of our next project being Dungeon Defenders III, we’re going to blow away YOUR expectations by making the next installment in the Dungeon Defenders series being Dungeon Defenders VII. Here is an illustration of our new and main hero of DD7, Nimbus Conflict:

    You already love him!
    We realize that being Chromatic Games, some people have a hard time reading our text and logo. We’ll be creating a more colorblind friendly sister studio, Monochromatic Games, with the logo being specifically black and white.
    To provide the best Dungeon Defenders experience, we are now working on the Chromatic Launcher. This will have all your favorite Dungeon Defenders games in one place. No more pesky Steam, Epic, Uplay, Origin, MyGames, or any other launchers, you just have to use ours. Surely you don’t play other games, ours are the only ones to play.This is only available on your phone. Do you guys not have phones? We’ve got you covered.
    cPhone One. How’s it said? Don’t worry about it. Buy the phone and use the launcher.
    Everyone in the studio is going to legally change their last name based on the survey results taken at the beginning of this post.
    Gator sword.
    We’re looking to hire about 30 voice actors with no experience that can help us recreate every episode of Seinfeld in a special Dungeon Defenders VII map called “Jerry’s Apartment”. Here's the concept probably:

    Oh cool, a gun with legs. Too bad we have a fire-breathing muscle gun. (final concept art):

    Smell-o-vision update coming to all products once Oculus releases their new N-VR (nasal virtual reality).
    The Apex Legends pinging system, that’s pretty cool.
    No silly April Fool’s day posts.
    There’s a lot that we’re hard at work on and are really trying to churn out to provide the best experience possible. We want you to join us on our journey and hopefully make the best Project: Smooches errrr Dungeon Defenders game possible. Follow us on our social platforms, you know the ones.
    To make all of this potentially but probably not possible, but to make Dungeon Defenders: Awakened the best experience possible, check out our Kickstarter by clicking this whole paragraph. There’s less than two days left. Also there’s a secret link somewhere in this text.
    Smooches,
    Chromatic and Monochromatic Games
  22. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    July is almost over, and we’re ready to share all the work we’ve been slaying since we last spoke! There’s a ton of information to go over since our last update for the work that we’ve been churning away for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened and Dungeon Defenders II. Note - the Dungeon Defenders II info is all the way at the bottom if you want to jump to it first. Anyway - let’s get right into it!
    June Recap
    Last month we had a lot of really great things to share, concept art, goblin animations, beautiful maps, and a look into where each of our Chromatic departments were on the DD:A. We’ll be following the same format, but to pour through the June Update (in case you haven’t, which you most definitely should!), click here for more info.
    As for June, it was really important for us to get a build put together with our awesome partners at Nintendo. We put in the time and got a really awesome build running on the Nintendo Switch! It brought some very pleasant surprises for us: the performance was good without applying optimizations, the controls felt great on gamepad, and most importantly — it was really freaking fun! For a lot of us here, it was a real moment where a lot of our work came together, something that has only bolstered our spirits.

    Onto July!
    There’s a ton that has gone on for July, and we still have a few days to knock out some really awesome work! We’re working with a lot of partners, doing a ton of feature work, fleshing out some story telling, and making (as always) really beautiful art. Should we break those things down into their own section for easy readability? We think so, LET THE GREAT SECTIONING BEGIN!
    A Ship Full of Partners… Partnership?
    We’re making sure that all of our partners are taken care of so that gamers far and wide have the opportunity to know the greatness that is DD:A, recruiting them to become glorious Defenders! We’ve been securing ways to show off to the world how awesome DD:A is, you might even see a trailer revealed towards the end of August…
    Engineering Magic
    There’s been rumors around the studio that our engineers have been tampering with black magic. It’s really the only explanation as to how they are getting such amazing work out. There’s been a weekly sacrifice of barbecue, though that might just be lunch. “Stop talking about barbecue, you’re making me hungry, and talk about that work” you’re probably thinking. All right, let’s do that!
    Enemy AI
    Something design and engineering have given a lot of careful attention is giving the best experience fighting off waves and waves of the Old Ones’ army. AI (artificial intelligence) is crucial to really selling the fantasy of combating thousands and thousands of the enemies coming your way. Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) has made this so easy to setup and create the experience we want. Another one of our big focuses is making sure we don’t make them TOO smart. We’ve watched enough Terminator, we know the dangers.
    Button Mashing
    We want to make sure that tirelessly pounding buttons on your respective controllers feels good and natural, so you’re not worrying about controls while defending Etheria. Based off internal feedback we received from our last update, controls are only feeling better and better. Getting around the maps, building defenses, and using abilities to fight enemies will help make DD:A be the perfect way to experience DD:A with some awesome couch co-op!
    Splitting Pixels
    For all platforms, we’re wanting to have a great split screen experience. When it comes to building out DD:A performance-wise, we focus on split screen Nintendo as the bottom line to hit, and then scale it up from there. This means being very smart about how things are displayed when playing with 1, 2, 3, or 4 players! Four player split screen on Switch already feels nice, giving us very promising results without even applying our optimizations to the maps and how players see enemies from afar. Seriously, it’s going to be awesome playing this arm and arm with your “defrienders” on the couch! That pun was a bit much, we apologize, but it had to be made.
    Art of Warfare
    There’s a lot of content that we’re currently constructing with digital pens flourishing, mouses clicking, and frames being keyed for animation. While we got our trailers working, we didn’t want to give away too much of what’s coming up, but we know you need something… Hmmm.. Hrmmm… *shuffling folders and files* A-HA! Squire towers are the answer! This is just a taste of what you can expect from towers in DD:A.
    The Bowling Ball Tower
    This tower is a staple in Dungeon Defenders, and we’ve been having a lot of fun with it in DD:A, with cannonball bouncing everywhere (it was pretty OP before our first pass). This tower looks amazing in our internal builds, but here’s a sneak peek

     
    The Ballista
    Complete with concept artist notes, this bad boy can slay over 33 GPS (goblins per second). We showed a bit of our tech off in our Kickstarter trailer regarding this turret, where it carries and pins some of the enemies it hits to wall. It’s ruthless!

     
    The Spiked Blockade
    This is one beefy blockade! Metal, wood, spikes, gems, it’ll be surprising for enemies to take this thing down as they’ll be in awe at looking at the masterful craftsmanship this tower exuberates!

     
    The Slice N’ Dice Tower
    Don’t let it’s idle state fool you, not being careful around this tower leave more than just paper cuts, you might need to be glued back together! It gets hit, it spins. It gets hit more, it spins faster. You get it.

     
    The Bouncer Blockade
    It just looks like something you don’t want to touch. If it had a spirit animal, it’d be a porcupine. You get too close to it, it shoots out it’s spikes at about 1750.6 EYPS (Etherian Yalms Per Second), knocking back some of the strongest foes you’ll fight. We thought about calling it the “ouch spikey stabby tower”, but it just didn’t flow very well.

    In-game they look and feel amazing to use. There are more that we’re going to keep throwing your way, so get hyped!
    Designing Defenders
    Designing games is super easy, especially something as simple as Dungeon Defenders, a Cooperative Action Roleplaying Tower Defense (not a mouthful at all). Oh wait, it’s exactly the opposite (take that, idea guys)! Our designers might be using some of that black magic the engineers are conjuring, because they are making great strides through what would seem impossible. Let’s start talking about the walk design’s been walkin’!
    Inspector of Defenses
    One thing that was a big improvement was tower inspection in Dungeon Defenders II. It provided a lot of valuable insights and experience (alongside a ton of feedback) to really make defense inspection in DD:A the next step in a super useful feature. On a per tower basis, you will be provided the most important information first. You’ll see the stats that matter for your towers, as well as what the towers area of influence is, making it easier to create perfect builds to efficiently cover and fend off the hordes that await you.
    QOL (Quoogle Oogle Loogle?)
    There’s a ton of Quality of Life coming with DD:A, and we’ve got an update on the work we’ve done so far. As for quoogle oogle loogle, we’re not sure how that affects the game, probably not at all… Probably?
    Lane Wisps
    This is something that really helped new Defenders in Dungeon Defenders II. It really helps give an understanding of where threats are on a map, something very important on a first, second, and third visit to any given map. Lane wisps, for the uninitiated, show the paths that enemies are going to be taking as they spawn and march towards your core (why are they doing that in DD:A anyways?). However, we’re very aware of the thoughts on this feature (*cough* feedback *cough*), so we’re currently looking at ways to make this dependent on the difficulty. 
    Replay From Wave
    An amazing feature to get through some of the most challenging content in Dungeon Defenders II, Replay From Wave allows you to learn from your mistakes, and not lose all the sweet progression made while taking on some of the toughest enemies. This feature gives you another chance at losing a wave, like winding time back a wave, and understanding where things may have gone wrong, helping learn as you progress. As for where it’s usable, we’re still mulling over, but it is part of an awesome feature you’ll see in DD:A.
    Ping System
    Sometimes typing in chat, in the heat of battle, is not the best way to communicate. Our focus is to have an easy to use ping system that let’s your fellow Defenders know where enemies need to be slayed, towers need to be built, or areas with too much danger. Your teammates can’t hear your screams for help, so this helps soothe those vocal cords.
    Gear of War
    Gear is probably the lowest priority in DD:A. Of course it’s not! With all of the different stats in Dungeon Defenders, it can be hard to gain a good understanding of what each stat does, what’s best for you, and what challenge your ready to take on. It’s very important for us to make sure that gear is easy to understand, feels good to get, and allows you to know what challenges your equipped for. Our designers are up for the challenge, and they’ve got the tools to take it on!
    Inventory (How Are My Bags Full?!)
    Making gear better to understand is one piece of a big puzzle. Inventory is another very large piece of that puzzle. Dungeon Defenders had an inventory system that could definitely use some improvements. DD2 made some improvements to that system, but there were some things that were lacking. Inventory in DD:A is setup to cover those gaps and more. We’ve poured through feedback to make sure it was easy to manage the items in your inventory, locking items, selling items, sorting items based on their type and stats that are important to you. Some things, less is more, but in regards to inventory tools, more is more!
    Dungeon Defenders II Update!
    We’re currently working on a DD2 update that is coming in August. We’ve had multiple weeks of playtesting with our RQA and RPG groups (shout out to all the hard work you fine people have put in) to help sculpt this content into a great experience. We’re preparing a challenge for tested Defenders, setup to be a blast and give awesome rewards. There’s still some things these testers haven’t seen yet, so there’s going to be nice surprises for everyone! Also our small studio is working on TWO games at once… it’s pretty insane how pizza fuels such amazing work.
    Recently we sent out rewards for DD2 that our Kickstarter backers should have received (Corrupted Gunwitch, Golden Costumes, and Crystalline Costumes). If you haven’t received them, please reach out to preorder@chromatic.games (make sure you know what you’re supposed to get at the tier you backed).
    What’s Next?
    We’re thinking that another update should come in August. What do you think? Well TOO BAD, we’re going to do one regardless of what you think! It’s been an absolute blast to work on DD:A and DD2, and we can’t wait to show all of you more. A very hearty thank you for your support, there’s only more and more coming your way!
    For August, internally we’ve got a build milestone that sets us up for success. Maybe more polished gameplay can be shown afterwards… maybe! Taking the systems we’ve setup so far, and giving them a nice layer of polish so that we can continue to create an awesome experience for new and veteran Defenders.
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
     
  23. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS


    It’s finally time for a Dungeon Defenders: Awakened Developer Check-In! We have a ton of information to share today that covers our post-Kickstarter work, studio changes/improvements, and Dungeon Defenders: Awakened as a whole. Let’s go ahead and start getting into it!
    Enter Chromatic
    First things first, we want to apologize for a couple of bumps that we ran into. The first thing is something we’ve covered quite a bit, that something being Kickstarter shipping for our approved regions. We’re not going to dig into it more (the conversation can be seen here), but understand that it is not something we will have happen again with any future projects in regards to fulfillment. It was our first foray into this area, and we learned quite a lot.
    Second is that we have been silent for a little over a month. We want to have more regular check-ins with where our progress is, show off some of the new art (something we just started this week on social media), and more info to share on our plans. As for the why, it’s all based on growing the team out, foundational setup, and working with outside partners.
    Dev Level Up!
    As a studio, we’ve been incredibly busy with getting our team bolstered by additional teammates to really make Dungeon Defenders: Awakened an amazing game, and also set us up for success on any additional projects. A good portion of the team was involved in tons of interviews and tests to make sure that we only brought on high quality LEGENDARY additions to our ranks. We’re still growing the team out more, but we’re a developer power house with the people we’ve brought on!
    Hardware Upgrade!

    We’re wanting to make sure that we’re employee-owned while also making sure we have all the tools necessary to create awesome games. We’ve been working with partners like nVidia to bring some awesome graphical opportunities, Azure PlayFab to bring out awesome features (like Cross Saves!), Nintendo to provide an optimal experience on Switch, and so many more! We’re wanting to blow it out of the water with Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, so that we can then knock it out of this world with future titles. And so far — it looks really, really good!
    Art — What Is It Good For?
    Absolutely everything. What would an update be without some awesome art to show off! Heroes, enemies, and Maps, are some of the many amazing creations that we’ll be including in this and future updates.
    Character Updates!
    As we showed on social media this week, we have revealed the concepts for our four main heroes, which you can see the Apprentice, Monk, Squire, and Huntress below:





    We’re going to be revealing enemy concepts as we’re working on finishing the Heroes animations, but we wanted to show off the new Goblin model for the first time here, which has been fully animated! This is the awesome quality that our animation team has put out, with so much more coming:

    Excited to destroy some cores!


    What they lack in finesse, they make up for in ferocity


    It’s electrifying!

    Oh no, he was poisoned!

    Even goblins know, if you’re on fire: STOP, DROP, and ROLL!

    Death came to take him, all things go, all things go
    There’s a lot of models we’re currently working on/with, but for a SNEAK PEEK, we wanted to show a model we’re currently animating. Striking fear in many, check out the WIP (that’s just a quick way to say Work-In-Progress, which with this explanation, maybe it would have just been easier to say that in the first place, but we’re committed already, and don’t have a backspace) Dark Elf Warrior:

    All of these new hero and enemy models are going to also be receiving some epic animations and VFX to really bring Dungeon Defenders to modern standards. We can’t wait to share more, so we won’t — Next up, MAPS!
    Maps, Maps, Maps!
    Many of you have seen the Deeper Well map showcased in our Kickstarter and during our dev stream. Well get ready for MORE Deeper Well. Or maybe we’ll show some different maps? Actually, that sounds like a much better idea. We’re not going to be showing the entire maps just quite yet, but here’s the kind of diversity and quality you can expect:






    Oh the places you’ll go! Dungeon Defenders: Awakened is going to have a lot of familiar locations, including a lot of fan favorites, but also new places in Etheria that you’ve never seen before!
    Design — The Blueprints of DD:A
    Creating Dungeon Defenders: Awakened has been a very enjoyable experience, but not an easy one! Really digging into the original Dungeon Defenders and emulating what made it fun is a noble quest, but not a very easy one. Our designers have been working hard to breakdown Dungeon Defenders into formulas and building blocks, so that we can build a skyscraper of awesomeness!
    The overall goal is to recreate that Dungeon Defenders feeling, while giving it the same treatment we’re giving art — bring it to modern standards. Let’s get into some of the things we’re doing.
    Hero Swapping
    This has been a hot topic between many Defenders, and we’re ready to share what we’re doing. Hero swapping was something introduced in Dungeon Defenders II that affected the gameplay greatly. It helped streamline gameplay, and while we love it, we also understand it’s not necessarily the best thing to be able to do all the time if we’re wanting to go back to our roots.
    In Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, you WILL be able to swap between four of your pre-assigned heroes on the fly ONLY during the Build Phase. You’ll still be able to access your other heroes in traditional methods (only during Build Phase as well). We wanted to bring back some of the strategy when it came to swapping heroes, especially with the challenge that later difficulties bring with timers. These timers will be adjusted to ensure that difficulty is still there and that strategy is rewarded!
    Camera Improvements
    We’re going to be bringing plenty of camera options in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened. One of those features is something that Defenders of old and new will enjoy: Perspective Swapping. In Dungeon Defenders, the camera was placed top down when placing towers, which gave a good perspective of how close you could get your towers placed. In Dungeon Defenders II, this view was traded for an over the shoulder view to see where the actual effect of longer range towers would be.
    In Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, when you are placing a tower, you will be able to toggle between BOTH of these modes. You’ll be able to select a default mode within the options, but with this addition you now have an even better understanding of placement and efficacy than ever before!
    New Abilities
    We’re not looking to overhaul our heroes entirely, but we did want to give attention to some weaker abilities, or some that just are overall not enjoyed. We’re adding some cool functionality to some of these abilities, but we’re also adding a new ability: Elvish Agility.
    Elvish Agility is a new ability for the Huntress that increases movement speed, jump height, reload speed, and rate of fire. The Huntress is an agile ranged fighter and we wanted an ability that reflected that. We polled hundreds of our users, and the least liked ability (it wasn’t even close) was Invisibility, something very few used, and that there were very few situations to justify using it. Our goal was then to bring an ability that felt great to use for Defenders who wanted to use her. The internal tests with this ability have been a ton of fun and really give that feeling of hunting down your enemies with agility and efficiency!
    HUD
    One of the weakest points in the Dungeon Defenders franchise has always been UIs. In UE4, we are given a lot of options to setup a UI the way we want, which is why when we grew the team out, we made sure to bring on a UI/UX expert to make an awesome experience. We’re making a sleek, modern HUD, arted up with that Dungeon Defenders charm. We’re making sure that the HUD looks amazing from every way you’d play — from on-the-go with the Nintendo Switch, at your desk on a PC, or on the couch playing split-screen with up to four players.
    Everything currently icon and text-wise is placeholder until we take our art pass over it, but so far it’s been performing really well, and has been a ton of fun to use on internal play. Without showing TOO much WIP, here’s a picture of our build so far:

    Oh also, it’s our first picture of the game running on Switch! This isn’t the final HUD at all, and we don’t think the stats in the middle of the screen are going to be covering gameplay. Probably not. Probably. (spoiler alert: it won’t, we’re just being a little cheeky :> )
    Engineering

    There has been a HUGE amount of work of getting just the base functions of Dungeon Defenders into Unreal Engine 4. The Engineering Team has been making some amazing strides helping to capture the feel of the original so that the rest of the team can build upon their incredibly sturdy and efficient codebase foundation. They’re the binary heart of bringing some amazing features to Dungeon Defenders: Awakened!
    They’re currently working on making multiplayer and split screen work as best as possible, making sure we squeeze out as much performance as possible. They’ve made great strides, to where our performance on the Switch, with multiplayer, has been surprisingly very good right off the bat. It’s because they’re wizards.
    Another feature they’re working on currently is Cross Save functionality. Making it so that you can use saves between platforms is no simple feat, but our engineers are legendary, so they’ll make it happen! Lastly, they had a secret message they wanted to pass on:

    01010000 01110010 01101111 01100111 01110010 01100001 01101101 01101101 01101001 01101110 01100111
    What’s Next?
    Our goal is to do monthly check-ins to show off our work and progress, similar to what we’ve done here. There’s a ton still left to do, but we’re getting through things at breakneck speeds! We’re also currently working on additional end-game content for Dungeon Defenders II. As a studio, it’s our goal to make incredibly fun games that you want to play. Thank you for your support so far, we have a lot more to come!
    In regards to Kickstarter Digital Rewards, we’re continuing to get the Dungeon Defenders 2012 Complete Collection codes out to backers who purchased the appropriate tiers that included them. Our next step is to get the Dungeon Defenders II costumes (Gold, Crystalline, and Corrupted Gunwitch) out in our next patch. This patch is currently planned to come out next week with those costumes included. After the patch is out on all platforms, we will begin getting codes sent out!
    Social Defenders
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!

    For Etheria!

    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  24. [CG] LAWLTA
    Ahoy Defenders!
    We’re only day(s) away from finally pulling up the anchor and setting sail for adventure in Dungeon Defenders II:  The Isle of Dread Expansion! This is a preview of all the things that were shown in the past months, but not everything coming. Everyone has been working to make sure this expansion is ready for the high seas, landlubbers beware! If you’ve been keeping up with our Dev Logs and Dev Streams you’ll recognize a lot of what’s coming. Let’s dive in!
    New Maps
    We’re excited to be introducing not one, but two maps with this expansion. These maps are available as their own Adventure set, can be selected when playing Expeditions, can come up as you progress through Onslaught, and one is even a Chaos VII Incursion!
    The Jacked Sparrow

    The first map is set on The Jacked Sparrow, previous known as The Sparrow before the heroes of Etheria hijacked it in order to reach their destination. As you traverse this map, enemies attack from above and below the levels of the ship, requiring all hands on deck to keep the masts safe from destruction! There’s a ton of fun to be had on this map, as you use cannons to blast your enemies away, catapults to fly across the map, and vantage points to take out enemies when they least expect it!
    Plunderer’s Paradise


    After braving the rough seas, the heroes land on an island besieged by an army of the Old One trying to break into the island’s mountain. Among these enemies are new foes that have not been seen before, helping beef up the horde that is coming your way! Protect the island to prevent havoc breaking loose, but also explore to find secrets hidden throughout the map. Conquer the Incursion version of this map by striking down Captain Dreadbones to unlock a new Barbarian weapon to add to your arsenal!
    New Enemies
    There’s a slew of enemies that are now donning pirate attire, an absolute necessity when conquering on such vicious tides! Here are a few of the enemies you encounter on your journey:

    These goblins upped their pirate fashion game, but they also recruited additional allies to take down heroes from afar. With the aid of Captain Dreadbones, some ogres can now carry and utilize Cannon Ogres are now a fearsome terror that can ruin your defenses!
    War Table

    The War Table is improved with this expansion, adding some life to the world of Etheria, and also providing some quality of life changes as requested by our glorious community! The World Map shows all the different places Defenders may explore through different game modes. Each game mode contains different formats for ease of use, but also provide an “Advanced” session browser in each. You can now see all open available games to you easily, with a variety of filter options that give the choice of seeing every session, or a specific map!
    Social Improvements

    Interacting with players is getting some good attention with this expansion, with much more coming even after the expansion! Player Lists are now easier to navigate, selecting another Defender and choosing to inspect their shop or invite them to party among other options provided via a drop down menu. Receiving invites is also streamlined to not take over your screen and there’s a timer to avoid invite spam. Parties received attention as well, for instance, the leader is now consistent and gives control to choose when and where your crew go!
    Onslaught

    There’s a ton of changes coming to Onslaught, a lot of them due to the great feedback a lot of you provided since its appearance in Etheria! The biggest change is the progression in Onslaught, changing from three maps played per floor, to one map per floor. With this change comes an increased scaling in difficulty to make progression about difficulty instead of time. There are also more ways to earn Prestigious Weapons, more maps to play as you progress, more enemies you encounter, new schedules of enemies, and a new wave during Lost Temple known as the Omega Wave!
    Ancient Power

    Onslaught and Ancient Power go together like pirates and the ocean, so of course we added more to this system! Ancient Powers themselves are now more powerful than before and require less of a point investment to utilize their maximum potential. There are also FOUR new powers to help bolster your battle against the horde of enemies coming your way. We also implemented a scaling minimum starting floor system to make getting into gaining early Ancient Powers easy, with a consistent difficulty as you acquire more and more (also, your pets are no longer reset when you gain Ancient Power)!
    New Items

    There’s one thing that pirates are always on the hunt for — TREASURE! There are new weapons you can acquire for every hero, either through Professor Proteus, or through completing The Jacked Sparrow and Plunderer’s Paradise. Depending on where you acquire these weapons, you are also met with new pirate themed Mods that pack quite a punch that can be transferred to any weapon; or unique death animations that can sink your enemies (literally, one can turn them into a boat and sink into the ground)!
    New Features
    What good expansion doesn’t contain some new features? We’re introducing two new features to help Defenders as they keep Dragonfall and Etheria safe. The first is a replay from wave system available in Adventures, Expeditions, Onslaught, AND Mastery! This system restores your defenses, shows which ones may have underperformed or were destroyed, and gives you another go at taking down your enemies.
    The next is a Primary Stat reroll system that we’re experimenting with. This system allows you to acquire reroll materials from completing the Jacked Sparrow and Plunderer’s Paradise, and reroll your primary stat into a potentially higher number. This change is not enforced if the roll is lower, you are always given a choice to accept it or decline! We’re looking for feedback on this system and if you all enjoy it, we’ll investigate greatly expanding it.
    Balance Changes
    Protean Shift brought a lot of new ways to play and a ton of power to Defenders, which we really love! As a result, there are a slew of things that are either not as strong as we’d like or too strong, removing any challenge while playing. We’ve discussed a couple of these, but there is more coming!
    Bug Fixes
    A lot of you submit bug reports constantly, and we make sure to squash as many of them as we can. As with any expansion, there are a lot of fixes coming your way. Please continue to submit them to our bug site, your help is invaluable to knocking out some of the pesky issues that appear.
    Social Defenders
    There’s a lot of people playing Dungeon Defenders II, and a lot of them gather on our social hubs. When it comes to finding other players, figuring out how to conquer a specific challenge, or just wanting to get to know others in the community, or getting the latest DD2 news, you can’t go wrong with our social platforms:

    Twitter
    Facebook
    Discord
    Twitch
    The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on this expansion. Stay tuned for more info soon!
    For Etheria!
    The Dungeon Defenders II Team
  25. [CG] LAWLTA
    DEFENDERS!
    With our Kickstarter now over, we wanted to make sure that we provided a way for people who were unable to back, or unaware of the Kickstarter, to get in on early savings and some sweet swag!
    Click here to check out the Pre-order Store, and get in while the gettin's good. One of the most awesome advantages is the LIMITED Awakened bundle that includes:
    Beta Access Dungeon Defenders 2012 Collection Dungeon Defenders: Awakened Digital Soundtrack Digital Strategy Guide Digital Artbook You can also get some cool swag, like a Dungeon Defenders: Awakened T-Shirt or Dungeon Defenders: Awakened Joy-con Vinyl Covers! All purchases go towards supporting the development of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened, helping us ensure we put out the best product possible. <3 
    SOCIAL DEFENDERS
    To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:
    Twitter Facebook Discord Twitch For Etheria!
    Chromatic Games
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