Oh my glob, the floodgates have opened! The whole team did the Carlton as we watched our concurrent player records get shattered. And not only are there a bajillion of you playing our game right now, but as of today, you have collectively played more than one million hours of Dungeon Defenders II since our Early Access launch. One million! That’s incredibly humbling.

If you’re one of our newest Defenders and this is your first time reading a Dev Log, welcome! Each week in this little bit of Internet space, we talk about what we’re working on. Some of us like to let down our luscious locks and share a little about ourselves. Our goal is to let you in on who we are as Real Human Beans and to shine a little more light on our development.

Working with the level designers on the spooooooooooky encounters that you will all get to experience later this month. Designing the four spooky weapons and helping implement them. Keeping a close eye on our F2P launch and identifying some potential issues our new players may be experiencing. I’ll also be taking a look at iPwr distribution over the different buckets and what we can do to make that better.

For those of you who are just now joining us, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been posting a small riddle/quiz or puzzle for you all to figure out. The winner gets a short imaginary super special surprise from myself later in the week!

So Defenders! For this week’s fun little participation tidbit, I have a hypothetical question I’d like you all to answer…

If the world-famous composer Tchaikovsky were alive today and was a Defender like you and I:

What would his favorite DD2 hero be?

What would his favorite defense be?

and Why?

The Defender that replies correctly first gets another special imaginary surprise! Good luck Defenders and see you all next week...

Free-to-play! Working on the Ascension 2 update coming at the end of the month. Working on a couple new features on the War Table, some work on the new builds, and prepping for some scary stuff!

For the first half of the week I was focused on hammering out as many bugs as possible. Also, the PS4 team is onsite and I’ve been meeting with them about UI development for PS4 and PC. Namely, how to bridge the gap for UI controller support on PC. The rest of my week will be focused on some spooky related features.

In closing, OMG we’re Free To Play NOW!!!!

Free-to-play is here, and spookiness is right around the corner! Truly an exciting and bone-chilling time to be working on DD2.



This week I’m going to be working on the finishing touches for our haunting new maps & event, and continuing work on an exciting gameplay prototype that I can’t share details on quite yet. Just know that I can’t wait to be able to show it to y’all!

Getting pumped to push out these sick new spooky maps. Can’t wait to show them off in their full spooky glory. Also gathering all the feedback on the latest update. We have some knobs to dial on the campaign as well as Free Play/End game. Other than that, having tons of fun running around on the maps with the Valhalla Knight (light weapons are my favorite) smiting down some “Meaty Skeletons.”

There may or may not be hints about the maps in this passage.

May...or May Not………..

Getting the Skoopy [Ed. Note: 2skoopy5me] patch ready with amazing content and two sweet maps! Also, working on some new rigs, weapons, and of course, Carl… Excited for the F2P release!

Getting ready for a big week for DD2. Been working on Dungeon Defenders for over 5 years now... Wow :)

This week, we’re working hard to finish our Halloween-related event by the end of the week. At this stage, we try to get functionality in first so that QA can start testing. Next, we’ll start plugging in all the art, and we usually don’t get everything in until the very end. This makes our QA department very, very happy. /sarcasm. The following week, we go into full testing and bug fixing mode, which is never enough time to fix everything, but we try to get the most flagrant ones. And the week after that, all of our awesome fans will get a chance to check out all of our hard work!

Oh, and Open ALPHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!11!!!1111!!!1

I’ve been monitoring our servers since we went live and … oh my; the activity! Our servers are behaving normally and look pretty healthy .. except for some random rogue ones that we are investigating.

PS: I’ve been working on stabilization for a while now … and still am.

Right now, we’re preparing all of our promotion for the Grave Danger Costume Pack over the next two weeks! This is our first limited edition costume pack, and we’re really interested in seeing how well it is received and sold. What do you think of the costumes?

Now that DD2 is finally free, part of our team’s focus is to make sure everyone knows about and is satisfied with our in-game purchases. As part of this effort, we’re going to be tracking the $/DAU for the Grave Danger Costume pack over the next 3 weeks corresponding to various marketing efforts. It will be really interesting to discover how people find out about the costumes and decide to purchase them (or not).

We’re also gearing up for Ascension: Part II promotion. It’s so exciting to finally be releasing these maps, given that we first teased them last Halloween on the Devstream! Speaking of which, this Devstream is going to have an extra special tease. I highly suggest you tune in! Maybe I’ll even let Tim show up ;).

So. Much. Feedback. Busy running around making sure everyone knows about the current crop of technical and gameplay issues. Also, pretty stoked for the first Trendy Weekly Defense since Open Alpha! The TWD is our weekly game night on Thursdays from 5PM to 7PM EDT. Hopefully I’ll see you there. :)

Also, I’m super happy with the first round of Remote Playtesting Group feedback! It’s great to get another volunteer group up-and-running. That brings our total number of Trendy-supported volunteer groups to five! (Six in the future. I’m working on building a moderation team for the Dungeon Defenders II subreddit.) Interested in volunteering? Here’s how to get involved!

• Remote QA Team: Bug hunters. If it’s broken, they’ll find it! Interested? Contact dani.moore[at]trendyent[dot]com.
  
  
• The Casters Guild: Our collective of Twitch streamers! Want to join? Fill out an application!
  
  
• The Wardens: Official forum moderators. The backbone of the forum community. If you’re interested, send me or I_PASS_BUTTER a forum PM.
  
  
• The Wiki Council: The collectors of knowledge. The main editors and administrators of the Official Wiki. If you’re interested, make contributions to the wiki, and our admins will reach out to the most active members.
  
  
• Remote Playtesting Group: Our newest group! The RPG plays our newest content before its release and offers feedback. Email dani.moore[at]trendyent[dot]com if you’re interested!

Oh my glob, the floodgates have opened! The whole team did the Carlton as we watched our concurrent player records get shattered. And not only are there a bajillion of you playing our game right now, but as of today, you have collectively played more than one million hours of Dungeon Defenders II since our Early Access launch. One million! That’s incredibly humbling.

If you’re one of our newest Defenders and this is your first time reading a Dev Log, welcome! Each week in this little bit of Internet space, we talk about what we’re working on. Some of us like to let down our luscious locks and share a little about ourselves. Our goal is to let you in on who we are as Real Human Beans and to shine a little more light on our development.

Working with the level designers on the spooooooooooky encounters that you will all get to experience later this month. Designing the four spooky weapons and helping implement them. Keeping a close eye on our F2P launch and identifying some potential issues our new players may be experiencing. I’ll also be taking a look at iPwr distribution over the different buckets and what we can do to make that better.

For those of you who are just now joining us, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been posting a small riddle/quiz or puzzle for you all to figure out. The winner gets a short imaginary super special surprise from myself later in the week!

So Defenders! For this week’s fun little participation tidbit, I have a hypothetical question I’d like you all to answer…

If the world-famous composer Tchaikovsky were alive today and was a Defender like you and I:

What would his favorite DD2 hero be?

What would his favorite defense be?

and Why?

The Defender that replies correctly first gets another special imaginary surprise! Good luck Defenders and see you all next week...

Free-to-play! Working on the Ascension 2 update coming at the end of the month. Working on a couple new features on the War Table, some work on the new builds, and prepping for some scary stuff!

For the first half of the week I was focused on hammering out as many bugs as possible. Also, the PS4 team is onsite and I’ve been meeting with them about UI development for PS4 and PC. Namely, how to bridge the gap for UI controller support on PC. The rest of my week will be focused on some spooky related features.

In closing, OMG we’re Free To Play NOW!!!!

Free-to-play is here, and spookiness is right around the corner! Truly an exciting and bone-chilling time to be working on DD2.



This week I’m going to be working on the finishing touches for our haunting new maps & event, and continuing work on an exciting gameplay prototype that I can’t share details on quite yet. Just know that I can’t wait to be able to show it to y’all!

Getting pumped to push out these sick new spooky maps. Can’t wait to show them off in their full spooky glory. Also gathering all the feedback on the latest update. We have some knobs to dial on the campaign as well as Free Play/End game. Other than that, having tons of fun running around on the maps with the Valhalla Knight (light weapons are my favorite) smiting down some “Meaty Skeletons.”

There may or may not be hints about the maps in this passage.

May...or May Not………..

Getting the Skoopy [Ed. Note: 2skoopy5me] patch ready with amazing content and two sweet maps! Also, working on some new rigs, weapons, and of course, Carl… Excited for the F2P release!

Getting ready for a big week for DD2. Been working on Dungeon Defenders for over 5 years now... Wow :)

This week, we’re working hard to finish our Halloween-related event by the end of the week. At this stage, we try to get functionality in first so that QA can start testing. Next, we’ll start plugging in all the art, and we usually don’t get everything in until the very end. This makes our QA department very, very happy. /sarcasm. The following week, we go into full testing and bug fixing mode, which is never enough time to fix everything, but we try to get the most flagrant ones. And the week after that, all of our awesome fans will get a chance to check out all of our hard work!

Oh, and Open ALPHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!11!!!1111!!!1

I’ve been monitoring our servers since we went live and … oh my; the activity! Our servers are behaving normally and look pretty healthy .. except for some random rogue ones that we are investigating.

PS: I’ve been working on stabilization for a while now … and still am.

Right now, we’re preparing all of our promotion for the Grave Danger Costume Pack over the next two weeks! This is our first limited edition costume pack, and we’re really interested in seeing how well it is received and sold. What do you think of the costumes?

Now that DD2 is finally free, part of our team’s focus is to make sure everyone knows about and is satisfied with our in-game purchases. As part of this effort, we’re going to be tracking the $/DAU for the Grave Danger Costume pack over the next 3 weeks corresponding to various marketing efforts. It will be really interesting to discover how people find out about the costumes and decide to purchase them (or not).

We’re also gearing up for Ascension: Part II promotion. It’s so exciting to finally be releasing these maps, given that we first teased them last Halloween on the Devstream! Speaking of which, this Devstream is going to have an extra special tease. I highly suggest you tune in! Maybe I’ll even let Tim show up ;).

So. Much. Feedback. Busy running around making sure everyone knows about the current crop of technical and gameplay issues. Also, pretty stoked for the first Trendy Weekly Defense since Open Alpha! The TWD is our weekly game night on Thursdays from 5PM to 7PM EDT. Hopefully I’ll see you there. :)

Also, I’m super happy with the first round of Remote Playtesting Group feedback! It’s great to get another volunteer group up-and-running. That brings our total number of Trendy-supported volunteer groups to five! (Six in the future. I’m working on building a moderation team for the Dungeon Defenders II subreddit.) Interested in volunteering? Here’s how to get involved!

• Remote QA Team: Bug hunters. If it’s broken, they’ll find it! Interested? Contact dani.moore[at]trendyent[dot]com.
  
  
• The Casters Guild: Our collective of Twitch streamers! Want to join? Fill out an application!
  
  
• The Wardens: Official forum moderators. The backbone of the forum community. If you’re interested, send me or I_PASS_BUTTER a forum PM.
  
  
• The Wiki Council: The collectors of knowledge. The main editors and administrators of the Official Wiki. If you’re interested, make contributions to the wiki, and our admins will reach out to the most active members.
  
  
• Remote Playtesting Group: Our newest group! The RPG plays our newest content before its release and offers feedback. Email dani.moore[at]trendyent[dot]com if you’re interested!

Dungeon Defenders II on Steam is now in Open Alpha. You can download our game for free on Steam. Please tell your friends!

“But Trendy, what does this mean?” you cry out. Well, friends, it means:

1. NO MORE full wipes. All of your heroes are secure. Unless of course, #fsociety.
   
2. Lots of new players. Welcome them in and show them the ropes!

If you’re new to the community, here’s a breakdown of some of our regularly scheduled programming:

• Wednesday: Dev Log. The Dev Log is a weekly blog where various members of the Trendy Team talk about what we’re working on that week. The idea is that you just tapped us on the shoulder in the studio and asked, “Hey, what’s going on?” We like being able to share things in a laid-back style, and we hope you’ll appreciate it.
  
  
• Thursday: Trendy Weekly Defense. Every Thursday from 5PM to 7PM EDT on the TrendyEnt Twitch channel, Community Manager @iamisom plays DD2 with the community, talks about current community topics and gives away free schtuff. Think of this as our weekly Game Night with the community.
  
  
• Friday: Devstream. Every Friday from 5PM to 6PM EDT on the TrendyEnt Twitch channel, we host our Devstream where we’ll talk more in-depth about upcoming changes to the game or about feedback given to us during the week. This is where our biggest giveaways happen.

And finally, here are some important links to keep in mind:

• Early Access Status (Expand the Blue Box)
  
• Official Wiki
  
• Support Page
  
• TrendyEnt Twitch
  
• The Casters Guild, A DD2 Twitch Streaming Group
  
• Facebook
  
• Twitter
  
• Official Forums
  
• Reddit

Dungeon Defenders II on Steam is now in Open Alpha. You can download our game for free on Steam. Please tell your friends!

“But Trendy, what does this mean?” you cry out. Well, friends, it means:

1. NO MORE full wipes. All of your heroes are secure. Unless of course, #fsociety.
   
2. Lots of new players. Welcome them in and show them the ropes!

If you’re new to the community, here’s a breakdown of some of our regularly scheduled programming:

• Wednesday: Dev Log. The Dev Log is a weekly blog where various members of the Trendy Team talk about what we’re working on that week. The idea is that you just tapped us on the shoulder in the studio and asked, “Hey, what’s going on?” We like being able to share things in a laid-back style, and we hope you’ll appreciate it.
  
  
• Thursday: Trendy Weekly Defense. Every Thursday from 5PM to 7PM EDT on the TrendyEnt Twitch channel, Community Manager @iamisom plays DD2 with the community, talks about current community topics and gives away free schtuff. Think of this as our weekly Game Night with the community.
  
  
• Friday: Devstream. Every Friday from 5PM to 6PM EDT on the TrendyEnt Twitch channel, we host our Devstream where we’ll talk more in-depth about upcoming changes to the game or about feedback given to us during the week. This is where our biggest giveaways happen.

And finally, here are some important links to keep in mind:

• Early Access Status (Expand the Blue Box)
  
• Official Wiki
  
• Support Page
  
• TrendyEnt Twitch
  
• The Casters Guild, A DD2 Twitch Streaming Group
  
• Facebook
  
• Twitter
  
• Official Forums
  
• Reddit

Features

• Auto-Collect Per Wave!
  
  • Auto-Collect now also runs at the beginning of Combat Phase starting on wave/round 2.
    
  • It leaves items on the ground once the Auto-Collect bags are full.
    
  • A chat message appears to let the player know how many items were picked up.
  Pet Hatching Timer Change
  
  • Thanks to player feedback, pets will now always hatch after one second!
  Pet Bag Extension Purchase
  
  • Players can now buy more slots for the Pet Bag! The Pet Bag size can be increased up to 80 slots.

Content

• Added 4 Skeleton Costumes, one for each hero! [Limited Edition]
  
• Added the Grave Danger Costume Pack to the Steam store
  
  • Includes the above Skeleton Costumes, plus
    
  • Exclusive “Bone Collector” Title
    
  • Headless Horseman Premium Pet
    
  • 3000 gems (+20% bonus gems)

Balance

• Item Enhancement was very costly at the high end. In a first step towards improving the system, the cost of enhancing items was reduced by ~66%.
  
• Increased the sell value of Legendary items by 75%.
  
• Pet Costs and XP:
  
  • Reduced the gold cost required to level up Pet Power
    
  • Reduced the gold cost required for Pet Rerolling
• Increased the health of the Campaign Throne Room Ogre.
  
• Multiple projectile weapon critical damage change: Technically a bug fix, but including here in the balance section for visibility. Each projectile now gains a relative portion of Hero Critical Damage depending on how many projectiles were fired. Before, each projectile gained the full bonus of Hero Critical Damage.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a few server crashes.
  
• Fixed an issue where the tooltip text for the third stat on an item was too small.
  
• Flying enemies in Little-Horn Valley no longer get stuck in the spawner.
  
• Lane wisps in Throne Room should now have the correct resistance color.
  
• Fixed an issue where other players could easily obstruct the view in the Costume Shop.
  
• Fixed an issue where after rebinding the Mana Drop keys, the keys would no longer work.
  
• Added a potential fix to the black tower graphics bug.
  
• Fixed an issue where pet stats could reroll its Empowerment Stats to the same type.
  
• Fixed an issue with the chance rate in the Dragon egg.
  
• Fixed an issue where Throne Room Onslaught had incorrect lane spawner billboards.
  
• Fixed an issue where all heroes would appear invisible while at the Hero Deck in the Forge.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could purchase and have 2 Serenity Range Gambit Skill Spheres even though it's a Large Sphere.
  
• Added missing VFX to the Tier 3 Ranged Goblin.
  
• Fixed an issue where some Small Skill Spheres were showing up as IV when they were actually III.
  
• Fixed an issue where, with a controller active, the keybinds for actions assigned to the keyboard all say "[No Key]" in the options menu.
  
• Fixed an issue where there is no VFX in the Petrinarian for the Dragolich pet.
  
• Fixed an issue with hero lighting at the Forge.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Headless Horseman's attack animation does not play if he kills an enemy and then immediately attacks another.
  
• Fixed an issue where the tooltips no longer stated which item is the currently equipped one.
  
• Fixed an issue where rapidly clicking on the right-click attack with 1/second ranged weapons while holding down the primary attack will give a huge, unintended Ranged DPS Boost.
  
• Fixed an issue where Attack Damage is showing as Max HP in the Inspect Defense for the Training Dummy.
  
• Fixed an issue where the default Huntress bow had a grey box in the tooltip for the projectile type icon.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Serenity Aura range gambit Large Sphere reduced the health of ALL auras.
  
• Fixed an issue where minimizing a bag in Customize mode made the UI display incorrectly.
  
• Fixed an issue where after unlocking an NPC via progression, that HUD text showing the unlock requirement was still shown.
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Confirm Controller Support" prompt always displayed when a player made a change and clicked Apply in the Options while the controller was active.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Blizzard pet ability buff was not playing sounds.
  
• Fixed an issue where Defense Range Skill Spheres were not affecting Uber Defenses.
  
• Fixed a bug where pet VFX would disappear in the Pet Shop UI after evolution.
  
• Fixed a bug where eggs would get their stat points reset, causing the UI to display a rot timer after incubation has finished.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Tier Orc icons not appearing correctly on the Mini-map.
  
• Fixed an issue with one of the Squire’s medium melee attack swings playing sound too early.
  
• Fixed a visual issue with the Headless Horseman.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were sometimes unable to purchase anything.
  
• Fixed an issue with NPC unlocking after completing all of the quests.
  
• Fixed a visual bug in the Pet Shop.
  
• Fixed an issue where a pet wouldn’t appear after loading into a map.

Hello Defenders! In this Devstream, Phil, Tim and Jay reveal changes to the pet system and answer your questions! What changes to the pet system, you ask?

• We've removed the hatch timer and will be switching to a standard inventory system.
  
• All players who have purchased or played the game before Open Alpha will start with 40 pet slots.
  
• Any players that come in after this will start with 16 pet slots.
  
• Players will be able to buy up to 80 pet slots using gems
  
• 8 slots will cost 200 gems and 16 slots will cost 320 gems.
  
• We will be looking to expand normal inventory bags in the future.

What do you think about these changes to pets, Defenders?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ4g0a9zsDE